Aston Villa

Aston Villa is a football (soccer) club from England.

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Aston Villa Football Club (also known as The Villa, Villa and The Villans) is an English professional football (soccer) club based in Aston, Birmingham, who play in the Premier League. Aston Villa was founded in 1874 and have played at their current home ground, Villa Park, since 1897. Aston Villa were founder members of The Football League in 1888. They were also founder members of the Premier League in 1992. Aston Villa was floated by the previous owner and chairman Doug Ellis, but in 2006 full control of Aston Villa was acquired by Randy Lerner.

They are one of the oldest and most successful football clubs in England, having won the First Division Championship seven times and the FA Cup seven times. Aston Villa has the fourth highest total of major honours won by an English club.

They have a long-standing and fierce rivalry with local rivals Birmingham City F.C., although West Bromwich Albion F.C. is actually the closest professional football club. The Birmingham derby between Aston Villa and Birmingham City has been played since 1879. The club's traditional Kit (association football) colours are claret shirts with sky blue sleeves, white shorts and sky blue socks. Their traditional crest is of a Attitude (heraldry) rampant gold lion on a light blue background with Aston Villa's motto "Prepared" underneath; a modified version of this was adopted in 2007. Aston Villa's first match was against the local Aston Brook St Mary's Rugby football team. As a condition of the match, the Villa side had to agree to play the first half under rugby rules and the second half under football rules. Villa quickly became one of the best teams in the Midlands, winning their first honour, the Birmingham Senior Cup in 1880, under the captaincy of Scotsman George Ramsay.
Aston Villa won its first FA Cup in 1887 with captain Archie Hunter, becoming one of the game's first household names. Aston Villa were one of the dozen teams that competed in the inaugural Football League in 1888 with one of Aston Villa's directors, William McGregor being the league's founder. Aston Villa emerged as the most successful English club of the Victorian era, winning no fewer than five League titles and three FA Cup's by the end of Queen Victoria reign. In 1897, the year Villa won The Double, they moved into their present home, the Aston Lower Grounds. Supporters coined the name "Villa Park"; no official declaration listed the ground as Villa Park.

Aston Villa won their sixth FA Cup in 1920, soon after though Aston Villa began a slow decline that led to Villa, at the time one of the most famous and successful clubs in world football, being relegated in 1936 for the first time to the Football League Second Division. This was largely the result of a dismal defensive record: they conceded 110 goals in 42 games, 7 of them coming from Arsenal F.C. Ted Drake in an infamous 1–7 defeat at Villa Park. Like all English clubs, Villa lost seven seasons to the World War II, and that conflict brought several careers to a premature end. The team was rebuilt under the guidance of former player Alex Massie for the remainder of the 1940s. Aston Villa's first trophy for 37 years came in the 1956–57 season when another former Villa player, Eric Houghton led Aston Villa to a then record seventh FA Cup Final win, defeating the 'Busby Babes' of Manchester United F.C. in the final. The team struggled in the league though and were relegated two seasons later, due in large part to complacency. However, under the stewardship of manager Joe Mercer Villa returned to the top-flight in 1960 as Second Division Champions. The following season Aston Villa became the first team to win the Football League Cup.

Mercer's forced retirement from Aston Villa in 1964 signaled a period of deep turmoil. The most successful club in England was struggling to keep pace with changes in the modern game, with Villa being relegated for the third time, under manager Dick Taylor (football manager) in 1967. The following season the fans called for the board to resign as Villa finished 16th in the Second Division. With mounting debts and Villa lying at the bottom of Division Two, the board sacked Tommy Cummings (the manager brought in to replace Taylor), and within weeks the entire board resigned under overwhelming pressure from fans. After much speculation, control of Aston Villa was bought by London financier Pat Matthews, who also brought in Doug Ellis as chairman. However, new ownership could not prevent Villa being relegated to the Third Division for the first time at the end of the 1969–70 in English football season. However, Villa gradually began to recover under the management of former club captain Vic Crowe. In the 1971–72 in English football they returned to the Second Division as Champions with a record 70 points. In 1974 Ron Saunders was appointed manager. His brand of no-nonsense man-management proved effective, with Aston Villa winning the League Cup the following season. By 1977 he had taken them back into the First Division and Europe.
Villa were back amongst the elite as Saunders continued to mould a winning team. This culminated in a seventh top-flight league title in 1980–81 in English football. To the surprise of commentators and fans, Saunders quit halfway through the 1981–82 in English football season, after falling out with the chairman, with Villa in the quarter final of the European Cup. He was replaced by his softly-spoken assistant manager Tony Barton who guided Aston Villa to a 1–0 victory over FC Bayern Munich in the 1982 European Cup Final in Rotterdam courtesy of a Peter Withe goal. The following season Villa were crowned European Super Cup winners, beating FC Barcelona in the final. This marked a pinnacle though and Villa's fortunes declined sharply for most of the 1980s, culminating in relegation in 1987. This was followed by promotion the following year under Graham Taylor (footballer) and a runners-up position in the First Division in the 1989-90 season.

