Management And Coaching At Aston Villa. Part Two: Hogan’s Legacy

Fred Rinder had passed away at Christmas, 1938, and with he gone, and Hogan’s successful period at Villa coming to an end with world war arriving in 1939 (actually it is reputed that he was sacked as he lay in hospital with appendicitis just after the start of the war), the Villa board appear to have reverted to type. After WW2, Villa did not re-appoint Hogan (but had to pay him a substantial sum in compensation), showed little tendency to developing via the traditional ‘Villa Way’, and reverted to the ‘stopper’ centre-half, though, in fairness, this by then was the accepted trend in British football. Herbert Chapman’s methods had by then taken firm root at the FA’s coaching schools.

The end of WW2 brought the fans back to Villa Park in huge numbers, but they did not realise that this was effectively the start of a new and lesser phase in Villa’s history. The inspirational names of Devey, Spencer, Johnstone and Hodgetts (as well as Rinder, and, earlier, Ramsay) – to name a few – had all gone by the end of WW2. These people had been the main thrust in the club’s first 50 years and their departure from the Villa scene took away a significant element of drive towards maintaining and developing Villa’s achievements. The new board lived in the shadow of past greats. Eric Houghton had this to say, in 1970: “The various [Villa] Boards have always been autocratic and the directors of the last 10 or 20 years have tried to emulate their predecessors [in that regard]. Unfortunately, they have lacked their [forbears’] experience and administrative abilities.”

Villa’s pre-war star midfielder Alex Massie – appointed Villa’s manager at the end of WW2 – quietly resigned in 1949, but he was such a gentleman that he never gave a full story of why, but the press were confident that it was because the Board would not give enough scope to any team manager. But Massie, being a ball-playing midfielder himself, tried to apply a lot of what he had learned under Hogan and (according to the star striker of the time, Trevor Ford) there would be well-organised training and specialised coaching and a finish to the day of a round of golf. That was in stark contrast to the dull training schedules at quite a few other clubs.

After Massie went, the Board again took control of team affairs – for nearly 18 months. Villa, under their old trainer Hubert Bourne, reverted to training techniques they used before Hogan appeared, as though he had never been at Villa. There was a general belief then that a footballer ‘had it in him or didn’t’ – the players didn’t need a football coach, they said. George Martin at last came in from Newcastle and proved to be a reasonably competent manager, but he also got fed up and went after less than three years.

Despite that wonderful period with Hogan, the immediate post-War Villa Board demonstrated exactly how supine they could be by mostly going along with what other clubs were doing – except the go-ahead clubs of that time, like Manchester United and the Wolves, who worked from a youth base. Not since before the War was there anyone on the Board with much foresight. And the only first-hand knowledge of football on the Board lay with Chris Buckley. Once a highly-regarded Villa player, Buckley, after winning a championship medal 40 years before, had gone to war against Villa on a personal issue and was dropped from the team and then transferred for his pains. He was (by some means or other – he did not finish playing until 1921) elected to the Board in 1936, and became chairman in 1955. But Chris Buckley had acquired money throughout his working life, mainly out of farming and business. He seems to have lived the life of lord of the manor in later years (living in a country mansion I understand), and came across as a gentleman.

The other post-war Board members were Norman Smith (he worked for the Birmingham Council’s Education Department, and played a big part in Birmingham youth clubs development), who replaced Buckley as chairman in 1965, and a small number of local business people whose football credentials were ‘not a lot’. They were basically keen Villa fans who wanted to help – and, probably (though I am sad to say this), also enjoyed the status. By the ’60s, all the Board members were elderly as well. So the Villa Board of the 1940s, 50s and 60s did not have a lot of ‘cred’ about it football-wise, and Buckley’s life (I imagine) was rarely under pressure, especially as communications with the media were kept at a minimum. The Sports Argus had a ‘go’ at Villa from time-to-time, but clearly the club was not taking notice. Even the Shareholders’ Association usually lacked bite to put their points across at the AGMs, and sad financial stories from the Board caused them to even fork out for some heavy expenditures such as Villa Park’s first floodlights (1958)!

