 Wednesday, 20th Mar 2013 22:55 by ShotKneesHoop In the latest in an occasional series of articles on LFW, message board regular ShotKneesHoop reports from the home end at Villa Park on Saturday’s heartbreaker.
BackgroundI have two grandkids living in Worcestershire, that have been cultivated to be Villa supporters by their dad, and a daughter who has been brought up properly by me and supports the R’s; so this fixture was a belated Christmas present to them of a visit to a proper football ground to see a relegation dog fight. Villa often use fixtures with potentially low crowd appeal to do special offers to recruit families. Their offer of four for £44 (two adults and two juniors) was cheaper than any day ticket to watch at Loftus Road this season, so I called their ticket office as soon as the offers were open to the general public. The call was handled very pleasantly and efficiently and four bar coded tickets arrived in the post within 48 hours. Villa 1 - QPR - 0.
JourneyI’ve always got the train to Witton, as the walk to Villa Park is the nearer of the two stations, but the train service is a bit irregular. This time I booked the train from Bromsgrove to Aston, left on the 12.45 and we got to Aston Station in just 30 minutes. After a stroll through the Aston wastelands - avoiding the vomit in ‘Lovers Lane’ - we were approaching Villa Park. There can’t be a more impressive stadium to be walking towards. The magnificent Holte End appears as we cross under the Aston Expressway. Lots of Villa supporters were disappearing into pubs for refueling or waiting in line outside large mobile burger bars to buy hot dogs and burgers that look 100 times healthier than the ones you get from the grease trolleys outside Ellerslie. Villa 1 - QPR - 0.
The GroundThe TV screens under the stand were showing the Everton game, again good catering on offer, pies, pasties, etc. We were in the Upper Tier of the North Stand, similar to the Upper Loft. The journey to the ground had been so swift that when we took our seats at 1.45 pm, we were one of the few in the ground. It gave you a real chance to appreciate what Villa have built there. It’s a template for a perfect football ground, where you can watch a game in relative comfort. The seats seemed to have the same sort of leg pitch as the Loftus Road seats, but because their North Stand is built to such a tighter elevation, the legroom was adequate. The backs of the seats were curved to allow more room at either side and the tops of the seats in front were level with shins - rather than knee caps. We got a view of the whole pitch as there were no pillars, gantries to obstruct the view. The ground seemed to take a long time to fill up; probably my fault, because I had used Loftus Road time planning to allow for a couple of pints in the White Horse and cod and chips at Ocean Billy’s. Villa 1 - QPR – 0
First HalfIt was obvious that the North Stand was used primarily for the family offers, as there werelots of kids and parents arriving. All were well behaved, but you could tell who the season tickets holders were by watching them stand up and rage at Lambert and his team’s pitiful first half showing. They really don’t like Lambert at all there, they just seem to put up with him - as we had to put up with Hughes. No-one sang “Lambert, give us a wave” that’s for sure. Several Villa fans said they lived for the day when they will have an English manager again. They’ve had two negative Jocks, a Frenchman who thinks he’s really a Scouser and an Irishman who’s as mad as a sack of frogs. Lambert does his best to imitate O’Neill: kicking every imaginary ball as if it was a bad dog. The Villa fans don’t think much of those antics either. There was a lot of noise and humour coming from the R’s support in the Doug Ellis stand. I particularly liked “We’re winning away, how shit must you be? We’re winning away” and “Harry’s keeping us up, Lambert’s taking you down.” Up to 45 minutes, the Villa crowd agreed with the away fans. The North Stand got so bored with watching Villa chase shadows in the Holte End half of the pitch that they focussed most of their attention on R’s fans avoiding being slung out. There seemed to be loads of stewards and police hunting for targets that just seemed to melt away every time they got to the back of the Lower Doug Ellis Stand. Very funny.
Halfway through the first half, as abusing Lambert and the Villa team for their piss poor performance had not made the Villa fans feel any better, they turned on Kevin Friend the referee who gave them every opportunity to vent their spleens on him. Firstly, he allowed a blatant pass back from Bosingwa to Cesar to go unpunished, then played advantage for Rangers, when they committed three fouls in rapid succession. Towards the end of the fast half seemed to have lost total control of the game. My daughter said “He’s having a mare, but at least he’s funny.” Just after that, a Villa fan returned to his seat to announce “Shit football, and they don’t serve chips in the North Stand, they don’t serve bloody chips, what the point of coming anymore?” I was still giggling when Bosingwa took a free kick, hit the post and then decided to do his Fred Astaire impression over the ball, allowing it to be stolen. This is when I stopped giggling, if you an an R’s fan, you just know when it’s about to hit the fan… A long ball punted to the far post, where Hill, Samba, and worst of all, Cesar, played “after you Claude” and allowed five foot eight inches small Agbonlahor to head in from point blank range. The home fans forgot about chips being off the menu and suddenly Villa were the greatest team in the world. Another 20 seconds of this and then the ref blew for half time and went off to a chorus of “You don’t know what you’re doing.” Neither did the Rangers defence for that matter. Villa 0 - QPR 3 .... and that should have been the half time score as well.
