Aston Villa legend Gary Shaw left nearly £300,000 behind to his family after dying aged 63 last year without writing a will.
The former Villa striker who won the European Cup in 1982, is widely regarded as one of the club’s greatest-ever players, and died last year after suffering a ‘severe’ head injury when banging his head on a kerb.
Shaw had been getting out of a taxi after a night out in Birmingham’s Jam House when he banged his head, before soon being discovered collapsed in the street by a neighbour on September 6.
He passed away ten days later after his condition deteriorated.
The 63-year-old had never married or had any children and had not written a will at the time of his death, meaning a Grant of Letters of Administration was applied for, and released on Monday.
The document, also known as a probate, means the most ‘entitled’ person can apply to become the administrator of a deceased person’s estate if they had not made their wishes clear before dying.
The issuing of this document revealed the gross value of his estate was £297,670, reduced to a net value of £287,027, which will be managed by a lawyer for the benefit of Michael Measey – believed to be one of Shaw’s friends or relatives.
When Shaw was in his heyday at Villa, between 1978 and 1988, the average wage for a top-flight player was around £57,000 per year, or £1,096 per week.
Today, Shaw’s estate is worth less than the weekly wage of Villa’s newest January loan signing, Marcus Rashford, who earns a reported £300,000 per week.
On the evening Shaw died, he was put in a taxi by his friends at around 1.30am on September 6.
‘At 1.30am he was put in a taxi by friends. I can confirm he had consumed an amount of alcohol,’ Philip Cutler, Shaw’s brother-in-law said previously in a statement.
‘However, some time after he got out of the taxi, fell and hit his head on the kerb side and was rendered unconscious.
‘It was sometime between 2am and 3am he was found and an ambulance was called.’
A doctor said Shaw had suffered an extensive and diffused head injury and that no surgical intervention was possible.
He was stabilised and put on the critical care unit. He had a CT scan on September 9 which showed a deterioration in the brain and he died on September 16.
The doctor added Shaw’s death was the result of a severe head injury as a result of a fall and that hypertension was a contributory factor.
A toxicological report showed that the ex-player had an alcohol reading of 221 milligrams per 100 millilitres.
Shaw, originally a Villa academy graduate, scored three goals on the way to their European Cup final against Bayern Munich in Rotterdam, and netted 18 times for the club during their march to the First Division title in 1981.
He scored 79 times in 213 games for his boyhood club, played for England under 21s, was named the Professional Footballers’ Association Young Player of the Year in 1981 and won European Young Player of the Year in 1982.
Shaw also played for Blackpool, Walsall, Kilmarnock and Shrewsbury Town.