Peter Withe - Playing Career

Playing Career

During the summer of 1975, Withe spent one season in the United States as a member of the expansion Portland Timbers of the North American Soccer League (NASL). The lynchpin of a strong attack, the big Liverpudlian scored 17 goals and added 7 assists in 22 games to lead the Timbers to first place in their division and a tie for the best record in the league at 16–6. The Timbers played two home play-off games in front of more than 30,000 fans each, numbers unheard of for US soccer at the time. They advanced to Soccer Bowl '75, the League Championship, where they lost to the Tampa Bay Rowdies 2–0.

Withe won the Football League First Division championship with Nottingham Forest but then left to join Newcastle United, then in the Second Division for a transfer fee of £200,000. The Magpies were Withe's ninth club in less than eight years.

Ron Saunders took him to Aston Villa on the eve of the 1980–81 season when the Midlands club forked out £500,000 on the 29-year old striker, the club's record signing at the time. Withe scored 20 times in 36 games to finish joint-top scorer in the league with Tottenham Hotspur's Steve Archibald in that first season as Aston Villa went on to win the Football League title. Withe was also the scorer of Villa's winner against Bayern Munich in the European Cup final of 1982.

After five years, he eventually moved on to Sheffield United, in what he later described as "the biggest wrench of my career."

Capped by England 11 times, Withe scored once, and was the first Aston Villa player to be selected in an English World Cup Finals squad (in España 82).