1968 Birmingham Mail photos

[Dr Butler]

Sad times for the Villa as the fans push for change.
http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/nostalgia-picture-special-aston-villa-8080752

UTV
The Doc

[b23]

Thanks for posting that Doc.

A lone policeman tries to hold back fans protesting about Aston Villa's performance, outside the Sunday Mercury offices in Colmore Circus on November 9 1968.

Plus ca change.

[Ron Manager]

Sad times for the Villa as the fans push for change.
http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/nostalgia-picture-special-aston-villa-8080752

UTV
The Doc

Funnily enough I don,t remember this at all. I do remember the season before when we had lost to Everton 2-4 at Villa Park.There was a highly vocal protest underneath the directors box at the end of the game. One director looked down at us and laughed. The following week
we lost 6-2 at Southampton. Depressing times and we had no hope things would improve.

[frankmosswasmyuncle]

Seem to have a vague recollection of this though wasn't there myself (would've been delivering the Mercury on the Sunday morning)...probably on my way home to have my tea and avoid clip round earhole from my mom!
Amazing to see that it's largely young kids doing the protesting/in the pics. 
If we had a protest today, would it be the same people, just 46 years older?

[Dr Butler]

Thanks for posting that Doc.

it was a bit of a struggle as I did it on my "smart" phone

[steamer]

The first game I remember was the Everton game, I had been to a few other that season but the Everton game was the last home game of the season and I remember it well, we had to beat them and Southampton away to have a chance of staying up. We lost both.
I was also at the Preston game, the following season this time without my Dad.
you can only imagine how empty Villa park must have been, we could probably hold 65,000 then and only 13000 in the ground.
As a youngster, I remember everyone congregating behind the goal in the Holte, chanting the " Board must go" I am sure that then I did not know what a board was but I knew they must go.
I always felt a sense of Pride when I think back about the real ardent supporters that met in Digbeth and insisted on change.
It must have been one of the first times when fan activism was effective.
Back in the day you accepted your lot.
Then came the Doc and Doug with many other memories.
But that season from the depths of Preston came, cup Repay against Southampton, winning in front of 62,000, losing at home unfortunately to the League champions Derby  1.0 in front of 49,000, Simmons crowning us "kings of Brum" as the Argus headline said in our last home game of the season. 52000 in attendance against Small Heath.
We were on the move, but as the record books show it was a downward move, a move that heralded the best 10 years of my Villa supporting life.

[Flamingo Lane]

I was at that game v Preston, aged 8, sat in the Trinity Road stand with my dad.  I remember being frightened by the booing and the chanting and, in particular, the sound of stamping of feet on the wooden stand.  I don't recall actual violence breaking out, however.

Those photographs are remarkable for the number of youngsters shown in them.

[Comrade Blitz]

"Villa's Chairman, Mr Norman Smith, did not see the demonstration against his board. He had left the match at halftime to travel to London, where he attended a dinner at Highbury."

[Bernie]

Fascinating period piece and as mentioned above remarkable how young the "protesters" look. And as others have said, hard to believe that just a few weeks later we were playing and beating Cardiff in front of 41,000 on a wave of optimism. The optimism stalled for a while of course but it was generally onwards and upwards for the next 13/14 years.

[dcdavecollett]

The Preston game saw the home-made 'The Board Must Go' banner.

[Damo70]

Thanks for posting that Doc.

A lone policeman tries to hold back fans protesting about Aston Villa's performance, outside the Sunday Mercury offices in Colmore Circus on November 9 1968.

Plus ca change.

That was on my birthday. I was minus two at the time. Carefree days.

[pooligan]

I was at that Preston game and part of the sit down protest in the Trinity Road paddock after the game. I remember being scared by the coppers wading into us to force us to break up and leave the ground. Once outside the ground in Trinity Road, a big mob of us decided to march into the city centre to the Mail offices to raise some kind of protest

I was 13 at the time and at the age when i thought i knew everything,but one thing was for sure,my friends and i who followed the Villa with our pocket money and income from part time jobs loved the villa and were just sick and tired of being also rans. Just like now, the people who were running the club in them days showed a complete lack of respect for us supporters and just ignored us. It is sad that 50 odd years later we are more or less the same.

[Andy_Lochhead_in_the_air]

I was sat in the Witton Lane stand with my Dad for that Preston game. About 13,000 turned up for a match between the two worst teams in the division. As I remember the atmosphere was bad enough with slow handclaps but when Fred Turnbull put through his own goal it was the spark for supporters to make their way from The Holte through the transfer turnstile to the Trinity Lower Terrace. Angrily congregating beneath the directors box, banners unfurled and then turning their backs on the game. `The board must go ! The board must go !` continually being chanted and spreading round an 80% empty ground.