Am I right in thinking he was the first player to win the premier league and old 1st divison? Villa and Blackburn.
Cantona surely!
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Classy player iirc
Gary Shaw obituary: footballer with brief but spectacular career
Popular young Aston Villa superstar and European Cup winner whose failure to make it into the 1982 World Cup squad left a sense of unfulfilled promise
The Times
Monday September 16 2024, 5.02pm BST, The Times
Shaw in 1987. He was a hugely popular figure with Villa fans, both male and female
RUSTY CHEYNE/ALLSPORT/GETTY IMAGES/HULTON ARCHIVE
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In the early 1980s Gary Shaw was one of the most talked-about young talents in world football. He won the Professional Footballerâs Association Young Player of the Year, travelling to the ceremony in a white Rolls-Royce as he was âa bit shy as a kidâ and making probably âthe shortest speech in historyâ. The following year he was awarded the prestigious Bravo award for âmost outstanding young European footballerâ.
After a match between Aston Villa and Barcelona, Diego Maradona, no less, asked to swap shirts with him but sadly the parsimonious Villa kit man intervened, saying: âWe canât break a strip up, itâll cost too much money.â Maradona, recalled Shaw, âwas absolutely guttedâ.
Yet the fact that Shaw was playing for his unfashionable and relatively poor hometown team only added to the sense of romantic achievement. With his floppy blond hair, incisive and pacy play and ability to both create and score goals, Shaw was a memorable figure on the pitch as Villa achieved spectacular if brief success.
Shaw, left, Tony Morley, centre, and Peter Withe, right, celebrate winning the European Cup in 1982
PA
Shaw in his pomp at Villa Park in 1982, when he was earmarked as one of Europeâs brightest football talents
BOB MARTIN/ALLSPORT/GETTY IMAGES
In 1981 they won the English First Division for the first time in more than 70 years. Shaw was one of only 14 players who appeared in an extremely fit team that season. He scored 18 goals in 40 appearances, with his skills combining superbly with a dynamic midfield and the muscular forward play of Peter Withe. âOur understanding was uncanny, almost telepathic,â he remembered. âWe always knew exactly what the other was about to do, which gave us the vital edge over defenders.â
Shaw had vivid memories of the somewhat unconventional way that Villa secured the championship, however. In an interview with the Daily Mail he recalled a chaotic trip to play Arsenal on the final day, arriving just half an hour before kick off with pop singer Phil Collins and Brazil star PelĂ© among those wandering around in their dressing room. At half-time, with Villa losing 2-0, the manager Ron Saunders passed around a bottle of RĂ©my Martin to âcalm our nervesâ. Villa still lost but in the end a defeat for their rivals Ipswich gave them the title.
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The following season brought even greater success in the European Cup. After overcoming an excellent East German side, BFC Dynamo, Shaw travelled to what was then the Soviet Union to play Dynamo Kyiv, where Villa managed a 0-0 draw despite grim accommodation: âCockroaches in the meals, no curtains in the rooms, the toilets werenât working.â In the return leg at Villa Park, Shaw scored the first goal in a 2-0 win.
After a controversial semi-final win against Anderlecht affected by crowd trouble, Villa played in the final in Rotterdam against Bayern Munich. âNobody gave us a chance but that worked in our favour,â Shaw said. After withstanding constant attacks from the German giants, Villa scored the only goal with a characteristic counterattacking flourish. Shaw cut inside a defender on the left wing, sent an excellent pass through to Tony Morley and his cross was finished by Withe.
Shaw and the Arsenal goalkeeper Pat Jennings in 1983
ALAMY
Villaâs success was all the more impressive as their manager, Saunders, had resigned that February after a row with the board. But his successor, the former chief scout Tony Barton, kept a system familiar to the players, even if Shaw joked that he did not initially recognise his new boss. âI thought he was the postman because he used to bring me all my Valentineâs cards.â
Shaw was a hugely popular figure with Villa fans, male as well as female. They admired a local figure who, born in 1961 on a council estate in Solihull, had honed his skills kicking a ball incessantly against the wall of a pub car park. âI worked on my weaker left foot, which proved very useful for finishing when I got older.â
He had supported Villa on the terraces and shared in the sorrow at disappointing defeats. That then made the dramatic success of the early 1980s all the sweeter after he had made his first team debut as an apprentice on ÂŁ16 a week and then signed as a full professional on his 18th birthday.
