brummie

Still, people will insist on reaching for easy / convenient stereotypes.

Nice. There's only one person on this thread coming across like a boorish, unwitty half wit who feels the need to refer to someone else as a "cunt". Here's a clue. You, not me.

How very erudite of you. Have you suffered some kind of massive head trauma?

Fireworks? I think you've stepped into some kind of reality distortion zone. A couple of banners. You'd probably have spent your time more fruitfully wondering why you'd got yourselves in that position in the first place rather than handwringing about old fashioned football gloating.

When you got relegated, most Villa fans barely batted an eyelid, mate. If you thought what happened at our place the last day of last season was any different to what would have happened if you'd played at any other ground in the country, you're kidding yourself. The time to worry is when you get relegated and nobody bats an eyelid, not when you get a load of pisstaking.

Last season we did that, started off against Odense in blazing sunshine in July, petered out in Moscow, what seemed about 12 years later. The competition is utterly fucking pointless, and lasts forever.

Think that would be a pretty decent game providing MON tells his team to actually try and play football this time. For all your moans, you don't actually seem to take many points of us, KD. I'd back you to do well against any lower half team. Put you against the better sides, though, and you spend 90 minutes passing in pretty triangles around the centre spot and generally don't deliver. You're the inverse of us. Shit teams = we struggle. Decent teams = we do OK.

Beat them once this season already. And the year before last. We can beat anyone if we raise our game. It just depends if we raise our game or not. Obviously. chelsea have a very good record at wembley though We'll see. I'd have preferred Portsmouth, but it is a semi final, so anything can happen.

Beat them once this season already. And the year before last. We can beat anyone if we raise our game. It just depends if we raise our game or not. Obviously.

Come on, Portsmouth in the semi, PLEASE

Surely, surely this must be our year after a turnaround like that?

He's the best player I've ever seen play for us, and the most effortlessly athletic footballer I've seen in 35 years watching the game. In short, he is God to us.

Oh, of course, it is you isn't it Burnip. I hadn't noticed. As you were.

Some interesting text rendering going on there. Safari on a Mac?

Oh, I had a nice day, ta. Nice boozer in Harrow before the match (loads of us there, just of the M40 innit, had plenty of locals randomly approaching us and wishing us luck), 7 or 8 pints of Guinness whilst i read the Observer and had a spot of lunch, 10 mins down to the stadium, 90 minutes of not much atmosphere (Wembley is the least atmospheric stadium on the planet) whilst being continually assaulted - visually and aurally - by Carling sponsorship, a pretty dull and evenly balanced match, uneventful journey back, bar seeing the dishing of a few bouts of 'slaps' by fans of both sides (nowt serious, but i do like reminders of the golden days), and a nice kip whilst someone else drove me home. I expected to lose, so it wasnt too hard to handle, but that's probably because we're still in the FA Cup, with a - touch wood - easy draw, and I'm absolutely fucking obsessed with seeing us win that competition.

I feel a bit sorry for Beye. He's not really been given a fair crack of the whip with us. He's now third choice behind Cuellar and Luke Young. I have no idea why Martin bought him if he's decided so quickly he doesn't rate him. Perhaps he saw something in training he didn't like. I was told - source impeccable (but then again, aren't they always) - that in January he was pretty much on his way to Sunderland, but it fell down over money.

I don't know how they've managed that list when half of the clubs won't even have submitted accounts for that year yet. I know ours aren't due till this month.

From one of our forums today. The view from a 54 pound seat in a 1 billion pound stadium http://img52.imageshack.us/img52/7812/wem.jpg

Does anyone else think that the arse falling out of the football industry, and the tv money getting correspondingly slashed and football regressing a bit might actually be a *good* thing? I know one argument will be that our league won't compete with other European ones, but beyond supporters of the Sky 4, does anyone really have any interest in that? I have no desire whatsoever for any of those four clubs to be anywhere near European silverware. I'd rather see 20 teams (or less, ideally) with eleven Warren Aspinalls running around if it made things more competitive.

The Birmingham fans are bussed into Villa Park, too. We can't cordon off access to the city centre, as it is a fucking big city. How are we supposed to have 500 years of "culturally history" amongst ourselves? And what shape did said football rivalry take in the 15th century, out of interest. And you sound a bit like Danny Dyer quoting arrest figures. Pwopah norty! Pwopah norty!

