Living in the north of the city brings its own little quirks when it comes to football. If
I walk down the street like a gunslinger from a spaghetti western to the sound of window shutters being slammed and parents dragging their kids out from my path. I’ve tried shaking my fist in their general direction but all to no avail, none of them want to talk to me
In the early stages of this season with Blues in the top half of the table and Villa struggling near the bottom of the league with loads of problems and internal strife my local newsagent could not give away his delivery of the Sports Argus on a Saturday evening.
A few wins for the Villa, a climb up the league and suddenly the newsagent is full of teletext Villa fans, young boys, girls, teenagers, dads, granddads, everyone, all in their Villa shirts waiting for the van to pull up. The melee when the poor driver drops off his load is akin to a jumble sale of designer gear in Kingstanding!
A defeat on a Saturday and the next morning there are huge piles of unread papers and no Villa shirts to be seen. They are a fickle, strange bunch our neighbours from up the road.
The other intriguing aspect of our rivals is the mystery of the disappearing mobile phones. When Villa finally overhauled us this season, mainly due to our lack of action, my mobile phone developed a life of its own. Suddenly it was constantly ringing, with calls waiting, messages piling in and vibrating like a rampant washing machine. I was popular, for once!
Within a week we were back above them and I resisted the opportunity to contact my tormentors. I did have to be placed in thumb restraints though.
My minuscule fame as a Blues fan has resulted in numerous occasions of strangers shouting abuse at me. It has all been in good spirit though I have to add and to be fair I give plenty out and must expect some in return.
Recently my Sunday team manager asked the league to postpone our game as the Villa were playing on a Sunday! The sudden bout of overnight ‘flu’ that riddled our squad enabled our heroic players to visit
One thing that always makes me chuckle about our city rivals is their singing. Apart from the schoolgirl choir version of that memorable terrace classic ‘Veela, cha cha cha, Veela’ there is my own particular favourite that salutes their current conquering heroes, ‘Birchy and Spinksy, Alan McInally……’. You can imagine JPA asking his team mates at half time, which one of them is Birchy!