My First Year With Villa
My first game: Aston Villa against Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park. My pregnant wife and two-year-old are asleep, so I am left alone to watch. It’s a kind of quiet that I can only get from the hours of 10:30 to 5:00, and it’s the perfect setting to experience my first match. I lay on the couch and start searching for a stream on my phone. I am able to pick up the game about midway through the first half, just in time to see the run on yellow cards. My grasp of the game is elementary at best, so my response is largely dictated by the announcers, who both seem to think they were a bit harsh. After the break, it’s Trezeguet who gets the second yellow and is sent off; the announcers bring up the four yellow cards again — this outcome being a given after what took place in the first half. Soon after it’s a counter; Ayew knocks the ball between two defenders and then sticks it past Heaton for the first goal. Down a guy, it feels like my first game’s not going to be a one to remember. My excitement levels jump as a couple of good chances come and go; the tension builds as the game closes in on the 90. We’re in stoppage time now; I glance over and see that it’s just before one in the morning. Here it is, the last run; Grealish up the middle of the pitch, he’s pushed, kicked, then as he falls to the ground leaves it off to Lansbury who knocks it home! Jumping off the couch, I start silently shouting, “No fucking way! No fucking way!”
I notice the Villa players yelling at the referee. Then it’s announced…a yellow…for simulation. The foul took place before the goal, it’s still 1–0 Crystal Palace, and the final whistle blows. “What the fuck!” This time a little louder than my celebration that has now been rendered pointless.
The announcers are going nuts, Grealish is beside himself, and I’m left angry and confused. I immediately email my coworker to try to get some answers. Even with my lack of knowledge, it seems pretty obvious that we got screwed.
So this was my introduction to the Villa. It was fun, frustrating, and ultimately agonizing, but I loved it. It was exciting. That single game had so many of the things that make the sport great. The first goal happens in a flash. It’s a quick counter, a swift move to open up enough space for a shot, and just like that 1–0. Then the rest of the game is the fight back. One side desperately trying to get on the front foot to equalize, while the other is doing everything they can to defend and slow the pace of play. With each attack that comes up short, the anticipation builds and builds, waiting like a stick of dynamite for the long fuse to reach its point of detonation. Then, when it finally happens, the explosion reverberates through the entire body. It’s those moments that make the whole ninety-plus minutes worth it. Even if your team is playing like shit or nothing really happens, in the back of your mind, you know that one moment could be coming at any minute.
From that point on I was in. I started to watch every game I could — it’d be over a month before I actually saw them win — and I threw myself into learning everything I could about my new club; it became an obsession. Walking to or from the station, I would always be accompanied by a podcast, then it’d be videos, Wikipedia, or a slew of articles as I passed the time on my commute. I’d even sneak a couple of minutes in while laying in bed waiting for my son to fall asleep.
The story of Aston Villa was the type that immediately pulled me in; how could things get so bad, so quickly? How could they go from one of the biggest clubs in England to relegated, seemingly stuck in the Championship League? The concept of relegation is sometimes difficult for American sports fans to really grasp because we simply have nothing that compares, but when I started to read more and hear fans talk about what happened at Aston Villa, it became easier to see how the dominoes can slowly start to fall, and once that final one goes and relegation happens so much uncertainty can start to kick in. Maybe it will be a short stint in the Championship with a quick bounce back up to the top flight, or maybe your Leeds.
***
There has been plenty of heartache in my first couple of months as a Villa fan, namely Liverpool, away. I haven’t lost hope though. The month of December feels like it could be a turning point. It starts off with a few tough games, but we should be able…have to get some points against Southampton, Norwich, and Watford.
12/2 Man United (A) 2–2:
Super Jack is incredible, should have gotten the full three points.
12/5 Chelsea (A) 2–1:
Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh… Tammy Abraham, I never truly knew you, but I miss you.
12/8 Leicester (H) 1–4:
My only positive take away: I learned what a slag is and that Jaime Vardy’s wife definitely is one.
12/15 Sheffield United (A) 2–0:
Not great…
12/22 Southampton (H) 1–3:
I’m canceling Christmas.
Norwich (H) 1–0:
We got three points; that’s all that matters, right?
Watford (A) 3–0:
Watford down a man and Deeny with the final kick in the dick to end the year.
