Journey to the Midlands

Nearly two weeks ago (can't believe it's been that long already), Brenna and I set out for our much anticipated trip to the UK. For me, this was mainly a pilgrimage to Villa Park and whatever else we ended up doing was gravy on top. Brenna had a much more holistic - and probably normal - view of the trip, planning to enjoy both the soccer and non-soccer portions. The travel editions of this blog have consistently been the most popular, so there is a high bar for me to reach with my first meaningful post in many years. Let’s see how I do....  

 

Some Draws Feel Like a Loss 

View from our seats vs Ipswich

First up was the regularly scheduled men’s fixture, Ipswich visiting Villa Park. We chose to go to this particular match for several reasons, one of which was that it was very winnable on paper. Everyone knows by now how that worked out. The weather was dreary, Villa were listless, and the crowd was agitated and/or bored. Ipswich even did us a solid by going down to 10 after 30 minutes, but also took a 1-0 lead on basically their only shot on target. Trying to inject some life into the team, Emery brought on new loanee Marcus Rashford for his first Villa appearance. My feelings on him have been largely negative in the past, but maybe I am being unfair and don't know the whole story. Regardless, he was so obviously the best player on the field for the final 30 minutes, including setting up the equalizer, that I couldn't help but be impressed. My main takeaway from the match was that the home crowd really took this match for granted and did not do enough to help the team get across the line. The pre and post match hospitality did brighten our spirits a little, but it was not the start we expected. 

That night, we were given a lifeline by the FA scheduling gods – the home fixture against Liverpool was rescheduled from mid-March to the upcoming Wednesday. I hopped on my phone, grabbed some tickets, rearranged some other plans, and we had a second chance on our hands! We didn’t have high hopes given the gap in quality between Ipswich and Liverpool, but it was hard to get too much worse than what we had just seen.

 

Some Losses Just Feel Really Bad

Can't beat these seats though

In between the two men’s games, we traveled away to see the Villa women play at Leicester. They play in King Power stadium so we got to cross another EPL stadium off the list as well. The Villa away fan section was small but mighty, partly out of spirit and partly out of necessity to keep warm. On the field, the performance was a bit more lackluster. Villa had plenty of toothless possession and looked vulnerable whenever Leicester had the ball, leading to a deserved opener at 29 minutes. Going in to half down 1-0, I had the following conversation with a Leicester fan while buying hot chocolate (yes, I skipped the halftime beer for something warm).

Me: You should be up 3 nil.

Him: But we aren’t! It’s anyone’s game.

Except the Foxes must have also realized they should be up 3-0, because they scored two in quick succession to start the half and killed the game right then. By the end, the Villa section was reduced to shouts of “Just shoot! We don’t care if it goes in! Just try!” Not their finest performance. Despite the product on the field, we had a fun time traveling on the team sponsored coach and experiencing an away game. 

 

Intermission

Between all the games, we also went on the stadium tour at Villa Park, which I am obliged to mention is fighting for the #1 spot on TripAdvisor for tours in Birmingham. Go give them 5 stars.

You’ve already seen Brenna and I at the press conference table, but we also got to explore the fancy hospitality suites, walk on the sideline, and sit in the home team locker room. Brenna chose Ollie Watkins while I tried my best to fill McGinn’s seat, which is obviously a difficult task given his, ahem, physique.

 

 

The most shocking part was the away locker room. This is a club worth over $1 billion, but their away showers look like something you might find at a random high school, including rusty tubs. Maybe it really gives them that home field advantage. We were told that all away teams don't want anything fancy in their locker rooms because they all bring their own stuff anyway, but I don't think they are traveling with showers.

Some Draws Feel Like a Win

Back to Villa Park for the 4th and final time on Wednesday night. Our seats were at similar vantage, but slightly farther back and to the left. We were just hoping for a good game and to not feel like we incinerated our money with this last minute change. Right from the start, the crowd had a completely different energy compared to Saturday. The team had more energy as well, with some early chances including a goal disallowed for offsides, again involving an energetic Rashford. I didn’t intend to be a curmudgeon about it, but when the ball went in and everyone jumped to their feet, I simply raised my hand to signal offsides. Of course I was right about the offsides, but Brenna will (correctly) argue that I am missing the point.

A hard fought, if maybe not deserved, draw

The start was not all positive as precarious passes and sloppy defense led to a 1-0 deficit. But the response from both the players and the crowd was there and we equalized shortly after with a scrappy goal. Just before halftime, we had the perfect angle to watch - in what seemed like slow motion - as Watkins tucked a header into the side netting. The second half was back and forth with plenty of chances to go around, though Liverpool were the only ones to take advantage and it ended 2-2. This felt like the kind of game that is supposed to be played in the EPL, though maybe a little more quality from both sides could have been expected. 

 

So what did we learn from all this action? A few things:

• Villa can be competitive with any team in any league, for better or worse.
• The home fans really need to come up with some more diverse chants.
• Expectations for Rashford (or Rashy, as he apparently is called) are high among the locals, and it seems to be deserved. 
• Birmingham is not the city for us and we'll probably just stick to London next time around.

Sprinkled in between all the soccer were day trips to Malvern, Oxford, and 2 days in London. Highlights included meeting the weirdest local ever in Malvern, seeing filming locations from Harry Potter in Oxford, and seeing Tom Hiddleston’s abs in Much Ado About Nothing.