When one thinks back to the six or seven boom years of football following the War, when Villa’s attendances were regularly between 50 and 70 thousand, and players were still on fixed wages, I find it very difficult to work out just how the club could have got into any financial pressure. However, in about three or four of the seasons between 1948 and 1956, Villa came perilously close to relegation, and only in the emergency buying of what turned out to be good players did Villa survive. But to illustrate the strange thinking of the Board, the one young player that had been brought through the ranks since 1945 and had become an England international (wing-half Eddie Lowe), was sold in 1950 with claims that he had not performed his defensive duties sufficiently well. The following year (just after the arrival of Martin) Villa spent a goodly sum for those days on young wing-half Danny Blanchflower, who, like Lowe, did not perform his defensive duties too well! Though the signing of Blanchflower was a coup, the manner of how it was done could be said to be perverse. What was perhaps worse was the fact the club did not have the wherewithal to develop the club in order for young stars like Blanchflower (and Tommy Thompson) to want to stay. These players had come from outside – they were not imbued with club loyalty. They didn’t stay, they went; and when they did the outcome was yet another relegation fight.

Blanchflower arrived after Villa had dismantled the Hogan/Massie style of coaching and training, so one of the criticisms that the great half-back Danny Blanchflower later laid at the Villa’s door was that in training there was little or no involvement with the ball; the pretext then being that the players would be hungrier for it by the time matchday came around. In fact this was still a common training outlook in Britain at that time.

Blanchflower was also somewhat critical about a senior pro and a valued player at Villa (who just happened to be a cousin of mine): Frank Moss, Jnr. Frank was a tough centre-half (and deeply respected by opposing centre-forwards of the ilk of Tommy Lawton and (later) Trevor Ford) who was frequently heard to make scathing remarks to colleagues on the pitch, including young players trying to make their mark. It would seem a youngster had to develop a very thick skin in that kind of company, but not all of them could do that.

Blanchflower was not alone in his observations. Others privately thought the same thing, including Villa stalwarts like Alex Massie and Dickie Dorsett (as they admitted in later years), and Peter McParland described the slackness of training. “Friday was known as two-lap day” (he wrote) when some players would not bother to change their clothing. “They would just pull a sweater over their shirts, often leaving their ties on.” Some players did not join in the running until right at the end, joining the runners as they passed the players’ tunnel. And (with poor supervision during training sessions) there were other tricks employed to avoid the strain of training.

To replace George Martin, old Villan Eric Houghton arrived from Notts County in September, 1953. By then it would seem that no-one other than a die-hard claret and blue man would take the managerial post. He had an opportunity to bring Jimmy Hogan back into the fold and quickly did so, to look after youth development. I rather suspect that Houghton would have made Hogan his number two, but the Board had probably stipulated that Hogan was not to be involved in first-team affairs: they were probably cautious that Hogan might upset the old pros like Frank Moss, and there were a good many of those still on Villa’s books. In fact, the Villa team of that time could have been nicknamed ‘The Pensioners’, for quite a few were at the point of retirement.

By the end of that season, youngsters were already making their mark in the first team. West Bromwich Albion – who finished that season as league runners-up and also Cup Winners – were thrashed 6-1 at Villa Park by Villa’s young forwards. High-fliers Burnley were also clobbered 5-1. McParland was one of those young forwards that shone, but another star was younger – 17 year-old Ken (K.O.) Roberts, whose career was so sadly halted by injury three years later. He would have been a brilliant player. I saw him once, playing a fine match as a number 10 in helping to beat our Small Heath neighbours, 3-1. That was a match when Stan the Wham scored one of his blistering goals. I can picture now the short corner taken by Les Smith to the edge of the penalty area as Stan galloped through to catch the ball so sweetly. Keeper Merrick was as flummoxed then as he so clearly was at Wembley against those Hogan-inspired Hungarians in 1953.

Roberts was followed by 16-year-old striker Walter Hazelden who still holds the record as being Villa’s youngest-ever player to start a top-flight game, in 1957, and scored. That year is certainly a famous one for Villa! Shame that it’s 60 years since Villa won the FA Cup.

The FA Youth Cup was instigated in 1952 and became a competition ruled mainly by three clubs – Manchester United, Wolves and Chelsea. Villa also entered the competition and eventually, in 1959-60, a fine youth team appeared that included the soon-to-be first-teamers Alan Deakin, John Sleeuwenhoek and Alan Baker, and several others – like Jimmy McMorran – that got to the first team in Joe Mercer’s time (as part of “Mercer’s Minors”) but did not sustain their promise. This team reached the FA Youth Quarter-Finals, when they were finally defeated by Chelsea (some say it was a goalkeeping error that swung the match) whose team included later famous names like Terry Venables, Peter Bonetti and Bobby Tambling. In that Cup run, Villa had beaten Wolves 5-1 playing Hogan-style football (of course). Wolves’ youth teams were at that time regarded as being of the best, so that was a great win on paper, and as I was there I can assure you it was! Young Villa’s slide-rule passing was a joy to watch.

