Slipshod Is Not Quite The Word For It

Oh, dear. Now that was sad. Pause: no it wasn't, it was just downright silly!

It was almost a carbon copy of the late collapse at Spurs on the opening day. Silly errors, all presenting the opposition with three goals. The best or worst of it is that the Gunners - and Spurs - are not showing themselves to be great shakes this season, which means the future is clouding somewhat for Villa.

I am not really pessimistic as to fear the worst, but there is a certain naivety in the team that is bordering on the calamitous. The saddest thing about yesterday was that the centre-back combination that we have been lauding so much each made a significant error leading to goals.

Adding to this - and despite our two slickly created and taken goals - is that our shooting is non-functional. Too many shots aimed at the keeper or without sufficient power. Yesterday we should have been out of reach of the Gunners before they recovered but for our woeful shooting, and followed by those so silly errors.

To my mind the situation really does call for a player of more maturity to be picked to help steady the ship. I have said this before and I think it worth repeating. Perhaps Lansbury or Conor is that player, probably at the expense of El Ghazi, who for me is not entirely convincing.

As a possible alternative, what about Davis playing with Wesley? Both of them work hard in retrieving the ball and I feel that the two together would be a mighty battering ram against opposition defences if allowed to blossom together.

I feel that some sort of decisive team adjustment needs to be made. And something that will be key to giving Villa the extra touch of oomph that is so badly needed.

As well as to stop making those silly mistakes. They keep talking about doing that, but when an extra touch of pressure is applied it looks as though we buckle.

Well, at least we scored, with Jack, at last, doing something really decisive to create the second.

UTV!

To Err Is Human ... But History Is History

One of the reasons why I plunged into an 18-month full-time study of the Villa's history all those years ago (and which study has vastly increased over the years since) was because I was certain that many things had been mis-stated in the various Villa histories I had read. I wanted to find out the truth.

One significant example is a statement in Peter Morris's well known history of 1962 which states that the Villa's famous captain of the 1880s, Archie Hunter, when on his premature death-bed, asked his brother Andy and others to push his bed towards the window of his room so that he could see the fans on their way to a Villa home match.

Now that statement is evocative in itself, and it is easy to accept the story on face value. However, supposing the true story is even more evocative? If so, 'why not tell the story as it really was', I thought.

So, what was "the real story"? The fact (as I discovered) is that Archie's brother Andy had himself died of TB six years before, so could not have been at Archie's bedside! In fact, to try and beat his illness, Aston Villa and the FA collected funds for Andy to go to a more suitable climate (they chose Australia). That took place in 1884. However, the week before the very start of the Football League (September, 1888), Archie belatedly received news from Australia of his brother Andy's death in June that year. Archie, understandably, was shaken by that news, and so affected that he did not play in the Villa's first-ever Football League match at Wolves. 

Archie then had to be prevailed upon by the Villa committee to continue playing, which he did. However, less than 18 months later Archie himself played his last game of football when he had a seizure or heart attack in a match against Everton at Anfield, and less than 5 years after that Archie died. From this sad event came the story about Archie's wish to have his bed moved so that he could witness the fans on their way to a Villa match, which is basically a true story.

It is so easy to create a myth out of reality, and I found so many other examples of the creation of perpetuating myths. Here are two more:

1. Legend has it that in 1874, four members of the Wesleyan Chapel male adult bible class met under a gas lamp in Heathfield Road to form Aston Villa.

2. The four founding fathers of our club are believed to be Jack Hughes, William H Price, George Matthews and William H Scattergood.

Nothing of the kind. Aston Villa was not formed under a gas lamp. It was merely a place of discussion about what type of football to adopt. And the four named people were not the "founding fathers". They were merely a deputation that went to look at a football match to decide on its merits and returned to report on the same.

(The above 2 statements were, surprisingly, stated in an official Villa page which can be seen here, and has not been changed despite my pointing out the error to the club.)

The real "founding fathers" were the 15 original members of the club, whose names I have, and are all quoted in my books "The Villa Chronicles" and "The First Superclub". Jack Hughes (one of the four that met under the gaslamp) was quite adamant that the founders were all the 15 original members, not just "the four". Jack Hughes stated this on more than one occasion - and certainly stated this in 1899 and 1924, the 25th and 50th anniversaries of the club. As Hughes was himself "one of the four" under the gaslamp it is likely that his account of this aspect of the club's foundation is correct.

