Back to the future at Villa Park
Perhaps I was just well and truly traumatised but there was a period last summer when I couldn't get the events of Villa Park last May out of my head for the life of me.
The sickly feeling in the pit of my stomach certainly took some time to go away after relegation.
That day I couldn't quite believe how much Aston Villa fans enjoyed dancing on our Premier League grave.
Well Newcastle United head back there tonight in the FA Youth Cup.
Yes, OK you expect to be taunted at football matches especially if you are going down.
But for the Villa fans to go as far as making banners such as 'Sob on the Tyne' and "Who's your next Messiah, Ant or Dec?' was nothing short of outrageous.
Down the years when going to Villa Park you had plenty of respect for what should be a big club when you look at their history and the stadium itself.
Their fans though went down in my estimation then and all those years of empty blue seats at Villa suggested to me that their fans were suffering an major inferiority complex.
Getting back to that day though...
Some of the images will never leave especially thanks to the way the TV cameras captured our darkest hour in such graphic detail.
The close ups of the away fans when it was finally confirmed were tough to take.
And even though I knew what the 1-0 defeat meant, after speaking to the players and heading back up to the Press room that day it fully sank in there and then.
A quick glance at Sky Sports News showed that skinhead Geordie crying his eyes out outside Shearer's before a glance along the row of the Villa Press room presented me with the sight of a dozen national journalists frantically bashing out their post-mortems on United's Premier League 'death'.
However, fast forward to April 2010.
Here we are back in the Premier League and our next Messiah turned out to be Chris Hughton.
Tonight we take on Villa's juniors in the FA Youth Cup and there could hardly be more life coming out of the black and white shirts at Villa Park.
Progress to the final would be a magnificent achievement.
And mark my words, the Toon Army will be back at Villa Park next season with a few points to prove.
Aston Villa away will be one of the first fixtures we look out for when the games are announced in June.
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Lee Ryder - Proudly born and bred on Tyneside, the Chronicle's chief sports writer has followed the fortunes of the club over the last three decades as a Toon fan and football writer.
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No need to make such a meal of this mate.
You guys would have got the same response from any premiership ground on that day; that's just because a big club with famously high aspirations went and got themselves relageted from top teir football. It's human nature for some to find this sadistically funny. I'm sure some of your lot would have sniggered and jeered at spurs fans if they'd gone down like they were supposed to.
I can assure you that most Villa fans felt pretty bad for that day, myself included.
Don't try and turn this into something it's not as it will cause unnecessary trouble between certain fans on match day.
Genuinley pleased to see you boys back in the premier league, I'm hoping West Brom and Forest follow you.
Whatever, the booing and jeering that greeted Martin Laursens fairwell speech, our captain and lionheart, after he had to retire from injury at 31, from your so called great fans, is what I remember from that day.
After I that, I was delighted to see you go down.
I think you look too deeply into this. There was some light hearted banners on display, which i can understand you did not find funny on the day but considering that the media show your supporters as fanatics, that lay olive leaves at the feet of your latest manager, and believe you have the god given right to be called the best supporters in the world, you can understand why a small section of the crowd took the micky a bit on the day.
I personally was a bit sad to see you go down. You have a very good local support and you have played some good football over the years.
Apart from the 2 matches against us next season I wish you the best of luck.
However I believe that with what you have written in this report, you are as guilty as the London media are, for taking a section of crowds actions as being a clear representation of the whole support base. I think you need to calm down a bit and go and have a cup of tea.
I can take the jeering and taunts from the home supporters. After all it's what part of football is all about and yes some might say you get what you give. But the fact that so many of the local people took time out of their day to poke fun at the funeral procession of coaches as it made it's way through Aston to head back up north realy was dissappointing.
What a sad, self pitying article this is.
What happened that day was called banter and it's part of what makes attending football matches so good.
The author has obviously forgotten the day three thousand Geordies held up their "Let's all laugh at Sunderland" posters.
