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Any further suggestions for our hall of fame?


John

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The news that Stilyan Petrov is to be added to our Hall of Fame is to be applauded and it is both well merited and timely.

But I am shocked given our proud history and that this hall of fame was created in 2006 that it comprises of just 12 names.

Whilst I fully appreciate that a hall of fame needs to be an exclusive list that reflects only those that have given above and beyond the norm to our football club I think that more than 12 names must already be deserving of this accolade.

Gordon Cowans, Eric Houghton, Brian Little, Dennis Mortimer, Ron Saunders, Peter Withe, Paul McGrath, Peter McParland, Charlie Aitken, William McGregor, George Ramsay, Billy Walker are shortly to be joined by Stan when the club website's history section is redeveloped at the start of the 2013-14 campaign. Surely there are others that also merit a place on that roll of honour?

I would suggest Archie Hunter, Fred Rinder, James Cowan, Charlie Athersmith, John Devey, Joe Bache, Billy George, Howard Spencer, Tommy Smart, Dicky York, Harry Hampton, Pongo Waring, Harry Parkes, Johnny Dixon, Andy Gray, Tony Barton, Graham Taylor, John Gidman, Jimmy Rimmer, Allan Evans, Nigel Spink, Gary Shaw and Tony Morley to start with.

There will be others such as the rest of the 1980 – 82 players for example that merit consideration. But who would you add to that list that have hung up their boots or are no longer managing or working in another capacity at our football club?

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It's a Hall of Fame, not the Hall of Good. Think Paul McGrath and Dwight Yorke are the only two in the Premier League era that truly Hall of Famers. They were a class apart. If you want to add Stan because of the off-the-field stuff, I'm OK with that.

 

Guys like Gabby and Ian Taylor are Holte End heroes, but not sure if you can really consider them a cut above.

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at a guess it'll be like most hall of fames and only induct a certain number a year (6 years, 12 members, im guessing 2 :P )

 

to be fair thats the only way to keep it going, if they inducted 10 players a year you would end up with the likes of joe bennett being inducted in 20 odd years time

 

maybe they should add people who do loads of work behind the scenes too? im not saying the cleaner who worked at VP for 40 years but there will be a lot of people who keep the club ticking over that we dont know about

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Behind the scenes...

 

There's that security guard who always gives the ITKs tip-offs about transfers during the window periods.

 

But, for obvious reasons, he can't be named, so I guess that's a non-starter.

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Of those suggested in the original post Pongo Waring, Tony Barton and Alan Evans all stand out. A lot of the others are half-familiar names to me so I can't comment

 

I like the idea of the whole European Cup team being included, but it would be as a team - only Cowans, Withe and Evans merit being there as "great" individuals (who knows what Shaw might have achieved but he got injured so the argument ends there)

 

At the risk of sounding like an right old fart (45 and fading fast) I do wonder whether these kind of things prompt younger fans to laud their recent heroes rather than seeing the bigger picture, as in 120+ years of history. It makes me smile when someone refers to the likes of Angel as a "legend" when he was just a reasonably good player who did ok in a relatively mediocre period of the club's history. From the Premier League era only Yorke comes close to joining Our Lord as a truly great player (maybe special consideration for Mellberg for his loyalty, attitude and rapport with the fans). Including Stan is just sentimental and misses the point of what a Hall of Fame is all about - we can (and have) shown our respect for him in other ways, and anyone who fights (and has hopefully won) that particular battle deserves total respect, but he is not by any stretch of the imagination a great Villa player

 

A Hall of Fame is about the truly great players in a club's history - for a big but historically under-achieving club like Villa between 12 and 20 would be about right at this stage. The good news is that, once the post-Ferguson Lambert / Villa dynasty has ruled world football for the next 30 years there will be at least another 20 inducted by 2045

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  • 9 years later...
On 10/05/2013 at 00:28, StefanAVFC said:

Won't be long until Gabby makes it as well. Hopefully Guzan in 10 years time.

Ten years on, I don't think either will make it into the Hall of Fame. 

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27 minutes ago, Xela said:

Ten years on, I don't think either will make it into the Hall of Fame. 

scarily i think gabby might have a push behind him if it ever became a social media / public thing

10 years on it be good to see what the opinion of ashley young is now, would have been unthinkable before

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18 minutes ago, MWARLEY2 said:

Who would you consider from the last 10 years ? 

If i had to pick 4 then Martinez Mings McGinn and Grealish would have to be in the conversation. 

Yeah, maybe James Chester too? He was good for us in those Champ seasons. He wasn’t around for long though, was it three seasons? so not sure what the real test for HoF entry is?

Edit: what am I saying, as much as I like Chester he isn’t hall of fame is he?

Edited by alreadyexists
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23 minutes ago, alreadyexists said:

Yeah, maybe James Chester too? He was good for us in those Champ seasons. He wasn’t around for long though, was it three seasons? so not sure what the real test for HoF entry is?

Edit: what am I saying, as much as I like Chester he isn’t hall of fame is he?

I wouldn't say he is a hall of famer. No offence to James Chester who served us well, but we would be setting the bar low there in my opinion.

Edited by NeilS
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