Tony Barton (soccer player)

Tony Barton
Tony Barton
Personnel
Surname	Anthony Edward Barton
birthday	April 8, 1937
place of birth	Sutton , London ,  England
date of death	August 20, 1993
Place of death	Southampton ,  England
position	Winger (right)
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
1954-1959	Fulham FC	49 0(8)
1959-1961	Nottingham Forest	22 0(1)
1961-1967	Portsmouth FC	130 (34)
Stations as a trainer
Years	station
1982-1984	Aston Villa
1984-1985	Northampton Town
1991	Portsmouth FC (interim)
1 Only league games are given.

Anthony Edward "Tony" Barton (born April 8, 1937 in Sutton , London , † August 20, 1993 in Southampton ) was an English football player and coach . He was best known as the coach of Aston Villa , where he first won the English championship in 1981 as an assistant to Ron Saunders and the "Villans" the following season after the sudden resignation of Saunders to win the European Cup and in January 1983 in Supercup led.

Athletic career

Player career

The active career of Barton, who was born in the south London district of Sutton, was initially without any notable highlights. At Fulham FC , also based in the English capital , which has only played in the second division since 1952, Barton was rarely used in the first team after his promotion to the professional squad in May 1954. Mostly placed on the right wing position, he was behind Arthur Stevens, who had been active in Fulham for many years, in the pecking order and played just 49 league games by 1959. He had made his debut on April 24, 1954 - on the last match day of the 1953/54 season - in the 2: 4 defeat by Lincoln City FC and in his second appearance on March 5, 1955 against Ipswich Town (4: 1) the first ligator shot. In his last full season in 1958/59 for the club, he contributed 15 league games and two goals on the way to the second division championship and the associated promotion to the top English division.

There he completed no game for Fulham and instead he moved in December 1959 to first division rivals Nottingham Forest . He stayed in Nottingham for just a year and his 22 premier league appearances there were Barton's only appearances in the English elite class. In December 1961 he was hired by Portsmouth FC , which had only recently been relegated to the third division. On the English south coast, Barton finally found his sporting luck, immediately returned to the second division with the new club and completed a total of 130 league games in which he scored 34 goals by the end of his active career in 1967. His transition to the coaching profession was fluid and as an assistant in the staff of Portsmouth FC he gained his first experience in this regard.

Coaching career

In 1980, Barton took up the training position at Aston Villa alongside Ron Saunders , one of his companions in Portsmouth in the early 1960s. Under Saunders' leadership Aston Villa won the English championship in 1981 and when he suddenly resigned in early February 1982 after mixed results in the domestic league, but promising results in the European Cup , Barton took over. Initially only on an interim basis and employed as permanent head coach from April 1, 1982, Aston Villa continued the triumphant march in the European championship competition under Barton and ultimately won the final 1-0 against FC Bayern Munich . In retrospect, Barton's share in the title was often rated as low, as the winning team had essentially been formed by Saunders and Barton had (only) relied on the established mechanisms. Other analysts, on the other hand, rated Barton's level-headed manner expressly positive and referred to the next success in the Supercup against FC Barcelona (0: 1; 3: 0 a.s.), which was achieved around a year after Saunders' resignation. In addition, Barton succeeded in returning the team to the “ Top 6 ” after the disappointing eleventh place in the 1981/82 season in the following year . Most recently, tenth place in the 1983/84 season was not to be equated with a sporting catastrophe, especially since the league cup semi-finals had also been reached. However, this did not meet the requirements of President Doug Ellis and so Barton was fired in July 1984.

Immediately after his resignation from Aston Villa, Barton took on a new head coach at fourth division Northampton Town . After suffering a heart attack, he resigned from this post in April 1985 and, after recovering, worked as an assistant to Chris Nicholl until May 1988 . In the same function he later returned to his old place of work in Portsmouth and after Frank Burrows was fired, he held the position of head coach on an interim basis in February 1991. His last job was in scouting before he succumbed to another heart attack in Southampton at the age of 56 .

Title / Awards

• European Champion Clubs' Cup (1): 1982
• European Supercup (1): 1982

literature

Rob Bishop / Frank Holt: Aston Villa - The Complete Record . DB Publishing, Derby, 2010, ISBN 978-1-85983-805-1 , pp. 310 f .

Web links

• Statistical data from the Post War English & Scottish Football League A - Z Player's Database

Individual evidence

1. ↑ "BARTON, Tony" (Where Are They Now?)
2. ↑ "Football: Tony Barton dead" (The Independent)