Franchise plc

H&V 129 – March 2006

With the exception of Manchester United, it’s doubtful that there’s a more loathed team in the country than MK Dons. Everyone knows the story of how Wimbledon, who had spent twenty years battling their way through the divisions and then surviving in the Premier League, were shifted to Milton Keynes, where they underwent a metamorphosis into the Dons.

It was a nasty exercise in attempting to make money by moving a successful football team into an area where there had never been one and, it was thought, a market existed. I’m glad to say that it failed; MK Dons play in front of crowds much lower than Wimbledon attracted, and look set for relegation to the bottom division, whatever it might be called next season. Even better, it might only be a couple of years before they’re overtaken by AFC Wimbledon.

One of the many great things about English football is that clubs have grown naturally. All of our top clubs began life as a small entity, usually playing friendlies or in the equivalent of the Festival League. They grew out of their neighbourhood and retain strong ties with the area in which they were formed. Not for us the American idea of selling a successful club to the highest bidder, as happened in the fifties when fans of baseball’s New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers found out that their teams were now playing 3,000 miles  away in San Francisco and Los Angeles respectively. Not for us the idea that you could buy success.

A football team stayed where it started out and became a source of civic pride whether successful or not. Supporters have more or less accepted that they follow their local side and stuck to them through thick and thin, Or if you were local to Bordesley Green, through very thin and extremely thin indeed.

However, the universal loathing that MK Dons enjoy, together with the whole Premiership ethos, has made me wonder whether they’re the only franchise in the country. Or has the game changed so much that there are more clubs around now who are really franchises in everything but name?

For a start, there’s the first club to come along during the Premiership era to buy their way to success. Blackburn Rovers had spent much of the twentieth century in the lower divisions before Jack Walker’s millions took them into the top division just in time for it to become the Premier League. Not only did he bankroll a title-winning team, he also bought what was to all intents a new club. Four new stands, an entirely new backroom staff, and average gates that more than doubled in six years. A majority of their supporters were new, as well as giving the impression that they only went to watch Blackburn because they couldn’t get tickets for Old Trafford. The only thing that stayed the same was the club’s name and address. what little atmosphere they had was stirred up by that bane of nineties football, a drummer.

Blackburn away was a glimpse into the future of English football. Nice, safe, but I never came away from there without remembering that FA Cup trip in 1980 when we were crammed into the terrace behind the goal, singing our heads off as a collection of Villa supporters shinned up the drainpipes and risked life and limb by singing along the stanchions on the roof. I was glad when Blackburn won the league in 1995, because it stopped Manchester United from doing it again. But I was even more pleased when they got relegated four years later. Jack Walker might have bought a team, but he could never buy its heart. His Blackburn Rovers were completely top-heavy, with players and employees who cared nothing for the club and supporters who were more interested in the opposition’s top names than in their own team.

And now, everywhere’s like Blackburn. Go to any Premier League match and it’s only the colours that give any clue as to where you are. You get your ticket from an officially-authorised outlet. Go into the club shop, or rather mega-super-duper-store and the same things will be on sale, just with a different badge.

Everyone whose kits are manufactured by Reebok will have the same designs of leisurewear, same goes for Umbro, Adidas and every other company. There are official car parks, designated away pubs, even official food outlets outside the grounds.

Clubs sell the same type of overpriced,  branded, food and drink. You buy a burger and fries, you drink Coke. The people around you live maybe an hour’s drive away. They weren’t born locally, they’ve no ties to the area for the past three generations, but they realised round about 1996 that it helps to be able to discuss footie in the office on Monday morning.

Into the van and there’s the same view you got from the same seat last week. The ground might be called the Reebok instead of the Riverside, but it’s still the same basic design. The family sitting next to you “make some noise” as the teams come out, because the man on the PA tells them to, just before the arrival of 22 highly-paid professional sportsmen, one or two of whom might, if you’re lucky, have been born within fifty miles of the ground.

Three o’clock comes round and the fun begins. I can guarantee you that at any given time in the first five minutes (before the novelty wears off) half the songs you hear will be the same all around the country with just the words changed. The team you don’t like are “scum” and you’ll stand up if you hate them. You’ll also stand up if you love your own team. Once you score it’s time for that “easy” arm-waving stuff and if the team you’re playing are in the bottom half they’re “‘Avin’ a laff” being in the Premier League.

You’ll spend half-time watching a clown in a furry suit organising a penalty shoot-out between a bunch of kids whose parents have paid half a week’s wages and you’ll endure another forty-five minutes, during which time an equalizer will be followed by a chorus of “You’re not singing anymore.” You’ll spend an hour in a queue out of the car park. You’ll listen to the local radio station, whose presenter will agree with every caller criticising the referee and the opposition’s timewasting/aggressive tactics.

By the time you get onto the motorway 606 will have started. A Chelsea fan will say Mourinho should be sacked because they let in a goal, and Adrian Chiles will smile instead of calling him a smug wanker. if Liverpool have lost a Devonian will demand to know why Bob Paisley isn’t allowed to manage them via a medium. If Spurs have lost, an extraordinarily loud-mouthed oaf from Hertfordshire will demand the sacking of everyone associated with the club. Everyone else who’s lost will blame the referee.

Players will be pulling out of the car park in whatever’s the ‘in’ car for footballers this season, to drive back to their luxury homes in the country(married) or apartment in the newest block in town (single).

All over the country the same things will have been said and done by the same people week in, week out. At the end of the season the teams that have spent the most money will have won all the trophies, and they’ll buy the best players from the teams below them.

If that’s not franchising, I don’t know what is.

Well, Who’s It Gonna Be Then?

H&V 51, April 1997.

It’s obvious that we’re going to be in the market for a new forward in the summer. The candidates are many and the arguments will rage until our new record signing (as he will surely be) puts pen to paper. Here to make you help up your mind is our guide to the leading candidates.

