Villa Park in A Different League

[frank]

“About Villa Park itself hung an aura that seems almost to be visible. Most certainly it is there to be felt and I know of no other ground that has the same effect on one. Almost it seems to be peopled by ghosts – amiable ghosts whose job it is to breathe the great Villa spirit into generation after generation of ambitious youngsters who pass through the great gates to achieve a life's ambition; to wear the famous claret and blue of the great club”

Billy Walker – Soccer in the Blood -

That has just sent a tingle up my spine.

On the subject of ghosts, perhaps it's time to bring this piece out again:

The door to the lavishly appointed Guest Room at Villa Park was open and out in the corridor the little boys, dodging the commissionaire, were calling for Brian Little and John Gidman. Quite rightly, they took no notice of myself and the elderly bald-headed man, bespectacled, stooping a little, who was quietly finishing his tea. He looked at them for a moment, a whimsical look, and moved to the long windows overlooking the now deserted playing pitch.
“Every time you come back here it must bring back memories Pongo” I said. He stared out for a long while. I thought he’d forgotten I was there. “Aye,” he said suddenly, “aye, they’re a great club…the greatest.” I stood and looked with him, this old man whose goals had set the Villa crowds roaring so long ago. It was not quite dusk on that March afternoon and I saw them too…they were out again, the old ghosts…Jack Hughes, scorer just about one hundred years earlier of Aston Villa’s first goal (perhaps to the very day)…George Ramsay…the Hunter brothers…Willie McGregor…Denny Hodgetts…legion upon legion of them on parade now, filling the field with claret and blue…the century with pride.

Peter Morris: “Aston Villa – the First 100 Years”

[KevinGage]

If you come via the Barton's the first sight of the Trinity -in the distance like Mecca- was always a bit special.

Now it's just an eyesore. I took two pals to VP last season -one Everton and one Liverpool- and they both said similar.

As a working building the new Trinity is not terrible, even if it isn't particularly aesthetically pleasing . It has all the modern facilities and so forth. But it is dull and functional. A bit like the latter years of Herbert's tenure, in fact.

[Hopadop]

The new ground opened in 1897 at cost of £16,400.  Anyone got an idea what £16,400 would be in todays money.

Somewhere between £1.5 million and just shy of £15 million, depending how you calculate it. I'm surprised.

www.measuringworth.com/ukcompare/

I suppose labour costs were a fraction of what they would be now, and losing a few navvies in the process wouldn't have been the end of the world either.