Villa on Tour – Life in the Villa Away End at Rotherham

Villa on Tour

With the Championship play-off race hotting up like a vindaloo, Max Stokes of the Youtube channel Villa on Tour returns to review the trip to New York Stadium, where he witnessed the 10-men turnaround against Rotherham, which stretched Villa’s winning-run to seven games and made sure the injury-time heroics at Hillsborough weren’t undermined.

Also, below is Max’s Villa on Tour video on the midweek evening in Rotherham. Shout out to the trusty wing men Owen and Jamie, who also appear in it.

Max will be once again be a guest on the My Old Man Said podcast on the episode that will be recorded after the Bristol City game.

Villa Away Day at Rotherham

Rotherham awayday review – Villa On Tour

Date: 10th April 2019

Score: Rotherham 1 Aston Villa 2

Ground: New York Stadium

Attendance: 10,558

Away atmosphere– 8/10

The fact we took 2,500+ fans up to South Yorkshire on a Wednesday night against a team in the relegation zone was fantastic. The game however started nervously and that reflected in the atmosphere in the away end. Missing a penalty early on also rustled a few.

The decision to award a penalty to Rotherham was not what caused the atmosphere to turn negative, it was more the red card itself after two fairly soft yellow cards for Mings.

I’ve never seen such abuse for a linesman, when checking the goal net before the start of the second half, in all my time. While the half-time atmosphere was fairly depressing, that all changed 10 minutes in to the second half thanks firstly to Mr Pineapple.

Then once we scored the second, the atmosphere was electric. The constant belting out of ‘Allez Allez Allez’ was something to be admired. However, the limbs didn’t compare to those seen at Hillsborough a few days before…

Away end facilities – 6/10

Probably the smallest stadium I’ve visited in the Championship. In terms of inside the ground itself, it was fairly standard. The concourse was a good size though but it was a shame the Rotherham stewards decided to defuse any sort of singing that was taking place.

It was the steepest away end I have ever been in, so how we didn’t fall down 13 rows of seats when Grealish rolled one in, I’ll never know.

What let the New York stadium (good name) down even more was that they completely ran out of any food and drink at half time. Villa fans were not happy at all!

(If you went to the New York Stadium fill in the FSF survey about your own experience)

Home fans atmosphere– 4/10

Good scenes when their keeper saved the penalty but singing from the home fans was a bit of a rarity, unfortunately. The fact that there were empty seats either side of the away end as well as  Rotherham’s ‘hardcore’ fans were at the other end of the ground made it difficult for any form of banter between the two sets of supporters.

Empty seats my Lord?

A few. Not a fantastic turnout from Rotherham fans considering the vast majority of their points have come at home this season and they are in the thick of a very tight relegation battle. As previously mentioned, it was annoying that there were so many empty seats just next to the away end.

Best thing about the ground?

Hard to single anything out. The leg room was good despite it being extremely steep, which helped and gave me enough room to celebrate! Also, wherever you sat in the away end, it was a class view. No big fat concrete poles like Sheffield Wednesday.

Classic moment

Has to be that Grealish goal. One of the best I’ve seen this season. What a player and the away end limbs were never going to disappoint!

Anything funny happen?

Apart from the first 45 minutes of the match, the day as a whole was class. Nice sunny day and from the very small percentage of Rotherham I actually saw, it seemed like a decent place.

The funniest moment however, has to be big Tyrone Mings running out after the game and celebrating like we’d won the FA Cup. What a player and what a mentality he has. 

Any other business?

A class away day overall, all topped of with me turning 18 on the M42 on the journey home! No place I’d rather have been on my birthday!

UTV

Vote for Villa on Tour

While MOMS hasn’t bothered with the Football Blogging Awards for the past five years now due to them being taken over by a clickbait ad network, I don’t want to pee on anybody’s else parade.

Villa on Tour have done a top job in going to the effort of following Villa around the country on away days, giving you a genuine and humorous insight from the stands in enjoyable videos. So please do vote for them via the below voting form link in the following three categories: Best Club Content Creator, the Best New Content Creator and Best Vlogger

You can leave the other categories as ‘Not Sure’ to save time.

Click here for voting form

Thanks

Follow Max on Twitter here – @villaontour_

Subscribe to the Villa on Tour VOT Youtube Channel

Follow MOMS on Twitter here – @oldmansaid

Listen to the New MOMS Podcast Episode