Stan Collymore: Fans favourite and the man we’ve been on the verge of signing for what seems like every week for the past three years. We’ve been about to buy Collymore as often as we were going to sign Steve Bull, but it seems there might finally be some substance in the stories. Villa certainly had as bid turned down last year, there have been all sorts of ‘gentlemens agreements’ and deals that were done until injures changed the circumstances. So why should he be joining the Villa?

His style of play would undoubtedly complement Dwight Yorke, and both men have said they’d like to play alongside each other. Collymore’s strength and running from deep positions would be tailor-made for Yorke’s ball control and goalscoring ability.  He hasn’t settled at Liverpool, yet has still scored 34 goals in 65 appearances. there’s also the fact that Stan Collymore was supposedly a Villa supporter as a kid and would like nothing more than to play for the team. So Collymore it is then?

Well, let’s look at the drawbacks, shall we? There’s no doubt that Stan Collymore on top form could have won the Villa the title this season. He’s got a tremendous amount of talent, which is why he cost Liverpool £8.5 million. There’s just one problem. Wherever he goes, Collymore is possibly the most disliked footballer in the world. I hate the phrase ‘attitude problem’ but it sums up Stan Collymore perfectly. Crystal Palace  and Southend players were reported to hate him, there was the famous occasion when he scored for Forest and his team-mates ignored him, he’s saved Liverpool a fortune in wages as a result of club fines. If he’s not playing he sulks, if he is playing he sulks and if things are going wrong watch any prams in the vicinity carefully for flying dummies. To sum him up Stan Collymore would be the second coming of Dalian Atkinson. And as we’ve said before, all the talk of him being a Villa supporter is camouflage. I doubt he ever attended Villa Park as a kid.

if Brian thinks he can tame Stan Collymore then I’ll be happy to see him join the Villa. He’s the one the supporters want and would probably do most for season ticket sales during the summer. But I’m not convinced.

Duncan Ferguson: Strongly fancied in the last few months, a ludicrous £7 million has been quoted for his services, but if he was moving to the Villa it would probably be as part of a player exchange.

Ferguson’s main strength is that he’s good in the air and at his best there isn’t a defender in the country who could mark him out of a game. Which beggars the question, who is there in our team who could put over a decent cross? A return to bBrian’s Leicester days of a more direct style? I hope not. Doubts also abound about Ferguson’s ability to get through a full season. He’s a thirty games and a dozen goals a season at best man, and that’s no good to anyone.

There’s also the Collymore Factor, which in Ferguson’s case can be multiplied by ten. Put simply, the bloke is a twenty four carat prick. In court several times at Dundee United, once for assaulting a man on crutches, imprisoned for headbutting a player at Rangers, hounded out of Scotland, arrested for drink driving at Everton – on the night before a derby – Ferguson is an accident which looks for somewhere to happen. He can’t blame the stupidity of youth anymore, either. He’s 25 and shows few signs of growing up.

And his goalscoring record isn’t that hot. In fact Ferguson reminds me of Dean Saunders, the sort of player who arrives in a big money transfer, just does enough to stay popular without being a real success and moves on a couple of years later. Not the sort of player to base your team around. No thanks.

Andy Cole: Another one who would be moving for around £7 million, which is plainly ridiculous for a player whose claim to fame is a good season and a half for Newcastle. At least we should be free of the off-field publicity that follows Ferguson and Collymore. A possibility, but I don’t think Cole will ever recapture his Newcastle form and his value won’t hold up if his next move doesn’t work out.

Emile Heskey: Best bet of the outsiders, not least now that Leicester are speaking to us again. At nineteen Heskey is a big sod for his age and God knows what he’s going to be when he grows up. The potential’s there and in the League Cup semi-final he shows he has the ability every Villa centre-forward needs by playing on the wing. Strong, fast and has an eye for goal. The obvious drawback is that he’s only nineteen and we don’t know what he will end up like. It’s also wrong to expect a player of his age to cope with the pressure that will be heaped upon our close-season signing. In fact, you shouldn’t even expect him to play  a full season yet. But another year like this one will see Heskey’s value rocketing towards Shearer levels so he’s worth the gamble.

Daniel Fonseca: Uruguayan international who currently plays for Roma and reportedly isn’t very happy there. The obvious problem is that like Savo, he might have trouble coping with the place of our game. Thinking about the other South Americans who’ve played in England isn’t exactly a great confidence booster – Mirandhina, Emerson, Juninho, Asprilla, it’s hardy a roll of honour. Brian went over to see him a couple of weeks ago and he was a sub, coming on early on to replace a midfielder and not scoring in a 4-3 victory. It doesn’t seem an auspicious worthiness, but maybe the boss saw something there he can work on. Anyway, the story seems to have disappeared so maybe he isn’t interested after all.

Roy Makkay: Latest Continental rumour. Twenty years old, plays for Vitesse Arnhem and would cost in the region of £3 million. Main problem is that he’s also attracting interest from PSV Eindhoven and Ajax as well as Villa, and I’ve got a suspicion who even I would choose from these three.

Fabrizio Ravanelli: Why not? He’s got undoubted talent and has scored goals, even if only against Hereford. In fact he started the season off well until he realised that nobody else was arsed about playing for Middlesbrough so why should he. It’s obvious he’s moving at the end of the season whether they stay up or not, so why not go in for him? he might be willing to take a pay cut if he doesn’t have to move house and I’m sure the commercial department could soon come up with a load of silver wigs to get some of the expense back.

Maybe the man hasn’t been listed here. Brian’s probably made up his mind already, the deal’s been done and it’s somebody who will surprise us all. I hope, though, that for once it’s done with a bit of dignity. I hope there’s none of the haggling that seems to mar every big money Villa signing. Just for once I’d like to see the club capture the imagination of the world, to make them pay attention and realise that the Villa mean business. And when the deal’s been done, I hope above all that we don’t have any of that stupidity about balancing the books by selling now that we’ve bought. Big clubs don’t have to.

