Aston Villa have played a huge part in the Premier League since it began on this day in 1992.
The club have been almost ever-present in England’s top tier, competing in 28 of the 30 seasons to date.
And with the Premier League celebrating its 30th birthday this week, Rob Bishop gives a snapshot of the seasons, players, managers and games that have defined Villa’s time in top flight so far…
Villa have become accustomed to opening day visits to newly-promoted clubs over the past few seasons – Bournemouth in 2015, Watford last year and the Cherries again just over a week ago.
But it’s not a new phenomenon. Thirty years ago, on the opening Saturday of the new FA Premier League, Ron Atkinson’s men travelled to East Anglia to face Ipswich Town, who had won the Second Division title the previous season.
A late Dalian Atkinson goal earned a 1-1 draw at Portman Road and that scoreline was repeated in subsequent home fixtures against Leeds United and Southampton, with Atkinson scoring in both of those games, too.
If three points from as many games hardly represented a flying start, things took a turn for the worse as we suffered a 1-0 setback at Everton.
The situation could only improve, and thankfully it did. We finished that inaugural season as runners-up to Manchester United, and although the final table shows a ten-point deficit, it was only after the penultimate match – a 1-0 home defeat by Oldham Athletic – that the title was mathematically beyond reach.
And at least one trophy came our way – Paul McGrath’s majestic performances at the heart of the defence earned him the PFA Player of the Year award.
That debut campaign remains Villa’s highest finish, although it wasn’t the club’s most successful season of the Premier League era. In 1995-96, under the management of Brian Little, a top-four finish was accompanied by a League Cup final triumph over United plus progress to the FA Cup semi-finals.
McGrath was an integral part of that outstanding team, too, although he had departed by the time Villa again challenged for Premier glory. That was in 1998-99 when John Gregory’s men remained unbeaten in their first 12 games and were still top of the table in early January before falling away to sixth.
Under Gregory, we led the way again – albeit briefly – following a 3-2 home win over Bolton Wanderers on the last weekend of October 2001. But for sheer consistency, the Martin O’Neill era takes some beating.
Three consecutive sixth-place finishes – plus a League Cup final appearance -were achieved by O’Neill’s teams from 2008 to 2010, and the title was again in our sights in 2008-09 before a sequence of 11 games without a win in February, March and April.
A club record was established that season – a run of seven straight away wins which started at Arsenal in November and concluded at Blackburn in February, just before the costly dip in form.
There have also been low points, of course, none worse than relegation in 2016. But we were back in the big time three years later, and it was just a pity that Villa Park was empty on the night we achieved arguably our most memorable Premier League victory – the 7-2 demolition of Liverpool two years ago.
Here's to making more memories in England's top tier!
