Joe Mercer's Villa suffer a disappointing reverse against neighbours Birmingham in the first leg of the League Cup final at St Andrew’s to cede the advantage. Villa’s latest fixture is their seventeen in fifty six days and comes just two days after their final League game after their wildly interrupted campaign delivered the inevitable fixture list congestion and required Villa to play once every three days in the final two months of the season. Villa now had it all to do in the return leg at Villa Park to deliver a trophy in an otherwise barren season and win the League Cup for the second time in three seasons since its inauguration.