Villa were one of the founding members of the Premier League in 1992, and finished runners-up to Manchester United in the inaugural season. For the rest of the Nineties however Villa went through three different managers and their league positions were inconsistent, although they did win two League Cups and regularly achieved Uefa Cup qualification. Villa reached the FA Cup final in 2000 but lost 1–0 to Chelsea F.C. in the last game to be played at the old Wembley Stadium (1923). Again Villa's league position continued to fluctuate under several different managers and things came to a head in the summer of 2006 when David O'Leary left in acrimony. After 23 years as chairman and single biggest shareholder (approximately 38%), Doug Ellis finally decided to sell his stake in Aston Villa due to ill-health. After much speculation it was announced Aston Villa was to be bought by American Businessman Randy Lerner, owner of National Football League franchise the Cleveland Browns. The arrival of a new owner and manager Martin O'Neill marked the start of a new period of optimism at Villa Park and sweeping changes occurred throughout Aston Villa including a new crest, a new kit sponsor and team changes in the summer of 2007.

Club colours and crest

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Nobody is quite sure why claret and blue became Aston Villa's adopted colours. The main theory surrounding the colours suggests that with the Scottish influence of characters such as George Ramsay and William McGregor the kit was created from the combination of the maroon of Heart of Midlothian F.C. and the blue of Rangers F.C., with the Scottish lion rampant included in the badge.

A new crest was revealed on 2 May 2007, for the 2007–08 in English football season and beyond. The new crest includes a Star (football crest) to represent the European Cup win in 1982, and has a light blue background behind Villa's 'lion rampant'. The traditional motto "Prepared" remains in the crest, and the name Aston Villa has been shortened to AVFC, FC having been omitted from the previous crest. Randy Lerner petitioned fans to help with the design of the new crest. The three kits that carry the new crest were unveiled on 17 July 2007, in The Mailbox, Birmingham. On 2 June 2008 it was announced that Aston Villa will forgo commercial kit sponsorship for the 2008–09 season; instead they will advertise the charity Acorns Children's Hospice, the first deal of its kind in Premiership history. Aston Villa have also announced the partnership will continue for the 2009-2010 season when they will also have a new away kit, inspired by the traditional home kit of the England football team.

Stadium

Aston Villa's current home venue is Villa Park, which is a UEFA elite stadium, having previously played at Aston Park (1874–1876) and Perry Barr (1876–1897).
Villa Park is currently the largest football stadium in the English Midlands, and the eighth largest stadium in England. It has hosted 16 England internationals at senior level, the first in 1899, and the most recent in 2005. Thus it was the first English ground to stage international football in three different centuries.
Villa Park is the most used stadium in FA Cup semi-final history, having hosted 55 semi-finals. The Club have planning permission to extend the North Stand; This will involve the 'filling in' of the corners to either side of the North Stand. If completed, the capacity of Villa Park will be increased to approximately 51,000. The current training ground is located at Bodymoor Heath Training Ground in north Warwickshire, the site for which was purchased by former Aston Villa Chairman Doug Ellis in the early 1970s from a local farmer. Although Bodymoor Heath was state-of-the-art in the 1970s, by the late 1990s the facilities had started to look dated. In November 2005, Ellis and Aston Villa plc announced a state of the art Pound sterling13 million redevelopment of Bodymoor in 2 phases. However, work on Bodymoor was suspended by Ellis due to financial problems, and was left in an unfinished state until new owner Randy Lerner made it one of his priorities to make the site one of the best in world football. The new training ground was officially unveiled on 6 May 2007, by current manager Martin O'Neill, then team captain Gareth Barry and 1982 European Cup winning team captain Dennis Mortimer, with the Aston Villa squad moving in for the 2007–08 season.

