When There Was Width ... AND Quality!

We have heard, have we not, of how the prowess of Aston Villa used to lift the workers in Birmingham so that the following Monday produced an improvement in production.

Just folklore or not, I believe that the idea of it is not a daft one. After all, if you were physically working in a hum-drum and repetitious activity for very long hours in the days of non-TV and (until the 1920s) no radio, then you’d want something to lift your spirits. And investing a tanner to visit Aston Villa would provide that lift, both through their quality of play and their achievements, aided by a pint at t’ pub. And the Blues and the Albyun in those days usually had a good team, too, to ensure that when Villa were matched against one of ‘em there was plenty to talk about after. What days they must have been – I missed nearly all of that era but remember elements of that atmosphere in the days of packed terraces in the early 50s. Including that guy who, every home match, would walk on his hands from the centre-circle to the goalmouth. Different times; different people. What fun.

Days that have all gone now. The old-type heavy industry is no more, the cloth cap has gone but the trams are making a bit of a come-back. The culture of the country is vastly different from what it was 40 years ago, let alone 100 years ago. And Aston is no longer the district of local Villa supporters.

Sadly, the claret and blue colours look rather insipid these days: once they seemed to have a rich hue about them but now the colours look to me as though they are (literally) all gloss with a bookmaker’s name scrawled across the front. It’s all about money now – the so-called ethos of knowing the price of everything but knowing the value of nothing.

Where has the quality gone? Quality in the kit, yes, and the quality on the field in particular. All has gone downhill, it would seem, apart from the prawn sarnies (perhaps). But are our expectations of the club too much? Some supporters of other clubs took drastic action when their clubs went down unwanted roads, like Wimbledon and Man U, but is Villa a different case? Way back in 1936, Fred Rinder, that grand old bastion of the Villa (and even in the days of the club’s first real depression), still opined that Villa were, and always would be, a great club. I always believed he was right, until about 5 years ago when I started to feel that things were not good at the club. And in Villa’s history, 5 years of downturn is a very long time indeed. The length of this period in the club’s history can only be compared to the latter half of the 1960s. And it then took more than 6 years for the new regime to get things back on track: but they did – in grand style.

‘Where there’s life there’s hope’, they say. Can we have a 1969-type resurgence all over again? I now have me doubts, even though relegation has not yet taken place. The game is now a different creature to that which many of us fondly remember, and the money element is seen as what drives it along.

But it is people that have historically really made the difference, so where are the kind of people that really feel for the club and could help in another resurrection … the new Harry Parkeses and Eric Houghtons? And the fact that Villa could once draw on the then recent club experience of Vic Crowe and Ron Wylie. It’s that intimate connection that still existed back then, but I cannot see that level of connection and commitment in existence today.

Perhaps there’s a message here, about a broader picture. Premier League football now consists of precious few teams of real talent; the so-called top players live in a totally different world it would seem, and the lower league teams have really suffered since 1992. Perhaps we should examine the question whether top-flight professional football has passed its sell-by date; or perhaps we are content to go along with this ball-game within a ball-game and wait just to see what happens.

“The times they are a-changin’.” (Dylan, but best sung by Brum’s Ian Campbell)
Peter Paul and Mary version.