Heroes & Villains, the Aston Villa fanzine
Heroes & Villains => Villa Memories => Topic started by: Legion on March 03, 2022, 10:47:53 PM
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19 years ago now. Horrible series of events.
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I think that was the only time I didn’t feel safe at Villa Park. Even in the 80s you knew where any trouble might be but that was something different.
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Ugh, banish talk of this to the Villa Nightmares section.
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I have no idea what this thread is about.
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C*** night.
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No idea what happened on that day, my memory has been erased.
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I wasn't there, and wasn't on here at that time.
The 3-0 at the Sty was worse for me, because I hadn't realised how many kids at school who supported Man Utd or 'weren't interested in football' were SHA fans.
03/03/03 was just further humiliation, but at a school that was almost entirely Man Utd fans, I was used to it.
Classless wankers, both.
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A horrible night. Not being from Brum, Blues were almost irrelevant to me up until that season.
After being set upon by a gang of their fans outside the Newt after the game back at New Street, I'll forever loathe them.
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My son’s birthday. Strange, because the 1983 battle with Blues - Noel Blake head butt on MacMahon - fell on my birthday
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My son’s birthday. Strange, because the 1983 battle with Blues - Noel Blake head butt on MacMahon - fell on my birthday
My son’s birthday too.
It was a tough night with three kids to look after. From the Lower Holte we could see the outbreaks of violence in the Trinity and Witton Lane stands as Blues fans were outed, then the mob assembling to charge down the side towards the Noses. The whole ground just seemed to be seething with hatred (including Dion).
It was a mistake to play it midweek, the segregation was poorly handled, too many from Small Heath believed their own myths about Villa and the police were very slow in reacting to the situation.
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My son’s birthday. Strange, because the 1983 battle with Blues - Noel Blake head butt on MacMahon - fell on my birthday
too many from Small Heath believed their own myths about Villa
How so?
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My son’s birthday. Strange, because the 1983 battle with Blues - Noel Blake head butt on MacMahon - fell on my birthday
too many from Small Heath believed their own myths about Villa
How so?
During their wilderness years (1875 - ?) , in the absence of anything normal to be proud about, they'd bulit themselves up as the ultimate fighting machine, which of course meant we were all feeble, bobble-hat wearing softies from the shires.
Unfortunately for a good few of them they'd believed such myths, and thought they could turn up at Villa Park and lord it. Whoops.
I'd been working in Ireland a few weeks previously and met a carpenter onsite who'd hailed from Castle Vale, built like Dolph Lundgren and used to run with the old hooligan firms, he was making a special trip back for the game and told me then that many others were coming out of 'retirement' too.
They generally seemed to be much more subdued in their subsequent visits.
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Oh what a night! Some highlights:
Much subterfuge from the firms. My Villa pals wouldn’t tell me where they were drinking in the daytime, thinking I might be with my Blues pals. My Blues pals said they were in the Bull Ring Tavern, but best for me not to land as feelings were running high about some Villa smashing up their club shop (tenners worth of damage etc). Maybe they all just don’t like me? Anyway, had the coppers got my phone that night they’d have thought I was the facilitator.
My Blues mate was in the Villa part of the upper Witton, close to the Holte End with his young son. With Blues winning, he was feeling a hostile vibe from two blokes who were sitting next to him, who were with their missuses. He suspected they had sussed him out and had decided to come clean, to explain that he wasn’t there to cause trouble, just wanted to bring his son to his first derby and it was the only place he could get tickets for. At that point what he suspected to be a fellow Blues fan came tumbling down the steps nearby, and these two blokes jumped up and volleyed him down a few more. My mate decided to keep his mouth shut.
Possible explanation of the tumbler mentioned above, told to me on the bus into town after the game:
After blues’ second goal, some Villa fans argued amongst themselves about the booing of Enkleman, who was being blamed for bottling the challenge with the scorer. Two blokes in particular were going at it, one fervently opposed to the booing of a Villa player, the other just as strongly in favour. One spat in the other’s face, for which he probably deservedly got punched in return. The spitter responded by shouting ‘Blues fan’ and pointing at the puncher, who got set upon by others and kicked down the upper Witton stairs.
Meanwhile in the upper Holte, a real tough guy Blues fan from round our end was sitting with one of his children. He wasn’t so much sussed out as recognised and pointed out to someone (who didn’t know him). That someone sat behind him, tapped him on the shoulder and as he turned, punched him and broke his jaw.
In the lower Holte, a couple near me (husband/wife or boyfriend/girlfriend), were obvious Blues fans. The woman had a lovely head of curly hair, which I suspect had gone by the next morning as she must have had ten pieces of chewing gum deposited into it before the end of the game.
When we got off the bus in town (about 60/70 of us) an old woman in Lower Bull Street was asking for the score. Every one of us walked past her and nobody said a word.
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Sounds a lovely experience.
I don't know why any away fan would go in a home area. Being unable to celebrate sounds shit. I'd rather be sat at home listening on the radio (I never watch Villa live on TV - an old superstition of mine).
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I was living in Edinburgh at the time. I just assumed we would win, which made it painful.
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My Albion mate was in the navy at the time and watched on board with loads of colleagues from all over the U.K. He told me they were all shocked by the sheer hatred emanating from the telly.
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I have a vivid picture in my mind of several people getting booted down the steps of the Upper Trinity, that's how bad it got.