Again, it is commonly stated (see Wikipedia) that the Villa were formed by members of the Villa Cross Wesleyan Chapel. This is probably just lazy writing, but the fact is that the chapel was named as the Aston Villa Wesleyan Chapel, which was located at what became to be known as Villa Cross (my own family lived in that area at the time and attended that chapel).

Another myth is the old story about the Villa playing their first match against St. Mary's in March, 1874 in a 15-a-side struggle. However, it is now known that this match was played in the following year (March, 1875) and seems to have been the first match that the Villa won, not the first they had played. It has been uncovered by more than one researcher that Villa started playing at least as early as November, 1874.

So the story of Villa being created in March, 1874 seems, now, to be quite spurious. However, there were several leading sports writers of the 1890s who repeatedly stated that the Villa had been founded in October, 1874, before the story was suddenly switched to March, 1874, for reasons unknown. Today, the date of November 21, 1874 is commonly stated, but that itself is not certain. I believe that we can say with reasonable certainty that no more than the process of the creation of the club occurred over the months October and November, 1874. And (who really knows?) there might have been a move towards creating a club in March, 1874 after all.

Anyhow, history is history no matter how you dress it up. And all that people like me can do is as much research as possible to uncover facts that might lead to what really happened. The reality of what happened is usually a lot more interesting than the myth!

Why not read about the main history of the Villa for yourself? Please see this webpage for more information about a magazine series.

Thank you and UTV!

A 'Natural Break' Reflection Time

On the face of it, the Villa is not doing too well after gaining points from just one game out of four. And of the games lost, one of them was to Spurs on the opening day, who have since failed to win.

Rather than wanting to stimulate panic, however, there is the good side - well, good-ish - in that we have only conceded six goals in four, and three of those were on the opening day. So we're hardly getting a pasting.

The fear I do have, though, is that although I can see some good signs of quality in pretty well all the players brought in to the club, the current outfield players all lack Premier League experience and are sometimes showing naivety. And they are going to take some time to gel, I feel. 

To continue losing matches is not a valid option. Will they - can they - pull together to start climbing the table to a respectable (less worrying) position?

To be frank, I think there is an adjustment needed, and that is to bring back one of or both Conor and Henri to bring in a better level of experience at possibly no loss in quality. I feel they could provide the maturity that's needed to steady the ship. It's not an ideal option, but a necessary one I feel.

Or even bring in Elmo on the right-wing.

Against Palace I felt that from the start we seemed to be half-a-pace behind our opponents, with our old castigated discard Jordan Ayew making a monkey out of our hero Mings on at least two occasions. Ayew and Zaha really did have an edge that we did not have - or were not allowed to reveal. So for John McGinn to assert that Villa deserved a last-minute 'equaliser' - from, effectively, Villa's only decent attempt on goal in the match - was surely an over-the-top statement. I have no trouble in condemning the referee's un-Friend-ly decision on Jack, and the goal should have stood, but we honestly can't say we deserved a goal. In fact, we were somewhat lucky to lose by only one goal.

If we had left Palace with a point salvaged I feel that it might have glossed over our problems. Better, I think, to face up to the situation that we are short of something, and that possibly boils down to commitment. I don't think the team have yet measured up to just what is needed to stay in the top-flight, and the fight/effort required to achieve that.

My mind also goes back to just about four years ago when even then we started bringing in a lot of young-ish overseas players like Veretout, Amavi and Gueye, and expected them to gel and keep our club going at the top. But collectively they were not up to the mark. It is telling, though, that since those players left Villa they have gone on to success with their new clubs, and Everton fans are expressing their sadness over Gueye's expensive departure.

We can look to Jordan Ayew, too, and Robinson and Stevens at the Blades, and Albrighton at Leicester - to name a few - that have left Villa for better things.

Well, perhaps what happened in the final seconds at Palace will make the Villa players all fired-up and ready to hammer the Hammers in the next match! They really do need to do that, as the next match up after that is rapid fire from the Gunners on their patch.

UTV!