It's not nice at the time but you just accept it and hope your day will come.
I agree that it was banter & I'm sure we'll give as good as we get, yeah it hurt like hell at the time, but it's no different to the Boro's banner of "Trophy Virgins" and the like, I'm sure we'll do it to someone else soon.
All fun and games, although it worries me to see a fellow geordie becoming so "PC", I mean howay man get a grip, the North East is supposed to be famed for our sense of humour & banter, half my mates down south at uni still don't know how to take a joke 3 years down the line of knowing me!
- "Ant or Dec!?" hahaha i wish i had seen that, thats not low its brilliant, i can't believe they weren't actually geordies who wrote that, loads more of that I hope, its only what the toon supporters would do... i mean if you can't come up with an angle on martin O'neil theres something wrong the bloke is as strange as they come i swear i've never seen him walk, he just seems to bounce everywhere?
- "Ant or Dec!?" hahaha i wish i had seen that, thats not low its brilliant, i can't believe they weren't actually geordies who wrote that, loads more of that I hope, its only what the toon supporters would do... i mean if you can't come up with an angle on martin O'neil theres something wrong the bloke is as strange as they come i swear i've never seen him walk, he just seems to bounce everywhere?
ps. i'd go for dec or is in ant?
OK I retract my statement of being delighted to see you go down, I was just upset at the memory of Laursens speech, but that was alot different to the "banter" that went on.
Nice to see that some Geordies here can see that it wasn't venomous, just good-hearted banter that would happen anywhere, I have a lot of time for Newcastle, was even up at the Preston game that you won 3-0 sitting in the Sir John Hall stand! Great city too.
Never been a problem with us Villans and you Geordies, so let's keep it that way.
Best of luck next season.
"But for the Villa fans to go as far as making banners such as 'Sob on the Tyne' and "Who's your next Messiah, Ant or Dec?' was nothing short of outrageous."
Yeah how dare anyone take the Michael out of the self made gods of football. It people like Lee Ryder that has made Newcastle fans one of the most disliked in the Country.
"But for the Villa fans to go as far as making banners such as 'Sob on the Tyne' and "Who's your next Messiah, Ant or Dec?' was nothing short of outrageous."
Yeah how dare anyone take the Michael out of the self made gods of football. It people like Lee Ryder that has made Newcastle fans one of the most disliked in the Country
Ryder's reply: Most Newcastle fans didn't find them so funny at the time, very easy to take the moral high ground now.
I'm not bothered if a few people disagree, they are my personal reflections from the day.
RE Wilko
It wasnt a funeral it was a football match. God knows we have dished it out to safc for years over their relegations. We look pathetic if we cant take it back.
Was the ant and dec banner not from the same duo who did the - oleary were not fickle....... we just dont like you- one ? As an exile i know most neutrals thought they were funny because if we are honest they were!!!
What a poor article. Get a grip of yourself man! I thought the banners were 1st class. As S.Wilson refered to the 'Lets all laugh at Sunderland', I suppose that doesn't count? Short memories or what. It's no wonder NUFC arent a well liked team the way YOU go on
Ryder's reply: I can understand why Newcastle fans taunted their greatest rivals when they went down.
I can understand chants on the day.
But making a banner is way over the top, I don't think Newcastle fans would go that far for Aston Villa (are we that important if we aren't the big club we are supposed to think we are) if the roles were reversed or any other team maybe apart from Sunderland.
As for the rest of the negativity in true 'football banter' style, I've been having a good laugh reading some of it...;-)
Wipe away the tears and be a big brave boy.
That list of World Players of the Year that Newcastle will end up stepping aside for isn;t going to write itself.
Guys, guys guys......this is football. Fans for years have baited each other, and some of the comments, chants and banners have been immaculately funny. I'm black and white through and through and appreciate fan's gallow's humour...Sunderland against West Ham, Sunderland already relegated and the West Ham fans kicked off with "Going down, going down, going down". Sunderland fans came back with "So are we, so are we, so are we"......priceless man!