And which of the above would get my vote? None of them. In a straight choice I’d go for Sean Dundee of Karlsruhe. He’s powerful, good in the air and scores goals. Raised in South Africa so there’s no language problem, plays in Germany where the style of play’s similar to ours. The money’s there to buy a player of Dundee’s quality. But is the ambition?

 

Nightmare Journeys From Hell

H&V 83 – January 2001.

Wimbledon, FA Cup replay, 1993.

I used to have a soft spot for Wimbledon. All that little club embarrassing the big boys and the rest of it. Great, I used to think. Anybody that shows up the pretentions of teams like Spurs and Chelsea are alright by me. Then came the night in question.

We were challenging for the title and playing some good football under the leadership of BFR. No, we were playing great football; it was a pleasure to watch. So a fourth round tie against Wimbledon was never going to be anything more than a sideshow on the way to glory. We drew the original match at home, 0-0  if I remember right, then ten days later I was offered the spare place in my mate’s car for the replay trip to Selhurst Park.

Neither of us had ever been there before, so we scoffed at the more experienced members of our task force when they suggested leaving at mid-day. No need, we thought.  Couple of hours down the M1, hour round London. Hour for emergencies. We’ll leave at four. Luckily, sanity prevailed and we started off an hour earlier. It got us there more or less on time, but perhaps that was the least of our worries.

Down the M1, which was amazingly quiet, then just as we were expecting the M25 turnoff, the car the car remained stubbornly M1-fixed. I wondered what was going on, but what did I know?

Onto the North Circular, and did I tell you that the driver had never been to Selhurst before?  Actually, he’d never been to London. But no problem, he had an A-Z so, armed with the knowledge that the capital city is no bigger than the West Midlands, therefore takes as much time to drive through, the next leg of our journey began.

You can get a very intimate knowledge of a ten yard stretch of wall when it takes an hour to travel its length. I’ll draw a veil over the next hour, but as least we got going a bit better. By now things were getting a bit fraught, with at least two of my companions offering to show the drive an alternative way and him threatening to turn right round and go home if they didn’t stop bloody moaning. At least we got to see some of London that I’d previously only seen on TV. There can’t be many football supporters who take in the Houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square and Piccadilly Circus, twice, on the way to the match.

Then we got REALLY lost. Once we crossed the Thames for what proved to be the final time the map didn’t quite match up to the reality, so someone was volunteered to get out and ask directions. Being eager to please, and keen not to look naive in the presence of more experienced travellers, I got out in search of a friendly face.

Brixton is apparently a lot more upmarket now. In thirty stress-filled seconds during the early part of 1993 I was offered every drug that’s ever been on sale, several offers of a more intimate nature, three TV sets, a video recorder and directions to Selhurst on its welcoming streets.

Somehow, miraculously, we were headed in the right direction and off we headed on our merry way. The knowledge that we were approaching the vaguely right place helped concentrate our minds and we began to think that we might see some of the match. If on’y we’d known then what we were to learn before the night was through.

After a little bit more detour (someone claimed to have seen the sea, but that was ruled out as an exaggeration), we hit the mean streets of Norwood. In fact, we finally stumbled across the ground at fourteen minutes past eight. Luckily, parking is never a problem at Selhurst, so we only missed the first quarter of an hour. Which is what most other people in the ground missed as well. We hadn’t really noticed, as we were more concerned with eking out our rations and killing the pack horses for food, but there was seriously thick fog around. Watching was difficult, playing must have been just as hard.

As the ball drifted in and out of sight, talk was of how people had got there and how long it had taken. The record journey was five hours fifteen minutes, an admission which was met by gales of laughter as we described the journey. In fact, several people went to their mates so we could tell them how we’d got there. At least it livened up the match.

Speaking of which, 120 minutes produced as much as a normal Wimbledon game so it was down to penalties. After the kind of day we’d had, everyone knew what the result would be. I suggested nipping off early to beat the rush, but this idea was vetoed. If I remember , Neil Cox missed, as did Kevin Richardson. Perhaps Palace’s young starlet Gareth Southgate was taking notes for a dossier on how Villa captains should take penalties. We greeted the final blaze over the bar with a defiant chorus of  “We’re gonna win the league,” without a trace of irony.

As it was an eight o’clock kick-off, and as it had gone on so long, it was almost eleven by the time we got back to the car. By now, all hopes of going back the way we came had been abandoned in favour of the bright idea of following the traffic. It was either that or shoot the driver.

I must admit, we had a decent journey back  home. Or we would have if the man behind the steering wheel (I refuse to honour him with the title of driver) hadn’t had to ring home every fifteen minutes. Something to do with his wife being nervous in the house. Or, as I was told later, her being convinced that he was out playing away at something far more enjoyable than Wimbledon v Villa.

We stopped at the services on the M1, and who should be there but alleged comedian Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown. I felt like asking him if he’d heard the one about the four lads who decided to drive from Birmingham to Selhurst in the rush hour straight through the middle of London but he would probably have said that the idea of a joke is that it doesn’t have to be so totally stupid that nobody would ever believe it happened.

Anyway, we all got home in one piece and I suppose that’s the main thing. And my mate never again drove to an away match. And last season, when Wimbledon got relegated on the last day, I danced.

Chris Martin

The Astonian Chronicles

H&V 59 – April 1998.

Amongst the collection of old publications we were sent some years ago was a copy of another long-running periodical, The Astonian Chronicles. The following excerpt is from vol 4, no. 8, which came out in April 1913, and is entitled The Capital’s Shame.

Let me start by stating clearly that I am no shrinking violet, neither am I a man who is easily shocked. Indeed, I can sate quite categorically that I can profess to be a widely travelled man of the world. Why, it was a mere few months ago that I  partook of an excursion to Bradford in order to see the Villa play in the third round of the FA Cup, despite the fact that this Yorkshire mill town had only recently experienced its first sight of a horseless carriage, whose driver they took to be a German spy and pulled from his seat, before tarring and feathering the poor man. The reason given was that he was betrayed by a strange accent and manners, and in explanation could only reply that he hailed from Wigan, which to these simple northern folk was far enough away to be under the influence of foreign powers.

