Tradition is a byword for Aston Villa. Few clubs anywhere in Engl&, let alone anywhere else, can boast a timeline of success to match the Birmingham club. Founder members of the Football League, they first won the First Division in 1893-94 & by the end of the 1890s they had won five of their six championships & two of their seven FA Cups. Their last major portion of footballing glory came in 1981 when they won the League again under the disciplinarian Ron Saunders & went on to take the European Cup under his assistant Tony Barton a year later. From Pongo Waring & ' Big Ron' Atkinson through Peter Withe, Gary Shaw & Dr Josef Venglos, to Graham Taylor, Dion Dublin, Gareth Southgate, Dwight Yorke, Juan Pablo Angel, & David O' Leary, there is no lack of contrasting characters to draw on for"es. Chairman ' Deadly Doug' Ellis is worth a book in himself & few clubs have a richer history or as many outspoken characters to comment on where it's all gone wrong (and occasionally spectacularly right) since the glory days of baggy shorts & Bovril at half-time.