Other youngsters that came through the youth ranks and who made a solid impact in the Villa first-team around that time were Mike Tindall, Charlie Aitken and Harry Burrows, and then, soon after, came Michael Wright, Keith Bradley, Lew Chatterley and Bobby Park. And George Graham, of whom more will be said later.

When the club was slipping badly towards the end of the 60s, Buckley quietly resigned as chairman and then equally quietly left the Board in the Autumn of the disastrous 1966-67 season, leaving the club to its fate and to a replacement chairman who was not up to the job of overseeing a supposedly big club. One wonders about Buckley, the affable gentleman on the surface but a man who, after Villa won the FA Cup in 1957, failed to honour a gentleman’s agreement between Normansell (the chairman who died in 1955) and Eric Houghton. Eric (as claret and blue as you could wish, and capable) certainly suffered in Buckley’s time. Apart from Hogan, Houghton had also brought in a tough first-team fitness coach in Bill Moore, whose methods substantially helped the Villa to lift the Cup in ’57. But the supine approach of the Villa Board saw them engineer the departure of Moore, Houghton and then Hogan all in the space of 18 months, despite the FA Cup win after 37 years of drought in the trophy-winning department, and the success of the youth policy. Other sad events occurred during the 1960s that were damaging to the club.

And so did Houghton’s successor, Joe Mercer, suffer. He was sacked in 1964 when on his sickbed through overwork and overly pressured by the Board’s austerity policies. Mercer was a shattered man, but after his recovery and the regaining of his confidence, Mercer went on to guide Manchester City to promotion, the league championship and other major successes. If the Villa Board had done their proper job, perhaps Villa fans might have witnessed the likes of Colin Bell and Franny Lee under Mercer’s stewardship at Villa Park instead of at Maine Road. Mercer – who always tried to lend a smile to football – also became caretaker manager of the England team and during his fairly short sojourn in that role we saw an England team that came to know how to entertain. Mercer (who gained himself an OBE in 1976 for services to football) was, in fact, an old and fine international himself, and had even worked with Hogan just after the War.

Danny Blanchflower had made his views shout loud and clear in the 1960-61 season as his Spurs carried off both League and FA Cup titles in wonderful style (the first ‘Double’ since Villa’s, in 1897), leaving Villa some crumbs by winning the first peace-time League Cup competition in the same season. But Spurs and most other big clubs ignored the League Cup for a few years as they regarded it as second-rate and a heavy interference on their playing schedule.

Events and developments in football over the preceding ten years proved that Villa Board had not a clue about the modern game, and yet it had been Jimmy Hogan that had significantly helped to change the game. By the late 1950s, formations other than W-M had begun to take over (particularly 4-2-4), football kit had been transformed into lightweight mode, and then there was the significant event of 1961 when the maximum wage was removed. The ageing Villa Board appear not to have known how to cope with all this; indeed, the removal of the maximum wage was opposed by Villa in stark contrast to the views of Fred Rinder 50 years before.

In 1962 the Villa Board switched off the youth policy as one of their money-saving schemes to help pay for the higher wages. A bit later, Villa even gave up their training ground. It took nearly 10 years and another revolution in the Boardroom at Villa Park for youth to again be given priority, and a new training ground (Bodymoor Heath) to be built. There was one season in the mid-60s when Villa made a fairly substantial profit but decided not to spend it (at a time when they needed to!) and let the taxman have that money instead! The complacency of the Board at this time was extraordinary; they just could not see the cliff edge approaching.

Aston Villa, by the mid-1960s, had become a pitiful sight in the world of football, emphasised perhaps by the fact that even then, their historical statistical record was still better than any other club. Two or three years later, Villa were relegated for the second time in their history. In 1966 there had been world class footballers paraded at Villa Park in the World Cup tournament of that year: and Villa had managed to upgrade the Witton Lane stand only because of funds provided by the FA for that purpose. Within months the Villa fans could only look forward to second and third-class faire. The Villa lion had died, replaced by a kitten.

These days many still think of Doug Ellis as being the specific rogue that stopped Villa’s progress. However, I somehow think that Ellis’s intentions and ambitions – and his chairmanship ability – were somewhat greater than the aforementioned chairman. But for previous mismanagement at the club, Doug Ellis would probably have never seen Villa Park. As Buckley’s time was 50 years ago and more, few remember that time or were too young to know and understand what was going on within the club at a time when the media was restricted. I hope that certain Ellis antagonists come to read this article and hope it helps them to put the past into more reasonable perspective.

