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Aston Villa History Thread


VILLAMARV

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Nice little trip down memory lane from John Gregory about his dealings with Ellis. Nothing major we hadn’t heard before, but interesting enough.

Doug really had a bit of a crush of David Ginola. A real summer romance by the sounds of it (quoted elsewhere in the article “he’s got amazing hair” ).

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“David was on £20,000-a-week at Tottenham and Doug started out by offering him £15,000, which was his usual tactic. By the end of the meeting with ‘team Ginola’ he’d agreed to pay him more than double that and I’m thinking ‘I’ve got (Paul) Merson, (Dion) Dublin and (Gareth) Southgate, and they’re all going to be knocking on my door’.

Of course, word got around and Merse refused to go on a pre-season trip until he was put on the same salary, and fair play because he had been brilliant for us.

“I must say that David was wonderful around the club and great company to chat to. He scored some brilliant goals, including in the final against Basel, but I remember we had just started using an early version of the GPS system to track the players.

Every Tuesday the guy would come in to go through the players’ results from the weekend and one week he came in to me and said ‘one of your players moved one metre in the first two minutes of the game. Who do you think it was?’ I immediately guessed it was our goalkeeper David James, but, of course, it was David (Ginola). He walked one metre after the opposition kicked off and stood still. That was him, he was so frustrating.”

And yes, Muzzy Izzet gets his mention as per. Oh and so does Ellis’ ability to save money on chocolate.

Telegraph link

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3 hours ago, Stephen_Evans said:

Seeing the Gregory article reminds me of the games against Basel.  I have never managed to find any footage of that final anywhere, which is strange.

I don't think the game was televised. Just the goals on the local news the following day, as I recall, the same as the 5-1 home win against Liverpool. :rolleyes:image.jpeg.0069dc4f532c98cef1e820179f8419f6.jpeg

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 04/07/2023 at 03:11, Marka Ragnos said:

Here's a pretty interesting pre-Villa cricket news report that I dug up (I like trawl through old newspapers) from the Birmingham Daily Mail edition of 24 July 1873. Why interesting? Because it actually shows the names of some of the cricket characters -- Hughes and Scattergood, and here's a C Mathews (not sure if connected to Villa co-founder George) -- who actually co-founded the association football club we all love the next year ... I know this is all very well known stuff, but it's cool to see it in the original papers.  I was struck by the early sheer excitement for "Aston Villa" cricket in the 1870s (which I think simply means the sporting and gaming club connected to Villa Cross Wesleyan Chapel in Handsworth).  I guess I hadn't realised how the cricket-based origins of Aston Villa FC comes down to real people connections, ie, some of the same players who'd been publicly involved in cricket and in the old newspapers.  The name William Mason, for instance, mentioned on Villa's history timeline on its website todayalso turns up in some of these Aston Villa cricket matches, and he also played some version of rugby union foorball.

The_Birmingham_Daily_Mail_Thu__Jul_24__1873_.jpg

 

And here's a cricket report I found from June 1868. It's notable that it again calls the cricket club "Aston Villa." 

Another thing I know for sure after doing some research into this early pre-Villa period is that it indeed wasn't really until George Ramsay's arrival from Glasgow and then the winter of 1876-1877 that AVFC football took off and got a lot more organized. It also seems almost overnight. In 1875, the information is so threadbare. But within a year, it all explodes, thanks clearly to Ramsay's influence. Aston Villa truly arrived then. It's when greater evidence of local football journalism begins, too. I know that we have that sacred 1874 as the beginning, but from what I can gather, it took time. It was literally a small group of friends at first around the Wesleyan Chapel just trying out something new and there was no telling how it would all turn out. 1874 and 1875 were very tentative and inchoate and hazy. I love how it truly all came out of a few blokes, but how else would it, I suppose? And the rest is history.

Birmingham_Daily_Gazette_1868_06_15_page_7.jpg

"Heathfield Rd", the very road I was born on. That makes me proud. 

Edited by sheepyvillian
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10 hours ago, sidcow said:

Anyone know when the cages were taken down from The Holte? 

I'm guessing immediately after Hillsborough or later in response to The Taylor Report. 

The fences came down for the start of the 90/91 season at VP. 

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