THE list of those who have lifted the European Cup and also pulled on a Hibernian shirt is a short but glittering one. There were Celtic’s two Lions, Ronnie Simpson and Bertie Auld, swaggering Franck Sauzee, and the mercurial George Best. Making up this alternative Famous Five, and the only one to start his senior career at Easter Road, is Des Bremner.

The man from Aberchirder in Banffshire is perhaps the most low-profile among that quintet but not among supporters of Hibs, where he spent seven years in the 1970s as one of Eddie Turnbull’s feted Tornadoes, or Aston Villa where he helped Ron Saunders’ unfashionable and unfancied side to the old First Division title and then to the European Cup and Super Cup a year later. They were, as Bremner points out, like the Leicester City of their day.

In which case, Bremner, now 63 and working as a financial advisor in the West Midlands, was like a white, curly-haired, moustachioed N’Golo Kante. In an era when pressing was something you did with flowers and a sitting midfielder was someone having a quick breather on the pitch during a lull in play, Bremner was Villa’s spoiler supreme. And he could run a bit, too. The notion of standing still in front of his backline like the modern defensive midfielder, watching play unfold in front of him, was anathema to him. Bremner wanted to be involved all over the pitch and often was.

Just as impressive as his stamina was his consistency. He barely missed a game. The one-time Deveronvale man, in fact, played in every match on that run to the 1981 league championship and again in the successful European odyssey the following year that culminated in victory over the mighty Bayern Munich in Rotterdam in the final.

“We developed this high-pressure game of closing down teams,” he recalled. “That helped us in Europe as teams from the Continent had never played against that kind of style before. We hardly gave them a second on the ball as we looked to shut them down quickly and win the ball back. Now Pep Guardiola is getting the credit for introducing this pressing style into football and a lot of teams do it now. But Ron Saunders had us playing like that 30-odd years ago.

“We practised without strikers in bounce games against our youth team in training. The job was just to win the ball back and we practised that over and over. It placed a lot of demands on our fitness but Saunders put a large emphasis on that, especially during pre-season. We were a fit team and that served us well. I compare ourselves to Leicester this season. We were a strong team and everyone did their jobs to the best of their abilities.”

If the glamour and the glory in that Villa team went to the likes of Peter Withe and Gary Shaw, then Bremner’s work was pivotal too. “Back then what I did wasn’t seen as a recognised position the way it is now,” he added. “Now you’ve got lads who just sit there. Whether I would have had the patience to just to sit in the middle of the park and break play down I don’t know. I was always wanting to get involved, chase down balls or whatever. I wasn’t one for standing still.”

Remarkable as it seems now, Bremner lifted the European Cup in late May and a few days later was on his holidays, not included in Jock Stein’s 22-man squad for the 1982 World Cup. That he was capped only once tells of an era when there were Scots at the heart of every prosperous English side.

“It was disappointing that I didn’t get more caps but you learn to accept these things. There were a lot of good Scottish players around at that time and the various managers just thought they were better. Simple as that.

“Nearly all of the successful English teams around that era had Scots in them. People said we were the backbone of these sides. We had Allan Evans and Ken McNaught at Villa, Liverpool had Graeme Souness, Alan Hansen and Kenny Dalglish, and there were others throughout the league.

“These players all had steel and determination to go with their other qualities. And managers seemed to like that. You look around the Premier League now and there are hardly any Scots involved. Certainly not with the top clubs. You defend Scottish football down here as much as you can but sometimes you have to hold your hands up and say we’ve gone backwards over the years.”

Bremner’s reputation at Villa survived a cross-city move to Birmingham City in 1984 and he is still welcomed back regularly at both clubs. He will require to do a spot of fence-sitting next season with Villa joining City in the Championship but not even the return of the derby will lift spirits at Villa Park.

“It’s been coming over the past three or four seasons really,” he laments. “They’ve never really got themselves away from that position towards the bottom of the league. You can’t blame one individual. It’s just circumstances that never got corrected.”

It was during his five years with Birmingham that Bremner first became a union rep and his interest in looking after the wellbeing of his fellow professionals continued once he had retired. For years he worked in the financial services wing of the Professional Footballers’ Association, and even now many of his clients are former players. Trying to offer guidance to the modern-day multimillionaires in his previous post was often a trying task.

“Players can, of course, do whatever they want with the money they’re making these days. A lot of them just seem to waste it. You hear a story about players with three or four cars and one hasn’t left the garage for over a year. You sometimes wonder if it’s spoiled the game a bit because of the extremes of money involved.”

Chat about financial management is not restricted to business hours. “I was speaking to a Villa fan recently who told me that when we won the European Cup he went to every round but couldn’t afford to go to the final. How sad is that? He told me he didn’t want to miss a tie in case we got knocked out so kept going but then had no money to get to Rotterdam. So I think he had mixed emotions; delighted that we win but gutted that he wasn’t there to see it.”

With Scotland not qualifying for the Euros, Villa relegated and Birmingham toiling in mid-table in the second tier, Bremner is now pinning all his hopes on Hibs rescuing an otherwise wretched personal campaign. He was still a player at Easter Road the last time they faced Rangers in a Scottish Cup final in 1979, the Ibrox side prevailing at the third attempt after two goalless draws.

“It was a marathon series of games and unfortunately we were beaten by an own goal in the end. A header from Arthur Duncan it was. I think he was playing in defence that day and if he wasn’t I don’t know what he was doing there in the first place! We had a decent team back then and were able to compete with the likes of Rangers and Celtic. We won the League Cup just before I came into the team and then we got the Drybrough Cup but we probably should have won more. I’m sure Hibs will finally get their hands on that Scottish Cup. Hopefully this will be their year.”