The month of December saw the birth of my second child — which was a nice little distraction from the awful football — and the absolute low point of my first year as an Aston Villa fan with the 3–1 loss to Southampton. I think it was the expectations that I had that things would start to improve. We’d string together a couple of wins and that would be the catalyst for us avoiding the drop — ironically that’s exactly what happened for Southampton after they beat us. Even though I was thoroughly frustrated, I never completely lost hope, nor did I ever doubt my decision to follow the team; it was my chance to learn what it takes to survive as a Villa fan, which is the complete abandonment of all hope and positive expectations.
***
I’ve started planning my baby night shifts around Villa’s fixtures. The game against Watford kicks off at 4:30 am, and the baby is scheduled to wake up around 5:00 for his bottle, so I tell the wife that I can handle this one.
Right on schedule, he wakes up at about the thirty-minute mark. I move him from the crib to the prepared changing location — of course, it’s a poop. While changing the diaper I try to keep an eye on the action, then as I’m walking to drop the shitty diaper into the garbage I’m suddenly struck by the thought of returning to the living room to see that goddamn bluenose, Deeney, celebrating.
I wash my hands, grab the bottle, and look down at my phone to see 1–0 Watford. Fuck! They show the replay, and of course, it’s Deeney making that goddamn face. The baby drinks his bottle and I burp him during halftime. He’s asleep, cradled in my left arm as I hold my phone in the other. El Ghazi moves in from the right, passes to Grealish who dribbles into the penalty box and leaves it off for Target; Target smashes one on goal, it deflects out wide, out of nowhere comes Douglas Luiz who fucking barries it in the back of the net for the equalizer — my arms tense and my fists clench as I quietly say several words that would get me kicked out of church. Luiz runs screaming past the goal, then takes a quick right and jumps into the Holte End. I decide then and there that I will love this man for the rest of my life.
The baby is now back in the crib, light from the sunrise is starting to peek through the window. Time is running out. Guilbert gets fouled. We got one last chance at this. Reina runs up to the ball, just as he stands over it, getting ready to boot it forward, the baby gargles and starts coughing. I quickly use the light from the game to check that he’s okay. The ball gets headed down by Hause, right to Mings who dribbles forward before passing to Konsa, wide open at the top of the box he blasts one top corner for the win! The crowd erupts and the screen starts shaking as I tightly grip the phone in my hands. My face turns red as I let out a silent primal scream, purging the remnants of 6–1 Man City, 3–0 Watford, and 3–1 Southampton. I’m quickly snapped back to reality by the baby and forced to put the celebration on hold as I again check to make sure he’s okay. He’s fine.
The final whistle blows and the celebration continues. “Sweet Caroline” never sounded so good. I pump my fist in the air as the crowd screams, “Fuck the Blues!” I know there is no hope that I’ll get any sleep before the two-year-old wakes up, so I troll the internet for highlights, celebration videos, anything that will prolong this feeling.
And seven days later it happened again. At the death, Aston Villa came through; this time against Leicester to send us into the EFL Cup final. It dawned on me that I had only been following English football for around six months, and what a rollercoaster it had been. But as I was watching videos of the crowd flooding the pitch and ambushing the players, I realized that I wouldn’t change a minute of it. The Watford game meant so much more because of the six weeks prior; I don’t react that way if I don’t sit through all six goals we gave up to Man City nine days earlier. I don’t feel the same sense of retribution against Leicester without the lasting image of Vardy holding his hands up to his ears. It didn’t matter much if they won or lost against Man City in the final, it was the ride to get there. All the lows are what made the highs what they were. You can’t have one without the other.
***
The other British football fan in my office supports Tottenham and I often wonder what would have happened if he had got to me first. I had always been looking for a team in the Premier League to follow and in August I knew as much about Spurs as I did about Villa. I wonder if the team would have meant so much to me as quickly as the Villa did. Spurs haven’t had a great year, they aren’t currently involved in a relegation fight, though. They have some fun players to watch and an entertaining manager, but there’s no Super Jack or Sir Dean Smith. If I spent the same countless hours searching for content in the Tottenham world, I would probably have found that they also have a community full of fun and entertaining supporters like Villa has with the likes of Dan Bardell, Ty Bracey, and Mat Stokes. It’s possible that they have their own version of all the things that I was looking for in a team, but I always come back to a video that I stumbled across one day called Celebrating 140 Years of Aston Villa. In it, David Bradley (he’s an actor, you know him even if you don’t know him, he’s in a ton of shit) says, “They say you don’t choose Aston Villa, Aston Villa chooses you.” And that’s how I feel. Like I had no choice in the matter. Like it was meant to be.
Up the Villa!!
