60 Fun Facts About Aston Villa

Aston Villa are said to have been founded in 1874 by four chapel cricketers meeting where?

They had watched a rugby match, decided the game was 'a little too rough', and chose association football instead.

What was the unusual condition of Aston Villa's first ever match, against Aston Brook St Mary's?

Villa won 1-0 against what was, after all, a rugby team.

Which club's 'combination football' influenced George Ramsay, who joined Villa in 1876?

The Villa players had never seen close ball control like his and immediately made him captain; his nickname was 'Scotty'.

What annual salary did Villa offer in 1886 for the world's first professional football manager?

There were 150 applicants; George Ramsay got the job and went on to win six titles and six FA Cups.

Which Villa captain became the first player to score in every round of the FA Cup, in 1887?

Villa were the first Midlands club to win the Cup and Hunter became one of the game's first household names.

How many consecutive Saturdays of cancelled Villa matches led William McGregor to propose the Football League?

He wrote to Blackburn, Bolton, Preston and West Brom; twelve clubs kicked off the world's first league that September.

Frederick Rinder's February 1893 speech criticising what forced Villa's entire committee to resign?

All fourteen members quit; Villa won their first league title the very next season.

By the end of Queen Victoria's reign in 1901, how many league titles had Aston Villa won?

They added three FA Cups in the same period, including the 1897 double, and were the most successful club of the Victorian era.

Villa moved to their present ground in 1897. What was the site officially called?

Supporters coined the name 'Villa Park'; no official declaration ever listed the ground under that name.

Who is Aston Villa's record goalscorer, with 244 goals in 531 appearances?

He captained both Villa and England; the club won the FA Cup for the sixth time that season.

How many of Aston Villa's record 128 top-flight league goals in 1930-31 did centre-forward Tom 'Pongo' Waring score?

Winger Eric Houghton added 30, yet Villa still finished second to Arsenal, who scored one fewer.

Which Arsenal striker scored seven in a 7-1 win at Villa Park in Villa's first relegation season, 1935-36?

Villa conceded 110 goals in 42 games and spent £35,500 on seven signings trying to stay up.

Which coach, hired from Austria in 1936, likened football to a Viennese waltz at Aston Villa?

'One-two-three, pass-move-pass', he told his players; the war ended his project.

Villa Park's record crowd of 76,588 came in a 1946 FA Cup quarter-final against which club?

Derby went on to win the Cup that year, the first post-war final.

Which player, requesting a transfer in 1954, said Villa 'had grown fat and lazy on its old traditions'?

He went on to captain Tottenham's 1961 double side; Villa never finished above sixth in the 1940s and 50s.

Which Northern Irish winger scored both goals in Villa's 1957 FA Cup final win?

It was a then-record seventh FA Cup win and the club's first trophy in 37 years.

Which England centre-forward scored 42 goals in 1960-61 as Villa won the first League Cup?

Joe Mercer's young side, 'Mercer's Minors', had just come up as Second Division champions.

Which Italian club paid £85,000 for Villa's 42-goal centre-forward in the summer of 1961?

His replacement Derek Dougan was not a success and Villa slid backwards.

Villa's only relegation to the Third Division came at the end of which season?

Vic Crowe could not save them after Tommy Docherty's 13-month reign; two years later they went up as champions with a record 70 points.

Doug Ellis became Villa chairman in December 1968 after control was bought by which London financier?

Ellis recalled 'you could write your name in the dust'; a share issue raised £205,835 to clear the debts.

Which club beat Third Division Aston Villa in the 1971 League Cup final with two late goals?

That December the board bought the 20-acre Bodymoor Heath training ground.

Which Villa left-back holds the club's appearance record with 659 games between 1959 and 1976?

He played through the relegations to the Third Division and the revival under Ron Saunders.

Which Villa striker was the first to win PFA Young Player and Players' Player of the Year in one season, 1976-77?

Villa won the League Cup and finished fourth that season under Ron Saunders.

How many players did Aston Villa use in winning the 1980-81 First Division title?

Seven were ever-present; it was the club's first title for 71 years and Gary Shaw was PFA Young Player of the Year.

Who guided Villa to the 1982 European Cup after Ron Saunders quit mid-season?

The softly-spoken assistant had been promoted from within after Saunders fell out with chairman Ron Bendall.

Who scored the only goal, in the 67th minute, of Villa's 1982 European Cup final win over Bayern Munich?

Villa became only the fourth English club to lift the trophy.

Which sub keeper, with one prior first-team game, kept a clean sheet for Aston Villa in the 1982 European Cup final?

Rimmer had also been on the bench for Manchester United's 1968 European Cup win.

Villa won the 1982 European Super Cup 3-1 on aggregate against which club?

Their European Cup defence ended in the quarter-finals against Juventus the same season.

How much of the £1.3 million spent on Villa Park's North Stand (1980-82) did an inquiry find unaccounted for?

Police raised questions of fraud and Deloitte cited 'serious breaches of recommended codes of practice'; Ellis returned as chairman soon after.

Villa were relegated in 1987, how many years after being crowned European champions?

