Villa myths

[Dave Clark Five]

I know it has been discussed many times on here before, but I've heard a number of stories about that infamous pre-season game against Rangers in the 70s. 

Yes. It was that bad. They were rolling in the gutters in the city centre etc etc.

It wasn't pre-season.

No it wasn't. Is that a myth? First I saw them that day was in the Aston Social. I was sitting in trap one when about a dozen of them appeared. The sounds of breaking bottles coming out of the Holte as I walked by were something I had never heard at a football ground before or since. I saw a Rangers fan lying in the road outside the Mulberry Bush. Considering the fact that I got back there at a time when the second half should have been in play, he had obviously not even been to the ground.

[Damo70]

I was always under the impression it was pre season. Does that make it a myth or just make me wrong? Probably both to be fair.

[Dave Clark Five]

I think it was in the October.

[dave.woodhall]

I think it was in the October.

It was definitely during the season. We didn't have a game because Alex Cropley was in the Scotland squad and back then there were no international weekends but you could have your game called off if you had players called up.

[Damo70]

I think it was in the October.

It was definitely during the season. We didn't have a game because Alex Cropley was in the Scotland squad and back then there were no international weekends but you could have your game called off if you had players called up.

Was the rule changed to you being able to call off your game if you had more than one player called up? I think it happens in League One and Two now with all the different nationalities if clubs have players called up. I seem to remember a situation at Villa involving Steve Hodge, England and a cup replay at Millwall.

[Bernie]

I think it was in the October.

It was definitely during the season. We didn't have a game because Alex Cropley was in the Scotland squad and back then there were no international weekends but you could have your game called off if you had players called up.

I believe it was October 9th, that month we also played Stoke, Sunderland & Liverpool, all away. As I remember it we went to the Liverpool match more confident of getting a result there than for many years and took thousands but, anti-climactically, lost 3-0. It was also a bit hairy in the Anfield Road end.

[Pat McMahon]

I think it was in the October.

It was definitely in the October DCF - I remember that both because it was my sisters' birthday party that Saturday and it was the first time my dad had physically stopped me from going to a game (not hard really, he just deprived the 13 year old me of money) as he knew what would happen. As a Dubliner he was going nowhere near Villa Park that day.

[Pat McMahon]

 
[/quote] I believe it was October 9th, that month we also played Stoke, Sunderland & Liverpool, all away. As I remember it we went to the Liverpool match more confident of getting a result there than for many years and took thousands but, anti-climactically, lost 3-0. It was also a bit hairy in the Anfield Road end.
[/quote]

Bernie,

I have always thought that the unfairness of that 3-0 scoreline was one of the motivators for the team destroying Liverpool 5-1 a couple of months later.

[Andy_Lochhead_in_the_air]

It was the 9th October.
Complete myth about any trouble. Here is the programme for the game, the atmsophere was just like in this picture from a previous game. Rangers fans travelling down with their families, lots of happy faces and kids from Glasgow and Birmingham played with party balloons.

[Damo70]

Wow, Football Zone were way ahead of the game when it came to having a website. They must have felt pretty smug when tinternet was invented.

[willywombat]

I had the misfortune to work at the Mercat Cross at that time, we used to open at 6am for the market traders. The gaffer and I spent 2 hours standing at the top of the steps by the front door with a baseball bat close at hand politely advising hoards of already pissed weegies falling off coaches at Digbeth that they would be much better served heading into town

[Damo70]

My mate was a factory electrician and used to go in there when he finished on the night shift. He worked in Kitts Green and lived in Acocks Green but at that time of morning he didn't have many alternatives.

[Olneythelonely]

I seem to remember a bench of Spink, Cox, Small. I may have made that up though.

[Witton Warrior]

There are two big myths for me at the moment

1/ We are in transition
2/ Things can only get better

[Irish villain]

There are two big myths for me at the moment

1/ We are in transition
2/ Things can only get better

Indeed.

Sadly, something every other manager in the league will now be coming to Villa Park drilling into his team 'this lot have always been shit at home'. We need to start turning that into a myth and fast.