[float=left][/float]A programme for the German Select XI v Aston Villa match played in Berlin 15th May 1938, in German and titled Aston Villa in Deutschland, recently sold at auction for £210 (10.05.2011)

This game was played the day after the infamous England international in Berlin. But unlike their national counterparts the Aston Villa team refused point blank to give the Nazi salute before the match, and for good measure defeated a team packed with German and Austrian internationals.

Hard men and characters. Everybody says there aren't enough of them left in football. All the old faces say there used to be plenty on the old days. Vinnie Jones wouldn't have lasted five minutes against Tommy Smith. Norman Hunter, there was a real hard man. And Dave Mackay, Billy Bremner and all the rest. They were real hard men. No they weren't. Not compared to the hardest of the lot.

[float=left][/float]Frank Barson. The mere mention of his name made opponents claim they were injured. Like all legends, tales about Barson are many. But in his case most of them are true.

Barson was born in Grimesthorpe, in the Sheffield steel belt. He first came to prominence playing for Barnsley, where he had already served a two month suspension following an incident in a friendly against Birmingham, and on one occasion had to be smuggled out of Goodison Park to avoid a large crowd who had gathered outside the ground to discuss with Barson his behaviour in an FA Cup tie with Everton.

Barson came into conflict with Barnsley over travelling expenses, and Messrs Ramsay and Rinder were convinced that he would be the best player to improve a Villa team which had been struggling after the First World War. Barson, strangely for such a self-confident man, initially thought himself not good enough for the Villa, but the persuasive Ramsay, as usual, won the argument and Barson moved to Villa in October 1919, making his debut in a 4-1 win at Middlesbrough.

Barson undoubtedly played a large part in the Villa team during his three seasons at the club, but it is his run-ins with authority for which he is best known.

He maintained a business in Sheffield and refused to move to Birmingham despite the Villa's insistence that he should do so. This cost him dearly once, when he and goalkeeper Sam Hardy, who lived in

Chesterfield, were forced to walk seven miles to Old Trafford in bad weather after missing a rail connection. Naturally, Barson was the best player on the pitch that afternoon.

Barson's living arrangements caused further controversy on the opening day of the 1920-21 season, when he and Clem Stephenson missed a defeat at Bolton. Both were suspended by the Villa board for fourteen days but Barson still refused to move. In fact, he was appointed captain in succession to Andy Ducat, although it's not known whether he merely decided he wanted the job and nobody dared argue with him. He celebrated his appointment by scoring with a header from thirty yards out against Sheffield United.

Opposing crowds hated him, so much so that Barson was forced to publicly defend himself on the grounds that he had been "brought up to play hard and saw nothing wrong with an honest to goodness shoulder charge."

However, Barson was not always the guilty party. The Villa's opponents frequently took out their anger on his colleagues, which was often the signal for Barson to roll up his sleeves and extract revenge on the miscreants. It was also common for the crowd at away fixtures to howl for Barson's blood following incidents in which he had played no part.

Probably the most famous story about Frank Barson concerned the 1920 FA Cup Final, when he was warned about his behaviour by referee Jack Howcroft - in the dressing room before the match started. "The first wrong move you make Barson, off you go" he was told. Howcroft repeated the threat a couple of years later when officiating another Villa game. But despite this, the two men retained a healthy respect for each other.

For a player like Frank Barson, a lengthy career at any single club would have been impossible. The beginning of the end to his time at Villa came following a match against Liverpool. Barson invited a friend of his to wait in the dressing room while he got changed, and this drew a rebuke from a director. The disciplinarian Rinder became involved in the argument and when Barson refused to apologise, his Villa days were numbered. Even Frank Barson couldn't get the better of Fredrick Rinder. A seven day suspension was the result and this was followed by a transfer request.

Villa actually did offer him good terms to re-sign at the beginning of the following season, but Barson refused to play for the team again. He turned down offers from several clubs but eventually joined Manchester United in late August 1922. Villa had wanted £6,000 for his signature but eventually settled for a reduced fee from United (where have I heard that before?) of £5,000. He also received permission from the Old Trafford board to live and train in Sheffield.

It's typical of Barson that despite falling out with the Villa board, they should go to great lengths to help him out. He believed that he was due a signing-on fee, but the FA Management Committee ruled that his refusal to accept Villa's terms meant that he had forfeit this right. Rinder took his claim to the FA but the fee was never paid.

Despite suffering a bad injury, Barson was regarded as a hero in Manchester, although he didn't welcome undue flattery. In fact, he was so sick of such attention that on the opening night of his pub he gave the business to his head waiter.
In his book Soccer in the Blood, Billy Walker wrote of Barson "Perhaps the greatest of all the great characters in my album - he played with and against me - was the one and only Frank Barson.

"Frank was a Sheffielder, a truly great footballer and personality and a card. He was never ashamed of numbering amongst his friends the notorious Fowler brothers, who were hanged for murder."
In fact, prior to a game against Spurs, Frank was sent a good luck letter from the brothers - who at the time were in the condemned cell.

