No. 78: Villa Park [Aston Villa]

Saturday, 7th March 2015
Aston Villa v. West Bromwich Albion [FA Cup Quarter-Final] 2-0

I've been to quite few drab encounters this season on the road towards the 92 Club. Doncaster v. Oldham wasn't particularly inspiring. Neither was Crawley v. Crewe for a neutral.

So it was nice to redress the balance a little with a real humdinger of a local derby this afternoon - which just so happened to have the added spice of the victor gifted a place at Wembley in the FA Cup Semi-Finals.

The new Holte End's 2007 facade. Lovely.

I was only able to secure a ticket to this game by contacting Aston Villa and asking them to consider bending their ticketing policy, which stipulated that only fans with a history of booking this season would be sold a ticket. I sent a couple of emails and directed them to this website to prove I wasn't a Baggie trying to boing his way into the home end.

It worked, and so Saturday morning I was on my way up the M40 with the hottest ticket of the weekend in tow. So there's a tip for all you bloggers in how to get around a club's ticketing policy - just spend hundreds of hours travelling to random games and writing up a tedious blog about it, and you may just blag it in.

Villa Fan Tom Hanks: His life obviously still incomplete.

I arrived mid-morning and parked up in the Birmingham district of Witton that is home to Villa Park, had a quick walk around this slightly run-down but functional suburb and deduced there was little to really see here, so hopped on the train for the 3 mile journey into Central Birmingham.

England's second city gets a pretty bad rep for being an ugly city full of tower blocks and civic poured-concrete monstrous carbuncles.

The Paradise Forum in Chamberlain Square: A bit dated.

True enough, Herr Göring's luftwafffe destroyed much of Birmingham's Regency and Victorian splendour, along with a fair chunk of the manufacturing might that made it a target for the Nazi bombs during the city's own blitz of 1940-43.

What the luftwaffe started, the local authorities continued in the 1950s and 60s by ripping down the slums and congested back-to-backs of the city to replace with what at the time would have surely seemed a vision of the future, with all the sleek concrete slabs sliding into the horizon behind giant tarmac causeways as dual carriageways carved through the heart of the city.

Sadly, today these misguided principles of urban modernism just look bleak and ugly, and the massive 4-lane roads that divide the city just make it feel even more disjointed and unwelcoming for the pedestrian explorer.

New Street Station: Very Modern.

Rotunda, Brum.

Change is afoot though - the area around New Street Station is all in flux as the Palisades shopping Centre above the station is redesigned for a re-opening as "Grand Central, Birmingham" later this year.

The station itself looks like a giant alien spaceship has landed amidst the construction cranes and refurbished office blocks.

Even that beacon of the city, the Grade II listed & recently refurbished Rotunda that sits over the top of the Bullring (the most infamous of England's 1960s concrete shopping centres), wouldn't look out of place amongst the financial beasts of the City of London these days. Well, almost.

The bombs and urban modernists of the 20th Century didn't destroy everything from Birmingham's 18th and 19th Century heyday as the cradle of the Industrial revolution however. Victoria Square, home to The Council House (home of the City's Council) is beautiful, and festooned with gorgeous period buildings and art installations.

Birmingham City Council House, Victoria Square.

In the back of the Council House is the fantastic Museum and Art Gallery, which has a bit of everything in it and well worth a visit if you have a spare couple of hours in Birmingham. Highlights for me were a couple of LS Lowry originals, a remarkable display on the Staffordshire Hoard (the largest Anglo-Saxon hoard of gold ever found, discovered in a field in 2009), and an installation by local artist Emma Starkey in which a video is played of the artist, fully naked and waving around a pair of deer antlers to "symbolically transform from woman to deer".

Fair enough dear. I mean deer.

Best of all though were the galleries on the history of Birmingham & its people on the top floor - which included, I was delighted to see, an original Balti dish from the 1977 origins of this fine Birmingham culinary invention!

The Original Birmingham Balti!

My cultural requirements now satisfied, It was now time to head back to Witton, grab something to eat and go and watch a game of football.

I was accompanied by Baggies fans on the 12-minute train ride back to Witton, the visitors having had but a 4 mile hop across the city from their Black Country home to Birmingham, the boundary between the two something that only locals seem to have any clear knowledge of, as both seem to blend into each other within the West Midlands conurbation to an ignorant outsider like me.

But the distinction, the passion and the hatred between the two sets of fans was very evident as soon as I got off the train and nipped into a restaurant for a quick pre-match Chicken Jalfrezi Balti and Nan. Well, I had to really, didn't I?

