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The Second City derby is still a passionate affair, but it is unlikely that any fixture in the modern era can match the one contested between Aston Villa and Birmingham City in October 1983.

It was never likely to be a quiet affair. When ex-Aston Villa manager Ron Saunders took his Birmingham City team to Villa Park on October 15, 1983, he wasn't taking many shrinking violets with him. Tony Coton, Pat Van Den Hauwe, Noel Blake, Robert Hopkins, Howard Gayle, and Mick Harford are individuals that are often mentioned in a Who's Who of football's bad boys. But it wasn't all one way traffic. Colin Gibson and Steve McMahon would give as good as they got.

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A look back this week at some memorable opening day League matches of the 1980s. Including a dream start for a newly promoted team, a couple of false dawns for Manchester United, and Liverpool starting as they intended to go on.

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Winning the European Cup, or the Champions League as it is somewhat inappropriately called today, has never been easy. Take the example of Aston Villa in the 1981/82 season. Riding high on their title win achieved under Ron Saunders, the club cleared a number of imposing obstacles along their way to the ultimate European glory. A journey across the continent that involved rotten fish, sand, ice, violence, a shock resignation, and two unknown English heroes that would write their names in the Villa Park hall of fame. Villa's story that season was rarely dull.
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Aston Villa's start to the 2015/16 season has brought back a few unwanted memories for any Villa supporter old enough to recall the unfortunate events of 1986/87. A campaign that saw the club relegated just five years after being kings of Europe, during a soul destroying nine months, involving two managers and just eight league wins. How had it come to this?

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