Walker claimed that Barson did more to make him the great footballer he became than did anyone else. However, that didn't stop Frank from behaving in his usual style when they were in opposition. When playing against Manchester United, Walker once laid on a goal and the latest of all late tackles then put him out of action for three weeks.

Barson later played for Watford, Hartlepool, Wigan and Rhyl Athletic. The fact that he moved to Birmingham upon retirement though, and lived there until his death, showed which club he held dearest to his heart.

Oh, and there's an unconfirmed story that towards the end of his career he didn't feel he was getting the pay rise he deserved, so helped contract negotiations along by going to a meeting with his manager carrying a gun.

Beat that, Vinnie Jones.

Whose Villa goals have you enjoyed the most - simply because of the quailty of the goals.

So it needn't be a striker, or even someone who got loads, or even someone who scored particularly important goals.

My shortlist from 40-odd years of watching would be:
ANDY GRAY - scored the best headed goals I've ever seen, and plenty of decent ones with his feet too. He seemed to get so many classic goals, often through not being afraid to put his head where it might get clobbered.
DAVID PLATT - had the knack of perfectly timing runs into the box and just didn't score bad goals.
JUAN PABLO ANGEL - some of his finishes, whether headers or shots, were of the highest quality. I just wish he'd played at a time when we had a better team.
BRUCE RIOCH / TOMMY HITZLSPERGER - I can't seperate these two. Clearly Rioch was a better all round player but did "The Hammer" ever score an average goal? Two of the few players we've had who could hit a rocket shot and get it on target.

My shortlist is getting longer in my head as I write, but I'll let the rest of you have a go now.

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It was a surreal day for me and my mates. We got to New St with no travel organised and Andy Brown's 2 coaches were C Crew regulars only with the special trains utterly sold out. We were heading down to Digbeth when a 50 year old Arthur Daley lookalike asked us if we wanted to jump on his coach to London for a fiver. On we jumped, chuffed to bits at our luck.

The journey down was a claret and blue car / coach fest, with the hard shoulder the longest urinal in British motoring history as boozed up Villa fans ensured the neighbouring fields retained their greenness. We were dropped off near the ground to be told by Arthur Daley that the return would only be leaving the Green Man in Edgware Rd at closing time. I was at school in 6th form then and was raiding the piggy bank and working with my old man to afford footie and a few pints twice a week, so I had just about enough money left for a bag of chips and a can of pop to last me the whole day.

It was very hot and sunny before the game and the pubs and streets near the ground were overflowing with Villa fans. Surprisingly the (admittedly older) Arsenal fans who spoke to us were pretty friendly and thought we were the best team in the league and told us we would definitely win it. Oft neglected in reports of that day is the fact that Arsenal needed to win to qualify for the UEFA Cup so they were really up for it.

Entering the ground from the left side (of course) of the Clock End we bumped into Pele who for some strange reason was there that day. Why he was walking from the Clock End to the stand I have no idea. The atmosphere had been pretty lively but turned moody before kick off when loads of Arsenal came charging down the stand on the left looking for trouble. I actually felt for the kids who got stuck in to them and subsequently nicked, as they doubtless missed the most important Villa game in years, as well as probably copping a thumping fine too.

The game itself was hell on earth - the Villa seemed to freeze and play with lead in their boots and the 2 goals seemed to be conceded in slow motion. We were truly awful. At half time we were in the pits of despair and I felt as physically sick as I ever have done in my life with the Villa.

We all know that Bosko saved the day - just as well as we were never, ever going to trouble Arsenal ourselves. The rumours from blokes with radios did start to change the mood but I was convinced both that Ipswich would come back from the dead and that all the radio rumours were incorrect. That famous clock behind us went as slowly as any other in history, a record it was to hold until another clock in Rotterdam seemed broken for 26 minutes a year later.

The final whistle was as much relief as ecstasy. Within seconds thousands of Arsenal fans were on the pitch from the North Bank and the police managed to form a cordon. The atmosphere was very ugly as I reckon they were determined not to let us celebrate on their pitch, and without the police it would have been really nasty as Villa obviously had a fair number of nutters out that day. We got onto the pitch ourselves and picked up some turf but it all felt surreal - celebrating the title after our worst performance of the season.

We decided to head to Victoria to get a National Express back to Brum as none of us wanted to get home at 3 in the morning. Getting back to the tube was a battle as the cops stopped us going to Arsenal and pointed us to Finsbury Park where loads of Gooners were looking for Villa fans. The cops told us to shut our traps and we would be fine but there were only 5 of us and it got a bit hairy. Some kids from our estate were in the tube carriage next to ours and the Arsenal fans wandering around got in with them and one of the Pheasey lads was stabbed. We found out the next day he needed stitches but it was not too serious. We managed to get a coach back to Brum - my mates lent me the fare - and got back in time for 1 pint (thanks to my mates again) in the Pen and Wig in Dale End before 10.30 closing and the bus home. We were so mentally and physically exhausted that none of us could get up next morning to see the trophy at the Town Hall.

