The Aston Villa Legacy Numbers initiative is shining a light on every single player who has represented the club competitively as part of our 150th anniversary celebrations this season.
The list began with the line-up from Villa’s first official match in 1879, an FA Cup tie against Stafford Road of Wolverhampton, with every player assigned his own unique number, denoting his place in the club’s long and illustrious history. View the full list here.
Delving further into the stories of some of our former players, we'll be regularly shining a light on five ex-Villans as we move towards the end of the current campaign, including a maverick Italian, a one-season wonder and a European Cup winner in this instalment...
742: Benito Carbone
On the face of it, eight goals in 30 appearances are not the sort of numbers likely to earn a lasting place in supporters’ affections. Especially, perhaps, if the player was only ever on loan.
Yet Benito Carbone’s transformative impact on the Villa team 24 years ago was such that he is remembered affectionately by all those who saw his brief spell in claret and blue.
The Italian striker brought skill, creativity and an impish spark to what had, until his arrival in late October 1999, been a moribund Villa team.
His niche in folklore owes much to am FA Cup fifth-round hat-trick against Leeds United. The second goal, an opportunistic, curling long-range shot, executed with the precision of a Seve Ballesteros five-iron, remains a 21st-century classic.
Span: 1999-00. Appearances: 30. Goals: 8.
237: Harold Halse
He may have been a one-season wonder, but what a season it was. Harold Halse arrived from Manchester United for £1,200 in July 1912 and proved the shrewdest of investments in a summer of stunningly successful recruitment.
Halse was a diminutive (5ft 6½in) inside-forward who was just about the most ruthlessly efficient finisher in the top flight. In the ninth game of his Villa career, he stood in for Harry Hampton as centre-forward and scored five times in a rout of Derby County.
His marksmanship in an explosive Villa forward line steered the club to a fifth FA Cup triumph and the brink of a second double. Sadly, Halse wanted to move south, joining Chelsea in the summer of 1913.
Span: 1912-13 Appearances: 37. Goals: 28.
601: Colin Gibson
One of the oddest things about the gilded Villa squad of the early 1980s was that it boasted two magnificent left-backs. Even more impressively, both were youth-team graduates.
In the title-winning campaign of 1980-81, Colin Gibson and Gary Williams shared the No.3 shirt almost equally, though it might have been different had Gibson not been absent with a groin injury at the start of the season. Gibson made a significant contribution to the European Cup success too, appearing in the first four games of the campaign.
A quote from the autumn of 1980 demonstrates he was well aware of the team’s potential. “I will be disappointed if we don’t win at least one or two trophies in the next three years,” he said prophetically.
Span: 1978-79 — 1985-86. Appearances: 238. Goals: 17
94: Bob Chatt
Who did score the goal that won the FA Cup for Villa against West Bromwich Albion at the Crystal Palace in 1895? Such was the scramble in front of the Albion goal that few could be sure who had converted Charlie Athersmith’s assist.
Some reporters awarded it to John Devey, others thought it was Denny Hodgetts. It did not help that the game had been in progress only for around 40 seconds and some journalists were still settling into their seats.
Eventually, Chatt was credited with the goal and a place in the record books as the scorer of the fastest FA Cup final goal. His landmark lasted until Louis Saha struck after 25 seconds for Everton against Chelsea in 2009.
Span: 1892-93 — 1897-98. Appearances: 95. Goals: 27.
694: Guy Whittingham
It’s hard not to look back on Guy Whittingham’s brief time at Villa Park and wonder what might have been. He arrived from Portsmouth in the summer of 1993 after scoring an astonishing 42 second-tier goals in 46 games the previous season.
Whittingham boasted a great backstory – he had bought himself out of the army to turn professional. It led to enterprising newspapermen dubbing him 'Corporal Punishment'.
Tall, leggy and hard-working, he made a decent start at Villa by scoring the winner at Goodison Park on his full debut. But manager Ron Atkinson appeared reluctant to break up his first-choice pairing of Dean Saunders and Dalian Atkinson. Before the end of his first season, Whittingham was sent on loan to Wolves.
Span: 1993-94 — 1994-95. Appearances: 33. Goals: 6.
Legacy Numbers Initiative