No, sir, I do not shock easily. And yet I blanched at the experience of travelling to the Crystal Palace stadium to witness our fine fellows’ victory in the FA Cup Final. I was disgusted at the condition of our capital city. At the sights and sounds I witnessed, and the shocking prices charged by purveyors of those goods and serviced necessary for the enjoyment of a game of football. But most of all, by the squalid appearance of a site which has pretensions to being the finest sporting venue in the country.

London has all the charm of a Corporation rubbish tip. Perfumed doxies shamelessly proposition the most innocent visitor, and are most persuasive in proposing their affectations. The taverns are full of the lowest ruffians, and the ale which they produce has the appearance and taste of having been recycled from the waste products of said ne’erdowells. In addition, the nightly entertainment, such as it is, comprises the lowest forms of carnal conviviality, provided by several gentlemen by the name of Gold and Sullivan. These names appeared familiar to me, and I later realised that it was none other than the owners of a football club, whose name escapes me, situated in the lower areas of our own fair city.

But these distractions, unlikely to appeal to a person of my own refined tastes, were of insignificance when compared to the inconveniences suffered by those of us who were in attendance at the Crystal Palace. Crystal Palace, it is called? Crystal Privvy, more like. Public transport to such a place is scarce, omnibuses and hackney carriages in short supply.  eventually I arrived at the stadium, and after paying the scandalous admission price of two shillings, gained address onto the terrace. Such was the crush of bodies that obtaining a clear view of the play was impossible and I was forced into the hiring of a common fellow, whose shoulders I sat upon for the duration of the match at a cost of a further sixpence. Such chaps have time and again proved their worth at sporting contests and I can only thank the farsightedness of the FA and the government for ensuring that an adequate supply of poor people is always available. Should their numbers ever dwindle due to such unforeseen circumstances as an outbreak of war or epidemic then I cannot imagine how fellows such as myself would be able to witness football matches in the future.

The refreshments available during the half time interval were both of poor quality and difficult to obtain. Again, I was lucky that my man had a plentiful supply of offspring who would, upon payment of a further farthing, retire to the catering facilities and I was able to obtain a modest repast of something described as a ‘hamburger,’ another example of the way in which foreign influences are invading our fine, upstanding British traditions. Are ‘Birminghamers’ sold at the German Cup Final? No, sir, I think not.

At the termination of the afternoon’s proceedings I made my way to the railway station, anxious to be back at my hotel in order to see the first house of the music hall. Unfortunately, the railway companies did not see fit to add extra carriages onto the Brighton service and so it was standing room only to Victoria.

All in all, a most unsatisfactory conclusion to a day which should have been one of the utmost jollity. Roll on the day when Mr Rinder’s plans are executed and Villa Park can hold 130,000. Then we will be able to stroll to the Cup Final and be home for tea.

 

 

 

I Hate the Villa

H& V 128 – January 2006

I suppose I’d better start off with a confession. I don’t like football. To be honest, I don’t like Aston Villa. Now before you start wondering what I’m doing writing in H&V and why don’t I piss off down the Sty, let me explain.

I don’t like Aston Villa plc, members of the Premier League. I love Aston Villa Football  Club, the greatest and most historic name in football. Just in case you don’t understand, let me go further. I was brought up on tales of Billy Walker and Pongo Waring courtesy of my granddad. My dad still bores me senseless with the story of how he saw Johnny Dixon in Sut ton with his wife the week after the 1957 cup final and insisted on carrying their shopping how for them. or was it Peter McParland? The identity changes after he’s had a few, but never mind. He started taking me down the match in the the third division, so I thought every team had gates of forty thousand. He took me to Blackpool and Sheffield Wednesday when we got promotion in 1975, so I thought that every ground was full of Villa supporters wherever we played.

When I left school, happily enough in 1980, I travelled first the country and then Europe. I endured the bad days and yes, I was on that bowel-loosening hike down Seven Sisters Road in 1985, so graphically described in H&Vs past. I’ve seen good times, bad times and the ones in between. I’v dragged girlfriends, fiance and now children down the match. Until a couple of seasons ago I was as committed as the next Villa supporter. But no longer. So what’s stopped it? In truth, there’s been a combination of things. These are just a few:

Graham Taylor’s return: I loved the man first time round. I could see what he was trying to do when he came back – we couldn’t go on spending millions on players who weren’t up to the job in the hope that this time we really would crack it. The performances were crap, but what I really couldn’t handle was the abuse he was getting. His service to the club aside, Taylor is one of the most honest men in football. Read David Conn’s The Beautiful Game for evidence that, even when he was England manager, Graham spoke out against the setting up of the Premier League because, although it was supposed to strengthen the national side, anyone could see that it would cause irreparable damage to English football as a whole. Such integrity is rare these days, but Graham didn’t do what the mob wanted, so he had to be booed at the end of his last game at Villa Park. What a wonderful end to the career of a man who single-handedly prevented us from going the same way as Wolves.

Cup competitions: The FA Cup final, and the way we struggled to sell our tickets. I always thought that if we ever got there, the queues for tickets would stretch to Coventry, but instead they got within a day of going on general sale. Every time we get dumped out of a cup by a team from whatever division it’s called now, the cry comes that winning in the league next Saturday is more important. The general feeling that it’s better to finish fourth than actually win a trophy. Is it bollocks.

Jlloyd Samuel: It’s hard to single one out, but he’s the personification of everything that’s wrong with modern footballers. Good enough to be in the England squad, but content to churn out mediocre performances week after week, because he’s still getting paid. And that makes him rich enough to have a daft bet with his girlfriend on a football match to the tune of fifty grand. If I bet somebody a fiver on something like that my wife would make me sleep in the spare room.

Our lovely support: I used to sit in the Holte, until I got fed up of the twats around me, with their endless songs about the Blues, screaming and shouting, and their nasty little hounding of anybody who acts different to them. Two years ago one of them reckoned I must support the Blues because I didn’t stand up to hate them quick enough. He soon learned, but the rest of his gang didn’t.