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I have a vivid picture in my mind of several people getting booted down the steps of the Upper Trinity, that's how bad it got.
I was in the Upper Trinity that night and remember a fan punching his seat over and over. Bizarre.
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My first evening on H&V, watching with two former members of this parish - Gypsum Fantastic and James Toner - watched in the pub in Paris run by the latter's partner. Quite the eye-opening introduction to this particular derby.
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Steve Bruce celebrating two goals. There's a rarity.
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I watched on the telly, we were a fucking embarrassment on the pitch and off it.
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I have no idea what this thread is about.
A bit more detail here..
https://www.heroesandvillains.info/forumv3/index.php?topic=49263.0
https://www.heroesandvillains.info/forumv3/index.php?topic=51624.0
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My first evening on H&V, watching with two former members of this parish - Gypsum Fantastic and James Toner - watched in the pub in Paris run by the latter's partner. Quite the eye-opening introduction to this particular derby.
Which pub was thisLuke?
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My first evening on H&V, watching with two former members of this parish - Gypsum Fantastic and James Toner - watched in the pub in Paris run by the latter's partner. Quite the eye-opening introduction to this particular derby.
Which pub was this Luke?
If memory serves, the Frog at Bercy.
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Like an idiot, I thought it would be fine to bring my six year old nephew. My abiding memory is of my dad dropping us off on Lichfield Road and feeling the malevolence in the air as soon as we got out of the car. We left the match around the same time as Joey Gudjonsson.
Fun Fact: Peter Crouch came on for Alan Wright right at the end and I believe this was the largest height difference between substitutes ever.
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Talking to a friend who was at the match that night and was Birmingham, he was no softy but said that night he actually feared for his life,we were sitting in the trinity and could hear someone behind me giving it's a load of F's and B's, turned round and it was a young girl about 14,it seems it wasn't just the usual fighting mob up for it, but as someone said it was also the normal fans
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It reminded me a lot of west ham away in the quarter final of the cup when everyone seemed up for it.
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It reminded me a lot of west ham away in the quarter final of the cup when everyone seemed up for it.
Nowhere near but clearly opened a few blooooose eyes that we are not some sort of private school shire knobs.
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What was it that set Teh Robo off that night, calling Mac and Dave and everybody else c***s?
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My son’s birthday. Strange, because the 1983 battle with Blues - Noel Blake head butt on MacMahon - fell on my birthday
I watched highlights of that on youtube recently. What a cracking watch, it looked much worse 40 years later than it did at the time, tbh.
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20 years today.
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Happy C*** Night to all who celebrate.
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20 years, bloody hell
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20 years on and I still have a rumble in the pit of my stomach. There was certainly some energy in the ground that night.
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Ah memories...
(https://i.ibb.co/x3fvTGV/38906239-newdublindion203.jpg) (https://ibb.co/x3fvTGV)
host 000 login (https://imgbb.com/)
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Ah memories...
(https://i.ibb.co/x3fvTGV/38906239-newdublindion203.jpg) (https://ibb.co/x3fvTGV)
host 000 login (https://imgbb.com/)
And what was good about that? It cost us the match, it dragged us down to their level.
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I remember leaving the Upper Holte just before the end and heading towards Aston Church and there were rows of riot police with batons and shields standing prepared like a Roman legion.
Another Villa fan I know didn't get back to his car by IMI until 1am as the roads were blocked by disorder. caused by our fans. Yes the soft Villa myth was certainly dispelled that night. Bonkers to have it on a Monday night after the away game.
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What was it that set Teh Robo off that night, calling Mac and Dave and everybody else c***s?
The nerve of other Villa fans doing something that he hadn't thought of or would take credit for.
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Never been to a game before or since where there was such a nasty undercurrent around the place - unfortunately matters on the pitch matched the atmosphere. The earliest I’ve ever left a game.
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Ah memories...
(https://i.ibb.co/x3fvTGV/38906239-newdublindion203.jpg) (https://ibb.co/x3fvTGV)
host 000 login (https://imgbb.com/)
And what was good about that? It cost us the match, it dragged us down to their level.
It wasn't, in toto, at all good. But who among us here can honestly say that in the darkest recesses of their soul that they didn't take just a moment's delight in seeing Savage get twatted, moreover by own of our own...
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Over dinner at an away European trip with some senior Villa department heads the conversation moved to that match. I asked what Savage had said to Dion and was told that no one heard it and no one knew. I don't believe that at all, he must have come out with something very offensive.
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Na he did Dion good and proper and Dion fell right into the trap.
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Na he did Dion good and proper and Dion fell right into the trap.
Yep, Dion was shouting into the camera "he's a cheat!" as he walked off, so I think he was just incensed at what he thought was Savage's dive in the first place. Which is wasn't to be fair, Dion went through him like a dose of salts.
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They work together now at the BBC and I don't think there's any hard feelings. I did think at the time that Savage must have said something, possibly racist, to have turned the normally mild mannered Dublin into a raging bull, but if he had you'd have known by now, and I'm sure Dublin has refuted anything like that before. It was just a physical manifestation of the miasma of hate that seemingly descended on every one of us that night.
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To be fair to Savage, it was his claim to fame. Without Dion he was nobody.
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It wasn't a one-off; Dion lost it against West Ham at home as well, smashing Winterburn against the surrounds when it didn't really seem necessary.
He got away with that one!