Dennis Mortimer: Name Villa Park North Stand after Ron Saunders
European Cup-winning captain Dennis Mortimer believes Villa should consider naming their new North Stand after Ron Saunders as a permanent tribute to the club’s legendary manager.
Saunders was Villa’s greatest-ever boss, building the team which won the league title in 1981 before becoming European champions 12 months later.
Speaking on the 40th anniversary of that achievement, Mortimer thinks it is time his work was recognised properly at Villa Park.
The club are planning to rebuild the North Stand to increase the capacity of the ground beyond 50,000 and he believes naming the new development after Saunders, who died in 2019 aged 87, would be a fitting tribute.
Mortimer said: “Ron should be revered like the top men, like Bob Paisley, Alex Ferguson and Brian Clough.
“There have been a lot of managers (at Villa) since Ron but no-one has captured what he did. Really, he should be remembered a lot more, by something being named after him.
“There is a new stand going up. It is time now for Ron to be remembered. He doesn’t have his name at the club and it is a shame because he did so much and won so much.
“I’m hoping these couple of years, the celebrations, have got a few people thinking. There needs to be more to commemorate what was achieved.”
Mortimer and his team-mates and several hundred supporters will gather tonight at Villa Park for a dinner to commemorate their 1-0 final win over Bayern Munich in Rotterdam.
The event, which sold out in under 24 hours, is the latest organised by the AV40 project which, over the past two years, has through a series of events and a BT Sport documentary helped those players responsible for the club’s finest hour reconnect with the fanbase.
“The attention has been brilliant,” says Mortimer. “The fans still have these fantastic memories of that night and they want to share them. Not only that, they are bringing along the next generation of supporters.
“Over the last 40 years they have not had a great deal to shout about. The guys who supported us still feel a huge amount of passion. We have people saying they love us and it is genuine. We know we are part of the history of the club. No-one will every forget those years. It is just a nice feeling for us.”