Both of Hogan’s spells at Villa prompted a much-improved upturn in fortune for a short time and, although his purist methods were not always embraced, were the only times he enjoyed the same kind of respect in England as he had done across Europe. Much of the resistance to his forward-thinking ways was the previously described view that experienced players did not need coaching and his hands-on style was in contrast to the conventional (more removed) approach of most managers, as was his emphasis on skill and intelligent passing rather than wasteful use of long balls. Even his views on nutrition and sensible diets were cutting edge, but would not be fully digested on these shores until many years later, though great players like Stan Matthews and Tom Finney, and former Villa skippers Ivor Powell (who was still a practising football coach at the age of 93 in 2007!) and Johnny Dixon, were following that doctrine very early on.

Peter McParland was one of a group of young Villa players Hogan took along to observe Hungary handing out a footballing lesson to England at Wembley back in the Autumn of 1953. That group trip to see the match was unofficially organised by Hogan, and the coach made a lasting impression on the Ulsterman. McParland claimed Hogan was “Way ahead of his time” and revealed that even in his seventies the Lancashire-born trailblazer would be on the practice pitches demonstrating what he expected from players. “Even at that age he could do anything with the ball except make it talk,” he recalled. Hogan himself said that he would never ask a player to do anything that he couldn’t do himself.

The result of that England/Hungary match totally vindicated Hogan’s philosophy, and the Hungarians of 1953 were quick to praise Hogan for his pre-war contribution to their nation’s football development. And it was no fluke either; the next year Hungary won 7-1 on their home turf, and it was a surprise that they only finished as losing finalists in the World Cup of 1954.

Mat Kendrick (in a Birmingham Mail article on Hogan) reported on that McParland hindsight, and also referred to Ron Atkinson, a Villa trainee in the 50s, who regarded Hogan among the biggest influences on him, saying: “When Jimmy came he was revolutionary. He’d have you in the bit of the old car park at the back of Villa Park and say ‘I want you to play it with the inside of your right foot, outside of your right foot, now turn, come back on your left foot, inside outside’. Then he’d get you doing stepovers and little turns and twists on the ball. Everything you did was to make you comfortable with the ball.” That witness account may well explain why many regard Atkinson’s period as Villa manager as being one of the most exciting in the club’s recent history. However, Big Ron also said that in the Central League the ideals espoused by Hogan were not entirely appropriate according to the reserve team trainer, Phil Hunt, who would say to Ron (who never made the first team): “Forget what tip-taps tells you, let’s have some altitude [high balls]”.

But Atkinson was adamant that many of the developments in the game of recent decades can be seen to have originated with Hogan.

Tommy Docherty was another that received the benefit of Hogan’s coaching, as a youngster at Celtic in the late 1940s, calling Hogan “The finest coach the world had ever known”. It is written that the majority of the Celtic players, especially the more senior players, viewed Hogan’s appointment with extreme scepticism and, at times, mocked his methods. Hogan, ever the gentleman, persevered. It became obvious during his short stay at Celtic that he commanded a lot of respect from the younger players there. Docherty told BBC Sport: “He used to say football was like a Viennese waltz, a rhapsody. One-two-three, one-two-three, pass-move-pass, pass-move-pass. We were sat there, glued to our seats, because we were so keen to learn. His arrival at Celtic Park was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

Docherty himself went on to produce a fine young side at Chelsea in the 1960s that included a young Villa cast-off who quickly became a star there and then at Arsenal after his move from Villa Park: George Graham. We know of Docherty and his time at Aston Villa, but at least he brought Bruce Rioch to the Villa, and one of his former charges at Chelsea, ‘Chico’ Hamilton. He also reinstalled a youth policy at Villa.

The myopia surrounding George Graham’s exit can be easily explained by the fact that after the second and last departure of Hogan from Villa in 1959, and the earlier sacking of his disciple, the very modest but highly capable manager Eric Houghton, Villa closed down their interest in developing youth (as stated earlier). And Villa again reverted to coaches of the older school who appeared to be cautious about applying Hogan’s methods. We thus hear from Brian Little how he was expected (in the mid-1970s) to carry a team-mate piggy-back style up a hill as part of his training, but he (Little) could never see how that related to being a better footballer, apart from the fact it did his back no good at all. Similarly, Martin Keown also once stated that when at Villa he was expected to run up and down the Villa Park terracing, carrying a load. It would seem that Keown (in general) did not think much of Villa’s training methods in the mid-1980s.

Perhaps it was the eventual removal of the terraces that ultimately stopped that form of training!

(c) 2017, by John Lerwill.

Next time: Part 3, The Ellis Era.