Who are Aston Villa's Rivals?

[ChicagoLion]

According to their fans
Newcastle
Everton
Bristol City
Wolves

[cdbearsfan]

Everton don't care that much about us, do they? I'd say Leeds have more of a chip on their shoulder. Which is weird because it seems to stem from the Bielsa goal game, when (i) the only person that did anything wrong was that cheat Bamford and (ii) it was a meaningless end of season kickaround anyway.

[Villan For Life]

According to their fans
Newcastle
Everton
Bristol City
Wolves

Newcastle - whether it’s Ant or Dec, it’s time to put that to bed. We didn’t relegate you, the results across the rest of the season did.

Everton - why? Two very similar clubs in many ways. I don’t view them as rivals, they should focus their ire elsewhere.

Bristol City - why? I’ve always found this faux rivalry to be quite funny. Did we mug them with Kodjia?

Wolves - truly pathetic. Try as you might you cannot invent a rivalry that just isn’t there. An insignificant club in an insignifiant suburb of Tipton ( I live in Wolverhampton and that always winds the locals up).

[john e]

I suppose the key is to how are you interpretative the word rivals

I look at rivals as being local rivals rather than sporting rivals
It really doesn’t matter how long we’ve gone without playing a Local rival when it comes along it’s a big deal
None more so than our games against blues when they happen they’re the biggest games going for us whether we like it or not

We equalised against Man City last Saturday And one of the first things we sang was about blues
The fact that people don’t like it is irrelevant it happened
Why ? Because they’re are biggest rivals not in a sporting sense but in a local rival a sense
And there’s really no point trying to deny it

[chrisw1]

I agree John.  It may be Everton see us as their most direct competitors and I'd say that's probably correct.  The similarity between the clubs is why I like them, not hate them.

The Newcastle thing is pathetic, but again for a short period at least we are probably their most direct competitor, as a wealthy club hoping to disrupt the current order.

Right now I'd say our closest sporting rivals are West Ham, Newcastle and Everton - the latter not so much on form, but on size, history and potential.  Leeds could well be one too if they can get their house in order.

[dave.woodhall]

According to their fans
Newcastle
Everton
Bristol City
Wolves

Is that Twitter fans or real people?

[PeterWithe]

First I've ever heard of a rivalry with Bristol City. Why?

[chrisw1]

First I've ever heard of a rivalry with Bristol City. Why?

Something to do with thir manager at the time being a moaning arsehole?

[steamer]

Growing up in the mid 60,s and 70,s  I only ever saw the Blues as Rivals
Same town, both had ups and lots of downs, played against each other regularly, both well supported. Banter at school, college, and fisticuffs in town.
Albion and others in west midlands were a novelty when us superior beings played them, never Rivals.
I doubt anyone outside of Birmingham saw us as Rivals , maybe a couple of seasons enmity but never long term Rivals

[tomd2103]

1 - Blues
2  - Rest of the teams in west mids

You don't really mean that John, do you? These teams are not our rivals they are just a nuisance to be swatted away from time to time.

Blues obviously are number one, but I think that if you come from a certain area of Birmingham (North West part particularly), the rivalry with Albion is a very real one.  Traditionally don't get many Blues fans around there, so it is mainly Villa and some Albion and coming from that area there is certainly no love lost. 

Villa fans in other areas of Birmingham and beyond might not encounter too many Albion fans, but the ones from that area are just as obsessed with us as Blues fans are.  They also do it in a snidey way which makes them even more unlikeable.  When we beat them twice in a week a few seasons ago, it was brilliant to just watch the implosion over the various social media channels.

So for me, Blues are obviously number one, but Albion are definitely more of a rival than the other Midlands clubs.

[Bad English]

Aardvark.

[Richard E]

My Dad hates Albion far more intensely than he hates Blose, despite growing up as a Villa fan in Small Heath of all places.

[gage against the machine]

A very similar study was done a few years back (from memory, Dr Rogan Taylor at Liverpool Uni) which asked the same question but in the conclusions highlighted non-reciprocated rivalries. For example, Coventry considering us as their main rival whereas they came about 435th on ours. Man Utd were top rivals for many NW clubs when their fans couldn't give a flying fig about Rochdale, Stockport, Manchester City and so forth. That was the interesting bit for me...

[ChicagoLion]

According to their fans
Newcastle
Everton
Bristol City
Wolves

Is that Twitter fans or real people?

I am not on Twitter. These are the ones that appear to have an irrational dislike of us.

[algy]

I didn't really see Small Heath as rivals growing up.  They were in a different division, we never played eachother, and I only knew one Blues fan and he was alright (though we never talked about football - I assumed he just didn't like it, it was only in the last year of secondary school that I found out he supported Small Heath ... so I guess I was right, and he didn't like football).  In honesty, it must've only been about 7 or 8 when I found out there was another football club in Birmingham!  I remember being quite surprised by it anyway.