Gary Shaw: Former Aston Villa striker dies at 63 after fall

Ged Scott, BBC Sport

If Gary Shaw had played in the modern game, he would have won more than just seven England Under-21 caps.

He was more than good enough to have become an established full England international.

He might have had playboy looks and his own terrace chant – “When he gets the ball, he scores a goal, Ga-ry, Ga-ry Shaw” – but with twice European footballer of the year Kevin Keegan and Trevor Francis in his way, he was up against stiff opposition.

Having made his Villa debut early on in the 1978-79 season, Shaw got his chance when Andy Gray was sold to Wolves in September 1979, coupled with the injuries that wrecked Brian Little’s career.

Shaw finished Villa top scorer in 1979-80, but it was Ron Saunders’ signing of Peter Withe, already a league title winner with Nottingham Forest, as his strike partner up front that transformed Villa.

Together, the combination of big target man Withe and quicksilver Shaw alongside him turned Villa first into league champions in May 1981, then European champions in 1982.

In the league, as part of a Villa side that used just 14 players in 42 games, they notched a combined 38 goals (Withe’s 20 to Shaw’s 18) to earn the club a first league title in 71 years.

And, although the goals comparatively dried in the league the following season as Shaw missed 16 games through injury, he and Withe both scored three times each en route to beating Bayern Munich 1-0 to win the European Cup in Rotterdam.

But it was not enough to earn him a place in Ron Greenwood’s 22-man England squad for the World Cup that summer.

Although he and Villa skipper Dennis Mortimer were named in the initial 40-man squad, it was only Withe who made the plane to Spain, alongside Keegan, Francis, Tony Woodcock and Paul Mariner as the other chosen strikers.

Other than scoring in the two-leg European Super Cup win over Barcelona the following season, that night in Rotterdam turned out to be the highlight of Shaw’s career when, in September 1983, he sustained the knee injury that ultimately ended his career.

He carried on playing in Denmark and Austria, as well as at Walsall, Kilmarnock and Shrewsbury Town, before finishing in Hong Kong in 1992.

But he remained involved in football through his work as a statistical analyst, supplying in-match data for home games at both Villa and Kidderminster Harriers, where he also became a regular, popular figure.

And, in later seasons, he was also involved back at Villa as a club ambassador, still fondly remembered by doe-eyed fans, journalists and ex-team-mates as ‘Shawsy’, the blond bombshell striker with the surest of touches in front of goal.