One man always takes the glory for a cup win. Anyone who thinks of England's 1966 triumph thinks of Geoff Hurst's hat-trick. Steven Gerrard, history will tell us, singlehandedly won Liverpool their fifth European Cup.

And, as any child rightly educated in the memories of Aston Villa will tell you, Peter McParland's brace ensured his club carried home their seventh FA Cup with the 1957 win over the Busby Babes of Manchester United.

But McParland was not the only hero that...

When the whistle blew, the ball it flew,
Through the air, through the air.
Like a bird did Pongo sweep and swerve, with mighty verve, and what's this?
Oh my gosh and lummy
Was it off his head or tummy?
In the net? In the net? You bet!

They don't write songs like that any more, do they? But then, they don't make players like Pongo Waring either.

Pongo - or Thomas, to give him his real name - was nicknamed after a famous cartoon of the...

In a week that saw the new national team manager name five Aston Villa players in his first squad, it seems somehow appropriate to reminisce about the last player from the club to put on an England shirt and really make the world sit up and take notice.

'England have done it...in the last minute of extra time,' isn't quite up there with 'They think it's all over...it is now,' in the world of legendary commentary, but it isn't far off - largely thanks to a certain 1996 song that...

Billy Wright and Duncan Edwards were two of the greatest footballers ever to play for England.

That they were once both left on their backsides during one run from a Northern Irish winger seems barely credible.

To anyone who saw Peter McParland play, though, the story comes as no surprise.

Only Brian Little has excited Aston Villa fans as much with the ball at his feet. If Ashley Young - "an old-fashioned, direct winger," says McParland. "It's great to see...

Eyebrows were raised when Aston Villa forked out £500,000 on a journeyman striker plying his trade in the Second Division with Newcastle United.

They would have left foreheads if someone had told the fans that, less than two years later, Peter Withe would score the winning goal in the most important match in the club's history.

Not that it was a classic finish. "Peter says to this day he meant it," says Tony Morley. "But I can tell you now it came off his...