Club ownership

The first shares in Aston Villa were issued towards the end of the 19th century as a result of legislation that was intended to codify the growing numbers of professional teams and players in the Association Football leagues. FA teams were required to distribute shares to investors as a way of facilitating trading amongst the teams without implicating the FA itself. This trading continued for much of the 20th century until Doug Ellis started buying up many of the shares in the 1960s. He was chairman and substantial shareholder of "Aston Villa F.C." from 1968–1975 and the majority shareholder from 1982–2006. Aston Villa was Initial public offering on the London Stock Exchange in 1996, and the share price fluctuated in the ten years after the flotation. In 2006 it was announced that several consortia and individuals were considering bids for Aston Villa. In Ellis's last year in charge Villa lost GB£8.2m before tax, compared with a GB£3m profit the previous year, and income had fallen from GB£51.6m to GB£49m. Randy Lerner took full control on 18 September as he had 89.69% of the shares. On 19 September 2006, Aston Villa plc executive Chairman Doug Ellis and his board resigned to be replaced with a new board headed by Lerner. A Villa in the community programme has also been set up to encourage support amongst young people in the region. The new owners have also initiated several surveys aimed at gaining the opinions of Villa fans and to involve them in the decision making process. Meetings also occur every three months where supporters are invited by ballot and are invited to ask questions to the Board.

Like many English football clubs Aston Villa has had several Football hooliganism associated with it: Villa Youth, Steamers, Aston Villa Hardcore and the C-Crew, the latter being very active during the 1970s and 1980s. As can be seen across the whole of English football, the hooligan groups have now been marginalised. In 2004 several Villa firms were involved in a fight with Queens Park Rangers F.C. fans outside Villa Park in which a steward died. The main groupings of supporters can now be found in a number of domestic supporters' clubs. This includes the Official Aston Villa Supporters Club which also has many smaller regional and international sections. There were several independent supporters clubs during the reign of Doug Ellis but most of these disbanded after his retirement. The club's supporters also publish fanzines such as Heroes and Villains (football fanzine) and The Holy Trinity.

Aston Villa's arch-rivals are Birmingham City F.C., with games between the two clubs known as the 'Birmingham derby. The two teams contested three FA Cup finals in the late 19th century. Through the relegation of West Brom and Birmingham to The Championship in the 2005–06 season in the FA Premier League 2006–07 Premiership season Villa were the only Midlands club in that League. The nearest opposing team Villa faced during that season was Sheffield United F.C., who played away in South Yorkshire. For the Premier League 2007–08 Villa once again had two local derbies after Birmingham were promoted to the Premier League on 29 April 2007. Villa were victorious on the both occasions. Birmingham were relegated at the end of the 2007-08 season, as such, there was no Second City derby for the 2008-09 season. However, Birmingham City F.C. finished second in Football League Championship that season and are set to resume their rivalry with Aston villa in the 2009-10 Premiership.

In popular culture

A number of television programmes have included references to Aston Villa over the past few decades. In the sitcom Porridge (TV series), the character Lennie Godber is a Villa supporter. In the first episode of Yes Minister Jim Hacker MP says he needs to get off early to watch Aston Villa play. However, in a later episode, he launches a campaign to save his local team, the fictional "Aston Wanderers". When filming began on Dad's Army, Villa fan, Ian Lavender was allowed to choose Frank Pike's scarf from an array in the BBC wardrobe, he chose a claret and blue one—Aston Villa's colours.

Aston Villa has also featured on several occasions in prose. Joseph Gallivan's book "Oi, Ref" is about a referee who is a Villa fan who conspires to turn an FA Cup Semi-Final in his team's favour. Stanley Woolley, a character in Derek Robinson (novelist)'s Booker shortlisted novel Goshawk Squadron is an Aston Villa fan and names a pre-war starting eleven Villa side. Together with The Oval, Villa Park is referenced by the poet Philip Larkin in his poem about the World War I, MCMXIV.

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