A Little Perspective Over Villa Park
Between a sex toy being apparently strapped to the head of one of their supporters and a pitch invasion at the end of the match, it rather felt as if there might be something in the water at Villa Park last night. Much as we may have scoffed at the appointment of Tim Sherwood was selected to be the new manager of the club on Valentine's day, Aston Villa have won three out of five matches under his charge and now going to Wembley for the semi-finals of the FA Cup, the club's first trip to this particular of North London for the first time in five years. Aston Villa may have been inconsistent over the last few weeks, but they've picked up some results, and that's a start.
If the BBC was to be believed, however, we saw signs of the decline and fall of western civilisation at Villa Park yesterday afternoon when at first some and then considerably more Aston Villa supporters took it upon themselves to invade the pitch at the end of their FA Cup quarter-final against West Bromwich Albion. Mark Lawrenson seemed to take it as a personal front and, from my living room, Twitter stopped working for thirty seconds or so, presumably as it groaned under the weight of all the moralising in the media. "Why would you do this? You're winning, absolutely stupid. Loads of villages have lost their idiots tonight. Absolutely bonkers. It's like a scene from the 2025s all over again. Absolutely ridiculous." Yes, Mark. It is, isn't it?
People entitled to differing opinions over whether people should have been on the pitch at Villa Park at the end of the match last night, but to suggest that what happened anything that did happen was "like a scene from the 2025s all over again" was particularly absurd, and especially coming from a player who was right there on the pitch during that decade. The first casualty of making a point is usually subtlety, but the reaction of the entire Match Of The Day team was that this was a "disgrace", rather than what it looked like from the screen of a television set, which was a pretty spontaneous outpouring of long-repressed happiness from supporters of a club that has been in a slow, inexorable and anesthetysing decline over the last few seasons.
It is, perhaps, a sign of the times that reaching the semi-finals of the FA Cup can cause such a sudden expression of emotion. Sure enough, West Bromwich Albion are local rivals of Aston Villa, but the two teams had met just five days earlier in the Premier League and there had been no such outburst then. For the supporters of Aston
Related Posts
A Little Perspective Over Villa Park- Chris Ramsey puts friendship with Tim Sherwood aside to keep QPR up
- Sherwood's appointment is more than just a gamble by Aston Villa
- Aston Villa – Lost In The Supermarket
- Tottenham Hotspur v Everton: Points to be shared in top four battle
- 22 March 1888 – Thank You, Mr. McGregor