Half TimeNo comparison to Staleg 13 Ellerslie facilities: clean toilets, no queuing for any length of time, TV screens with scores abound, reasonably priced beers, pies an pasties. My grandson Josh got a huge hot dog in a proper baguette, with onions, mustard and ketchup for just £3.20. He couldn’t finish it. My grand daughter Amelia, got proper Bournville drinking chocolate for £2. Easy access back to seats for the second half. Villa 5 - QPR – 3
Second HalfBeing an R’s fan for almost too many years, I knew what was coming next. Lambert couldn’t believe his luck. All he had to say at half time was “You can’t get any worse, they can”. The crowd started to get behind Villa straight way, and Park, Jenas, Bosingwa and Fabio disappeared from view. Another goal thanks to poor defending and appalling goal keeping really wound the Holte End up. The Villa fans got behind their team at last. A goal to level the scores woke up the R’s fans who had been very quiet throughout the second half . It was now the R’s game to win, My grandson asked me at this point if he could go home now as he couldn’t see Villa winning. Which was true until another balls up on the right touch line allowed Benteke his one clear shot on goal.
But, by this time Adel had also come on the pitch, and what a twenty minute cameo he gave. To appreciate what Taraabt really does, you need to be sitting either in the Upper Loft or in the Upper Tier of the North Stand to see how he changes the direction of the game. His first touch of the ball took out the complete Villa midfield and an inch perfect pass to Remy. Villa put three men on him, that just gave him more room to find his team mates. Just after Villa got their third goal, Taraabt found Hoilett with another precision pass. Hoilett for once used his left foot to hoist a cross to Remy, who from where I was sitting, could not miss heading in from two foot out. So he did. Villa fans were raging about not being able to shut him down,and asking why they don’t have players like him on their books. I turned to my grandson and said “Josh, you’re watching a genius” “I know Grandad” he said. My daughter kept saying “DId you see that pass?’ and I was finding it really difficult to sit on my hands whilst I was sitting in enemy territory. It just seemed that Rangers must score at that stage. Taraabt was creating so many openings now; but Villa were defending in numbers, the Holte End were in full support, and the nauseating Lambert was shown on the big screen running around like a poodle on heat. There were screams of rage from Villa fans when five minutes of added time was shown, of which at least three minutes were taken up by blatant time wasting by their goalkeeper; which Kevin Friend chose to ignore. Right at the death, I thought Clint Hill had done it, I was ready to hit the roof as the net bulged, unfortunately, someone in row F caught his shot. Final whistle goes, Lambert does a demented Gay Gordons on the touchline, R’s collapse on the pitch, and Villa troop off as unlikely and undeserved winners. Villa 3 - QPR 3 .... and that should have been the final score as well.
The Journey HomeConsidering that over 38,000 people were there, it was amazing how easy it was to get away at the final whistle. Straight down the aisles, out onto the concourse, and a troop back to the station via the urban jungle of Aston. We just missed one train, another came in after just five minutes with a lot of Walsall supporters on board, delighted that they had equalised in extra time. Just to rub it in! The rest of the people on the train were talking generously about the R’s efforts. I whispered to my daughter “At least some Villa fans appreciate what they saw today” She said “Dad, if you listen to them talking, they’re not Brummies, they talk just like you, they’re QPR fans” And so they were. New Street Station was full of Villa fans singing Benteke’s name, no one mentioned Lambert. To end it all, the news was that England were losing the Grand Slam rugby to Wales was followed by my train leaving New Street ten minutes late, so I missed my connection at Peterborough, my next connecting bus at that time of day only went as far as King’s Lynn, so I had to spend £20 on a taxi from there to home, driven by a Latvian who was practising for the F1 Grand Prix the next day. I rushed indoors, switched the TV on to see Match of the Day but all I got was the last moments of Shearer moaning about Taraabt and how he “doesn’t do it for him”. Tosspot. Villa 1 - QPR 0
Final ThoughtsAston Villa: Positives - A fantastic proper football ground, comfortable seats, great view, realistic non rip off prices, very good customer attitude all round. Holte End only place where any real noise comes from. Even transport links there are much improved. Negatives - Exactly - a negative manager, with a team that has no creative ideas. No personality in the team. A fickle crowd, they’ll moan about anything and anyone - even the absence of chips. Never get behind them until they’ve gone at least one goal up. QPR: Positives - An anachronistic footballing team, played so well in the first half, we should have been home and hosed. If Taraabt had come on earlier, would we have pulled it off? Away support, very noisy and funny the first half, the second half, like our mid field just disappeared. Negatives - School boy defending second half. Lack the killer punch, ‘Arry doesn’t know his best side yet. Doesn’t get the best out of Taraabt, if he wants the best out of Remy, they have to play together. Cesar had a mare, screwed up three of the five attempts that Villa had on goal. Next year? I’ll go for the same seats again. Villa will go down with us, they are awful. If they get rid of Lambert and appoint someone with the club in their blood they should do well, they have a terrific set up there. And if Tony’s looking for a template for a new stadium, I hope he looks at Villa Park. With his decision making talents though, he’ll probably opt for the Ricoh in Coventry. Pictures – John Hansell, Action Images Photo: Action Images Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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