Aston Villa and Leicester cult hero Ian Ormondroyd on being the ‘very, very poor man’s Crouch’

IAN ORMONDROYD has a pretty brutal verdict on his career.

“I see myself as a very, very poor man’s Peter Crouch,” said the former Aston Villa and Leicester forward whose 6ft 5ins skinny frame made him – literally – a big cult hero.

Ian Ormondroyd claims he was a very poor man’s Peter CrouchCredit: John Rushworth Photoeye.co.uk

Ormondroyd, nicknamed “Sticks” since his early days at hometown club Bradford, does himself a disservice.

He joined both Villa and Leicester as their record signing and enjoyed success with each club.

And three decades ago it was the Villans, rather than the Foxes, who were battling Liverpool for the title under soon-to-be-England boss Graham Taylor.

Ormondroyd said: “I had probably 14 or 15 managers in my career and Graham was the best by far.

“If you made a massive list of what football managers do, he did it all – brilliantly.

“Tactically he was superb. When Jose Mourinho took Eric Dier off after 20 minutes last week, that’s the sort of thing Graham Taylor would do.

“Training was always interesting. Very serious, but very good.

“His man management was old-school, hard, but you knew he would always look after you, be there for you.

“He had a reputation of just being a long-ball manager, but he wasn’t. I can remember him on the training ground: ‘Get it, give it, move.’”

Ormondroyd played in attack for the likes of Aston Villa and LeicesterCredit: John Rushworth Photoeye.co.uk

Players of the calibre of David Platt, Gordon Cowans and Paul McGrath dovetailed perfectly with unsung heroes like full backs Kevin Gage and Stuart Gray to help Taylor’s Villa give Kenny Dalglish’s Liverpool a run for their money in 1989/90.

Ormondroyd said: “We should have won the league that year but we fell apart a bit at the end.

“I think it was at home to Wimbledon and we lost 3-0 and it killed us.

“Liverpool had a few games in hand and won the league easy in the end.

“But to finish second in the old First Division was some feat. It was a great season.

“If somebody had said that it would be 30 years until Liverpool won the league again, you’d have been amazed – and that Leicester would win it in between times.”

Ormondroyd loves Brendan Rodgers’ “amazing” current Leicester side but believes that matching Villa’s second place of 30 seasons ago, let alone the shock 2015/16 Premier League triumph, will be beyond them.

He said: “I think the best they can do is third.

“Man City and Liverpool are a step ahead of everyone else at the moment.

“Are Leicester a bigger club than Villa?  They’re a better team on the pitch, but Villa are a big old club.

“Leicester are a growing club and with the success, around the world they are going to get more support.

“They have a young squad and in a couple of years could be similar size to Villa.”

That’s not what Villa fans want to hear but the reality is that their club is now in a similar position to Leicester when Ormondroyd played for the Foxes.

After a short spell at Derby, he had gone to Filbert Street in a part-exchange deal for Paul Kitson and played a key role in the Brian Little era which featured three Championship Play-Off finals in a row.

Following defeats by Blackburn and Swindon, it was third time lucky when Leicester beat Derby at Wembley in 1994 – just like Dean Smith’s Villa did last season.

Ian Ormondroyd is now working with Bradford CityCredit: John Rushworth Photoeye.co.uk

Ormondroyd was involved in the winner in a 2-1 victory, recalling: “Simon Grayson crossed it, I headed it, the ‘keeper made a good save and Steve Walsh tapped it in.

“That was a fantastic experience.

“For a player like me, who was never going to be an international, to play at Wembley was amazing.”

Ormondroyd played for Leicester in a 1-1 home draw with Villa in the Premier League 25 years ago this month, but his time with the Foxes ended on a sour note.

He fell out of favour with Little’s replacement, Mark McGhee, and the club was unable to avoid relegation.

Ormondroyd is backing Villa to do better and survive their first season back in the big time – but only just.

He said: “It’s going to be a tough fight this year.

“There’s no massive stand-out club that you think is going to go down.

“There’s probably about eight or 10 teams that could get dragged down into it.

“Villa will do well to stay up. I think they will do, but it will be a battle all ways round.”

Ormondroyd loved his time at both Villa and Leicester but the highlight of his career remains League One Play-Off Final victory in 1996 at the end of his second spell with Bradford.

He said: “I’m a Bradford lad, it’s my club.

“I started supporting Bradford when I was 11, 12. So that was probably the most special moment.”

Ormondroyd reckons Leicester can finish third under Brendan Rodgers this termCredit: John Rushworth Photoeye.co.uk

Ormondroyd had short spells with Oldham and Scunthorpe before ankle problems forced him to retire at the age of 33.

But then a new opportunity presented itself back at Bradford that has kept him busy for the last 20 years.

Under Ormondroyd’s leadership, Bradford’s community scheme has been transformed into a charity with a turnover of more than £1m that engages with thousands of local children, young people and teachers every year.

Ormondroyd, CEO of the Bradford City Community Foundation, said: “I was asked to take over the old community scheme and I thought I would give it a go.

“We had a couple of staff, a bag of balls and away you go.

“Back then it was football courses in the holidays and some schools work.

“Now we run all sorts of programmes.

“There have been a lot of ups and downs. But overall it’s been a great experience, very rewarding.”

It is an achievement of which Ormondroyd is rightly proud.

But as his former clubs prepare to meet today, it’s worth remembering when “Sticks” and Villa, rather than Leicester, were threatening Liverpool’s title dreams.

Ormondroyd has lifted the lid on former boss Dr Jozef VenglosCredit: John Rushworth Photoeye.co.uk

CZECH MATE

FOREIGN MANAGERS now dominate the Premier League but Ian Ormondroyd worked under the first overseas coach to take a job in England’s top flight.

When Graham Taylor left Aston Villa to become Three Lions boss in 1990, the club went for a left-field replacement – former Czechoslovaki chief Dr Jozef Venglos.

The experiment lasted only a season and Ormondroyd said: “It was a very strange appointment. “He couldn’t speak English. His tactics were alien to what we had known with Graham.

“Training was very different. It just didn’t work. The players didn’t buy into what he was trying to do.”

Villa narrowly avoided relegation in 1990/1 but there was a lighter moment before a post-season game against the Malaysian national team.

Ormondroyd said: “We had too many players stripped and ready to play.

“You know when you look round the dressing room and you go, ‘1 ,2, 3….’.

“Someone said: ‘There’s 12 of us, gaffer.’ It was red hot outside so I put my hand up and said: ‘I don’t mind not playing.’

“So I was sub.”

Venglos was sacked just over a week later.

Ormondroyd remembers drinking brandy with Ron AtkinsonCredit: John Rushworth Photoeye.co.uk

BOOZING BEFORE KICK-OFF

RON ATKINSON called time on Ian Ormondroyd’s Aston Villa career – but not before sharing some pre-match brandy.

Ormondroyd respected Atkinson for his honesty about wanting to bring in his own players and had a little taste of his flamboyant style of management.

Just before the big forward left for Derby, he was on the bench for a game at Southampton in August 1991 and recalled: “Two or three minutes before 3 o’clock the starting 11 players ran out and we were sat in the dressing room.

“All of a sudden Ron gets this bottle of brandy out. He passes it round all the coaching staff then looks over at me and says: ‘Do you want a nip?’

“I said: ‘Yeah, I’ll have a bit of that.’ I had a big slug of brandy.

“That burning feeling in the stomach as I ran out just to sit on the bench, I’ll always remember that.”

Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk