Hells bells the Villa's only won three points!

And the Villa won a game of football.

As combinations go that is up there with Withe and Shaw.

I’ve had worse Sundays, that’s for sure.

There was even a lovely Goodyear blimp lazily circling above the ground like a reminder of what football used to be like.

I don’t think I’ve ever actually made it to my seat before kick off and yesterday was no different, that last pint of cider always means we are rushing in the ground at the last minute.

The blokes next to me were moaning that the new ‘The Bells Are Ringing For Claret and Blue’ official song sounded nothing like the original chant. Different words and different tune so they say.

Well I suppose the fans behind the whole campaign did their job because the fans were moaning about how crap our new official song is instead of moaning about the team line up.

However, I can’t deny the place did seem a bit more jolly than normal, and plenty of fans bought scarves on the warmest day of the year to help back the team and ‘be the 12th Man’.

Most importantly the 11 blokes on the pitch who we pay to see and are handsomely rewarded for kicking a ball about turned up too.

Yesterday, we didn’t concede in the first half despite some pretty ropey passing, defending and marking.

Most importantly we scored first, through a cracking header by the man of the match James Collins after a wonderful free kick by Ashley Young.

And that was that. I thought we would go on to win three or four nil but bad offside decisions, misplaced through balls and a desire to put the fans through the mill in the last ten minutes meant the score stayed the same.

At half-time the bloke who plays the tunes had a bell overload and must have thought he was at Wrestlemania because he played the unmistakable chimes of The Undertaker entrance song.

You just cant beat Brummies with quizzical looks on their faces wondering what the hell is going on.

I was waiting for someone to say what we were all thinking: “What’s gooin on? Who’s he gunna take off for The Undertaker?”

It reminded me of the deathly silence and confusion when Santa crash landed on the Trinity Road Stand.

No-one wanted to ask out loud if that was part of the act but instead fiddled around with their programs and pretended not to notice.

In the second half the whole ground knew how important these tantalisingly close three points would be and that made the match that much more exciting.

Though I bet the match looked dire on tv.

I thought Gabby played well, ok he didn’t score or contribute to a goal but he proved an outlet for the rest of the team who treated the ball as if it was a hand grenade.

And as most of them seem to have forgotten how to pass it helped they could just knock it over the top and hope Gabby stopped it going out of play.

Mr Houllier couldn’t help but conspire against us winning by replacing our best attacking outlet Gabby with Old Man Pires.

He trotted around looking out of place and off the pace, missed tackles and helped give away a free kick on the edge of our area in injury time.

I’m sure he was great once but his sun has set, the quicker he retires to America or the Middle East the better.

I’m sure if the game went on any longer he would have ended up scoring an own goal with his back heel.

But the Gods were on our side and there was massive relief when the final whistle went. And then for some reason church bells were played before Johnny Cash’s dulcet tones filled the stadium If I’m honest I couldn’t care less what song is played before the game, in fact I like the old fashioned thousands of fans shouting “Come On Villa” in anticipation in the kick off.

This is football not ice hockey and we dont need gimmicks blasted down our ears to ‘create an atmosphere’.

If our team played great football, scored goals and were challenging for titles then the atmosphere would be electric. And that seems to be light years away I suggest if you are craving some atmosphere whist watching the Villa then go to our away games!

Up the Villa.

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