Part 2 : To Villa Park
A letter to Aston Villa in January, 2007 (describing myself and requesting access to the club’s archives for the purposes of further research for the ‘book’) elicited a reply from Lee Preece, the club’s Football Operations/Projects Manager. A meeting was arranged.
My visit to see Lee was extraordinarily short considering the journey I had taken from London. We sat talking for less than half-an-hour and then came the question to me: “Would you like to see the archives?” Of course, ‘no’ was scarcely going to be my answer, and so I was scooted off to look at the mother of all archives.
It was in a mess! In fact, so much was it in a mess that, in truth, I was scarcely able to evaluate anything of what it contained in the short time available. And, within a few minutes, the conversation somehow turned round to whether I might be in a position to sort it all out!
All within the space of an hour, the matter had proceeded from my request to access the archives to the honour of taking on this organisational task while being able to draw income (at least to cover my commuting costs) while researching in my own time.
I subsequently sent in a written proposal (which was soon accepted) and I commenced this activity in April/May 2007 while I was still based in London. I commuted to the club on a weekly basis.
All this had quickly taken place in a little over 6 months since Randy Lerner had taken over, and it was quite clear that there was some urgency in wanting to know what the archives contained. There was no existing catalogue that could be relied upon.
Did I have qualifications to do the job? Well, I had been an amateur genealogist for over 30 years and such work had (before the days of the Internet) caused me to get to know the archival and some of the conservation systems in places of research around the country, including the National Archives at Kew, the British Library and the Birmingham Central Library.
On top of that, I had spent 40 years in systems analysis and developing computer software applications. I was expert in how to set up a database, which I had proposed for the archives’ catalogue. I had also been a project manager in my own business lasting twenty years and – possibly above all – as a Villa man equipped with those skills and a being stickler for detail, I was able to fully understand what was in the archives and make appropriate recommendations.
Without any forethought, it happily turned out that I had precisely the skills required to engineer a good result.
When I turned up to begin my assignment on site (in May), Lee Preece introduced me to Keith Morris, who was to act as my helper for this project and to do the logging of objects on display around the stadium. Keith and I were both from ‘the black and white days’ (as Keith liked to call it!) – both men of the old terraces and who had witnessed the baggy shorts of yore.
Keith and I disagreed on a major issue – the merits of Norman Lockhart (!) – but apart from that we became happy working buddies for what turned out to be nearly three years. Keith was (and is) a great Villa ambassador and a valuable colleague, and what was more intriguing was the fact that his birthday is April 16th, mine is April 18th, and the birth date (the first match) at Villa Park was April 17th.
The project went on until the following December, and, as had been my experience during research at the British Library, much of the experience had been magical – particularly the research element into the club’s old minutes and other old papers.
Though I had produced detailed reports of what had been found in the archives, created links with the Birmingham Central Library (including a pathway to completing the availability of the Villa News and Record on DVD) and had created a database catalogue, there was still much work to be done when I had to call a halt to what had become a troublesome commute from London.
The Villa management were very pleased with what had been achieved and (importantly) were very impressed with the manner by which I (and Keith) had gone about the task. Interestingly, I scored a particular hit in my graphical descriptions of the work that had been done and what remained to be done.
So, the natural question popped up … should it be continued by me, and (if so) on what basis?
Next: Part 3 : The Interregnum
.
A letter to Aston Villa in January, 2007 (describing myself and requesting access to the club’s archives for the purposes of further research for the ‘book’) elicited a reply from Lee Preece, the club’s Football Operations/Projects Manager. A meeting was arranged.
My visit to see Lee was extraordinarily short considering the journey I had taken from London. We sat talking for less than half-an-hour and then came the question to me: “Would you like to see the archives?” Of course, ‘no’ was scarcely going to be my answer, and so I was scooted off to look at the mother of all archives.
It was in a mess! In fact, so much was it in a mess that, in truth, I was scarcely able to evaluate anything of what it contained in the short time available. And, within a few minutes, the conversation somehow turned round to whether I might be in a position to sort it all out!
All within the space of an hour, the matter had proceeded from my request to access the archives to the honour of taking on this organisational task while being able to draw income (at least to cover my commuting costs) while researching in my own time.
I subsequently sent in a written proposal (which was soon accepted) and I commenced this activity in April/May 2007 while I was still based in London. I commuted to the club on a weekly basis.
All this had quickly taken place in a little over 6 months since Randy Lerner had taken over, and it was quite clear that there was some urgency in wanting to know what the archives contained. There was no existing catalogue that could be relied upon.
Did I have qualifications to do the job? Well, I had been an amateur genealogist for over 30 years and such work had (before the days of the Internet) caused me to get to know the archival and some of the conservation systems in places of research around the country, including the National Archives at Kew, the British Library and the Birmingham Central Library.
On top of that, I had spent 40 years in systems analysis and developing computer software applications. I was expert in how to set up a database, which I had proposed for the archives’ catalogue. I had also been a project manager in my own business lasting twenty years and – possibly above all – as a Villa man equipped with those skills and a being stickler for detail, I was able to fully understand what was in the archives and make appropriate recommendations.
Without any forethought, it happily turned out that I had precisely the skills required to engineer a good result.
When I turned up to begin my assignment on site (in May), Lee Preece introduced me to Keith Morris, who was to act as my helper for this project and to do the logging of objects on display around the stadium. Keith and I were both from ‘the black and white days’ (as Keith liked to call it!) – both men of the old terraces and who had witnessed the baggy shorts of yore.
Keith and I disagreed on a major issue – the merits of Norman Lockhart (!) – but apart from that we became happy working buddies for what turned out to be nearly three years. Keith was (and is) a great Villa ambassador and a valuable colleague, and what was more intriguing was the fact that his birthday is April 16th, mine is April 18th, and the birth date (the first match) at Villa Park was April 17th.
The project went on until the following December, and, as had been my experience during research at the British Library, much of the experience had been magical – particularly the research element into the club’s old minutes and other old papers.
Though I had produced detailed reports of what had been found in the archives, created links with the Birmingham Central Library (including a pathway to completing the availability of the Villa News and Record on DVD) and had created a database catalogue, there was still much work to be done when I had to call a halt to what had become a troublesome commute from London.
The Villa management were very pleased with what had been achieved and (importantly) were very impressed with the manner by which I (and Keith) had gone about the task. Interestingly, I scored a particular hit in my graphical descriptions of the work that had been done and what remained to be done.
So, the natural question popped up … should it be continued by me, and (if so) on what basis?
Next: Part 3 : The Interregnum
.
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