The first time I spoke to Dion Dublin, we never even mentioned Aston Villa.
It was January 1995 and I’d been sent by the Birmingham Mail to Coventry City’s training ground to interview the striker ahead of a third-round FA Cup tie between the Sky Blues and West Bromwich Albion.
During our chat, it emerged that the Coventry striker had followed the Baggies as a supporter as a boy – essentially because of his admiration for Cyrille Regis.
That nugget of information made a perfect angle for my match preview, particularly as Regis had also played for Coventry.
Little did I imagine that we would be talking about Dion’s boyhood hero once again when we met for a second time nearly four years later.
This time, the interview took place at Villa Park.
In November 1998, Dublin joined Villa in a £5.75 million transfer from Coventry, and on the day before his debut he granted me another one-to-one interview.
Having followed in Cyrille’s footsteps at Highfield Road, he was now about to do the same claret and blue, and he revealed that he wanted nothing more to emulate his idol by scoring on his Villa debut.
In the event, he went one better. Regis had scored once in a 3-2 win at Sheffield Wednesday on the opening day of the 1991/92 season; Dublin was on target twice as John Gregory’s side beat Tottenham by the same scoreline to extend their unbeaten Premiership start to 11 games.
Talk about an instant Holte End hero – and it just got better and better.
A week later, Dublin hit a hat-trick as Villa won 4-1 at Southampton to make it 12 league games without defeat – a club record.
And even though the sequence was halted in the following match by a 4-2 home setback at the hands of Liverpool, Dublin scored both of Villa’s goals.
Seven goals in three games; no player has made a more explosive start to a Villa career.
Such an amazing ratio was never likely to continue, of course, but by the time he left the club in May 2005, Dublin had scored 59 goals in 189 appearances.
And when it came to bravery, he had few peers in the world of football.
When he suffered a crushed vertebra in a match against Sheffield Wednesday just before Christmas 1999, it was initially feared he would never play football again, and that he might be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life.
Just over three months later, he was back in action, scoring the decisive penalty as Villa beat Bolton Wanderers in a penalty shoot-out at Wembley to clinch a place in the FA Cup final.
And almost as a testimony of his faith in the surgeons who had operated on his spine, he launched himself into a spectacular overhead kick for a memorable goal in Villa’s 4-2 victory at Tottenham in mid-April.
Yet he was much more than a lethal marksman.
Always an ebullient figure in the dressing room, he ensured that the mood at Bodymoor Heath was never anything but upbeat. He was also an inspiration to Villa’s younger players, offering help or advice whenever it was required.
As well as being a consummate professional, he also made an important off-the-pitch contribution as an ambassador for the Prince’s Trust charity and joined Villa’s directors in welcoming royalty to Villa Park when HRH Prince Charles officially opened the new Trinity Road Stand in 2001.
Not that his time here was without a blemish.
During a heated Second City derby a couple of years later, he saw red after head-butting Birmingham midfielder Robbie Savage.
It was a reckless act which shocked all of us, not least the normally level-headed Dublin.
After a sleepless night, he called a meeting of Villa’s players to apologise for his uncharacteristic behaviour, and later told the media: “I’m ashamed of what I’ve done. I have let down the players, the manager and the staff, and – most importantly – I have let down myself.”
A lot of footballers could learn a thing or two from Dion Dublin on the business of conducting themselves properly.
