Heroes & Villains, the Aston Villa fanzine
Heroes & Villains => Villa Memories => Topic started by: Chris Harte on December 11, 2021, 10:43:53 PM
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Was thinking the other day to when I started going to the Villa (early-80s, in case you were wondering). There were strange things going on back then. Things that would seem odd in the extreme to the millenial supporter.
Standing on seatless terraces was of course one of them, piss flowing out of the gents on the Holte was another. But the one that really got me thinking was the sight of fans throwing bog roll on to the pitch, usually at opposition goalkeepers. It struck me that such an act would have been seen by some as extremely wasteful at the start of the pandemic.
There are probably others I've forgot about as well.
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The bog roll thing was very common in the 90s and seemed to stop very suddenly. Not sure when, about 1998 or so?
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1995-96 I remember a few games where the Holte threw bog roll. The game with Spurs where God and Yorke both scored I remember the box looking a right mess and the pitch was starting to wear and tear too so it didn't look too attractive.
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It was never the same when there was Izal single sheets in the bogs.
I went on a few football specials where some trains were devoid of seating when they got to the destination. You can never beat a carefully aimed big roll though.
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I remember bog-rolls being lugged from the Holte End from 1969 onwards.
A mate of mine took a till roll once and threw that. If it had hit someone flush, I'm guessing it would have hurt! Perhaps a good way of weakening the opposition before the game's even started..?
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Remember the guys in the front row of the upper Holte throwing bags of ticker tape when the teams came out.Probably early 90s
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Clapping the opposition goalie as he approached the Holte, and when he returned the gesture flicking them the 'V's'.
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Remember the guys in the front row of the upper Holte throwing bags of ticker tape when the teams came out.Probably early 90s
That sounds about right. I always thought it was bits of Argos catalogue he had ripped up.
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I remember bog-rolls being lugged from the Holte End from 1969 onwards.
A mate of mine took a till roll once and threw that. If it had hit someone flush, I'm guessing it would have hurt! Perhaps a good way of weakening the opposition before the game's even started..?
My second visit to VP was in March 1967. The upper Holte was taken over by Stoke fans and they were very big on the bog roll. Bunch of ******.
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There was also the era ( mid to late 70’s) when the Holte End was bedecked with balloons, released to the skies when players ran on the pitch. As they were inflated by lung power rather than Helium the balloons then just sort of hung around or were blown by nature into one corner of the ground, to be pricked by part time prickers thereby ending their brief moment of fame and public admiration.
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I think that bog roll was the same as the stuff we had a school. Shiny non absorbent and only good for moving shit around your arse ! The pitch was the best place for it.
Around the same era was the stench of unhuman farts that wafted over the Holte end making people gag. Gladly a thing of the past.
More modern era . There used to be an old bloke in the North Stand who would berate a Gareth Barry missed pass or poor play by telling him to "go home and make the tea Barry".
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There was also the era ( mid to late 70’s) when the Holte End was bedecked with balloons, released to the skies when players ran on the pitch. As they were inflated by lung power rather than Helium the balloons then just sort of hung around or were blown by nature into one corner of the ground, to be pricked by part time prickers thereby ending their brief moment of fame and public admiration.
Great days on the Holte 76\77 with the balloons
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I always remember sitting in the old Trinity Road stand in the desperate days of the late '60s, when after a particularly dull spell of terrible football played out in the mist laden gloom, the eery silence would be broken by a lone voice booming out 'Wakey Wakey.'
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Occasionally someone would attempt to scale the Holte End floodlight pylon to an inevitable chorus of Holte Enders in the Sky.
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Back in the dim and distant past being behind the goal and it was so foggy you couldn't see the other end. There was a roar, our end (can't remember which one it was) chanted "who scored the goal" and the other end replied. No idea of date, match or scorer.
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Remember that Stoke game .There was no way I was letting those bastards stand in my place. However after a frank exchange of views I decided that I really didn't feel that strongly about it and went and stood somewhere else a good distance away.
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Back in the dim and distant past being behind the goal and it was so foggy you couldn't see the other end. There was a roar, our end (can't remember which one it was) chanted "who scored the goal" and the other end replied. No idea of date, match or scorer.
Sometime in the sixties I believe. I think the opposition was Manchester City. I do remember not being able to see beyond the edge of the penalty area at the Witton End looking towards the Holte. I also remember a roar going up suggesting the Villa had scored but nobody down the Witton had a clue. The match was abandoned shortly after. If memory serves, as with all these things, the bleedin' fog lifted as me and the old man were walking home.
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Back in the dim and distant past being behind the goal and it was so foggy you couldn't see the other end. There was a roar, our end (can't remember which one it was) chanted "who scored the goal" and the other end replied. No idea of date, match or scorer.
Sometime in the sixties I believe. I think the opposition was Manchester City. I do remember not being able to see beyond the edge of the penalty area at the Witton End looking towards the Holte. I also remember a roar going up suggesting the Villa had scored but nobody down the Witton had a clue. The match was abandoned shortly after. If memory serves, as with all these things, the bleedin' fog lifted as me and the old man were walking home.
That may well be the only game my dad ever persuaded my mom to go to. They couldn’t see the pitch and didn’t know the score until they got home. Mom never went again.
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1960s/early seventies - walking the length of Aston Lane or Trinity Road towards the ground refusing to believe the crowds of people walking in the other direction and telling you "The Match is off".
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1960s/early seventies - walking the length of Aston Lane or Trinity Road towards the ground refusing to believe the crowds of people walking in the other direction and telling you "The Match is off".
Ah yes, it was the sheer disappointment and the desperate hope that they were all wrong that meant you needed the visual proof of closed turnstiles to turn around and tell others coming towards you that the match is off.
