Aston Villa

A chapel cricket team in Aston

Aston Villa were formed on 21 November 1874 by four members of the cricket side attached to Aston Villa Wesleyan Chapel — Jack Hughes, George Matthews, Walter Price and William Scattergood — who wanted a winter game and judged association football less punishing than rugby. George Ramsay joined in 1876, brought with him the Scottish passing game, and in 1886 became the first professional manager in the sport. Two years later a Villa director, William McGregor, founded the Football League itself.

The club moved to Villa Park in 1897 and has played there ever since. The ground sits in Aston, a few minutes' walk from Witton station and a quarter of an hour from Aston, on the northern edge of Birmingham rather than in the city centre — a detail that still shapes how a matchday there works.

Seven titles, a European Cup, then thirty years of nothing

Villa have won seven league championships, the last of them in 1980–81, seven FA Cups, the last in 1957, and five League Cups, the last in 1996. The 1981 title was followed by the club's largest result: the European Cup in 1982, with the European Super Cup added the same year. For a club with that record, the three decades after 1996 were unusually bare.

Relegation came in 2015–16. Villa spent three seasons in the Championship and returned to the Premier League by beating Derby County 2–1 in the 2019 play-off final. V Sports — Nassef Sawiris, Wes Edens and Atairos — took control the same year and has funded the squad since.

Emery, the climb, and the night in Istanbul

Unai Emery was appointed on 1 November 2022 with Villa 17th and sliding. He finished that part-season seventh and the following one, 2023–24, fourth, which put the club back in the Champions League for the first time since 1982–83.

The 2025–26 season was better again. Villa won eight consecutive league matches in December 2025, their best top-flight run since 1910, and finished fourth for a second time, with Ollie Watkins scoring 16 league goals and 21 in all competitions. The trophy arrived on 20 May 2026 at the Beşiktaş Stadium in Istanbul, where Villa beat SC Freiburg 3–0 in the Europa League final in front of 37,324. Youri Tielemans scored on 41 minutes, Emiliano Buendía added a second in first-half stoppage time and Morgan Rogers made it three on 58. Buendía was named player of the match. It was the club's first major honour since the 1996 League Cup.

The summer that sold the forward line

What followed was the most aggressive trading the club has done under this ownership. Rogers went to Chelsea for £117m on 21 July. Ezri Konsa joined Arsenal for £51m on 21 August. Watkins left for Al Hilal for £50m on 30 August, and Emiliano Martínez went to Chelsea for £7.5m the same day. The goalkeeper, the first-choice centre-half, the top scorer and the most creative attacker all left inside six weeks.

The money was spent. Johan Manzambi arrived from Freiburg for £52m on 17 July, João Gomes from Wolves for £34m on 20 July, Matteo Ruggeri from Atlético Madrid for £17m on 19 August, Nicolas Jackson from Chelsea for £47.5m on 28 August, and Taylor Harwood-Bellis from Southampton for £25m plus Ibrahim Mbaye from Paris Saint-Germain for £47m, both on 1 September. Several of them landed after the season had started.

The consequences showed immediately. Villa lost the UEFA Super Cup 2–1 to Paris Saint-Germain in Salzburg on 12 August, then were beaten 4–0 at Brighton on 23 August, the heaviest defeat of their season so far.

Where it stands now

Going into the October international break, Villa had four points from five league matches and sat 16th. The one win was the useful kind: 3–2 at Tottenham on 19 September, Manzambi tapping in a Boubacar Kamara cross in first-half stoppage time, Jackson finishing powerfully on 67 and Buendía settling it from 25 yards on 79, before Conor Gallagher and Jan Paul van Hecke made the last four minutes uncomfortable. Emery's assessment afterwards was about cohesion rather than individuals — that the players needed to understand how the group could feel better collectively and what each could contribute to that.

Outside the league the form has been steadier. Villa won 3–1 at Coventry City in the EFL Cup on 16 September and took their opening Champions League league-phase match away at Club Brugge in September. The fixture list now compresses hard: seven matches in 22 days, starting with Brentford at home on 10 October, Fenerbahçe at Villa Park on 14 October, Newcastle away on 18 October, Viking of Norway at home, Manchester City at home, Bournemouth away in the League Cup and Fulham at Villa Park on 31 October.

The rest of the European draw is the real test of the rebuild: Barcelona away on 3 November, Galatasaray away on 24 November, Paris Saint-Germain at Villa Park on 8 December, Borussia Dortmund at home on 19 January and Slavia Prague away on 27 January.

Villa Park with one stand missing

The club announced on 21 April 2026 that the North Stand would be closed for the whole of the 2026–27 season rather than redeveloped in stages across two, which cuts the ground from 43,205 to roughly 37,000 for the current campaign. North Stand season-ticket holders were offered seats elsewhere at no higher price band — unless they chose Premium — or the option to pause their ticket without losing tenure, away-ticket priority or renewal rights. The rebuilt stand is due to open for 2027–28 with more than 5,500 extra seats, taking the total above 50,000, and over 50 new wheelchair bays. Work has continued through the autumn.

Visiting support is unaffected in volume: away fans keep their usual allocation of around 3,000 in the north-east corner of the Doug Ellis Stand, roughly 1,600 in the lower tier and 1,300 in the upper. The Holte End, a single tier holding about 13,000, remains the noisiest part of the ground, and the away block sits directly alongside it.