Aston Villa: More than gold — Terrace Edition

Words: Tom Reed

Images: Tom Reed

Shot on film and digital where stated.

“They (god’s words) are more precious than gold, than much pure gold; they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the honeycomb”. Psalm 19:10.

If you want to experience beauty, go on the Holte End at Aston Villa and see the light dapple through the stained glass windows as you climb the stairs and hear the roar which makes the soles of your Puma Palermos stick fast for a second.

Aston Villa isn’t just a club, it’s a flow, the fans are at the next match before they’ve even clicked through the turnstiles. They can feel the cool silver of the European Cup between their fingers even though they don’t know when it will come, but it will come.

“Prepared” reads the mural of the old club motto on the industrial unit next to Villa Park, and Villa fans have been ready to put up with the miss-touches and the Boško Balabans in order to re-take a seat at football’s top table.

Years ago I went to Fulham vs Aston Villa and there was a Villa supporter carrying a home-made replica of the European Cup, which seemed deranged at the time but after visiting Villa Park, it becomes strangely understandable.

To win the European Cup just once in 1982 and for the achievement to still be venerated, speaks volumes about the sporting intentions of this club of generations.

©Tom Reed/ Terrace Editon. Aston Villa vs Everton. On film.

In the Bartons Arms in Birmingham, members of the Berkshire and Buckinghamshire Lions Villa supporters’ club are tucking into some Thai food in one of Britain’s finest Victorian public houses.

They’ll be onto Berne in Switzerland next (as you do) but for now will park their arses briefly for Beef Massaman, Pad Thai and pints ahead of the Premier League match against Everton.

The Toffees know all about the walk to a grand old ground so wouldn’t have minded the yomp up the hill towards Villa Park, even with the doormen of the Bartons Arms giving a cheerful “Up The Villa” in that Birmingham twang on departure.

They’ll pass and pop a pound in the bucket of the Aston and Nechells Foodbank at the Birchfield Gospel Hall on Trinity Road, putting paid to any idea of Villa as a totally middle class club, with both its fanbase and surrounding community not insulated from real deprivation.

Villa have gone against the grain for years and while West Ham and hated rivals Birmingham City are noted for the first sets of multicultural lads, Villa’s C-Crew were pulling in British-West Indian youth at the dawn of the 2-Tone era.

Early Villa director and Football League creator Willam McGregor was the original Villa non-conformist, who worshipped at the church on nearby Wheeler Street, but kicked the Liberal politics to one side once the football took over.

©Tom Reed/ Terrace Edition. Villa fans eat at the Bartons Arms. on film.

The club itself had been founded in 1874 by members of the Villa Cross Wesleyan Chapel cricket team who wanted something to do in the winter. You have to wonder what the people that created Aston Villa FC in the Christian spirit, would make of the modern outfit and its approach to commerce.

At the steps of the Holte End, once the biggest terrace in Europe, supporters are handing out flyers with an image of Chris Heck, the club’s President of Business Operations superimposed onto a faux fifty-pound note.

The reverse reads “stop exploiting loyalty”.

It’s disappointing that, at a time when Villa are competing in the European Cup once more, the club’s management are receiving poor P.R. for decisions over ticket pricing and other changes to the match-day at Villa Park.

Pricing for the Champions League campaign have stuck in the craw for supporters, as tickets were chalked up at between £70 and £97 to watch the Villa go up against the likes of Bayern Munich, who they overcame in that famous 1982 final.

The Guardian’s Barry Glendenning put together a punchy piece criticising the “lame resistance” to the price increases but supporters have to be incredibly careful in picking their battles, with the club doing well on the pitch and any campaign could well be a long one.

What you found was completely reasonable fans handing out the flyers and continuing the wider conversation about how Villa are seen by the football community.

It relates back to the importance of both inward and outward godliness, as described by John Wesley, the father of Methodism, whose followers set up the Villa.

There is no point in preaching about community and the importance of the Villa fanbase when supporters feel the pinch in what should be a release from their everyday lives.

If Fortuna Düsseldorf can offer free entry for all supporters then Aston Villa can and probably should find a way to bring ticket prices back down to a liveable level in order to live up to the higher sporting ideals that sees fans clutch replicas of the European Cup.

Finding a sponsor to subsidise the European ticket prices is an obvious open goal for any company willing to take the shot.

Of course, the passing of Gary Shaw this week, the star number eight of that ‘82 night in Rotterdam put things into perspective.

Ian Taylor, a notable Villa player himself from a couple of generations after Shaw, raised a glass for the handsome, talented midfielder in Berne, to chants of “he’s bound to score, Gary Gary Shaw’.

©Tom Reed/ Terrace Editon. The Holte End. Aston Villa vs Everton. On film.

A fan on social media describes how she sent her sister’s boyfriend onto the pitch to get the blonde midfielder’s prized autograph.

Tony Morley, Shaw’s teammate from ’82 said that many of the players left the field after winning the European Cup with huge blisters. Some were on £300 a week, they weren’t rich men.

You could offer a billion pounds to melt down that European trophy and Villa fans wouldn’t take it.

When you climb the stairs to the Holte End, a small square opens up, in front of which are rows upon rows of devotees with a crescendo of sound passing over their shoulders.

A heart surgeon has just completed his 200th operation and is spending a precious day off at Villa Park, such is the pull.