Sky: Saturday, three o’clock. What’s so hard to understand? That’s when football was meant to be played, not on Monday night, or Sunday afternoon, or at midday. If we got our act together we could stop all of this nonsense, just by threatening to cancel Sky subscriptions until they sort the fixtures out. But we’re too selfish and stupid to realise whose game it is.

And the final straw came against Liverpool last season.  Villa supporters cheering when Albion stayed up. I tried to ask one of them why, and he muttered something about it was good to have local teams in the Premiership because they are easy to get to. When I pointed out the concept of local rivalry, or in my case hate he said “We hate Blues. Albion hate Wolves.” I tried to explain Alex Cropley, Ronnie Allen in 1959, Ray Graydon, but it was no good. Blues are our rivals because it says so on Sky. That’s when I realised that I’m out of touch with modern football supporters.

Maybe it’s because attendances were so low in the eighties, but the new breed of ‘soccer fan ‘ didn’t have the knowledge handed down to them., they picked it up off the telly. The folklore I was introduced to at an early age – great players of the past, myths and legends, shared experiences – are totally alien concepts to them. They see nothing wrong with kick-off times being pissed about with by television, because it means they can see fourteen repeats of the same match on their computer screens. It’s supposed to be progress, but again I think it’s bollocks. Football’s about real life, not a TV game show.

So I decided to pack it in. it’s not been easy, and I’ve fallen off the wagon a couple of times. The Burnley game, because it was cheap, then Everton and Arsenal over Christmas because my mate was going away and lent me his season ticket.  The matches were okay but the problems were still there, and in particular the nasty little wankers sitting behind, who spent all match singing about the Blues and couldn’t string a sentence together that didn’t include a swear word.

Now my Saturdays are non-league. Living in Quinton, there’s a lot of choice – Kidderminster (it’s true about their food, it’s better than I get at home), Halesowen or Midland Combination games where the crowd only just outnumber the teams and the kids can run around the goal to their hearts’ content. Two or three quid admission, a couple of pints and a burger, and sometimes I don’t even bother finding out how the Villa got on until I buy the Argus ( us non-league types love the Argus, even if it is now an extortionate 50p). Most matches I go to I talk to others just like me; disillusioned with the clubs they’d supported all their lives and rediscovering what football’s really about.

I live in hope that there’ll be enough of us to form a local version of FC United, not in protest at the takeover of one club by a businessman, but because of the takeover of the entire game by a host of big business interests. Once again I could support a proper football team for  the right reasons.

Dave Atkins.

You Know You’re a Brummie Because –

H&V 72 – December 1999.

1. You say “town” and expect everyone to know which one.

2. You tell children to “mind the horse road”.

3. You have never been to Aston Hall but you know intimately the backstreets of Weston-super-Mare.

4. You know we’ve got the finest collection of pre-Raphelite art in the world but you don’t know a) where they are and b) what a pre-Raphelite is.

5. You can get into a four hour argument about how to get from Erdington to Northfield at 3.30 on the Friday before a long weekend but can’t find Coventry on a map.

6. You always have the exact change when you board a bus.

7. You think Maypole, Druid’s Heath, Bangham Pit and Gannow sound perfectly normal names for places.

8. The new tramway should never be called anything prissy, like the Metro.

9. You believe that being able to swear at people makes you multi-lingual.

10. You’ve considered punching someone just for implying that you have a funny accent.

11. Your door has more than three locks.

12. You go to the football for the fighting in  the stands. *

13. You can’t see anything strange about your three favourite bands being ELO, Black Sabbath and UB40.

14. The most frequently used part of your car is your horn.

15. You like sterilised milk.

16. You know that Birmingham, has more miles of canals than Venice.

17. You feel the need to share this information with everybody you meet.

18. You only have strong views on art when the City Council put up a three-dimensional piece of it in the City Centre.

19. You consider Sutton Park ‘the countryside’.

20. You think Cannon Hill Park is ‘nature’.

21. You could never see anything odd about Crossroads.

22. You pay £ 1,200 a month for a studio apartment the size of a walk-in wardrobe in Brindley Place and you think it’s a bargain.

23. Shopping in suburban supermarkets and shopping centres gives you a severe attack of agrophobia

24. You’ve  been to Wolverhampton twice and needed Air/Sea rescue to get home both times.

25 You pay more each month to park your car in the city centre than you do in rent.

26. You listen to Ed Doolan but say you can’t stand him.

27 You own several tons of fishing tackle that have never so much as seen water.

28. You have dinner at lunchtime and go home to tea.

29. You haven’t been to the Rag Market since your mom took you there to get a school blazer in 1974 but have to date signed 37 petitions to stop it closing.

30. You haven’t heard the sound of true, absolute silence since 1977 and when you did, it terrified you.

31. You go to Broad Street and pay £3 without blinking for a beer that cost the bar 28p.

32. You believe that Drucker’s Wiener pattiserie was invented for you,

33. You don’t take fashion seriously.

35. Being truly alone makes you nervous.

36. You spend the waking hours complaining about Birmingham Cable and Travel West Midlands.

36. You moaned about the cost of the NEC, ICC, NIA and Symphony Hall.

37. You tell everybody you meet that Bill Clinton and the Eurovision  Song Contest came here because of the vision  of the city council.

38. You regard Malcolm Boyden as a sex symbol.

40,  You think that being refused entry to eighteen bars in three hours constitutes a good night out .

41. You haven’t cooked a meal since helping mum last Christmas with the turkey.

42. Your idea of exercise is jogging to the bus stop.

43. Your idea of personal space is no-one actually standing on your toes.

44. You can’t see anything wrong with a bus route that’s twenty-two miles long, takes four hours and finishes where it starts.

