If Billy Walker is a shoo-in the Villa’s greatest ever player, then equally there’s not much doubt about the best of the postwar years. Signing Paul McGrath in the summer of 1989 was a huge gamble by Graham Taylor but over the next seven years Macca touched heights of genius that most thought impossible in a mere defender. The problems with knees and alcohol were well documented – painfully so in his autobiography – but Villa fans forgave him everything for those trademark, fuss-free interceptions (“it’s like they’ve given him the script before they go out,” as one commentator exclaimed) and tackles timed with the precision of a Swiss watch maker. Truly, there will never be another like him.
