Down and out in Witton and Aston

Aston Villa v Watford
Saturday 20th January

Engineering works meant the timetable I’d used to arrange Kerry putting Joss onto a train we were on from Euston for Birmingham New Street was about half an hour later than we thought. Still, delay aside it went smoothly and Kerry waved us goodbye from the platform after Watford Boy Joss took his seat next to Jun. Prepared with his PSP, didn’t fancy a sudoku and Jun and I read the newspaper and magazine. Joss and I changed to a Walsall bound train and Jun went to walk around the Bullring.

We passed through Duddeston, where we had arranged to meet my friend from Durrants School after the match, and many of the Villa fans got off at Aston. We detrained at Witton and bought very white chips from a tattooed female chippie and ate them outside the entrance we were directed to by a helpful local fan, who wished us all the best. Inside the stadium I recognised a few faces but my ‘pledge’ earlier in the season to make an effort to talk to fans has been relegated to a ‘consideration’. The guy to my right was running his own analysis on the match as though he had been requested to do so by his immediate neighbours.

There was more effort this week and our confidence grew as Villa seemed there for the taking after their poor run of late, putting passes astray and lacking any cutting edge, though Foster was there when they did get through. We had two good chances of our own. Young (who turned down West Ham in the week and has agreed terms with our opponents on a fee that could apparently rise to nine and a half million pounds) was left out; Hoskins and Priskin started together for the first time and the former Rotherham man had a good shot tipped over by Sorensen, as did Bouazza.

There wasn’t the atmosphere among the Yellow Army that there had been at the Fulham match, and I’m not sure that the shallow nature of the seating wasn’t partly the cause. The Villa fans weren’t much better but when they did all get involved very late on (a case of “singing when you’re winning”, unfortunately), the ground echoed impressively. I’ve been in different stands each of the three times I’ve watched Watford at this stadium but this is the first against the Villa. My dad took me to a 1984 FA Cup semi-final that saw us grind out a victory against lower division Plymouth. Twenty years later, with Joss, Luke, Jun and Faisel, I watched us concede our first goals in another run to the semis that ended that day against Southampton.

We failed to clear a corner properly a few minutes from the end of normal play and a double deflection off of Malky Mckay and Gavin Mahon put us one down. Our efforts to rectify this situation saw us stretched and Agbonlahor put them 2-0 ahead after Danny Shittu, who’d done his central defending well, slipped and let him through for a one-on-one with Foster in injury time. It seemed unfair and somehow expected. I finally admitted we were down and we started trudging out, breaking into a run when we saw our train waiting but got on with plenty of time for Joss to follow a guy, who unknown to me, had lost his wallet in the jog to a (different) carriage, and return it.

On the train there was a Villa kid enjoying the win and talking about “the clumsy one”, meaning Shittu, whose surname he enjoyed making a pun on. It was hard to listen to but almost forgotten after we’d met Jun at New Street, headed back on the same line to meet Tessa at Duddeston, and missed the station in the darkness and on the assumption we’d stopped on the line somewhere. Tessa drove up through the traffic we’d arranged our meeting to circumvent, picked us up shivering outside Aston station and took us to Star City for pizza.

We had a good chat, catching up and sharing news about the different friends we’d stayed in contact with. Both of us have narrowed that group down since we last met and I can only hope that we’ll stay friends however lax I am at maintenance. Queuing in the bowling arcade a little later, a kid half Joss’ size came over and commented “Yellow Army my arse”. “Shame,” Tessa commented from behind a hand shielding a laugh. Lanes were booked up so we had a couple of games of air-hockey and a Blues fan offered his regret at the result. Tessa dropped us off at New Street again and Brian and Mum picked us up at Nuneaton for the drive back to Bulkington. We all practised yoga positions and chatted until late and petted Nettle, their 14-year-old spaniel, who is big and slow but still affectionate.

Sunday 21st January

The five of us high-fived our way through two hours of bowling at Nuneaton bowl, where Joss got his personal best (96), before returning for a delish veggie moussaka and a trifle for the golden boys, only the bigger of whom was interested. We wound down and then trained it home, Joss meeting Kerry at the station just before seven.