Aston Villa’s 50 greatest moments – 49 The lads of the lamp

By: Martini Extra Dry | October 4th, 2008

Over at The Times Online a fella by the name of Richard Whitehead has produced an article on the 50 greatest moments in Villa’s long and glorious history. The club was originally founded way back in 1874 and since then has endured many great achievements and triumphs. We’ve also endured many years of mediocrity but we’ll let them go by the wayside here as we concentrate on the positives of our football team’s illustrious past and present.

This time up it’s a trip back in time, way back to 1874. As any Villa fan will already be aware, 1874 is the year the club was established, but what many won’t know is how it came to happen. Well, it was as simple as four blokes deciding ‘they wanted to’.

It is believed to be known, as well as things can be known that happened 134 years ago, that four members of the nearby church, who were part of it’s cricket team, were looking for a game to play during the winter months. Jack Hughes, Frederick Matthews, Walter Price and William Scattergood had just witnessed a game of football on a meadow on Heathfield Road and under a gas light there they agreed to form a football club. The conversation led to a choice of name, the first option of using the church’s name being discarded when they looked across the road and saw a house named Ason Villa.

Soon after, the first game for Villa was played, against Aston Brook St Mary’s Rugby team and it was agreed between the sides to play the first half as rugby and the second half as football. Our boys won the game 1-0 thanks to a Jack Hughes second half goal, getting us off to winning ways that would continue for a large part of our first 30 years.

Aston Villa was born.

49 The lads of the lamp

One Birmingham day, early in 1874, legend has it that four young men stopped under the flickering light of a Victorian gas lamp and discussed the idea of forming a football club. They stood on the junction of Heathfield Road and Lozells Lane, near a large town house called Aston Villa and opposite the imposing red-brick bulk of the local Wesleyan Chapel where all were regular attenders. They already played cricket for the chapel team but wanted to find some winter exercise. Much impressed by a game of football they had just watched on a nearby meadow, the lads decided to start a team, taking the name by which the area – thanks to the house a few yards away – had come informally to be known – Aston Villa. Within a quarter of a century, the club they formed was the most famous in the world – how’s that for “growing the brand.”