Villa related books

[frank]

I think it's the 1974 edition that contains that glorious passage about the author meeting Pongo Waring. It should be immortalised somewhere in the stadium for all to see...

The door to the lavishly appointed Guest Room at Villa Park was open and out in the corridor the little boys, dodging the commissionaire, were calling for Brian Little and John Gidman. Quite rightly, they took no notice of myself and the elderly bald-headed man, bespectacled, stooping a little, who was quietly finishing his tea. He looked over at them for a moment, a whimsical look, and moved to the long window overlooking the now deserted playing pitch.

"Every time you come here it must bring back memories Pongo," I said. He stared out for a long while. I thought he'd forgotten I was there. "Aye", he said suddenly "aye, they're a great club...the greatest." I stood and looked with him, this old man whose goals had set the Villa crowds roaring so long ago. It was not quite dusk on that March afternoon and I saw them too...they were out again, the old ghosts...Jack Hughes, scorer just about one hundred years earlier of Aston Villa's first goal (perhaps to the very day)...George Ramsay...the Hunter brothers...Willie McGregor...Denny Hodgetts...legion upon legion of them on parade now, filling the field with claret and blue...the century with pride.

There's also this passage from the original version of the Peter Morris book, Eamonn:

"Among the excited thousands who thronged outside Villa Park one Sunday evening in May 1957, there were some who noted how the rays of a setting spring sun caught and held the classic facade of the mighty Trinity Road stand, illuminating in letters of gold the proud title - Aston Villa. They were there, those thousands, to welcome back to Aston the first Villa Cup-winning team for 37 years. For some, the older men, it was a poignant moment of nostalgia and joy. Memories became green again, wandered jerkily back through the years...to other great days...other great Villa teams.
This history must go back with them...and further...to the winter of the year 1874 when 'growlers' rattled along the gas-lit, cobbled streets of 'Brummagem', when black smoke welled out of hundreds of grimy stacks and furnaces belched flame into the skies of Queen Victoria's England.
The city of Birmingham, with sinewy arms and sooty face, was forging its name in brass and iron as the workshop of the world when a few young men stroked their whiskers and bestowed on a newborn football club a name unique in sporting history. It has become a name to conjure with, a name to inspire world wide affection, a name to admire and revere."

[Legion]

Nicking your sig for our FB Page.

[eamonn]

Mr Morris sure had a way with words.

[dave.woodhall]

Mr Morris sure had a way with words.

It's a pity he didn't have the same way with the truth, but his writing is unsurpassed.

[eamonn]

Oh...did he embellish beyond belief or worse?

[darren woolley]

I've just added another Villa book for my collection Billy Walker's soccer in the blood.

[dave.woodhall]

Oh...did he embellish beyond belief or worse?

Some embellishments (Archie Hunter's deathbed scene featuring his dead brother), some errors (the player he said was killed in World War One then scored in the Scottish cup final) and a bizarre piece where he said Alex Massie left in 1950 and they worked together the following season when Massie left in 1949. The writing is awe-inspiring but the facts are a bit less so.

[PeterWithesShin]

Pretty sure Massie left in 1950.

[Exeter 77]

The one I remember picking up on  is Tommy Barber apparently dying in World War One but then living until 1925.

[Villa Lew]

Pretty sure Massie left in 1950.

Aston Villa the complete record by Rob Bishop and Frank Holt say he left on 31 July 1949.

[The Edge]

👋

Star-spangled Villans

And:

https://www.olddogbooks.net/shop/olddogbooks/gangsters-geezers-and-mods/

Both by erm… me.

Nice one Percy

I can recommend Gangsters Geezers and Mods by Percy of this parish. I'm not an avid book reader usually but I did get into this one and I really enjoyed it. It's not a hoolies book btw although I can imagine Percy being a bit rowdy 

[PeterWithesShin]

Pretty sure Massie left in 1950.

Aston Villa the complete record by Rob Bishop and Frank Holt say he left on 31 July 1949.

The previous editions have 1950. As do the lists of our managers i've seen online.

[dave.woodhall]

All previous records listed Massie as leaving in 1950. Then someone who was researching a book about managers found, to his surprise, that he had in fact left in 1949. Subsequent tomes carry the correct date. This is typical of the problem with older books, namely they tend to refer to previous ones, with such errors being repeated.

[darren woolley]

👋

Star-spangled Villans

And:

https://www.olddogbooks.net/shop/olddogbooks/gangsters-geezers-and-mods/

Both by erm… me.

Nice one Percy

I can recommend Gangsters Geezers and Mods by Percy of this parish. I'm not an avid book reader usually but I did get into this one and I really enjoyed it. It's not a hoolies book btw although I can imagine Percy being a bit rowdy 

Another brilliant book by Percy.

[Percy McCarthy]

👋

Star-spangled Villans

And:

https://www.olddogbooks.net/shop/olddogbooks/gangsters-geezers-and-mods/

Both by erm… me.

Nice one Percy

I can recommend Gangsters Geezers and Mods by Percy of this parish. I'm not an avid book reader usually but I did get into this one and I really enjoyed it. It's not a hoolies book btw although I can imagine Percy being a bit rowdy 

Cheers The Edge. I could be in my younger days, not really up to it now though. Damned carpal tunnel.