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It will soon be three years since Messrs Sawiris and Edens took over at Villa, and what an exciting three years they have been. We now have record season ticket sales and a huge amount of enthusiasm from fans who really want to see the club build on the momentum it has generated. There have been a couple of nerve-jangling episodes on the way; the first when we escaped from the Championship by the ...

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The Jack Grealish transfer made me sad. Obviously there are a million things to be sad about these days, but as a man in his thirties I’m a little ashamed to admit that a man moving from one football team to another made me sad. I would be lying if I told you I haven’t thought. “If a club like us can’t keep a player like him, what’s the point?”

As Villa fans, we’ve danced this da...

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So he chose success after all. A transient type of success, but success nevertheless. There have been a few analogies about the difficulty or otherwise of winning trophies with Manchester City, some more suitable for family audiences than others, but the one I think the most apt, is that winning at the Etihad is like climbing Everest on a stairlift. It’s not the hardest nor the most challenging of...

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I well remember the day in February 1979 when Trevor Francis was transferred from Birmingham City to Nottingham Forest and in doing so became the first million pound footballer.  Surely nobody can possibly be worth that much?

Well we have now reached the days of the hundred million pounds footballer and the amazing thing is that the individual has so far plied his trade in the claret an...

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The new name for the 100 ball cricket for those who cannot be bothered to watch the real thing.

I received an email from Edgbaston telling me that the game was a sell out so when I saw that it was going to be shown on BBC2 on Sunday afternoon I thought I would do my best to see it through - all the way through.

The game was billed as Birmingham Pheonix v Trent rockets.  Two n...

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One or two reading this may recall that quite a while ago I had the bright idea of looking at Villa’s performances in the seasons immediately following a World Cup as I had long held a theory that our form dipped every four years. After I had examined the stats in more detail my theory just about held up: going down in 1959, 1967 and 1987 as well as fighting relegation battles in 1991 and 1995, wh...

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It would have been fitting if Villa and Liverpool had delayed their Youth Cup final re-match by another twelve months, to make the gap between these two clubs contesting for the trophy a round fifty years. No matter, we got ourselves a good enough contest with a winning result, and the nature of the performances, both then and now, gave Villa fans much comfort at the time, and allows us now the vi...

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Having a total aversion to Subbuteo football (where the only player doing anything is the one with the ball) I choose not to bother with this television extravaganza other than to dip into it during the adverts on the other channel or other idle periods

Hence I barely saw twenty minutes of Italy v Switzerland where the commentators were waxing lyrical on the apparent flare of the Italia...

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It is not unknown for us to leave the field to a chorus of disapproval; I remember Big Ron after a particularly dire performance being asked by a journo if he had heard the booing at the end, to which he replied, "Yes, and I started it". I must admit I enjoyed the Tottenham soundtrack knowing which beacon of the fair deal it was aimed at. After all, N17’s finest had come seamlessly from bei...

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The money had almost run out by the time David O’Leary began his third and final year in charge at Villa Park. A remarkable sixth-place finish in 2004 had been followed by a mid-table one, and the Ellis piggy bank, almost but not quite emptied by the mixed fortunes of John Gregory in the transfer market, was being rattled one last time.

One of several problem areas was in defence, where...