It truly was a strange way to win the league (and one hell of a day out) and I have always rued the lack of sheer elation and absolute adrenaline that should have come from our last title win. Satisfaction yes, but not 100% unrestrained joy. On the coach home we were talking as much about getting to Wembley as having won the league - none of us had been in 1977 due to family unemployment. We knew it was a great achievement but in comparison I have felt more elation after final wins. Not to worry: the unadulterated joy of Rotterdam a year later was the consummate example of what winning a trophy really felt like. Surely the future would always be like this....?

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The difference between o neill and houllier

By the time Martin O'Neill dramatically quit Aston Villa five days before the start of the season, he was fed up with owner Randy Lerner - and club officials felt similarly about him .

So Lerner and his key confidants such as chief executive Paul Faulkner deliberately sought out a successor who was completely different to the Irishman.

Yes, O'Neill had undoubtedly done a good job (and his reign is looking better with every new bad result under successor Gerard Houllier). Three successive sixth-place finishes in the Premier League is admirable and Villa also reached Wembley twice last season in the two domestic cup competitions.

But Lerner wants and wanted more from and for the football club he has spent £200million on since buying Villa .

He finally wants some silverware, primarily.

The American also wants better value for money from the £100m-plus he has spent on players, as the club, whose wage bill is an unsustainable £70m, are being forced to virtually give away expensive flops such as Steve Sidwell, Nicky Shorey and Habib Beye.

Lerner wants all his players to be trained thoroughly and improved on the practice pitch.

He wants some of the club's talented youngsters, such as Marc Albrighton, to be given more chances to flourish.

And he wants an open, friendly dialogue with the man running the team after his relationship with O'Neill turned sour.

Given those reasons, I can fully understand why Lerner recruited former Liverpool manager Houllier.

Spend any time in Houllier's company and he quickly comes across as confident, urbane, intelligent and not shy to highlight his impressive CV!

I mention this as Lerner is definitely standing by his man despite a torrid start to Houllier's managerial reign amid unrest from fans.

And I think it is precisely because Houllier has such different methods to O'Neill that Villa have struggled to adapt to his regime.

Under O'Neill, rightly or wrongly, everything was geared towards the players performing on a match-day.

The squad were often given at least two days off a week and training was laid-back under John Robertson and Steve Walford, with five-a-side games taking up the majority of the time.

There was little analytical assessment of opponents, as O'Neill preferred to focus on his own side's strengths.

O'Neill did not talk to the players much at the training ground, he would save his wisdom for the dressing room, where he produced such inspirational rhetoric on a match-day that his players would be full of confidence.

So, regardless of whether his methods were more in keeping with Brian Clough's generation of players or not, they undoubtedly worked well despite O'Neill's tendency to rarely rotate his squad.

Yet since Houllier arrived in September, Villa's players are having to knuckle down under a completely different, disciplined approach.

And let's be quite clear, it has been a hell of a culture shock.

Already, Houllier has clashed with John Carew, Richard Dunne, Stephen Ireland and Beye, as reported in Mirrorsport.

The change of routine and methods has caused much grumbling at Villa's training ground as even the players' jacuzzi has been removed.

I was the first to report in October that Houllier had dramatically upped the number of days players were due in at the club .

And not only did he get French fitness coach Robert Duverne - who fell out with Patrice Evra at the World Cup - cracking the whip, but he also imposed a set of new rules that went down like a lead balloon.

Mobile phones were banned at the training ground, players were told to cut out non-football related chit-chat in training and those living miles away from the club, such as Stephen Warnock in Ormskirk in Lancashire, were asked to relocate .

Perhaps crucially, Houllier is completely different in the dressing room to his predecessor.

The 63-year-old is softly spoken these days and confirmed to the press last week that he has no plans to start throwing any tea cups.


Houllier believes his players should be motivated themselves, without him rallying them with any Churchillian speeches.

Indeed, after their Carling Cup exit at arch-rivals Birmingham, I am told Houllier basically said to the players: 'Well played. Unlucky. On to the next game'!

O'Neill, who won all six of his matches against Brum, certainly would have handled it differently.

So, all in all, life could scarcely be much more of a contrast for Villa's squad, unless perhaps Nicolas Sarkozy had come over from France instead!

And I can understand why Villa supporters are getting both worried and restless about results with the club now in the relegation zone.

Sunday's league game at arch-rivals Birmingham must be enough to fill most Villa fans with dread.

But Lerner has taken on Houllier to rebuild the club, as part of a long-term strategy, on a cheaper more sustainable model while still maintaining big ambitions.

Houllier will be backed this month with funds to offload the likes of Carew and Beye (who will need pay-offs) and bring in players such as Lyon's Jean Makoun, Blackburn's Chris Samba, Charlie Adam of Blackpool and Toulouse starlet Moussa Sissoko.

His French revolution is going to need both time and patience to yield results.

Those commodities are in short supply in football these days, but if I was a betting man I would put money on Houllier being at Villa until the summer at least.

Perhaps by then those reactionary members of Villa's squad will be bombed out and the club can progress using Lerner and Houllier's blueprint.
[by james nursey - mirror]

>>>>>>discussed here>>>>>>