Gritty and determined football manager at the helm during Aston Villa’s successes of the 1970s and 80sThe combative nature of Ron Saunders, who has died aged 87, brought him much success in football management, but it also deprived him of what would have been his greatest achievement. Having taken Aston Villa to the First Division title in 1980-81, Saunders led his team to the quarter-finals of the European Cup the next season, only to resign abruptly after a major fall-out with his chairman.
Villa continued their run in the competition under his assistant Tony Barton, and four months later won Europe’s most prestigious trophy without Saunders, defeating Bayern Munich 1-0 in Rotterdam. Notwithstanding Barton’s contribution, few doubted that the victory had been based on the house that Ron had built. Yet it was a triumph he could never claim as his own.