Aston Villa F.C.
Aston Villa Football Club is a professional football club based in Aston, Birmingham, England. It was founded in 1874. Its team compete in the Premier League, the top tier of English football, and have played at their home ground, Villa Park, since 1897. Aston Villa is one of the oldest and most successful clubs in England, having won the Football League First Division seven times, the FA Cup seven times, the League Cup five times, and the European Cup and European Super Cup once.
Aston Villa has been a leading English club since the 1880s, when it was a pioneer of the modern passing game. This short, slick combination passing style was introduced by Scotsman George Ramsay, who was appointed as the world's first professional football manager in 1886. The club was influential in the sport's move to professionalism in 1885, and it was a Villa director, William McGregor, who founded the world's first Football League in 1888.
George Ramsay's trophy haul of six League Championships and six FA Cups established Aston Villa as the most successful club in England, a position it held from the 1890s until the 1970s. Villa scored 128 goals in season 1930–31, which remains the all-time top-flight record, however the club began its first decline in the mid-1930s; the 1940s and 1950s were generally a period of mediocrity followed by a steep decline in the 1960s which culminated in a takeover of the club by Doug Ellis in 1968 and Villa's first and only relegation to the third tier of English football in 1969–70. Villa returned to the elite from the mid-1970s under manager Ron Saunders, who led the club to a seventh top-flight league title in 1980–81. They became only the fourth English club to win the European Cup, in 1981–82, followed by the European Super Cup in 1982.
Aston Villa were a founding member of the Premier League in 1992, one of just three clubs to have been a founding member of both the Football League and the Premier League. Throughout the 90s and early 00's, Villa regularly qualified for European football, but following a period of decline after the departure of Martin O'Neill the club suffered its first and only relegation from the Premier League in 2015–16. After three seasons in the EFL Championship and two ownership changes the club returned to the Premier League in 2019. Under Unai Emery in 2024, the club qualified for the UEFA Champions League for the first time since 1982–83.
During their history Villa has spent 112 seasons in the top-flight, the second highest of any club, and provided 78 England internationals, also the second highest of any club. Aston Villa is currently ranked 5th in the all-time English top flight table, since its creation in 1888 and is the seventh most successful club in English football by competitive honours.
Villa have a fierce local rivalry with Birmingham City and the Second City derby between the teams has been played since 1879. There is also a local rivalry with West Bromwich Albion, with matches between the sides known as the West Midlands derby. The club's traditional kit colours are claret shirts with sky blue sleeves, white shorts and sky blue socks. Their traditional club badge is of a rampant lion. The club is currently owned by V Sports, a company owned by the Egyptian billionaire Nassef Sawiris, the American billionaire Wes Edens, and American investment company Atairos.
History
Formation and rise to prominence (1874−1886)
Aston Villa Football Club are believed to have formed on 21 November 1874, by members of the Villa Cross Wesleyan Chapel in Handsworth: which is now part of Birmingham. The four founders of Aston Villa were Jack Hughes, Frederick Matthews, Walter Price and William Scattergood, who were members of the chapel's cricket team looking for a way to stay fit during the winter months. Due to the lack of local football teams Aston Villa's first match was against the local Aston Brook St Mary's Rugby team. As a condition of the match, the Villa side had to agree to play the first half under Rugby rules and the second half under Association rules. Villa won their first game 1–0.The infant club's fortunes changed forever when a young Scotsman called George Ramsay stumbled across the Villa players' practice match in Aston Park in 1876. He was asked to make up the numbers, and they were amazed by his skills; they had never seen such a display of close ball control before. When the game was over, the Villa players surrounded him and invited him to join the club and become their captain. Word spread about how fine a player Ramsay was, spectators began turning up to watch the little man nicknamed ‘Scotty’. He also took charge of training, Ramsay later described the newly formed club's approach to the game as 'a dash at the man and a big kick at the ball'.
Ramsay, on the other hand, had been influenced by the Scottish club Queen's Park, who pioneered what became known as 'combination football' in his native Glasgow. The intricate passing game he introduced was a revolutionary move for an English club in the late 1870s.
Villa began to establish themselves as one of the best teams in the Midlands, winning their first honour, the Birmingham Senior Cup in 1880. The club went on to lift the trophy nine times in the next 12 seasons.
Victorian and Edwardian golden age (1886–1914)
Following the professionalisation of football in 1885, the club decided that it needed a full-time paid manager. The following advert was placed in the Birmingham Daily Gazette newspaper in June 1886:Villa received 150 applicants for the role, but with his strong association with the club George Ramsay was the overwhelming choice of the membership. Thus on 26 June 1886, Aston Villa appointed what has been described as the world's first professional football manager.
