The 1971 Football League Cup Final took place in February 1971 at Wembley Stadium. It was the eleventh Football League Cup final and the fifth to be played at Wembley. It was contested between Tottenham Hotspur and Aston Villa. Tottenham Hotspur were riding high in the First Division (as the top level of league football in England was then known) and Aston Villa, the most successful club of the late Victorian and Edwardian eras and a traditional heavyweight, were in the Third Division (then the third tier of English football), a level to which it had never previously sunk.