45. You think Carl Chinn sounds common.

46. You just know that the Millennium Dome, National Stadium and 1992 Olympics went to the wrong place.

47. You allow three hours for a two mile motorway journey.

48. When anybody asks you to recommend a good Indian you can provide them with a list of a hundred .

49. You have a minimum of five “worst cab ride ever” stories.

50. You don’t hear sirens anymore.

51. The breweries idea of tasteful pub renovation is to knock three rooms into one, put six tables in a corner and call it a restaurant and ban anybody over the age of 25.

52. Smoking does less damage to your lungs than breathing normally.

53. You can’t see anything wrong with spending your summer holiday on a caravan site thirty miles away.

54. You’ve heard of something called the Black Country but you can’t be certain it exists.

55. You live on a housing estate with a larger population than some countries.

56. Your cleaner is Spanish, your grocer is Indian, your off-licence owner is Jamaican, your landlord is Pakistani, your laundry man is Chinese, your favourite barman is Irish, your favourite cafe owner is Austrian, the watch seller on your corner is Bangladeshi, your last cabbie was Pakistani, your newsagent is Bangladeshi and your favourite chip shop owner is Cypriot.

57. You think pork scratchings are health food.

58. You call to total strangers “Aer kid”.

59. You think “getting a buzz” refers to public transport rather than drugs.

60. You get into fights with everybody who says that Manchester is the Second City.

61. You think that the Rotunda is a smart piece of architecture.

62. You think all arguments can be ended with the words “Shakespeare was a Brummie.”

63. You are terrified of offending a Welshman in case he cuts off your water.

64. You think the Lickey Hills is the Lost Continent.

65. The last man you heard taking the piss out if the pace is due to wake up any month now.

*only some of you.

The Perry Barr Pet

H&V 64 – January 1999.

Some time around the end of the last century we came across a collection of early supporters journals which dealt with the affairs of the Aston Villa Football Club in the 1890s. Issue 4 came out in December 1897 and this article, entitled Ground Expansion, dealt with the ongoing development of the Aston Lower Grounds:

I see that the directors are planning to make the Villa Park ground larger in size than it already is. And not before time. There have already been several instances this season when a 35,000 capacity has proved woefully inadequate.

if the club is to thrive and achieve the status to which we all believe it capable then at least 50,000 hardy Brummagem souls should be able to be fitted into the ground. Indeed, I have been assured that Messrs Ramsey, Rinder and McGregor have already made plans for such an eventuality and it is about these that I wish to draw the attention of the reader.

For it appears they have run into grave problems. To whit: Application made to the city corporation for permission to extend the grandstand on Trinity Road has met with objection from the local residents.

And what, pray tell, has this to do with the corporation? Does Aston Villa have to go cap in hand every time we wish to purchase a new player? No sir, we do not. Are we beholding to the corporation for the finances to make our team the finest in the land? No sir, we are not. I was brought up in the firm belief that an Englishman’s home is his castle. Yet our own castle has to beg permission from the city before it so much as raises the portcullis. This I find a preposterous state of affairs.

I would remind the City of Birmingham Corporation that the success of the Aston Villa Football Club has spread the name of the city far and wide. Why, I was taking the air at Bridlington only the other week when I engaged in conversation with a fellow sportsman. When he enquired as to my birthplace I replied Birmingham, to which he answered,  “Why, is that not the home of the Aston Villa Football Club? Such a fine institution. Your city must be mightily proud of them.” I heartily concurred with the fellow. And then soundly boxed his ears. A gentleman does not enquire of another gentleman’s antecedents. But enough of my ideas of etiquette. Suffice to say that no-one has ever favourably associated the city of Birmingham with the Small Heath club. And that is without pointing out how much the corporation make on matchdays in revenue from their scandalously overpriced and woefully inefficient trolleybus service from the city to Aston.

I am also led to understand that at the heart of the problem surrounding the new grandstand is the attitude of the local residents. Balderdash and poppycock. The place they are fortunate to reside next to has for decades been a public park. Many is the time that I have been upon my perambulations and found myself in the company of those who frequent the Lower Grounds. Painted doxies, Indian fakirs, purveyors of patent remedies and confidence tricksters. All of whom use the Lower Grounds for their own wicked end, with nary a complaint from those living in the vicinity. yet when a fine and noble institution wishes to utilise part of the grounds there is uproar.

I feel that at the heart of the problem is the cosmopolitan nature of the local population. In days of yore, when there was naught but fields around, the residents of Aston were local folk, their hovels handed down through the generations. The benefits of the Industrial revolution, however, have meant Birmingham has witnessed an influx of newcomers from far and wide, and these people have brought with them no great love for our game. After all, how could a man from as far away as, say, Worcestershire, ever hope to nurture a love for that which is a truly Brummagem pastime?

I say, if we are to thrive, then the Manor of Aston needs to change. let us maintain an area populate entirely with local folk, who have a great desire to see the Aston Villa club representing them in a fitting manner. Aston for Astonians, That must be the way forward.

The Youth of Today

H&V 95 – March 2002.

The children of the Children of the Revolution….well not exactly, but here we can take a look at a few of the young wannabes at Villa Park.

We’ve heard it all before, this kid is going to be the future of Aston Villa, the best youngster since Gary Shaw, Ian Olney, Bryan Small, Graham Fenton and countless others, all were going to be the one. In the cold light of day Lee Hendrie is the only home-grown player to make a real and sustained impact on the first team since Tony Daley. Gareth Barry and Jlloyd Samuel are players we pulled in after Brighton and Charlton had already done the groundwork.

So who amongst the current crop has the potential to make a real impact?

Much of the hype surrounding the youngsters this season has centered on two players,Thomas Hitzlsperger and Luke Moore. The reason is that both could, or will, leave Villa at the end of the season.

Thomas Hitzlsperger – A very good player who had a hell of a left foot, Thomas has really found his form this season and seem settled in the midfield in the reserves. he’s probably suffered in the past for the coaches not knowing his best position, played left back, left midfield, central midfield and centre forward but is now firmly entrenched in the centre of the park. Hitz is apparently free to leave Villa at the end of the season if he hasn’t played ten games. We should keep him because he’s potentially a quality player and he takes a fantastic dead ball.

