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132 pages

English

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Dennis Mortimer became Aston Villa's most famous captain when he lifted the Lions' first League Championship trophy in 71 years. That was in 1981, and he achieved a European Cup win the following year, but his time at the club ended controversially. After signing for Coventry City as a teenager in the late 1960s, Mortimer lined up against such legends as Bobby Moore, Geoff Hurst, Franz Beckenbauer and George Best. From there he moved to Villa and became one of manager Ron Saunders' most trusted players. He was in the dressing room for the most successful period in the club's history, but was frozen out by the chairman before his eventual exit. He finished his playing career at Brighton & Hove Albion, Sheffield United and Villa's bitter rivals Birmingham City, then moved into coaching. In this tell-all autobiography, Mortimer lifts the lid on the highs and lows of his decade at Villa and shares stories galore about the many characters he met through his life in football.

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Publié par	Pitch Publishing Ltd
Date de parution	12 septembre 2022
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781801502528
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

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Extrait

First published by Pitch Publishing, 2022
Pitch Publishing
A2 Yeoman Gate
Yeoman Way
Durrington
BN13 3QZ
www.pitchpublishing.co.uk
Dennis Mortimer with Richard Sydenham, 2022
Every effort has been made to trace the copyright.
Any oversight will be rectified in future editions at the earliest opportunity by the publisher.
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A CIP catalogue record is available for this book from the British Library
Print ISBN 9781801502016
eBook ISBN 9781801502528
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Contents
Acknowledgements
Author s Note
Dennis could easily have got an England cap
Growing Up, in the Shadow of The Beatles
The Talented Kirkby Kids
Sent to Coventry
Teenage Rookie Takes on Beckenbauer and Best
England Glances at Misfiring Sky Blues
I m Signing for Aston Who?
The Game of Our Lives - and a Cup Win!
Camp Nou to Camp Blues
I Was No Snitch
Liverpool Were Taking the Piss
This is Why I Play Football
Reality Bites
Farewell Ron, Hello Rotterdam
On Borrowed Time as Deadly Returns
An Ignominious End
Sussex by the Sea
Booed at the Blues
From Redditch to Brazil
Life Beyond Football
My Greatest Aston Villa XI
Memories of Morty
Photos
Acknowledgements
I NEVER thought I d write a book, but 40 years after my greatest career highlight, the time felt right to talk about how and why my career turned out the way it did. It s taken a while, but we got here in the end! There are so many people to acknowledge for this journey that I have been on. I ll try to call a few names. Apologies if I miss anyone.
I would like to thank my Dad, Joe, for taking me to Anfield as a kid to watch Liverpool play. That inspired me to become a footballer and dream of winning trophies. Thanks to my brothers David, Stephen, Jeffrey and Brian who were my soccer buddies, day and night, on the streets of Kirkby, near Liverpool. I can t forget my Mum, Mary, for keeping me and my brothers nourished and energised when money was tight.
The kids and adults who lived on my street and provided the competition to hone my technique and skills; there are too many to name them all but I ll call a few: the O Rourkes, the Caffreys, the Carines, the Burgesses, the McGuires, the Hodders and the Crosses.
I should give thanks to my senior school, Brookfield Comprehensive, for providing the playing facilities and sports coaches who encouraged me to play football. Mr Duffy, who chose me to play for Kirkby Boys at 14 years of age, which put me in the shop window to be scouted by Alf Walton, talent scout for Coventry City. Thanks to Alf for spotting the footballer in me and taking me to Coventry to begin my successful playing career.
Many thanks go to the coaching staff at Coventry for nurturing me through the early days and months after signing apprentice forms and for making me feel at home. To the landladies who looked after me when I was living away from home as a youngster. To all the players at Coventry City, especially the pros in my early days for helping us new apprentices to settle in quickly and not think of home. I m grateful to Pat Saward (our youth-team coach) for developing me as a player and trusting his judgement when promoting me to the manager to play in the first team.
Noel Cantwell gave me my first-team debut at 17 and for that I ll always feel indebted to him. He believed in me and thought I was ready. I never looked back. I m grateful to Gordon Milne and Joe Mercer, who replaced Noel, as they continued to show confidence in my ability by picking me every week. My old Anfield idol Gordon gave me a platform to improve my consistency in the team, which eventually led to my transfer to Aston Villa.
A massive thank you to Villa and especially Ron Saunders, who made it clear to me on signing that this club was going places and this could be the place for me to be a winner. When Ron gave me the captaincy of the team, I realised an ambition to lead the side out and go for glory. I thank the chairman and directors on their support for Ron s plans and ideas.