Birmingham Balti: 2015 Style.

The Witton Arms pub opposite the restaurant was a Villa pub, and as the Albion fans walked past the congregated outside, the rival chants started up as the police watched on.

Villa Fans: "I always wipe my arse, always wipe my arse, always wipe my arse with a tesco's bag!"
Albion Fans: "Hey, Tim Sherwood - Ooh! Ahh! I wanna Know-ow-ow-ow-ow, why you're such a cunt!"

Very witty.

It wasn't all funny chants and high spirits though - I saw the first blood of the day as a young Albion fan who had been hit by a bottle outside the Witton Arms came into the restaurant dripping with blood from his head before being asked to leave and stop putting people off their Balti's. I could sense it was going to be an evening of heightened tensions in the ground. And indeed it was.

Villa Park: Corner of Doug Ellis & North Stands

Villa Park itself is a fantastic ground to approach. First of all, it's bloody massive - and dominates the surrounding area, right from your first view of the giant Doug Ellis stand, visible from the M6 approach. It's also, despite the relatively recent redevelopment, got a lot of character.

The iconic old Trinity Road Stand (considered Archibald Leitch's masterpiece) and it's grand external staircase might have been controversially replaced by a modern stand in 2000, but the staircases, pediments and dutch gables added to the facade of the new Holte End in 2007 go some way to make up for that.

The New Trinity Road Stand.

Behind the new Trinity Road Stand is a small hill onto Aston Park, which I took a brief detour onto before entering the ground. Atop of the hill in clear view of the football ground is the beautiful Jacobean mansion house known as Aston Hall.

Aston Hall: Very Nice.

Within a stone's throw of Villa Park and the throngs of derby-day match-goers, it seemed such an odd place to find a peaceful, green park with this stunning 17th Century house sat quietly within it. But it was time to descend into the maelstrom below - and the magic of the FA Cup Quarter-Finals!

The atmosphere was electric pretty much from 20 minutes before kick-off right until the final whistle. The Holte End sang it's "Holte Enders In The Sky" song (not sure where that comes from exactly), and the West Brom fans in the North Stand sang about wanting Tim Sherwood to let them know why he was such a cunt, again.

The Holte End: Yippeeh aye aaaayyyy.

It was end-to-end stuff on the pitch, too, and going into the break, West Brom could easily have been 2-0 up at half-time, had they taken their own gilt-edged chances. I could feel the tension in the Trinity Road stand around me as the Villa fans wondered if they were going to be able to repeat the League victory here over the same opponents earlier in the week, and earn their place at Wembley.

It was looking very edgy.

But it was Villa who capitalised on the stalemate with two wonderfully taken 2nd half goals which broke Albion hearts.

North Stand: Smoke Bombs Below, Flying Chairs from Above.

Then it all went a bit mental.

Both sides had a player sent off that probably shouldn't have been, the referee throwing yellow cards about like he didn't have a pocket to conceal them in, in a game that up to this point did not reflect the needle and animosity between the fans in the stands.

A Villa Attack in the 1st Half.

Towards the end of the game though, with their cause lost, some Albion fans decided to smash-up the seats in the Upper North stand and throw them down on the Villa fans in the bottom tier. I counted at least 15 seats come flying down into the unsuspecting home fans below - and saw my 2nd gashed head of the day as one lad was led out of the stand and down the player's tunnel with blood pouring from a chair-shaped gash on his bonce. Not pleasant.

Full Time Pitch Invasion: What a Lot of Villains.

And then we had the remarkable pitch invasion of at least 3-4,000 of the Villa fans at the final whistle, jubilant at finally having something to cheer about after a pretty crap couple of years to be a Villain, from all accounts.

Although there was a potential flashpoint with the remaining Albion fans in the lower Doug Ellis Stand, I don't think this invasion was really something to get too excited about - it looked like a genuine outpouring of relief and jubilation to me, not an attempt to intimidate visiting fans and players.

Nonetheless, I'm sure when this game is remembered it'll be for the pitch invasion, and not for the far more dangerous and threatening throwing of chairs from the Upper Tier!

It had been a long day in Birmingham, but one I'd really enjoyed - both the game, the city and the background of a big-match game between two rivals. I was ready to go home though.

Not for me a trip to Wembley to look forward to - More likely it'll be Oldham, or Coventry, or Colchester or somewhere similar next. But I'm glad to say - I simply can't wait for the next one!

With thanks to Andrew Whing (@Whingy2).


NEXT UP - To Be Confirmed 14.03.15!