Villa pair’s taste of the dolce vita
In the mid- 1980s just about every major footballer wanted to be in Italy and just about every Serie A club wanted to have a major foreign star — or two.
napoli had Diego Maradona, Juventus had Michel Platini and Inter Milan had Karl- heinz Rummenigge. there were many others, Liam Brady and Graeme Souness among them.
When Bari, from the south-east coast, were promoted from Serie B in 1985, they wanted to join this rush to sign glamorous foreign quality.
Bari had dropped into Serie C in the 1970s but they were newly ambitious and, via the Birmingham-based Italian agent Gianni Paladini, they got in touch with Aston Villa.
not quite Maradona, maybe, but Villa had won the 1982 european Cup, beating Bayern Munich in the final in Rotterdam. Rummenigge had been playing for Bayern.
Villa’s no 10 in that final was their fleet- footed midfielder Gordon Cowans. he was 23 and soon to win the first of 10 england caps. he was a catch.
Villa might have been expected to block any move for Cowans, but the club were in the process of breaking up the side who had won the league in 1981 and then the european Cup. Ken Mcnaught and Kenny Swain had left in 1983, Des Bremner in 1984, Peter Withe and captain Dennis Mortimer in 1985. In 1984 and 1985, Villa finished 10th in the league.
Cowans had already attracted the attention of napoli in 1983, when it seemed he might move, but there was a change of hierarchy at the Italian club, whose sporting director left. he resurfaced at Bari and Cowans was back on a Serie A radar.
So, too, was Paul Rideout, a 20-year-old striker who had made his Swindon town debut at 16. Bari had checked on Cowans and been struck by Rideout.
they bought both — for a figure reported at the time to be £850,000. ‘When we landed at the airport there were around 5,000 Bari supporters there,’ Cowans recalled later.
‘It was absolutely potty. We couldn’t walk through the airport because there were people grabbing us and kissing us. It was a huge shock just how much it meant to them that we were coming to join the club.’
neither Cowans nor Rideout spoke Italian. But their enthusiasm was for a new experience in a new league in a new country.
Unfortunately for Cowans, he broke a leg soon after arriving and did not make his debut until October. And given that Bari had finished third in Serie B to clinch the last promotion spot, it was going to be tough in star-studded Serie A.
For the englishmen, there was also an adjustment to the football — much more tactical and defensive — and to the lifestyle.
Predictably, although there were high points such as defeating Roma at home and drawing 0-0 against AC Milan at the San Siro, Bari won just five of their 30 matches and scored only 18 goals. After one season, they were back in Serie B.
‘the club just strengthened enough after promotion,’ Cowans said. ‘Other than me and Paul, they’d only really brought in a couple of young lads. We’d taken a gamble going out there and the lack of quality in the side was obviously a disappointment.’
the pair had signed three-year contracts and were prepared to honour them, but even in Italy’s second division Bari did not win enough. they finished ninth, then sixth, and after three seasons, though they had adapted to the lifestyle, Cowans and Rideout were on their way home.
Rideout joined Southampton while Cowans returned to Villa. It was not the Aston Villa Cowans had known, however. Bari being relegated to Serie B was unsurprising to Italians, but Villa, just five years after ruling europe, came bottom of england’s top division, one of football’s great drops.
Graham taylor was installed as manager and got Villa promoted at the first attempt. In their second season back up, Villa finished second behind Liverpool.
Cowans was in midfield again, prompting and inspiring as David Platt scored the goals that lifted the club. It was 1989-90 and at the end of the season Platt went with england to Italia 90.
Platt impressed as england reached the semi- finals. he returned to Villa for a season, but a club in Italy were interested. the president of that club, Bari, rang Cowans to see what he made of Platt. A £5.5million transfer followed, but while Platt was a success as a goalscorer, Bari were again relegated. Platt, though, did not go down with Bari as Cowans and Rideout had; he left for Juventus.
the much-travelled Rideout went on to score the only goal of the 1995 FA Cup final for everton against Manchester United before ending up in America. Cowans is in Villa’s academy and Bari are back in Serie B.