Aston Villa Club Information
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Aston Villa are one of the oldest and most successful football clubs in England, having won the First Division Championship seven times and the FA Cup seven times.
The club was founded in 1874 and have played at their current home ground, Villa Park, since 1897. Aston Villa were founding members of The Football League in 1888 and the Premier League in 1992. The club was floated by the previous owner and chairman Doug Ellis, but in 2006 full control of the club was acquired by Randy Lerner.
Villa have a long-standing and fierce rivalry with local rivals Birmingham City, although West Bromwich Albion is actually the closest professional football club. The Birmingham derby between Aston Villa and Birmingham City has been played since 1879. The club's traditional kit colours are claret shirts with sky blue sleeves, white shorts and sky blue socks. Their traditional crest is of a rampant gold lion on a light blue background with the club's motto 'Prepared' underneath; a modified version of this was adopted in 2007.
The club colours are claret shirt with sky blue sleeves, white shorts with claret and blue trim, and sky blue socks with claret and white trim. Nobody is quite sure why claret and blue became the club's adopted colours. The main theory surrounding the colours suggests that with the Scottish influence of characters such as George Ramsay and William McGregor the kit was created from the combination of the maroon of Hearts and the blue of Rangers, with the Scottish lion rampant included in the badge. Aston Villa's success inspired some other clubs to adopt claret as their home colours, most notably Burnley and West Ham United.
Villa Park
Aston Villa's current home venue is Villa Park, which is a UEFA 4-star rated stadium, having previously played at Aston Park (1874–1876) and Perry Barr (1876–1897). Villa Park is currently the largest football stadium in the Midlands, and the eighth largest stadium in England. It has hosted 16 England internationals at senior level, the first in 1899, and the most recent in 2005. Thus it was the first English ground to stage international football in three different centuries. Villa Park is the most used stadium in FA Cup semi-final history, having hosted 55 semi-finals. The Club have planning permission to extend the North Stand; This will involve the 'filling in' of the corners to either side of the North Stand. If completed, the capacity of Villa Park will be increased to approximately 51,000.
Aston Villa Supporters
Aston Villa in the community programme has recently been set up to encourage support amongst young people in the region. The new owners have also initiated several surveys aimed at gaining the opinions of Villa fans and to involve them in the decision making process. Meetings also occur every three months where supporters are invited by ballot and are invited to ask questions to the Board.
Like many English football clubs Aston Villa has had several hooligan firms associated with it: Villa Youth, Steamers, Villa Hardcore and the C-Crew, the latter being very active during the 1970s and 1980s. As can be seen across the whole of English football, the hooligan groups have now been marginalised. In 2004 several Villa firms were involved in a fight with QPR fans outside Villa Park in which a steward died. The main groupings of supporters can now be found in a number of domestic supporters' clubs. This includes the Official Aston Villa Supporters Club which also has many smaller regional and international sections. There were several independent supporters clubs during the reign of Doug Ellis but most of these disbanded after his retirement. The club's supporters also publish fanzines such as Heroes and Villains (football fanzine) and The Holy Trinity. The use of the abbreviation Itsotp (in the shirt, on the pitch) is believed to have originated on Aston Villa messageboards in relation to the transfer speculation that has become the norm during transfer windows.
Aston Villa's arch-rivals are Birmingham City, with games between the two clubs known as the 'Second City Derby'. Today, Villa also enjoy less heated local rivalries with West Bromwich Albion, Wolverhampton Wanderers and Coventry City. (These five clubs plus Walsall are collectively referred to in the West Midlands as the 'Big Six'.) Historically though, West Bromwich Albion have been one of Villa's greatest rivals, a view highlighted in a fan survey, conducted in 2003.
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