Graham Taylor took them straight back up and to second place in 1989-90 before leaving to manage England.

Aston Villa is one of three founder members of both the Football League and the Premier League. Who are the other two?

Villa finished runners-up to Manchester United in the first Premier League season under Ron Atkinson.

Besides Dean Saunders, who scored in Villa's 1994 League Cup final win over Manchester United?

Ron Atkinson was sacked eight months later and replaced by former Villa striker Brian Little.

Brian Little's young Villa side won the 1996 League Cup 3-0 at Wembley against which club?

It remained the club's last domestic trophy for three decades; Southgate, Staunton and Yorke were in the team.

In the summer of 1998 Villa sold Dwight Yorke to Manchester United for how much?

John Gregory had just taken over from Brian Little and later accused Doug Ellis of being 'stuck in a time warp'.

Randy Lerner, who bought Villa from Doug Ellis in 2006, owned which NFL franchise?

The takeover was worth £62.6 million; Ellis was 82 and had held roughly 38% of the shares.

In 2008-10 Villa gave their shirt front to which charity, a Premier League first?

Acorns became the club's official charity partner when a commercial sponsor returned in 2010.

Martin O'Neill resigned as Villa manager in August 2010, how many days before the season opener?

He had delivered three straight sixth-place finishes but was frustrated by the sales of Barry, Milner and Young.

Whose 2011 appointment as Villa manager, straight from Birmingham City, prompted fan protests and the founding of the group My Old Man Said?

He lasted one season, finishing 16th, before Paul Lambert replaced him.

How many goals had Villa scored in 25 league games when Lambert was sacked in 2015?

Tim Sherwood kept them up and reached the FA Cup final, but the club went down the following year.

Villa's 2015-16 relegation ended a top-flight stay of how many years?

Rémi Garde's reign included a club-record 19-game winless run.

Chinese businessman Tony Xia bought Aston Villa in June 2016 for a reported how much?

Two years later, amid rumours of administration, Nassef Sawiris and Wes Edens bought a controlling 55% stake.

Villa's 2019 return to the Premier League came via a 2-1 play-off final win over which club?

Boyhood fan Dean Smith had taken over from Steve Bruce and set a club-record ten straight league wins.

Jack Grealish's 2021 move to Manchester City was triggered by a British-record bid of how much?

The captain's release clause was met; Dean Smith was sacked that November after seven defeats in eleven games.

Which former Liverpool captain managed Villa from November 2021 until October 2022?

His side scored seven goals in the first eleven games of 2022-23; Unai Emery replaced him.

Emery's Villa were knocked out of the 2023-24 Conference League at the semi-final stage by which club?

The same season they finished fourth to reach the Champions League for the first time since 1982-83.

Villa's 2024-25 Champions League run ended 5-4 on aggregate to which eventual winners?

It was the club's first Champions League campaign in more than four decades.

Aston Villa ended a 30-year trophy drought by beating which club 3-0 in the 2026 Europa League final?

It made Villa one of only four English clubs to have won both the European Cup and the Europa League.

Per the club minute book of 1886, what colour shirts did Villa order alongside sky blue?

The chocolate later became claret; nobody is sure why the combination stuck, but West Ham, Burnley and Trabzonspor all copied it.

The star added to Villa's badge in 2007 represents what?

The 2016 badge added claws to the lion and dropped the motto 'Prepared' to make the lion bigger.

Villa Park holds the record for hosting the most FA Cup semi-finals. How many?

It was also the first English ground to stage international football in three different centuries.

Which club's fixture with Aston Villa is the most played in English top-flight history?

Everton have 122 top-flight seasons to Villa's 112.

Villa contested three FA Cup finals in the late 19th century against which local rivals?

A 2003 fan survey rated the Albion as historically Villa's greatest rivals, though the Second City Derby with Birmingham City is the fiercer fixture today.

Which member of the royal family is a well-known Aston Villa supporter?

Other famous fans include Tom Hanks, David Cameron, Ozzy Osbourne and violinist Nigel Kennedy.

Where is Aston Villa's training ground, bought from a farmer by Doug Ellis in the early 1970s?

State-of-the-art in the 1970s, the north Warwickshire site looked dated by the late 1990s and was later redeveloped.

Which two billionaires bought a controlling 55% stake in Aston Villa in July 2018?

Their V Sports group later sold about 20% to Comcast-backed Atairos in a deal valuing Villa above £500 million.

Which single word was dropped from Aston Villa's badge in the 2016 redesign?

Removing the motto made room for a bigger lion, which also gained claws.

Which Villa defender won the PFA Players' Player of the Year award in 1993?

He joined Andy Gray (1977) and David Platt (1990) as the club's winners of the award.

In 1974, which company became the first kit supplier to have its logo on an Aston Villa shirt?

Davenports Breweries followed as the first shirt sponsor in 1982–83.

Where did Aston Villa play their home games between 1876 and their 1897 move to Villa Park?

Their very first home, from 1874 to 1876, was Aston Park.

Aston Villa Women were founded in 1973 under what name before affiliating with the club in 1989?

They reached the Women's Super League as 2019–20 FA Women's Championship winners.