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Such was his talent that the football press confidently predicted he would be âone of Englandâs superstars of the 1980sâ. However despite seven caps at under-21 level Shaw never won a senior cap. He was selected for a preliminary squad for the 1982 World Cup finals but failed to make the final group, feeling he was unjustly overlooked in favour of established players despite having scored 24 goals the previous season.
Shaw and Brian Horton of Luton Town in 1984
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The sense of unfulfilled promise in Shawâs career intensified after he suffered a serious knee injury in September 1983 in a match against Nottingham Forest. He went down after a tackle and âsomething didnât feel rightâ. The next day he had the first of multiple operations but, as far as he was concerned, âthat was the end of my first-class careerâ.
âI clung on at Villa, trying desperately to salvage something,â he confessed. He was loaned to Blackpool then, at the age of 27, he was given a free transfer by the then Villa manager Graham Taylor. He had brief spells playing in Denmark and Austria, then back in Britain with Walsall, Kilmarnock and Shrewsbury Town.
There was also a period in Hong Kong combining some playing with working in sales. After retiring as a player, Shaw worked for a brewery back in the Birmingham area, in coaching and for the football statistics company Opta.
His health became increasingly fragile. There was near constant pain from his knee injuries. And in 2016 he was struck by septicaemia and survived only after six weeks in hospital. He was admitted to hospital again last week after a fall and serious head injury at his home and, after spending time in a coma, he died on Monday.
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Shaw celebrates a goal against Barcelona, 1983
COLORSPORT/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK
It had long been a difficult time for Shaw after his brief career as a speedy young superstar. âThe blond hair has gone and I limp now,â he said ruefully. âI have to think carefully before I undertake any physical activity.â He and his fans sometimes talked about what might have been had he stayed fit for a full career. There could have been World Cups, and the player admired by the likes of Maradona had had âphone calls from Real Madrid, whispers of Juventus. Iâd have loved to play in Italy, learnt the language.â
But although it had not lasted long, there was enduring pleasure at the thought of a local boy starring as his team ended many decades of waiting to win the top English honour, and then went on to triumph in Europe too. âI miss the buzz from big-time soccer,â he once said simply. âWho wouldnât?â
Gary Shaw, footballer, was born on January 21, 1961. He died on September 16, 2024, at the age of 63
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Those Le Coq Sportif Villa jerseys were a thing of beauty. Football was coming onto my radar around 81-83 and my eldest bro would put any of the Shoot! posters up on the bedroom wall, so I would have been exposed to a wide range of players and their profiles. Gary Shaw was one of course. Have memories of the European Final being on and an English team winning. Shaw was the poster boy for that Villa team to my recollection.
The 1980-81 Villa kit is one of the best ever. The quintessential Ye Olde English football jersey in the quintessential Ye Olde English football ground. Classic style personified.
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The commentator I most associate with Gary Shaw and that Villa team is Hugh Johns who did the ITV commentary of the 1966 World Cup final. I think he did a lot of midlands commentaries for Central TV. He does the second game here.
These two games are peak English football. Villa did a number on a Liverpool team who would go onto win the European Cup that year.
Dhuran with a another cracker. VAR has intervened though 
Was surprised to read that heâs only 20. Theyâre lucky they didnât allow Chelsea or West Ham to poach him during the summer.
were Villa one of the most bang average teams to win an European Cup?
In those days you had to be league champions to take part in it.
yep but there doesnt appear to much stardom in the side?
Cowans, Morley,Shaw the main men. Withe a traditional #9. Munich were hot favourites.
Bayern Munichâs list of opponents in European Cup finals has been a real whoâs not of European football.