"You think, where's all that time gone by?" Ron Atkinson reflects, beginning to recall his finest day as Aston Villa manager; the 3-1 victory over Manchester United in the 1994 League Cup final.
It's 30 years to the day since Villa claimed their fourth League Cup trophy at the original Wembley Stadium as Dalian Atkinson and Dean Saunders' goals won Big Ron the piece of silverware which marks his memorable reign at the club.
"I talk about that game a lot because I play a lot of golf with Steve Staunton who tells a few stories about it," Atkinson says. "He only just made the match because he’d been injured for about four or five weeks earlier. He keeps telling everyone how I more or less forced him to play in the final!"
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Staunton’s loss would have been a major blow for Villa at the time after he underwent a second hernia operation in the weeks leading up to the final and was also nursing a thigh strain which was kept a secret right up until the match. Despite making a late call on the left-back, Atkinson made sure Villa's preparations for the game were meticulous.
"When I was a young kid at the Villa, they got the final against United and they trained all week at Cadbury because they had a terrific hockey pitch, great grass," Atkinson reveals. "Wembley at the time was the epitome of all football pitches.
"So we trained all week at Cadbury just to give the lads a different feel because they had been playing on muddy pitches. It was a chance of getting up to pace on that surface."
He continues: "I think with hindsight, after the semi-final, we went off the boil a little bit. One or two of us had taken our eye off the league and we knew we weren’t going to win the league that year. There was a bit of relaxing going on and we went into that match definitely as underdogs, big underdogs.
"People didn’t give us much of a chance. Doug [Ellis] used to get a bit upset about me watching football matches. ‘Would you rather me playing golf or something’?
"On the Tuesday prior to the final, I saw Arsenal play United in a game. Arsenal played a system where they played three up front and they caused United problems. I thought there was a lot of mileage in that.
"I went away and thought that we’d play in a similar sort of way to that. We needed more power in midfield and unfortunately very good players like Garry Parker and Ray Houghton had gone off the boil slightly and I thought we’d get out-muscled in midfield. I took a chance and played a young centre-forward in midfield, Graham Fenton.
"He had been on loan a couple of times. He did well at Leicester and Albion and he was strong physically. We needed a physical presence, Fenton, Kevin Richardson and Andy Townsend. I played the three up front with Dalian Atkinson operating more as a right winger.
"I said to Dean Saunders before the match, you can run about, run, run, run. When you’re finished running, run again. When you’ve finished that I will replace you, who with I don’t know. I knew Deano would relish the task on his own. That was the build-up to the game."
It had been 12 long years since Villa won the European Cup in 1982, but despite the weight of recent underachievement, Atkinson knew exactly how to relieve any pressure from his players.
"I loved it", the Villa hero admits, breaking into a comical laugh. "It was great pressure, that. Even our build up would be different to how teams do it now certainly.
"Something I did three years earlier, we had been in the same final at Sheffield Wednesday and beat United 1-0. I took the boys into London a couple of nights before the match with the wives and partners. I took them to an Italian restaurant I knew and let them relax a little bit.
"On the Saturday I then took them into the country where we trained. I also, which I did at Wednesday too, I got Stan Boardman to meet up with us and come on board the coach, hopefully entertain on the way there and get the boys in a good heart. It worked twice!"
After Atkinson put Villa in the lead, Saunders bagged twice either side of Mark Hughes initially reducing United's deficit in the 83rd minute.
"We worked a lot on set-plays and actually two of them got mishit, but we scored from them both," Atkinson remembers. "Deano’s goal from the free-kick didn’t quite pan out as it was supposed to, but it still left us with a chance of a goal.
"United had been to Wembley a few times so it was just another game to them. As Villa hadn’t been there for a while, I always thought that once teams had the habit of having a Wembley occasion, they would go there a few times. Sheffield Wednesday did it and Villa too. I think players get the feel of being in a cup final. They are great occasions.
"A lot of the Villa fans now weren’t around then, but the number of people I bump into that were at the game - it’s a wonder there wasn’t 200,000 in the stadium!"
In our exclusive Claret & Blue sit-down, Atkinson made no bones about the scale of achievement he masterminded against his former club.
"It’s as high as any [achievement] because we were playing a United side who eventually went on to win the league and the FA Cup," Atkinson admits. "Fergie always said it was his most physical side he ever had. They had Brucey and Pallister, Keane and Ince, Hughes too.
"In fact, Steve Stride said he enjoyed that occasion even more than when they won the European Cup. I thought that was great because they're not only an employee of the club, but a big fan too. He thought that highly of it.
"Noel Cantwell, an old United captain years ago once told me, ‘enjoy the big moments. You should. And we did."
