Last Stand

[martin@ardenley]

In May 2000 Aston Villa demolished its famous stand. Mac McColgan wonders if its replacement will match up (From WSC 167 January 2001).

Could anybody argue that the Trinity Road Stand was not the finest in the history of football? Its redbrick façade, twin towers, stained glass windows, Italian mosaics and gable bearing the “Lion rampant” were the best that money could buy in 1924. Four years ago, wheels were set in motion to redevelop the stand. Various schemes were put forward for planning permission, each one rejected as the club battled with local residents and Birmingham City Council over the increased capacity and intrusion into nearby Aston Hall Park.

Villa fans were led to believe that the famous old stand was a listed building and could not be demolished, but this was untrue. However, I recall a discussion with Mark Ansell, Villa’s finance director, when he said the club would try to save as much as the old stand as possible, and that he wouldn’t be held responsible for his actions if anyone damaged one of the treasured mosaics.

Unfortunately, I failed to press him on exactly what he meant by “try” and “as much as possible”. The only part now remaining from the old stand is one of the mosaics, which is in pieces somewhere at the ground while the club decide whether to put the pieces back together or sell them.

Last year, a scheme was finally approved. Villa’s new stand would be built on stilts over the road behind it. Details of the plan were scarce. The club did not originally publish them anywhere and it soon became apparent why. The approved scheme would mean the complete demolition of the old stand.

Work started in May. It was a sickening sight, made less palatable by seeing chairman Doug Ellis on TV that evening shedding what I would describe as crocodile tears as the bulldozers moved in. As work pressed on, how-ever, it became clear that everything was not progressing as planned. The deadline for completion, the first home match of the season, came with the stand less than half finished. Season ticket holders were forced to sit in other parts of the ground. Then, on November 17, contractors Christiani Neilsen went into liquidation. Christiani was quite a small company, inexperienced in the field of stadium construction, but, unlike in 1924, cheaper than some of the alternatives. Their problem was that they took on too many big contracts all at the same time, including the Sunderland Metro.

Things aren’t as bad for Villa as they might have been. The club saw Christiani’s collapse coming and decided to manage the rest of the project in-house, quickly signing up several sub-contractors. Work on the site was only set back about a week.

However, Ansell’s claim that “because the project is now under the direct control of Aston Villa we are now in a position to accelerate the construction work” caused some raised eyebrows. If the club could do it quicker, what was the point in involving a construction company in the first place? Still, with most of the external construction completed, Ansell is confident all three tiers of the stand will be available for use on Boxing Day.

Some questions remain. It seems hard to understand why, when three stands have been built in the last seven years, they have apparently not been designed to complement one other. There appears to have been little fore-sight in the redevelopment of Villa Park as a whole. Then there is the new stand’s name. It looks set to retain the name “Trinity Road”, but it might be worth a long shot on the “Doug Ellis West Stand”.

And, of course, there is the most prickly question of all: can we fill it?

If you have some hankies handy, you can read and see all of Mac's Diary of Destruction

[martin@ardenley]

In the week that Villa prepared to meet Chelsea in the FA Cup Final, the air around Aston was filled with the sound of bulldozers as the demolition men got to work on our beloved and beautiful Trinity Road stand. Since 1923 the mighty red-brick structure with its stained glass windows and gorgeous Italian marble mosaics had come to represent Aston Villa and was for many the most globally recognised symbol of the club. It wasn't just the outside that was wonderful either, remember the delicately curved claret and blue wall at the front of the top tier – I’m looking at a picture of it now and getting a bit tearful – or the majestic gable that boomed out the importance and stature of the Villa. All this meant nothing to Doug Ellis, though. Rangers, with their equally majestic main stand at Ibrox, had shown that a sensitive update was possible, but Doug preferred complete demolition and replacement not with an iconic, modern statement of equal architectural merit but with a complete carbuncle. A bit of Aston Villa died when the Trinity came down and for some of us things have never been quite the same since. (Richard Whitehead - The Times Online 01/09/08)

[PeterWithesShin]

I'm in a FB group that's all about stadia, the old Trinity is often mentioned by fans of other clubs. Often with comments along the lines of "it's criminal it was knocked down". VP in general, both old and new is highly thought of.

[ChicagoLion]

I will never forgive Ellis for this.

[adrenachrome]

1. I will forever remember Ian Robathan and his black shirt protest.
2. I will forever remember a game against Bradford when I had traveled up from Brighton and you could see much more of the motorway network than you would ever wish to see. Gareth Southgate scored a goal when he was looking for a move. It was like a J.G. Balllard novel.

3. It had be replaced, but FFS Doug.

[London Villan]

Cheap and nasty, like the bloke that commissioned it. 

[ldavfc4eva]

Thanks for posting Martin, great photos of the old girl. Such a shame it wasn’t listed so it couldn’t have been torn down and replaced.

Happy memories of sitting in the middle of the top tier when I was 12 watching us against Athletico Madrid, magical night in a truly classic football stand in the best ground in the land.

The new one is a good stand but will never have the charm and class of the old one.

[KevinGage]

With a few exceptions, we've been mostly bollocks since 2000.

Difficult to function with the heart ripped out.

[brian green]

Ikea flat pack replacing Chippendale.

[KevinGage]

I never looked at the facade of Sunderland's Stadium o' Shite or Boro's Riverside with a tinge of the green eyed monster.

Ellis obviously did.

I'll never be convinced of the need for a total demolition when you see the sympathetic treatment Rangers were able to give their main stand of a similar vintage.

But let's say for the sake of argument the old stand was beyond repair (which is how the club briefed it - off the record - to a few people years after), the new design could still have been more sympathetic with a nod to the past. The mosaics, the gable etc could all have been incorporated.

[brian green]

As I have said before the vandalism was threefold.  Firstly the lost building was of immense architectural value encapsulating as it did the emergence of a genre of mass attendace sports stadiums, secondly it was of great social significance, a milestone of the idustrial development of urban communities and thirdly it was a building held in great affection by football supporters.  Three reasons it should have been protected  1. Architectural  2.  Historical  3.  Emotional.

[KevinGage]

As I have said before the vandalism was threefold.  Firstly the lost building was of immense architectural value encapsulating as it did the emergence of a genre of mass attendace sports stadiums, secondly it was of great social significance, a milestone of the idustrial development of urban communities and thirdly it was a building held in great affection by football supporters.  Three reasons it should have been protected  1. Architectural  2.  Historical  3.  Emotional.

Indeed. And not just by our supporters.

[brian green]

I have a personal guilt about the whole episode.  As part of the architectural profession working in Birmingham at the time we should have mounted a better defence.  The only defence I can offer is that we were fighting on so many fronts against the Philistines.  We scrambled to prevent the Gas Street Basin becoming a National Car Parks asset and to save one or two of the best pubs becoming plastic and pine panelling Spud U Like manifestations.

[Lastfootstamper]

We have a stand named after the bloke that did that. Fucking corner shop ******.

[brian green]

The Professional Footballers Association paid £1.6 million for the L S Lowry painting "Going To The Match" that  displays the elevation of the home of Blackburn Rovers.  We had our own real bricks and mortar Lowry to experience every time we went to Villa Park.  What did we do?  We destroyed it.