Aston Villa: Memory Lane

Thomas Holte

Thomas Holte

Vital Football Legend
Several years ago we used to have a great thread on here started by BBJ asking for peoples memories of AVFC. It was full of some wonderful stories and photos and it's a shame I can't find it to resurrect it again.

So here is a brand new thread for you older and younger Villans to tell us some stories and inclose photos (if you have any) so we can look back and let that sense of pride we all feel about our great club come flooding back along with the memories.......Thanks.
 
Ah. The true Trinity Road stand. The best stand that there has ever been in any football ground in the whole world...bar none.

Herbert destroyed lots of things during his time in charge but tearing down the Trinity was bar far the most criminal!

He ought to have been jailed for life for that.
 
And look at the badge between Aston and Villa. That is the true Villa badge, forget the round one.

Whoever goes to the the fans meeting with the powers that be, should impress on the owners that we should return to this badge on next years kit with the club motto "Prepared" reinstated.

We don't need the star, we all know that we were European Champions and that's all that counts.
 
The old trinity Road stand was a thing of beauty. How it was allowed to be completely torn down is beyond me.
 
Thomas Holte said:
I'll start the ball rolling (pun intended!) with this photo and video I recently came across that I'd never seen before.

It was my first ever visit to the old Wembley in 1971.

We lost but the club was on the way back as the Villa fans completely drowned out the Spurs fans.

I was only 16 but the whole day is still one I look back at with pride.View attachment 28667
Click to expand...
My first trip to Wembley as well. But I was only 12!
 
I miss that old trinity road stand as many others have said, pissed me off when i first heard and saw of the plans to bring it down. Why on Earth it was never listed while the rotunda in town was I’ll never know. Why couldn’t we just do what they did at rangers and keep the facade and build a more modern stand within it, I’m sure their stand is listed and it was designed/built by the same man.
 
VillaTomB38 said:
I miss that old trinity road stand as many others have said, pissed me off when i first heard and saw of the plans to bring it down. Why on Earth it was never listed while the rotunda in town was I’ll never know. Why couldn’t we just do what they did at rangers and keep the facade and build a more modern stand within it, I’m sure their stand is listed and it was designed/built by the same man.
Click to expand...

I think that perhaps part of the problem Tom was that Ellis had it in his mind to build and turn Villa Park into a memorial for him to be remembered by in fondness - in order to feed his huge ego.

It was almost as if he couldn't pull it down quick enough which makes you wonder?
 
Thomas Holte said:
Were you here on a special day at Arsenal celebrating.....I sure was!View attachment 28694 even though we lost the game 2-0.
Click to expand...

I sure was there. Was with my dad (Dennis) and brother (Royston) - both sadly departed and now with the Holte Enders in the Sky. Also there with my best mate from the 70s - Ian Brown and we are still best mates now 45 years later and were together in Wales just last week.
I remember sitting down in despair when we were losing 2-0 and Ipswich were winning 1-0 and thinking that all of the hard work of the season had just evaporated. And then the ripple started to go around in the Clock End from people with radios that Ipswich were drawing at Middlesbrough and the ripple became a crescendo as the message went around and everyone was cheering. And when it became 2-1, the party really started. Bosco Jankovic will be a Villa hero forever!!!
I remember the Arsenal fans looking on in bewilderment as we were going mad even though we were losing 2-0. The drive back from London had Queen blasting out of the car stereo with "We are the Champions" over and over again.
Alan Brazil has never forgiven us for taking the title that year and does not miss a chance to have a dig at us on the Talkshite Breakfast show.
 
Last edited:
Slightly off topic, but former Villan Darius Vassell is on Goals on Sunday with Kammy and Ben Shepherd.

Really interesting to hear his story and catch up on what he's been doing - he's now working at Wolves apparently. He speaks very highly of Villa of course and how gutted he was that O'Dreary showed him the door. DV was big enough to admit he wasn't doing the business at the time - fair play to him.

Always liked him and will never forget him bursting onto the scene with those two injury-time goals in the comeback win against Strømsgodset (2-0 down, Gary Charles scored the other with 7 minutes to go). What a night that was!

 
Thomas Holte said:
Were you here on a special day at Arsenal celebrating.....I sure was!View attachment 28694 even though we lost the game 2-0.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, I was working at a golf club in Manchester at the time, so had to follow the game on the radio.

But I remember proudly walking into the very full clubhouse and announcing that I would like to buy a drink for any fan whose team had won the league in the last 10 years!

They were mainly Man City and Utd supporters, unfortunately there was 1 Liverplop supported.
 
My trip down memory lane is a mixture of the smells of stale urine, beer, sweat and oily work clothes and Woodbine and Park Drive smoke, the taste of Pear Drops, all surronded by the sounds of boots thudding into leather, of giant bodies colliding and of thousands of people singing and shouting at the top of voices. And above all else, cheering and laughter.
My first game at Villa Park left these impressions on me so deeply, that I can close my eyes and smell the smells and hear the sounds, 60 years later.
 
Thomas Holte said:
Were you here on a special day at Arsenal celebrating.....I sure was!View attachment 28694 even though we lost the game 2-0.
Click to expand...

Nope I was a few miles down the road at Wembley watching the Rugby League Challenge Cup Final Hull Kingston Rovers vs Widnes. Rovers lost but I was celebrating Villa's Division One title, so I had good reason to be happy amongst all the glum faces heading back to Hull.
 
starchild65 said:
Nope I was a few miles down the road at Wembley watching the Rugby League Challenge Cup Final Hull Kingston Rovers vs Widnes. Rovers lost but I was celebrating Villa's Division One title, so I had good reason to be happy amongst all the glum faces heading back to Hull.
Click to expand...
Where to start? Dad was a villa and goodness knows how many villa fans he inspired,
My memories are precious of the villa but even from a boy of six I could not understand why this most beautiful football club(six championships and six family cups) by the mid fifties did not dominate English football, joyfully we added the cup in 1957 and at last the championship in 1981,to cap it all we were to defeat Bayern Munich and Barcelona in European finals, this just a few years after playing the likes of Halifax and chesterfield in the old third division,so glory but tarnished by remembering the people who have run our club, from the old men who in the fifties and sixties dragged us near to the abyss,the ego of ellis,randy who was criminally let down by his advisers right through to xia. So my memories are mixed, glorious highs and desperate lows.so my memories are of the sad way so many people have mismanaged our historic gem
 
You must log in or register to reply here.