Villa Park has hosted countless high-profile football matches, staged major Rugby World Cup, boxing and American Football events, not to mention rock concerts, religious gatherings and much more. Villa Park truly is a ground for all people and all seasons.
More than anything, though, Aston Villa have been proud to call it home since April 1897.
Even before moving to our current home, Villa staged an England v Ireland match at the club’s former Perry Barr ground in 1893. And it wasn’t long before Villa Park also welcomed the national team.
In April 1899, two years after the club moved in, it was the venue for a 2-1 victory over Scotland. That was the first of Villa Park’s 11 England games – the last was a goalless draw against the Netherlands in 2005 – and England fixtures have been staged here over the course of three different centuries. Only Anfield can claim the same distinction.
Four games between the Football League and the Scottish League were also played here, the first in 1898 and the last in 1962, while we have staged 55 FA Cup semi-finals and replays – more than any other club. And when it comes to major international tournaments in this country, Villa Park is no stranger to hosting matches on the biggest stage.
Even when the area of the ground where the North Stand is now located was merely a huge open terrace, the stadium was among the venues selected by FIFA for the 1966 World Cup finals. Six thousand temporary seats were installed on the Witton End that summer for the staging of three group games involving Argentina, Spain and West Germany, all between July 13-20.
As Simon Inglis wrote in his 1997 book Villa Park – 100 Years: “It took four years to plan, two-and-a-half months of hectic building work and preparations after Villa’s season ended in April, and then, after just eight fleeting days, it was all over. But for those who were there, the 1966 World Cup was a never-to-be forgotten event which would bring a cosmopolitan clamour to the city and thrust Villa Park onto the greatest of all international football stages.”
Thirty years later, when only the old Trinity Road stand remained unchanged, Villa Park was selected for three European Championship group games involving Scotland, the Netherlands and Switzerland – plus the quarter-final between the Czech Republic and Portugal.
If any endorsement were needed that those operations ran smoothly and efficiently, it was provided three years later. In May 1999, Villa Park hosted the last-ever European Cup Winners’ Cup final between Italians Lazio and Spanish club Real Mallorca.
By then, all that remained from Villa’s bygone era was the 1923 Trinity Road stand, which was bulldozed in the summer of 2000 to make way for the current three-tier structure which houses nearly 13,000 seats. The new stand was used in full for the first time at an England v Spain friendly early the following year, with the official opening ceremony being performed by HRH The Prince of Wales in November 2001.
