We know that once they ripped the seats out of the Holte End, back in the day, that the atmosphere at Villa Park might not be quite the same again. But all is not lost. We can get the atmos back – louder and prouder. We’ve just got to think a bit bigger and ‘out of the box’. First, you must embrace the idea of Villa’s lions mascot, then you can apply these four winning ideas to get Villa Park rocking again…
1. Up-sizing inflatables
Inflatables have long been a staple of crowd fun at football matches and music concerts. Granted, you can probably have the same amount of fun, more cheaply, by trying to keep a simple balloon in the air, but lets take it up a few notches. Embracing the Villa lion, MOMS has located this 25ft tall inflatable fierce giant lion (see below), perfect for the Holte End to scare opponents shitless! It’s in America, so maybe we can get brother Tom Hanks to pay for it and to ship it over for us.
2. Bring Alex McLeish back to Villa in a new role.
Since Randy Lerner hasn’t brought in American-style cheerleaders to warm up the crowd (the Cleveland Browns were actually one of the few NFL teams without them), maybe it”s time to embrace the Villa lion in a more literal fashion. Going to the circus when we were kids, was always fun and put us in a good mood. Most people’s circus highlight had to be the lion tamer working his magic with a cage full of lions. As luck would have it, I recently stumbled on this picture below…
Has Alex McLeish finally found a new job? If he has, maybe Randy should give McLeish one more chance at trying to contribute to the Villa Park atmosphere!
3. 19 fancy dress matches at Villa Park with extra season ticket pack freebie
The last game of the season, where the fan’s tradition is to come in fancy dress, always brings a great and sometimes surreal atmosphere to Villa games. What if Randy Lerner could make a little investment and as part of the season ticket bonus pack of freebies, the club could include one of these inflatable lion suits to wear at games?
Like a life vest on an aeroplane, it could be attached under your seat at Villa Park, just pull a cord to self-inflate and then put it on before the game kicks off. Any team, turning up to play at Villa Park, would look around the stadium and see themselves surrounded by thousands of lions. Three-points for the Villa, pretty much guaranteed every time!
4. Delux designer toilet roll
Actually, this is more for Villa away games. The throwing of toilet rolls was a fun tradition of the terraces that seems to have been lost in recent years. Well, on discovering there is a company that actually does fancy lime glow-in-the-dark toilet paper to match Villa’s former alternative away kit, now seems like a great time to bring the tradition back. They also do claret and sky blue rolls for home games. Result.
If you have any other crazy ideas, the more surreal the better, please add them in the comments below with any links to photos. Any good ones, I’ll add to this post.
UTV
PS – ‘A Venglos View’ is a MOMS column of a satirical nature. You have been warned!
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Haha ^^^^
The displays where you get the crowd all to hold up a sheet and make an image are good.
Some form of Villa song would be great as well, it’d be nice for us to have our own never walk alone type thing.
ian smith bring the away fans next to holte end in the doug ellis and alter holte end into one bank of seats with sides closed in
have an actual anthem that we can sing every game and lasts for like atleast a minute, &they need to expand the north end
A Villa band, the same as the england pukka pies band that follows England everywhere always creating an atmosphere but instead its a Villa version?
I think the Brigada used to have a drum, but that was banned.
Any other out there ideas?
I’ve had a go at anthem – tune is Reptilia by The Strokes – not.obvious, needs some work but we could go somewhere with this?
DD-DDD,DD-DDD (times 8)
You seem impressed by the way you came in
Villa Park’s a fortress, lock up your wives and daughters
We’re not afraid and we don’t give in
We’ll tell you a secret, don’t try to repeat it
You can’t slow us down cos we move too fast
The Holte End is dynamite and we’re about to blast
DD-DDD, DDD-DDD (times 4)
Yeah, the game is over, you’re not trying hard enough
The Holte is at you like a bomb and you are blown
Away, there’s no use arguin’, we’ve taken over
You’re no longer laughin’, and we’re not travellin’ fast enough
Then the guitar solo
Now every time that you look at this stand, all that it stands for, this world of euphoria
The Villa on fire and the Holte in the air
We come here for our fix, the Villans of B6
You can’t slow us down cos we move too fast
The Holte End is dynamite and we’re about to blast
DD-DDD, DDD-DDD (times 4)
Yeah, the game is over, you’re not trying hard enough
The Holte is at you like a bomb and you are blown
Away, there’s no use arguin’, we’ve taken over
You’re no longer laughin’, and we’re not travellin’ fast enough
Haha. 10 out of 10 for effort. I know the original song, but you need something with a big old sing-a-long chorus. I’m surprised we haven’t got a song that has stood the test of time, as it’s difficult to just adopt one out of nowhere.