Huge thanks to my team-mates who made it possible to win the First Division championship and the European Cup. I regard them as mates and thankfully still see most of the 82 boys frequently. Tony Barton deserves a thank you as he kept the dream alive by believing in and staying with the existing squad after taking over from Ron. We were all rewarded by winning the biggest club prize in Europe.
Thanks also go to the fans who cheered my name throughout my career, especially those at Coventry and Villa. Last of all thanks to my wife Jan and my two boys Richard and Jon for always being there for me through the ups and downs of being a professional footballer.
I m also grateful to Pitch Publishing for showing faith in me by putting my story into print. A special mentions goes to Jane Camillin at Pitch. And I d like to acknowledge the contribution of my ghost writer Richard Sydenham, for keeping me on track and advising what more we needed to say, or not!
Enjoy the book,
Dennis Mortimer
Author s Note
By Richard Sydenham
GIVE MORTY a shout, my Mum, Linda, used to say, as me, my brother and my Dad left our house in Harborne, Birmingham, for another home game at Villa Park.
Apparently, before my time going down to Villa began as a six-year-old in 1981, her previous request was, Give Andy a shout. Dad had obviously trained her well as once Andy Gray shifted to Wolves in 1979, it was all about Morty . Even my sister went down to Villa a few times with her friend before Dennis s career at Villa was done so his name is firmly entrenched in my family.
If you want to read one of those autobiographies full of nightclubbing tales, alcoholic frolics and off-field mayhem, then you might want to put this book down now. You see, this is more a story of one of the most professional footballers you could wish to meet. Dennis was possibly 20 years ahead of his time in terms of the way he conducted himself and lived his life, which is why he is almost certainly Aston Villa s most successful captain in their history, added to being a great and successful player of course. As Dennis s loyal team-mate Tony Morley said later in the book, His manager knew he was never going to be woken up at 2am to rescue his drunken captain from a nightclub. That kind of scenario was never going to happen with Dennis, not only because he wasn t a boozer, just because he always led by example.
Dennis Mortimer has always had a reputation with me as being the glue that held that great Aston Villa team together. A true captain. He was seemingly a reliable, consistent and reassuring presence in the midfield. His Jesus-like hair and beard maybe helped give him more of a messiah image than he deserved but Dennis was certainly one of the most significant players for Villa throughout that golden era of the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Gary Shaw, Tony Morley and, latterly, Mark Walters were always my favourite players at that time, possibly because I kidded myself that I was going to be like them one day if I continued scoring a few in school football. I think I had a better left foot than Tony, though! But seriously, there was always an admiration for Dennis.
When he phoned me at my home in the summer of 2021 and said he was serious about penning his autobiography, sounding me out to be his ghost writer, I knew in the back of my mind that I had to say yes. I played it cool for a few weeks as I became busy with my other work commitments, but there was no way I was going to pass on the opportunity to help write the story of Aston Villa s greatest ever captain.
It was fascinating collaborating with Dennis, and I enjoyed every moment, though not paying for the 5 cups of coffee and tea whenever we conducted interviews at The Belfry! I hope football-loving fans of all clubs, especially Coventry and Villa, enjoy the read.

As a 7 year old with the European Cup I am on the right, with my brother left, Dad in the middle
Dennis could easily have got an England cap
Foreword by Bryan Robson
I CONSIDER some players I played with and against over the years very unlucky not to have won at least one England cap and Dennis Mortimer would certainly be one of those guys.
One of my old team-mates from West Brom, Len Cantello, was another. He was an excellent central midfielder. There have been a few over the years who do such a great job for their club but don t get selected for the national team for whatever reason and are very unlucky.
Dennis could easily have got an England cap because he was just as good as his Villa team-mate Gordon Cowans, who was another excellent player and who I had the pleasure of playing with in the England midfield a few times. Once you play with these guys you realise how good they are and I m sure if I had been given the opportunity to play with Dennis, I would have had the same opinion of him.
Unfortunately for Dennis there were so many good English midfielders around then like Ray Wilkins, Glenn Hoddle, Terry McDermott, Trevor Brooking, myself and a few others. It was a tough team to get into then.
Dennis was a very good player with an excellent football intelligence, was a worker and could pass the ball really well. I m sure his Aston Villa team-mates would say he was a great leader, too, so these are reasons why he was captain of the team, because he had such a great influence on the players aroun