Luke Moore – younger brother of Stefan, who we will come on to later. An England U-15 international who has played several matches on Sky TV this season and always looks a class above his team mates  including a hat-trick against Wales Luke has signed schoolboy forms in the face of interest from Liverpool and Arsenal. A very quick striker who appears to have great poise in front of goal, he needs time to develop naturally and maybe in three or four years he will be knocking on the door of the first team. We shouldn’t be putting too much pressure on  someone who is still very young, but there’s tremendous potential here.

Jon Bewers – Another young defender who looks very good on the ball. He’s regularly captained the reserves this season, even when the likes of Stone, Dublin or Wright are playing. Bewers plays either right back or centre half and looks equally comfortable at either position. Another player who will be looking to get a game or two in the first team in the next eighteen months, for my money he will be the one to put genuine pressure on Delaney for the right back berth.

Stephen Cooke – A player who left Manchester United to sign for Villa – all respect to the lad! Build wise he is very similar to Lee Hendrie, very waif-like. However, he has excellent ball skills and has that all too rare ability to go past defenders. Stephen is the type of player that needs to get appearances on the bench and come on for the last fifteen minutes of games with instructions to run at the opposition. He looks like he could be a very useful addition to the first team squad already.

Stefan Moore – A year ago this was the boy that everyone was raving about. A  striker who can finish is invaluable to any team, and Stefan is a very aware player who is good at timing his forward runs. In the youth team for the FA Youth Cup he is playing a midfield role, which is a shame because it would be dynamite to see the brothers up front together. He had a loan spell at Chesterfield and is another who will be knocking on the door next season. I’d like to see him get a regular run out as the first choice striker for the reserves.

John McGrath – Last year  he was primed as the new left back, the boy to remove Wrighty from his throne. However it all seems to have gone pear-shaped this year, whenever he has been in the reserves it’s as a substitute. I presume John has had injuries as he looked a very promising player whenever I saw him. A very pacy player who has probably suffered from abandoning the wing-back system.

Boaz Myhill & Wayne Henderson – The young goalkeepers on the block. Myhill is the regular reserve keeper when Enckleman isn’t having a run out and has had a few appearances on the first team subs bench. Big and commanding, he’s also a good shot-stopper and has England Youth honours as well. Henderson, as anyone who witnessed the FA Youth Cup win over Brighton will testify, is a very good shot-stopper. Both look as though they have benefited from having a few months with Peter Schmeichel and Eric Steele around. Both have futures in the game.

Steven Davis – This is a young lad who I have only seen play twice, but he was by far the classiest player on the pitch on both occasions. He’s an England U-17 international who plays in the centre of midfield, has time on the ball and is a very assured passer. It will be interesting to see how he progresses to the reserves and the more physical approach.

There are others in the reserves and the youth teams that look good, but these are the pick as I’ve seen them. Other people who watch them play might disagree, or they might think I’ve overlooked someone else.

Time will tell if any of these are the real deal. Will they be a Gary Shaw, or will they be a Richard Walker? I don’t know for sure, but mark my words. There is some real talent out there.

Gareth Edwards.

She wore…She wore…

She did, indeed, wear a claret ribbon in the Merry Month of May. And she wore it for the Villa who were going to Rotterdam.

How did English clubs manage to obtain a monopoly on the trophy for so long? How could we take on and beat all-comers? Most intriguing of all, why didn’t anyone make much of a fuss about it? Granted, there was recession. hooliganism and other problems, but the match before the final was the Friday previous, against Swansea.

From memory the league champions, off to play in the European Cup final, got a home attendance of 18,000. It hadn’t been long before that when we were getting more than twice that number against Torquay Uited. We won the European Cup and nobody really cared. Then we got relegated, and nobody seemed very bothered about that either.

But these things aside, we were off to the European Cup final. Unofficial, ticketless and with  all kinds of threats ringing in our ears from the government, police, UEFA, the club and my dad. Travel had cost £38 from Transalpino on Snow Hill and it  probably wouldn’t cost much more than that to fly to Amsterdam  now. We got the first train from New Street to Euston on Monday morning, then on to Harwich for the ferry. The boats on the North Sea crossing were huge, and some of them had been requisitioned for the Falklands war but ours was fine and we got into the Hook of Holland safe enough on Monday afternoon.

As you’d expect there was a lot of interest from the Dutch TV crews and one of them asked the daftest question I think I’ve heard even now. “Why are you heading for Amsterdam when the final is in Rotterdam?” 

I was asking the same question myself (!) but tagged along with everyone else as the train headed towards the Dutch capital. It wasn’t long after we arrived that I realised this wasn’t going to be a trip like Anderlecht. There we’d managed to colonise major parts of Brussels without problem. Amsterdam, though, was a totally different experience. The Dam’s been cleaned up a lot now; it’s like Disney land for stag parties, with BrothelWorld and the Drug Park. Back in 1982 it was seriously heavy with moody-looking gangs of rastas and white lads looking like they meant business.

Three of us booked into a hotel then found ourselves in a British bar. Unfortunately, some wanker walked over to a young Dutch lad on a bike and smacked him in the face. Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t long before the locals mobbed up and there were a few scuffles outside the bar. Knives were pulled, glasses thrown, the police arrived, dished out a few whacks with batons and we left.

Back to the hotel, and we thought we might as well have another try at experiencing the Amsterdam nightlife, but no sooner had we set foot on the pavement than there was another big gang standing outside the hotel next door. They were probably harmless but we didn’t fancy our chances so we went back and barricaded the door.

Next morning we were off to Rotterdam. Getting a room was a lot harder, but luckily I’d met somebody on the train I knew from the semi and he’d booked in advance so he let me leave my clothes in his place while I tried to find a bed for the night. No chance – after about four hours of walking round the city I finally realised that there wasn’t a single hotel room available but this lad (who naturally I’ve never seen since – if he’s reading this I owe him a few beers so get in touch) offered me his floor to doss down on.

