Villa 2-0 Everton. Aug 23rd

Villa Park is a revered stadium throughout British football, the kind of place away fans like to chalk up as an ‘I’ve been there’ ground given its history and renown. For decades a first choice FA Cup semi final venue, Villa Park is also one of the few English stadiums to retain its identity, any changes made to the place over the years have been in keeping with its tradition, so despite the Holte End being converted to seating and both the Witton Lane and Trinity Road Stands having had other tiers added, Villa Park has never lost its identity.

Under the floodlights it’s an awe inspiring place, like no other, particularly with the ground full to the rafters, and with tonight’s game against Everton being broadcast by Sky TV we had the perfect opportunity to showcase Villa Park to the nation. We’re proud of our club, especially our stadium, but as Villa supporters soaked up the atmosphere and shared their home with millions of armchair guests, we just hoped the players would concentrate their efforts on matters in hand. This they did.

Everton aren’t dissimilar to Aston Villa in that they’re a respected, long standing, traditional, big city club with a famous stadium and big support. They’ve fared rather better than ourselves in recent years, without pulling up any trees, they’ve not won anything or even threatened to, but they’ve maintained their status in the Premiership without too much bother and would be a difficult opponent tonight. And so it proved, Everton stroking the ball around pleasantly, creating a couple of good opportunities, hitting a post and seeing Walcott muff a sitter while Villa stood firm and gradually took more of a foothold in the game. Then came the opening goal, our big summer signing, Wesley, latching on to a super ball from (yet another) new signing, Jota, and slotting into the corner of the net. Cue jubilant scenes. Around twenty minutes had been played when Wesley scored but it’d be another seventy plus stoppage time before another went in, a heaving Holte End going ballistic as El Ghazi notched for Villa with virtually the last kick of the game.

For my part I watched on Sky in the company of a few guys I meet up with every Friday night but get this, they don’t like football? What’s all that about? I cranked up SkyGo on my laptop while we put the world to rights, managing to keep my cool when I saw us score the first out of the corner of my eye, but I couldn’t resist the full-on cartwheeling when El Ghazi scored the sealer. That’s our first win of the season and after losing the first two, we needed it big style. The monkey’s off the back, the season has begun. Villa 2-0 Everton.