Run Like the Clappers
After all the WM Police and club preparation for the recent clashes between Aston Villa and Birmingham, an unidentified problem threatens to derail all the recent progress.
This season sees a 5% increase in away ticket allocations for the two Second City derbies due to good behaviour, after the reductions of last season, but a new initiative by Birmingham City may leave them with egg on their face.
Regardless of troubles outside the club’s respective stadiums over the years, one of the problems inside the ground when the two teams have met has been the throwing of missiles – coins, bottles, flares and even seats.
Last season at St Andrews, Blues fans were raining down objects from an upper tier after the game, so is their club’s new attempt at upping the atmosphere a good idea?
Clappers…
As everybody knows from recent England games at Wembley, cardboard clappers transform into cardboard planes, that can travel quite a distance…
Casting one’s mind back to Villa’s FA Cup semi-final against Liverpool in 2015, the prematch ‘VILLA’ mosaic almost never happened, after Wembley and the FA banned the use of cardboard for it at the last minute.
MOMS spent a lengthy telephone call with the guy who’s company organises such Wembley mosaics, brainstorming ideas for alternative materials to use instead. One thing he did say during the conversation was he recommended to Wembley not to place the cardboard mosaic sheets on the upper tier, before the England game that saw a plane thrown from them hit an opposition player.
Fast-forward to this weekend’s Blues vs Villa game and ask yourself the following question:
What do you think Blues fans are going to do with the clappers, if the game doesn’t go well for them?
Villa fans are advised to take either umbrellas or anti-aircraft guns to St Andrews to deal with the expected threat. Meanwhile, Villa players are encouraged to wear hard hats.
UTV
A Venglos View is a satirical (and sometimes surreal) look at the Villa.