Over the road from the station was another English bar so we passed the time of day drinking and talking to the locals. They were solidly behind us – one big skinhead said “The Germans will be arriving at eight in the morning. Will you come to the station with us to attack them?” He was a bit disappointed when nobody wanted to know. He’d probably been expecting us to be game for anything , but we’d read so much about what would happen if there was any trouble we were all frightened to so much as break a glass.

The night passed in a haze of reminiscences and there was still a sense of disbelief. So me of the older heads had been going when we were in the third division and here we were about to play for the highest honour in football. Then I remembered that I still didn’t have a ticket. So I walked up the road, went into a couple of bars close by and it took me about ten minutes to get a ticket at face value. It turned out to be in with the Germans, but no matter.

Next morning, and the Bayern supporters had arrived in force. I don’t know what happened at the station. but there were no reports of trouble. I guess our skinhead mate hadn’t got out of bed in time. The bar had upped their prices so the nearby supermarket was doing good trade. I struck lucky for the second time in a row when another old mate turned up. Him and his brother had booked a hotel in a small town on the way back to the Hook of Holland for that night so I arranged to go back with them.

There was a bit of an incident when a German oompah band came past and a few if our more excitable supporters moved towards them, but the police were straight over and sorted things out. After that there was nothing to do except jump the tram to the ground.

I got into the stand with most of the Villa fans. There were about 15,000 Bayern, 12,000 of us and the rest of the 33,000 crowd were neutrals in a ground that held 46,000. Look at film of the game and there’s a lot of empty seats – unimaginable now. There was an area of terrace underneath us and I could see our mate the skin enjoying himself with his new friends.

The match has been replayed over and over in everyone’s head and I still think we’re going to let a goal in at the end. But we didn’t and the end of the match saw Dennis going up to lift the European Cup. We were there, and she was wearing that ribbon.

The lads I’d arranged to meet were, miracle of miracles, at the right place for the right time, we jumped back on the train and I got booked in for what would be my first decent night’s sleep in almost a week. There might well have been mayhem on the streets of Amsterdam and Rotterdam but we celebrated the greatest night in the Villa’s history in a hotel bar somewhere I’ve forgotten the name of with a couple of beers and a discussion with some Dutch truck drivers about the Common Market.

The journey back was a bit of a rough one, with high seas and rain beating down on the boat. Looking at the state of most of our fellow passengers I was glad of the early night we’d had and the decent hotel I’d stayed in. There were no press waiting to meet us off the boat but the transport police were mob-handed and only too willing to push around a bunch of exhausted, hungover representatives of the best team in Europe.

25 years. Where does the time go?

Joe Wilkinson.

Good Honest Beer

H&V 116 – August 2004

So, as you enter the magic kingdom for the first time in three months, what’s changed? Not much, you may think, but take another look. More than likely the advertising signs will have altered. People who describe their seat location by the board opposite will have to redefine where they are. It’s impossible to say which advert you’re behind because you never see it.

Villa Park has become a giant advertisement hoarding. Fly-posting given official sanction. No virgin space allowed to remain untouched, it must be covered with a grotesque inscription urging you to spend your money on something you neither want nor need.

Even when there’s a tiny pristine space, as at the Holte End, it gets draped with a home-made banner. And Ellis isn’t going to go, however big you make it.

Occasionally the ball will get passed out to the wing and the pitch-side billboards will move instead. All to the distraction of those present and to the intense irritation of the armchair viewer at whom it is really aimed. But hey, aren’t those advertising boffins clever? No. Sending men to the moon and back, that’s clever. Changing a board by pressing a button, that’s childish.

Then there’s those centre-circle adverts that a couple of blokes struggle to remove just as the decibel level on the PA rises above screech and the teams come out – again. At least they haven’t got around to painting them on the grass yet. And if sky-writing had not been banned following an incident at Highbury when Villa were the visitors in October 1958 (another Villa last, so to speak) there’s no saying what that would be used for.

It hasn’t always been thus. There used to be precisely twelve advertisements at Villa Park.    Now if you try counting them no two people would agree on how many there are.

There were hoardings above the two scoreboards, nine of equal size along the frontage of the Witton Lane stand and Good Honest Beer across the ends of the three sections of the curved roof. It was something of a coup by M&B to advertise their beer at Villa Park because it was made in Smethwick, deep in Albion territory. When beer was beer Villa Park was Aston, heartland of Ansells. With the promotion of the weaker export ales the advert was changed to Export Pale Ale, and beer and the Villa have never been the same since.

No advertisement was ever allowed to spoil the claret and blue fascia of the wonderful edifice that was the Trinity Road Stand.

Pre-war spectators in Trinity Road looked across at an advert for “Palmers Tyres – fastest on earth” on the corrugated iron Witton Lane roof, but when the roof was renewed nobody deigned to spoil the symmetry. After the war the adverts for theatres and hotels (you lived in Birmingham so why stay in a hotel here?) were replaced by those for gas and electricity companies. Competition was fierce between the two over the choice of fuel for lighting and heating. Your local swimming baths invited attendance long before fitness fanatics roamed the earth.

The adverts did not change much year by year. The author of the MEB advert displayed a sense of humour when “Electricity Makes a House a Home” was changed to the oft-quoted “Electrify your Villa and score.” And who can forget “Well saved in the Municipal Bank“? Even though Municipal Bank is now lost in the Lloyd’s empire.

The Gothic script of the Birmingham Mail header needed no embellishment, it was a subtle dig at its rival, the Evening Despatch, as much as being an advert. “Smoke Grand Cut – it never burns the tongue” was enough to make any would-be teenage smoker wonder what the other tobaccos did. Next came “Gittins – the Lucas agent”. Nobody needed to ask who Lucas was even though few could afford the spare parts, much less the car. But many of them worked there. 

There was clothiers – “Foster Brothers – outfitters”. Quaint words even then, especially to every schoolboy in the crowd who would be dragged along to Fosters every summer for his new school uniform. One size too big, “because he’ll grow into it”.

John Russell.