Villa Park & other old Villa pictures

[PeterWithesShin]

[PeterWithesShin]

[Andy_Lochhead_in_the_air]

[garyshawsknee]

We really did have a couple of the best stands in football.

[four fornicholl]

How about a short vid of the Holte rocking in colour as a nightcap, its a quiet night tonight.

[PeterWithesShin]

[garyshawsknee]

You have an audience of at least one.

[Louzie0]

Impossible to watch that without a smile.
Bring back the good times, RDM! 

[garyshawsknee]

As a southerner that video makes me proud to be an adopted Brummie.

[wittonwarrior]

The reasons for demolishing the old Holte were sound enough - giving a stand that age the type of facilities customers expect nowadays would have been next to impossible. With the roof extension, there would have been four pillars blocking the view. Bad enough when your're standing, and have the option to move around.  Even worse in a fixed location.

And yet. And yet.

Our recent visit to Hillsborough shows the old and the new can co-exist alongside each other.

The back of the old Holte was too far away from the pitch for Premier League regulations.

How the heck then do Newcastle keep the away  fans  up in the clouds and get away with it then.  Not a  great deal  of difference between the Hillsborough Kop and the old Holte.

[dave.woodhall]

The reasons for demolishing the old Holte were sound enough - giving a stand that age the type of facilities customers expect nowadays would have been next to impossible. With the roof extension, there would have been four pillars blocking the view. Bad enough when your're standing, and have the option to move around.  Even worse in a fixed location.

And yet. And yet.

Our recent visit to Hillsborough shows the old and the new can co-exist alongside each other.

The back of the old Holte was too far away from the pitch for Premier League regulations.

How the heck then do Newcastle keep the away  fans  up in the clouds and get away with it then.  Not a  great deal  of difference between the Hillsborough Kop and the old Holte.

Presumably because the angle is a lot steeper.

[wittonwarrior]

To me the Sheffield Kop is just a bigger version of the old Witton End.  I got told that the back was cut when they eventually put a roof on it.`

As for the Holte today, I don't like the way they have cut the corner off from Witton Lane - would always get my fish/Chips from across the road and queue at K entrance.  I used to stand  towards the side on the next tier up - just back from where the loons used to congregate in the late 70's/early 80's.  Gave for a quick  getaway for the London train at 17:48 and  if the game was really shit then the 17:18.

[Godfrey Brian]

Our spot was right by the roof support pillar on the Trinity Road side of the Holte before it's roof extension. We'd frequently end up a distance from it depending how the match went and how lively it got . I was really pleased to be able to take my, then, small sons to stand near there (on milk crates) for the old Holte's last game.

[Hopadop]

Ten to five on Cup Semi final day and that view would come up on Grandstand while Barry Davies told us what happened in the game.

And my chest would swell with pride at one of the great vistas of British football.

I remember exactly that, and him calling it a "great cathedral of football".

I loved that. Not a theatre, fortress or cauldron. A cathedral.

[castlefields_villan]

Ten to five on Cup Semi final day and that view would come up on Grandstand while Barry Davies told us what happened in the game.

And my chest would swell with pride at one of the great vistas of British football.

I remember exactly that, and him calling it a "great cathedral of football".

I loved that. Not a theatre, fortress or cauldron. A cathedral.

Whatever happens on the pitch, nobody will ever take away the fact that we have had and still have the most unique individual football ground in the world IMO.