Jody O'Reilly

[Legion]

Friends of Irish man who died in hit-and-run campaign for minute silence at Aston Villa

Recently a young Villa fan was killed in Birmingham. His friends are trying to get a lifelong dream of his “A minutes silence at Villa Park when my time is up” to become a reality. Could you all please post the following so that Twitter followers can make this thing happen. All his friends are asking is that at 9pm on the 22nd of December people tweet #minutesilenceforJody in some way. We as supporters are a team and it would be fantastic to think that we could make this happen for this young Villa fan. UTV and thank you.

[Mortimer's Bear]

I wonder if anyone has contacted the club.

[Drummond]

This shouldn't happen for lots of reasons.

[Pete3206]

Absolutely right Drummond

[eastie]

The thing with something like this is where do you draw the line ?
Very sad news and condolences  to family and friends of Jody.

[olaftab]

Very very sad news however no. There are about 300000 people in this city who are Villa "fans" as in they dont all go to matches but like the club and possibly another 100000 round the world I suggest we don't open up the minute's  silence based on popular demand.

[SoccerHQ]

While my sympathies lie with his friends and family, yep this does seem a bit of a strange one.

I'm sure a more fitting tribute would be to get him a memorial paving stone by the Trinity or something or have his name read out over the tannoy over half time.

[Legion]

I would tend to agree with that. Or possibly a message on the big screen.

[SoccerHQ]

The club always do a condolence tribute to people who've died and connected with the club for the final home game now. Depends if his friends can wait that long I guess.

[dave.woodhall]

It's a tragedy and I feel for his family but a Facebook campaign? It smacks of emotional blackmail and I can see the inevitable "Heartless club snubs fan" story unfolding.

[Legion]

FB group is here. I find it odd that they are asking for email addresses and telephone numbers.

[Mortimer's Bear]

Very very sad news however no. There are about 300000 people in this city who are Villa "fans" as in they dont all go to matches but like the club and possibly another 100000 round the world I suggest we don't open up the minute's  silence based on popular demand.

Fair point

[eastie]

It's a tragedy and I feel for his family but a Facebook campaign? It smacks of emotional blackmail and I can see the inevitable "Heartless club snubs fan" story unfolding.

Also noticed both Petrov and Ian Taylor have retweeted this today so seems to be doing the twitter rounds too.

[Chris Jameson]

It's a terrible tragedy and condolences to family and friends but a 'lifelong dream for a minutes silence' comes across as emotional blackmail. There would be a minutes silence before every single football match if clubs started doing it each time a supporter dies.

The paver suggestion is a great way of having some kind of lasting tribute to a fellow Villan.

[Ad@m]

It's a terrible tragedy and condolences to family and friends but a 'lifelong dream for a minutes silence' comes across as emotional blackmail. There would be a minutes silence before every single football match if clubs started doing it each time a supporter dies.

I just think the idea of a 22 year old having a 'lifelong dream for a minutes silence' is beyond believable.  Has anyone ever met anyone of that age who's said anything of the like?