“ASTON Villa is the biggest club on the football canvas.”
So it was claimed in 1913. Not in partisan fashion by a Birmingham pundit
but by a correspondent of the London Evening News.
These days, the Londoncentric media often barely acknowledges the existence
of football beyond Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham. Back in 1913 they didn’t have
much choice.
Arsenal were so deep in financial crisis they were considering a merger
with Charlton Athletic.
The Gunners had just been relegated to Division Two while Chelsea and Spurs
scraped to safety above them, finishing immediately above the drop
zone.
After eight years in the league, Chelsea were a yo-yo club while Spurs had
failed to break into the top half of the top tier in four seasons since entering
the League by beating Lincoln City in an election ballot so dodgy even Robert
Mugabe would have deemed it unfeasible.
From the north, too, came acknowledgment that Villa were top dogs. Preston
North End were big back then and the ‘Invincibles’ had some battle-royals with
Villa but their skipper Bob Holmes admitted: “The Villa played football as if
they wre playing chess you were not allowed to interfere with their
moves.”
“The most outstanding trailblazer in football.” That was Villa. It’s hardly
news that, long ago, Villa were one of the most successful clubs in football.
But that they were the biggest of all and just how big has just been
revealed in an excellent book by John Lerwill.
Few people have a deeper and more detailed knowledge of the club than
Lerwill. Birmingham-born into a generations-deep family of Villa supporters, he
is a former official historian of Villa as well as a life-long
supporter.
He has devoted years of research into ‘Aston Villa The First Superclub’,
a remarkable tome which gives a thorough account of the club’s entire
history.
All areas are covered from great games and great players to the great
stories that happened (the Barwick Street meeting at which Fred Rinder
galvanised the supporters and set the agenda for all the success to follow) and
those that didn’t happen (“Any manager would want to take on such a job with a
club like Aston Villa,” said Brian Clough. “It is a big club and I would
probably have taken up the post there if I had been approached but nobody
asked me.”)
The book is not, however, simply an exercise in flag-waving. The thin times
are also well-documented but most fascinating is the detail of Villa’s
once-exalted position at the summit of English football.
In the 20 years leading up to the First World War, Villa won the league six
times and were runners-up five times. In that era they accumulated 1,063 points,
comfortably more than anyone else. Of their rivals, only Everton (1,008) topped
1,000. They also won four FA Cups and their success was reflected off the field.
Club president Joseph Ansell hailed them “a gigantic trading concern.”
Yes, Villa were indeed a ‘superclub’. And as you delve into the detail in
this definitive book, one question looms large: Can they ever be a ‘superclub’
again?
They remain a big club, of course. A famous club with big support. But to
be a ‘superclub’ you have to have success.
When will Villa know success again? Will they ever again challenge for the
league title?
Or are they, like the vast majority in the charmless plutocracy which the
top level of English football has become, destined to set sneaking into the top
six, with perhaps a cup final here and there, as the pinnacle of their
ambition?
If so, the reason is certainly not all of Villa’s making. They were only
one of the clubs which, in 1992, voted to form the Premiership, a move which, in
one swoop, set the English top flight on course to become its current farce of a
tiny elite pursued hopelessly from a great distance by the rest. That momentous
decision guaranteed the fat cats would get ever fatter while the rest, well...
perhaps Coventry, Oldham, Forest, Ipswich, Sheffield United founder members of
the Premiership might now reflect it wasn’t such a great idea.
Villa finished second in that inaugural Premiership season, Ron Atkinson’s
side finishing ten points behind Manchester United. They have not got anything
like as close since and, as the wealth gap widens, the glass ceiling
hardens.
Now the top clubs plunder the planet for players while the only way for a
club to join the elite is to be bought, Manchester City-style, by a
billionaire.
The Premiership has been won by only Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal
and Manchester City in the last 17 years. Will that change in the next 17? You
could argue that back in the early 1970s, relegated to the third tier for the
first time, Villa were closer to winning the league than they are now.
Nine years, almost to the day, after playing Chesterfield in Division
Three, they were champions. What price Villa winning the Premiership in 2021?
Randy Lerner’s arrival in 2006 sparked optimism and, under Martin O’Neill, a
period of relative success two top-six finishes and a League Cup final. But
O’Neill became frustrated by the owner’s refusal to throw huge money into
driving the club forward and since the Irishman’s resignation, at a
mischievously damaging time on the eve of the 2009/10 season, well...
Two dreadful managerial appointments didn’t help. If the ailing Gerard
Houllier had the Holte End jury out, the recruitment of Alex McLeish direct from
Blues will forever remain one of the most baffingly stubborn, silly and
doomed-from-day-one managerial moves in the history of football. But alongside
the on-field travails, one off-field question began to gather credibility: Did
Lerner, for all his experience of owning clubs in American sport, under-estimate
what a financial black-hole the Premiership is?
“How do you become a millionaire?” Milan Mandaric once quipped. “Start off
as a billionaire then buy a football club!”
After investing £160 million in Villa in his first four years, Lerner
learned the hard way. So out went Gareth Barry. James Milner, Ashley Young and
Stewart Downing. And the club’s appetite to challenge the big boys, whetted by
the resurgence under O’Neill, evaporated.
Another well-worn saying in football is: “Stand still as a club and you
will go backwards.” That appears borne out by the current league table as Villa
head into winter in a relegation dogfight,
Where does the club go from here? At least, after two awful appointments,
they now have a manager whose arrival encouraged the fans. Paul Lambert has no
big-club managerial experience and is learning as he goes but has a track record
of success, a ferocious work ethic and high ambition.
Beyond the short-term business of keeeping Villa in the top flight, though,
as the top clubs disappear ever further into the financial stratosphere, what
can Lambert’s and Villa’s realistic aspirations be? Mid-table? The Europa
League?
In “Aston Villa The First Superclub”, John Lerwill reveals that back in
1936, when Villa were in crisis following relegation to Division Two, Rinder
returned to the board and vowed: “Villa have been a great club, are still a
great club and always will be a great club.”
Perhaps. But, in the warped world of English football where a tiny number
of clubs become ever more bloated while many flirt with ruin, will they ever
again be a successful club? Few men are better qualified than Lerwill to ponder
that question.
“Villa’s future is in the balance,” he said. “Trusting that Paul Lambert is
able to steer a safe course this season then the future under his style could be
bright. But whether the club will be able to replicate the glory years, even of
the early 1980s, is a moot point.
“Without major funding behind Lambert, the main factor determining Villa’s
future is the Premier League itself. It needs to become much more of a level
playing field.”
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