Worst news as a Villa fan?

[Lambert and Payne]

Petrov's illness just about proves the irrelevance of football
Losing Mellberg, Milner, Ash and Laursen was hard to take

Some of the games this year have been shocking enough, in fact I'd say this is the worst season in my time...

[luke95]

Probably the announcement of Paul Birch's death.

Was about my 2nd/3rd season as a young season ticket holder when Birchy started to came through the ranks at VP, so we kind of grew up together at the Villa around the same time , him as a player & me as a regular on the terraces .
Was truely gutted the day he passed on , was like losing a good friend even tho id only actually met him a couple of times

How we could do with one or two Birch's in the side now .

[Nelly]

Yorke again. At the time I was surrounded by West Brom fans and Glory hunting Man U and was about 12. Also, when Brian Little quit.

[D.boy]

Ron Saunders quitting
Cowans - leg break
Nilis - leg break
Yorke going to Man Utd
Milner leaving (we still havn't recovered from that)
Petrov illness

I'm sure there are others if I thought about it longer.

[Chico Hamilton III]

Ron Saunders leaving

[Witton Warrior]

Ron Saunders leaving

This had more shock value for me as a young man than when MON bailed out.
Sir Ron had steered us from the 2nd Division to Wembley twice (eventually winning 2 trophies) and then onto the First Division Championship - how could this happen!

Two weeks later was just bizarre...

[Pat McMahon]

Mine is a selfish one: coming home from school in February 1977 to be met by my unemployed dad telling me Villa had sold out of tickets for the Wembley final v Everton.

We had been to every game except the Rangers and EIntracht Frankfurt friendlies and had all the programme vouchers for the matches we attended. He could have got tickets on the first or second day if he had kept the vouchers to himself but we split them 50:50 and I was scavenging from mates at school, but too slow to make the cut.

My dad had been out of work for a while but had promised he would find the money if I could get the vouchers. I vowed not to miss Villa at Wembley again, and have seen all our subsequent games, except for the 2010 final when flight plus black market ticket cost prevented me from getting there.

Non-selfish would be Saunders and MON leaving. Though I always thought that if Saunders had stayed we would not have gone on to win the European Cup, given our form that year.

[PeterWithesShin]

Realising Gary Shaw was never going to get over that injury and return to being the player he was. And of course the Stan news.

[somersetvillian]

Burger King taking the Mushroom Double Swiss of the menu, Devastated!!

[Irish villain]

I'm going to pick an unusual one. Those selected so far are quite obvious and those that lived through did cause me pain too.

I actually took our failure to sign Juninho quite badly. I would have been 12 at the time and really felt that he was going to be the final piece of the jigsaw. Looking back, it probably would have been hard to accommodate him and Merson. Yet, at the time it seemed like we had got our hopes up only to be left disappointed. Aside from that, losing Yorke and Ashley Young were hammer blows. On a personal level I was sad when Andy Townsend departed and gutted when Bosnich signed for United.

Stan's news last Friday left me numb for a couple of hours. I haven't been able to write a post that expressed the feelings I have for our club captain. I think he's been our unsung hero for a few years and a top person to boot. He's been the one consistent person since the day MON walked out on us and I feel he has been the main leader since that day.

[big 1st serve]

 Most have already been covered however hearing that Bruce Rioch was joining Derby County to further his career

  was a major blow.

   

[olaftab]

Bruce Rioch's transfer to Derby County. Brian resigning as our manager. Stan' illness.

[JD]

Ron Saunders quitting
Cowans - leg break
Nilis - leg break
Yorke going to Man Utd
Milner leaving (we still havn't recovered from that)
Petrov illness

I'm sure there are others if I thought about it longer.

Add Alex Cropley breaking his leg against those C*"ting Boggies and you're there.
Apart from Stan and the news from last week of course (but that is a different playing field). 

[Bernie]

Another vote for the news that Ron Saunders' was leaving. If I remember rightly he left early in the week; we had a mid-week game in which Ron's praises were sung by the shocked Holte End. By the Saturday he was on his way to SHA, his name was still sung but not in such complimentary terms.
Anyway that season didn't finish too badly

[mikeb1982]

Has anyone else noticed the worst moments thread is twice as long as the best moments thread?! Would this have been the case a couple of years ago?  Are we all so pissed off we just want to wallow in pity past and present now?