A Villan for the day

My away day at the home end in Birmingham

It's the morning after the night before and I thought I would give a bit of a review of my night behind enemy lines down at Villa.

Due to the ludicrous closed shop of the away ticket scheme in Europe and domestically (and the departure of Livingston from the league setup) I can't get tickets for away domestic games nor away European games and am resigned to trips behind enemy lines. I've been to quite a number of Scottish grounds and European grounds sitting in the home end including Old Trafford and the two Madrid stadiums and so I approached Villa Park with my mate last night in the usual fashion - I don't know how they're going to be with away fans so nothing needs to be evident that I am from Glasgow supporting the green and white.

Sometimes going to the home end in away European games is not an issue at all. When we went to the Bernabeu we got there early togive us two attempts for entry; firstly we'd go when it was relatively quiet and it might be straightforward but if there was too much time for stewards to check we might get blocked. An early visit means we have enough time to re-try when it’s busy and perhaps we could skoosh through. Standing debating which of the stewards looked as though they cared about their job the least, we watched a guy in full Celtic gear walk straight up and get into the home end. “That's the boy for us!”

English grounds are a bit more conservative about such things and so my mate and I were approaching the Doug Ellis Stand with a bit more trepidation.