The Villains are a good set of fans and respect is earned.....any comment on our day of relegation would have hurt but to have a go at the Villains because of their comments 10 months after is dredging up crap feelings. We are back in the Premier league and with a hand on my heart, a bucket load of fans of other clubs are glad to see us back.
So come on Lee mate....chill, we are back where you and I know we belong and let's have a giggle at the banter.
Howay the lads!
"It people like Lee Ryder that has made Newcastle fans one of the most disliked in the Country."
I doubt many people bother with him. I just find this sort of junk embarrassing, if not pitiful, and it reflects badly on NUFC and their real fans, but, hey, that's Lee. You either ignore him or you, y'know, you... well you know what I mean...
Our fault lay not with the Villa fans but our awful perormance, including the ludicrous appearance off the bench of Michael Owen (a former Ryder saviour, if you believe his blogs from last season until waht was apparent to everyone else became apparent even to him).
Ryder's reply: This one is my personal favourite actually, pure genius.
Why are you writing about the past again?. If it's not about the promotion season of 92-93 then it's somthing else it's in the past man lee. We need to focus on the coming season in the premiership and make sure we don't make the same arrogant mistakes we made last year. All the best to the villa fans it was nice to see our young lads play your young guns off the park last night. Howay the lads
Ryder's reply: I didn't know that you weren't allowed to document history, I will give the crystal ball a polish eh.
Lee Ryder = keyboard warrior.
Ryder's reply: Takes one to know one :-)
Why shouldnt the Villa fans have mocked your relegation? Your club was a joke that season, from the deluded fans and their "bouycott" banners, the merceniery players who masqueraded as footballers whilst picking up wages in excess of ã70,000 a wee4k; your former messiah King Kev who loved the club so much he took them to court; your little & large chairman & director of football who went AWOL when the going got tough; your new messiah who gave up his place on the BBC sofa for the honour of taking you down.
The list goes on and on. For 17 years, we were fed this Jawdeee nation power trip by the press, yet year after year you failed to win anything, whilst spending more and more. Eventually the day of reckoning caught up with you.
Bring on May 2011 when we can all laugh at Newcastle again!
Ryder's reply: Well I get fed up hearing Villa fans saying they're a big club.
You never sell all your tickets and you've never been in the Champions League.
I was certainly laughing at how poor your fans were last night in the Youth Cup with just under 2,500 fans there who moaned their way through 90 minutes when Newcastle outclassed them.
a. Not a Villa fan.
b. So, your kids beat some Brummy Kids in a kick-around. Big deal.
Ryder's reply: Bothered.
lee; i can see where you're coming from any sort of mick taking could be taken in bad spirit on the day your team goes down but its all in the past thank god and the timing of most of your article is maybe off a bit. lets not look back, let sleeping dogs lie and all that. i really hope we can go to places like villa next season and take a point and take 3 of them at home, that'll do nicely.
can i just add, i've seen some comments about Harper on differnet pages on this website and they're out of order! Harper is one of the reasons our defense has done so well. I knew it would be. he comes out and manages his area much better then the last bloke who was happy to stand on his line stopping shots but at the same time putting the back 4 under loads of pressure, as the opposition knew they could just drop one in behind them for their front man to run onto without any pressure from the keeper. 'Well done Harper!'
So you're deleting critical posts now eh Lee?
Mine was there last night, now it's gone.
Why?
as a newcastle supporter since the age of ten living in middlesbrough the stick i took in the local last season was hard to take even with the boro down too the boro fans seem to hate newcastle more than any other team which i can not understand why i would argue with all the lads about the too clubs week in at this present time iam having the time of my life and in the dark days i always felt we would recover and we have i would like to congratulate the team on promotion back to the premiership and all those never say die fans the next chapter starts next season howaythelads