Excellent recollection.
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From some of the old MOTD, B/W film you will see a few bog rolls thrown from about 1967 on.
I went to the Riland-Bedford Secondary School in Sutton Coldfield from Sept 1969.
Three years later, I noticed a large skip at the rear of the town's bus depot almost opposite the school.
I looked in and noticed a stack of nearly full bus ticket rolls.
Of course, I couldn't resist and regularly helped myself.
These were then sent flying from the back of the Holte whenever we scored a goal.
And as these narrow rolls were rather heavy, they didn't half shift some distance, lol!
Almost as far as the Holte goal!
In my teenage mind, it was all about being part of the team and boosting the celebrations.
Absolutely anything to boost the chances of a win.
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Clapping the opposition goalie as he approached the Holte, and when he returned the gesture flicking them the 'V's'.
Ha!Ha! Yes! A great memory jogger.
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I remember a scarf being hung from the rafters at the back of the Holte End and then set on fire. This was common during the late 70s and 80s.
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Re fog I remember Man City at home Christmas 1991 and the fog then was so bad I seem to recall Les Sealeys goal being partly obscured. You could hear him barracking our defence out of the mist but you could barely see him. It was the game where Tony Daley scored a volley that had Brian Moore creaming his pants on the TV commentary.
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This game. Daley's volley is at around 3:04. Doesn't look as foggy as we both remember it though.
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The bog roll thing was very common in the 90s and seemed to stop very suddenly. Not sure when, about 1998 or so?
My guess would be when we went from terrace to seats.
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This game. Daley's volley is at around 3:04. Doesn't look as foggy as we both remember it though.
I only remember that one being bloody freezing, not foggy.
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Remember a particularly dull game not long after the new Holte opened when fans were taking it in turns to throw paper aeroplanes off the top tier to see who could get them furthest down the pitch. One even got past the 18-yard box and got a huge cheer.
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There was a period in the 1970s when 'volunteers ' would be held upside down with their legs in a V shape above the heads of the Holte crowd.It was handy if you were on the terrace below them as inevitably the loose change fell from their pockets!
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This game. Daley's volley is at around 3:04. Doesn't look as foggy as we both remember it though.
I thought it got foggy second half. If it wasn't that game there was another around that winter time. Sealey definitely the goalkeeper.
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I thought it got foggy second half. If it wasn't that game there was another around that winter time. Sealey definitely the goalkeeper.
I thought maybe the West Ham game on Boxing Day, but I looked that one up and it was clear also.
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Kimberly Clark and her single sheets spelt the end of bog roll throwing.
The accompanying opening chant to signal a Knees Up Mother Brown on the back of the Holte was always a bit strange -deh-deh de-deh, deh-deh de-deh, deh-deh de-deh de deh Oi!
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Kimberly Clark and her single sheets spelt the end of bog roll throwing.
The accompanying opening chant to signal a Knees Up Mother Brown on the back of the Holte was always a bit strange -deh-deh de-deh, deh-deh de-deh, deh-deh de-deh de deh Oi!
Yes the Holte End's Ronnie Hazelhurst remix of the cockney classic.
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When was the last time we passed that huge flag about? Maybe it improves the atmosphere elsewhere but I have always sat Lower Holte since 2010ish, and the atmosphere around me has always been 'oh god, here it comes...okay, right...argh christ it's heavy...I'm having a panic attack, fucking get rid of it!'
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When was the last time we passed that huge flag about? Maybe it improves the atmosphere elsewhere but I have always sat Lower Holte since 2010ish, and the atmosphere around me has always been 'oh god, here it comes...okay, right...argh christ it's heavy...I'm having a panic attack, fucking get rid of it!'
I'd forgot about that. It's probably not allowed right now because of Covid. I never liked it because it always seemed a bit, um... Newcastle to me.
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When was the last time we passed that huge flag about? Maybe it improves the atmosphere elsewhere but I have always sat Lower Holte since 2010ish, and the atmosphere around me has always been 'oh god, here it comes...okay, right...argh christ it's heavy...I'm having a panic attack, fucking get rid of it!'
I'd forgot about that. It's probably not allowed right now because of Covid. I never liked it because it always seemed a bit, um... Newcastle to me.
Yeah, being one of the people who spent five minutes in the shade pushing it along, I never actually got to see it as a spectacle, but I was never taken by it.
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I do remember matches in the late 60’s where honest costermongers would walk around the pitch during half time selling plastic cartons of Ki-Ora orange juice and Waggon Wheel biscuits the size of a dinner plates. These vendors would be doing an apprenticeship which they would hope one day lead them to the dizzying heights of being an Usher/Usherette at the Gaumont Cinema.
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I do remember matches in the late 60’s where honest costermongers would walk around the pitch during half time selling plastic cartons of Ki-Ora orange juice and Waggon Wheel biscuits the size of a dinner plates. These vendors would be doing an apprenticeship which they would hope one day lead them to the dizzying heights of being an Usher/Usherette at the Gaumont Cinema.
And don’t forget the 3 packs of Jaffa cakes!
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There was also the era ( mid to late 70’s) when the Holte End was bedecked with balloons, released to the skies when players ran on the pitch. As they were inflated by lung power rather than Helium the balloons then just sort of hung around or were blown by nature into one corner of the ground, to be pricked by part time prickers thereby ending their brief moment of fame and public admiration.
The balloons era was a thing of beauty, allied with the fact that we were doing so well at the time.
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I remember a scarf being hung from the rafters at the back of the Holte End and then set on fire. This was common during the late 70s and 80s.
Opposition scarf, to be clear!"