Villa have some right twats following them. Sunderland fans, stoke fans and others we met at Wembley have been really down to earth and easy to have a laugh or drink with. Villa fans were the complete opposite.
Agree wholeheartedly..
Cup final days etc with City down the years since I first went to see us beat Leicester in 1969 have all been quite pleasurable atmospheres, with both sets of fans behaving well on each occasion. But yesterday, travelling alone via Euston/Tube to meet family/friends at the City Fanzone, was not particularly pleasant, even though I wasn't troubled by any of the individuals/groups I witnessed behaving badly. We can't claim to be free of members of 'The Knobhead Tendency' but between landing at Euston and getting to Wembley I witnessed behaviours that Birmingham's PR & Marketing department would've shuddered at if that went on in their hometown.
One particular group got on the Metropolitan line tube at Baker Street and proceeded to 'entertain' everyone on the coach singing songs with some of the vilest language imaginable; innocent passengers who were clearly not involved with the football, including women and children going about their Sundays whilst having to put up with this boorish behaviour.
Then, on the return back to Euston after seeing us pick up the cup, I was in a tube train largely full of Villa fans but with a few families of Blues also travelling to Euston. The Villa fans once again gave us renditions of their expletive-laden 'Greatest Hits' collection, including the bonus track 'Champions of Europe/ You'll never be that'..
One of the Villa fans, who was well into his 40s and clearly liked a pie or seven to put him on until his tea, began banging on loudly about how City's support was 'rubbish' (I've cleaned that up), that we didn't support our team and the 'evidence' was that we weren't all still in the stadium celebrating winning a cup. Travelling with this Herbert's group were two teenage girls, both clearly embarrassed by his behaviour, with one of them finally shutting him up by saying 'Yeah, but you wouldn't even let us stay to see our lads get their medals..' This clearly flummoxed him and he stayed quiet, thankfully, for the rest of the trip to Euston.
Individually and collectively they struck me as having rather a large chip on their shoulder. I'm sure there are many decent Villa fans out there but they were in short supply from what I saw yesterday. Which is why the atmosphere wasn't anything like as friendly as I've encountered at previous finals.
And I'm pretty sure none of those Villa fans I observed yesterday would ever make it on to the panel of 'The Brain's Trust'..