During the following season Aston Villa rose to national prominence, as the first Midlands team to win the FA Cup in 1887. Villa's captain, the powerful Scottish centre-forward Archie Hunter, became one of the game's first household names, being the first player to score in every round of the FA Cup. Aston Villa were one of the dozen teams that competed in the inaugural Football League in 1888 with one of the club's directors, William McGregor being the league's founder. Following the professionalisation of football in 1885, clubs needed regular income to pay their players' wages. Frequently friendlies were cancelled due to opponents' FA Cup or county cup matches or clubs simply failed to honour a fixture in favour of a more lucrative match elsewhere. McGregor took action after seeing Villa matches cancelled, to the increasing frustration of the club's fans, on five consecutive Saturdays. In March 1888, he wrote to the committee of his own club, Aston Villa, as well as to those of Blackburn Rovers, Bolton Wanderers, Preston North End and West Bromwich Albion, suggesting the creation of a league competition that would provide a number of guaranteed fixtures for its member clubs each season. Following two meetings between representatives of the leading clubs, the world's first Football League season began in September 1888 with 12 member clubs from the Midlands and north of England: Accrington, Aston Villa, Blackburn Rovers, Bolton Wanderers, Burnley, Derby County, Everton, Notts County, Preston North End, Stoke, West Bromwich Albion and Wolverhampton Wanderers.
Despite Villa founding the league, by 1893 they had yet to win it. Villa Committee Member Frederick Rinder was the instigator of a club meeting at Barwick Street in February 1893 that removed the committee running the club at the time. All fourteen committee members resigned and were replaced by a committee of five led by Rinder after he gave a rousing speech criticising the board's tolerance of ill discipline and players' drinking. On the pitch, manager George Ramsay was moulding a team that became renowned for its short, quick combination passing which saw Villa win its first league title in 1893–94; the season after that the club won its second FA Cup in 1894-95. This was followed by back-to-back League titles in 1895–96 and 1896–97.
Aston Villa emerged as the most successful English club of the Victorian era, winning no fewer than five League titles and three FA Cups by the end of Queen Victoria's reign in 1901. Villa's captain during this era was Birmingham-born forward John Devey, who enjoyed a successful partnership with the lightning-fast winger Charlie Athersmith and marshalling Villa's defence was the tough-tackling Scotsman James Cowan, who had an unrivalled sense of timing and anticipation. In 1897, the year Villa won The Double, they moved into their present home, the Aston Lower Grounds. Supporters coined the name "Villa Park"; no official declaration listed the ground as Villa Park.
Success continued into the Edwardian era, with Villa lifting the FA Cup for the fourth time in 1904–05, and a sixth league title in 1909–10. A further FA Cup triumph was achieved on the eve of the First World War in 1913, with the club narrowly missing out on winning a second Double, finishing runners-up in the league. Star players during this era included Howard Spencer, the cultured defender who captained both Villa and England, and the prolific strike force of Joe Bache and Harry Hampton who between them scored 382 goals in claret and blue.
Relative decline and first relegation (1920–1939)
In January 1920, Billy Walker scored twice on his Villa debut in a 2–1 FA Cup first-round win over QPR; the club won the FA Cup for the sixth time that season and Walker went on to establish himself as Villa's star player of the 1920s, scoring a record 244 goals in 531 appearances, captaining Villa and England. George Ramsay retired in 1926, at the age of 71, and his replacement Billy Smith was unable to continue Ramsay's success. In reality, several other football clubs had caught up with Aston Villa, most notably Arsenal, to which the club finished runners-up in the league in 1930–31 and 1932–33. Despite missing out on the league title, Villa Park crowds were entertained by attacking football; the 128 goals scored in the 1930–31 season remains the all-time top-flight record. A remarkable 49 of the league goals that season were scored by centre-forward Tom 'Pongo' Waring, with another 30 goals from winger Eric Houghton.The club appointed Jimmy McMullan as manager in 1934, however, the move proved disastrous, resulting in Villa's first ever relegation in 1935–36 after 48 years in the top flight. Villa struggled largely due to a dismal defensive record: they conceded 110 goals in 42 games, 7 of them coming from Arsenal's Ted Drake in an infamous 1–7 defeat at Villa Park. The club made seven signings and spent a staggering sum for the time of £35,500 trying to retain top-flight status at all costs, but were unable to buy their way out of trouble. Aston Villa, at the time one of the most famous and successful clubs in world football, was relegated in 1936 for the first time in its history.
Following relegation to the Second Division, the Villa board brought back the ageing former club chairman Fred Rinder, who said on his return "Villa have been a great club, are still a great club, and always will be a great club". He was vocal in his criticism of the board for its "almost total neglect of the reserve team, instead relying on paying big fees for ready made players". He believed that this change in policy from scouting and developing young homegrown talent led to a decline in the club's culture and style of play, which alongside a tolerance of ill-discipline in the players led to Villa's relegation. Rinder's first act was to travel to Austria to recruit the progressive coach Jimmy Hogan as manager. Within two seasons, Hogan had guided Villa back to the top flight as Second Division champions playing attractive free-flowing football. Hogan outlined his philosophy: "I am a teacher and lover of constructive football with every pass, every kick, every movement an object." He used to tell his players that "football was like a Viennese waltz, a rhapsody. One-two-three, one-two-three, pass-move-pass, pass-move-pass." However, the Second World War ended Hogan's project to restore Aston Villa to the top of the English game.