Worst Season ever?

[Witton Warrior]

I was just bored, there wasn't even a relegation "fight" because we drifted along until the other teams were relegated. If the season was amonth longer we would have been down.

[ozzjim]

I was just bored, there wasn't even a relegation "fight" because we drifted along until the other teams were relegated. If the season was amonth longer we would have been down.

I think another game longer and we would have been relegated in truth. If we end under 40 points, we have stayed up by default, and I am sure that McLeish now has the lowest win percentage in the history of the club, which is even worse than McNeil?

[Martyn Smith]

This season has been, without a doubt, the worst season *ever*. Rest assured I was on the internet within minutes mailing my disgust throughout the world...

[Martyn Smith]

I agree that this has been the most *underachieving* season I have ever seen (started following the game in the 77-78 season). Perhaps 85-87 was the worst period of football seen at Villa Park in recent decades. But as has been said, we have a much better squad of players now than we did then. Today we have Given, Dunne and Bent. Back then we had David Norton and Paul Kerr..

[martin o`who??]

[
Wasn't the League Cup the year before? Same with Hunt and Blair - we were too close for comfort in 1986 and they were signed.

I thought Andy Blair was signed Championship 1981 close season?

He was, From Coventry City i seem to remember, and a bit of a disappointment all in all. (Sorry Andy).

[martin o`who??]

Sure feels like it right now, but the worst home record ever isnt going to help.

[Broughty-Villian]

last time we 'just' avoided relegation 94? didn't we finish the next season in second place.....not a feckin hope next season

[Martyn Smith]

last time we 'just' avoided relegation 94? didn't we finish the next season in second place.....not a feckin hope next season

We just avoided relegation in '94-'95...BFR lost the plot over the summer of '94 and the team going into that season was incredibly old and tired. Brian Little came in in Nov '94 but thanks to the decrepit state of the team was not able to do any more than hold us where we were until the following close season, i.e. just above the relegation zone. That close season was one of the busiest and most exciting I can recall at VP in terms of comings and goings, and the team was totally transformed. It looked fresh and purposeful and signed on with a fab 3-1 win at home to Man U (what ever happened to the floppy haired 20 year old twat who scored Man U's consolation goal that day, btw?...). We finished 4th at the end of 95-96 and won the League Cup, our last trophy to date...the point being that an damn good clear out and rebuild close season can work wonders, so, who knows...however we will need a new manager (wonder if Chris Hughton's going to want another season in the 2nd tier?)...

[ez]

1986-87 has to be the worse overall although as we went down and we knew we were but i don't remember it being as boring as this season.

[supertom]

Fucking horrible season. Even other seasons we've been threatened with relegation, we weren't this dour. We were still pretty entertaining to watch in 95. Despite almost going down we had some really memorable games. Even under Taylor and O Leary when we were threatened with relegation we weren't nearly as awful as we have been this season. That will reflect in the fact we can't get any higher this year than a pathetic 41 points. Mind you I don't think we'll get over the 40 point mark.

[HalesowenVilla]

This for me our worst season and our fall from grace is horrifying, which i think is making me a whole lot more angry. In only a couple of years we've gone from chasing that 4th spot with a talented young team that no one wanted to play home or away, averaging our highest gates for years, cup final and a semi and just a general buzz about the place. We were the team everyone was talking about and we all thought including neutrals "right the Villa are back" and i bloody loved it.
 
Roll on 2 years later we have our deadliest rivals manager in charge, a man who is totally out his depth, tactically naive and basically should have never been given the job in the first place. we've narrowly scraped through a relagation battle when in most seasons we'd have gone. and more importantly it seems the board have just washed there hands with us and give us the V's

[eastie]

Dreadful awful season- the relegation year of 87 was poor as was venglos's season in charge but this has been just awful- certainly the worst football ive seen from a villa team and thank god its nearly over!

[andyaston]

1986-1987 was much worse.

We were Champions of Europe five years earlier.

We played in front of crowds averaging 18,000 sometimes hardly 10,000 turned up, that was soul destroying to see Villa Park so empty.

We did actually get relegated and knew it was going to happen from Christmas onwards.

Oh and Paul Elliot played for us and the snake Hodge left us.

[PeterWithesShin]

It's always a toss up for me between 85/86 and 86/87 as to which season I hate the most. In many ways even though we somehow stayed up thanks to a late season rally, more often than not I feel 85/86 edges it.
I'm sure we hardly won a game from the beginning of Oct to end of March. Awful crowds, losing to fucking Oxford in the LC semi's in front of barely 20,000 and i'm sure our highest crowd that season was only about 25K for the visit of the Blues, and they battered us 0-3.

[Des Little]

What I'm struggling with is this.  Amongst our fans we have:

The future King of England
The current Prime Minister
The head of the Bank of England (who trumps the other two it seems)

...and we are still absolutely shit.  If we played in any other country in the World we'd win the league and cup every sodding season. 
(Adopt Partridge voice) This country!