Trafalgar Square was the only place where I actually saw a Man U fan, it wasn't the only place where I was drinking during the day. As for Chelsea fans, I would have expected that the Semi Final of the FA Cup is a bit more than on ordinary game and worthy of making a day of it. Maybe they remained in Chelsea, I doubt that they all live in Chelsea anyway. As for my memory of Man U fans being s****, that impression was because of the way they acted during the game when I was sitting in the same end as them. They're not shit though, they're certainly not the best as brummie suggests though in my view, he's only saying that as Villa Park seems to get overran by them every time they play there, and so it should it's only 90 miles up the motorway. They had a cup game there, was only about 29,000 there, and 6,000 were Man Utd end ticket holders and they seemed to be all over the ground, same game Nistelrooy scored a hattrick. That type of thing wouldn't happen somewhere with a proper support. They have about 10,000 fans who are vocal and seem to back them, the rest are shite and an embarrassment. That semi final in Cardiff oh dear, I seen a Malaysian with a ROONEY 9 shirt on nearthe station, he didn't even fucking wear 9. Villa Park doesn't get "overrun" when they play us. The fact of the matter is, they are consistently the noisiest away supporters, and I'm basing that on years of watching Villa, and saying it although I can't stand Manchester United. They just are. They're not only the loudest, they've got the widest selection of songs as well. I can say what you want if you like, and suggest that Newcastle are the loudest away fans at our place, but the fact is they're not. And neither, for that matter, are Sunderland, although they like to tell everyone they are. You can tell everyone all Man U away fans are 'Rooney 9' shirt wearing Malaysians if you like, but that's utter nonsense, as anyone with a brain will tell you. It's a bit like listening to some of our dimmer fans on the way to Wembley on Sunday, "hurr hurr, all Man U fans are fron Kent, they're all one game a season morons". Yeah, right, I'd like to see them run into some old school 1970s or 80s Man U fans and try that line. There are enough of them still about, too.

I honestly don't think you understand what our rivalry with them is like. To assume it is in any worse less vile than Newcastle - Sunderland is fanciful nonsense, I'm afraid. It is every bit as nasty, bitter, and underpinned by jealousy on one side (which the nastiest rivalries often are). The fact we live in the same city is the whole problem. West Midlands Police tried, but failed, to get our matches against them moved to 10am recently, which says a lot about it. To add to it, London is comparatively close to Birmingham, there would be plenty more people just travelling down "for the experience" as it is so cheap to get there. Incidentally, you are wrong about Man United's away support. i fucking hate that club, but in all the time i have been watching football - 35 years - it has consistently been the best. And that includes when they were in the second division, too. It is too easy to assume that because they, like Liverpool, have lots of gloryhunting fans, their away support is similar. It isn't. Liverpool's support at our place is dreadful - jester hat toting Irish / Scando / Southern counties camera-toting fuckwits. Man U's away support is almost entirely Mancunian, partisan and noisy. They've certainly been the loudest away fans at our place pretty much every year for the last 10 years, the only clubs that pushed them for it were the smaller clubs at FA Cup matches, and possibly Stoke and Spurs. And that's not particularly pleasant to admit, either.

Oh, one more thing, given the total and utter lack of segregation before and after the match, and on transport away from the ground, I truly dread to think of what it will be like in the quite possibly possible situation of us playing Birmingham City in the semi or final. Not a point specific to new Wembley, but even so ... *shudder*

I was sitting amongst Man U fans when we played them, they were really shit. The ones we met in the boozers before the match were all decent, and were almost all Mancs, proper fans who'd not turned up for a day out in their jester hats. Man United's away support is probably the best in the country, too. Which made it all the more disappointing when they all fucked off back to Wembley Park before the crush. I know the CCC is a far lower priority for them but even so ...

I was there for a FA Trophy Final involving Torquay with less than 41,000 in and it was a fabulous atmosphere. I think the atmosphere was appalling on Sunday as you had two shit sets of fans in there. Put Newcastle in there for a League Cup Final against someone like Leeds you'd see if it's to do with the dynamics of the ground or not. Yes, yes, of course, of course.