Villa glee

I was speaking with my brother the day after our 3-0 victory over Middlesborough and we were reminiscing about the glory week back in September 1992 when being a Villa supporter was a continuous high for seven days straight. During that week we’d played Liverpool, Oxford & Boro, beating each of them and doing so with a level of great entertainment that had us eating from the palm of their hands. Saunders made his debut v Liverpool scoring twice in a 4-2 win (and I believe it may have been the Rosenthal miss game too?), at Oxford I took a wayward McGrath shot full in the face before we ribbed their poor bald keeper all night long until he scored a comical own goal and finally, we won a thriller 3-2 at Ayresome Park a few days later. Three games, loadsa goals, three victories, joy unconfined, these were happy days indeed but a quarter of a century ago now, however, a recent seven day period in 2018 has gone some distance toward rivalling it, albeit without my brother and I being in attendance this time. That’s the tragedy of living in Aberdeenshire, one of many to be frank, you have to live your Villa experience through the prism of Sky Sports, but with them broadcasting Villa three times in a week I was happy to take advantage.

The revelry began with a triumphant 4-2 victory over Birmingham City which I’m increasingly confident will represent our last home fixture against them for many years. Having overextended our hospitality to the great unwashed in allowing them to go one nil up, we thereafter dismantled them with aplomb and who will forget Hutton’s slalom run to round off the victory, a hundred yard meander from one end of the pitch to the other, beating four bemused bluenoses before nestling the ball into the Holte End net. I was watching the game on my ipad in my employer’s office, long story which I won’t bore you with, and my celebratory circuit of the office floor when Hutton scored set off an alarm since I wasn’t meant to be there on a Sunday. (The security guard let me off, he’s a Celtic supporter and therefore fully appraised of the importance of a local derby). The victory over Blues felt like a seminal moment, as if Dean Smith’s influence since taking the helm had truly begun to take shape, all memories of Bruce gone as we showed our inglorious neighbours a clean pair of heels, packing them off from whence they came for one final time since we’ll get promoted and they won’t, it’ll be many years before we have to suffer their like again.

The Blues win safely tucked away, roll on three days and we had the most ludicrous game of football seen at Villa Park since the Blackburn 6-4 or Ipswich 7-1, a preposterous 5-5 draw in which our centre forward was disappointed only to have notched the one hat-trick. I watched the game at an Aberdeen season ticket holder’s house, a guy who doubles as a Forest fan having taken a shine to them back in the late 70s when they were any good. Regrettably, I found myself perched on his sofa beneath a signed photograph of Beelzebub, said individual being his all-time favourite player, and it was all I could do not to tear the photo off the wall and stamp on it, but I held my composure, transfixed instead by a kamikaze game of football. When we went two down after six minutes I was ready to get my coat, 3-3 at halftime and I was reaching for the tablets and at 5-4 against ten men I secretly gave the oaf in the photograph a triumphant wink, until acknowledging the folly of my ways five minutes later. The final whistle saw stunned players and supporters rooted to the spot in which they stood, bewildered at the previous ninety minutes’ travails, and my immediate reaction was to offer Nyland and co pelters for losing us two points, but it wasn’t long before I looked back on the most entertaining game since, well, the Sunday three days prior.

Another three days later and it was the Boro match, a game I’d written off as a grim bore-athon given our opponents were managed by Pulis, the only man capable of making Megson look like an attack minded manager. But did we not go and put on a masterclass of the type I’ve not seen by a Villa team since the days of Sid, Shaw, Morley and McNaught, we were absolutely awesome. Grealish purred like a cat, Bolassie toyed with his marker until he literally went off in a daze, even Whelan scored. We hammered them, absolutely hammered them, it was men against babies never mind boys and all that was missing was a reducer style tackle on Downing as punishment for all those fifty fifties he used to pull out of when playing for us. I switched the telly off exhausted and exhilarated, twelve goals in seven days, our forward line unstoppable, midfield expansive and defence, well, perhaps that’s where the hyperbole ends but so what, when Villa are as entertaining as this the deficiencies of your back five seem immaterial.

This is what the appointment of Dean Smith has done for our club, it hasn’t just been a shot in the arm but the leg, head, chest, arse, you name it. This guy has us playing football, that’s right, football, a sport that our previous manager couldn’t spell never mind coach and we’re now in the shake up for a splendid second half to the season. Who knows how it’ll end from here, I happen to think we’ll go up, but whatever the outcome it feels we have a club to be proud of once again, a manager who ‘gets it’, a togetherness we’ve been lacking for years and it’s fun being a Villa supporter again. Not so very long ago I’d be hard pushed to switch a Villa game on so rancidly did we stink the place out whenever Sky were mug enough to broadcast us, viewing figures must have rivalled that of the old fashioned BBC2 test card, but today you couldn’t blame them for demanding pay-per-view status for our fixtures.

September 1992 saw the likes of McGrath, Saunders, Atkinson and Froggy providing entertainment which had us in rapture, sadly this wasn’t capped off with any tangible success. 2018 finds Jack, Cafu and Tammy tearing into the opposition and playing a style of football that warms the heart, here’s hoping we’ll have something to show for it come May time. We’ve had false dawns and we’ve had more disappointments than football supporters can rightfully expect in the space of two decades, but this time I reckon we’re on the brink of better times, get a decent keeper and a centre back worth his salt and the playoffs would represent a disappointment never mind an achievement.