Twenty years ago today...

[chippy]

I first started supporting Villa when I was ten or eleven which was about the 00-01 season. I didn't like football until I was 8 and decided to tell everyone I supported Man Utd like every other kid at the time. Although I was bored of them winning all the time and wanted to be different. I didn't want to support my home team Swansea as they were in division 3 at the time and you couldn't be as them on Fifa. So I randomly chose villa and stuck with them ever since. I think we finished 8th that season and beat Chelsea away 3-1 I believe?

[amfy]

My very earliest memory of Villa is standing on Trinity Road, watching my Dad walking back towards us shaking his head sadly at the floor.
I remember going to school on the Monday and telling my classmates that I supported a football team called Aston Villa and they were the best. I was 5.
It was only years later I realised the reason my Dad was shaking his head was that we'd just been relegated to Division 3!

[Andy_Lochhead_in_the_air]

October 1966  Dad took us to Villa v Leeds, we won 3-0.
My only recollection is the smell of Bovril and cigarette smoke under the Witton Lane stand, and Jack Charlton in a white shirt for them. ( I recognised him from a certain game on the telly a few months earlier).
As we walked around the big muddy puddles of the Serpentine after, Dad asked  "Did you enjoy that, do you want to go and see the Villa again?"
"Yeh ! Lets come to all the games !" I said.
Didn't miss a home game from that first one for about 20 years.

[E I Adio]

I was around 5 years old when an uncle took me off to The Hawthorns. I believe that he had some official capacity there, so I can remember sitting in the seats near the halfway line. I don't think I enjoyed it very much, although the truth is I don't think I liked my uncle very much.

Anyway, even though times were hard and he couldn't really afford to, it was the cue for my Villa supporting father to start to take me to Villa Park occasionally. I can remember standing at the front of the Witton Lane stand and seeing greats like Stanley Mathews, Tom Finney and John Charles at close quarters. Then when I was 10 we won the FA cup. Even though all my mates were Baggies fans, there was never any doubt.

[john in oz]

my dad took me to london to see his sister and bro. in law (spurs fan) in 1962 ? villa played spurs there in the fa cup and lost 2-0,went with them 2,dad a villa fan and never looked back....love them

[paulcomben]

...Arsenal 1-2 Aston Villa

Wright for them, Bosnich saves a penalty at 1-0 down, Whittingham and Townsend for us.

...And that was the day I decided to support Aston Villa.

Can anyone else pinpont the exact moment they decided to support Villa? I appreciate that lots were born into it for family reasons; I'm the only Villa supporter in my family (everyone else supports Wolves out of hometown loyalty of Flavour Of The Month FC depending on when they were born) and I don't regret a thing.

A few more trophies would have been nice, but at least I'm not another Staffs red. Or Johnny-come-lately Stoke fan now they're in the Prem, unlike the two Arsenal "fans" I was at school with when this result happened.

I was at that match, sitting among the Arsenal fans, and could not help leaping to my feet when we scored the undeserved winner.

The 1977 League Cup marathon versus Everton got me hooked on the Villa.

1st match was with my Dad: April 29 1978, Villa 6 Ipswich 1 !! (They were taking it easy the week before their only FA Cup Final - Roger Osborne 1 Arsenal 0, then he fainted.)

[Witton Warrior]

The day I went round my mate's house in Rowley (we were 11). His brother was one of the Rowley scooter boys (suedes then) and ran a ska disco on Saturday evenings. He was also Villa mad. Him and his mates allowed us two scrotes into the front room where he was running through his set for the night and, between skanking with the big boys and girls, we were regaled with "Life On The Holte End" - I was in love from that moment in 1971...

Who was the infamous Bovver Bird of the Holte who laid about her with a brolly?