3) Our history vs Derby
Along with ourselves, Derby were among the original founders of the Football League (I never knew that until researching this piece) and to date, we have played them 137 times in all competitions. Villa lead the head-to-head 69-44, with 24 draws. Interestingly, before the 0-0 draw at Pride Park early last season, the only other draw in the previous 26 matches was a 1-1 at the Baseball Ground in the League Cup, way back in October 1986!
Notable (and, to be fair, some less so!) recent players to have appeared for both Villa and the Rams include the late John Robson, Mark Lillis, Ian Ormondroyd, Gordon Cowans, Dean Saunders, Paul McGrath, Tommy Johnson, Gary Charles, Curtis Davies, Darren Bent and current Derby first-teamers Scott Carson and Andreas Weimann.
Notable stat: Villa’s FA Cup quarter-final against Derby in 1946 drew the largest home crowd in our history – 76,588. We lost 4-3.
Our biggest home win against the Rams was a 7-1 thrashing back in October 1889, a feat we repeated in November 1898. We’ve also won 6-0 on a couple of occasions – January 1892 and April 1906, but we shouldn’t forget the 6-0 in April 2008 when Petrov scored from a different postcode (although that was at Pride Park).
Whatever happens on Saturday, we’re still in with a shout of promotion – the minimum we should be achieving with the money spent since relegation. We’ve not been the most consistent in the run-in, but with Bruce’s play-off know-how and a full-strength squad going into the play-offs, (in the rather irritating words of the Betway advert) I’d fancy our chances.
COME ON YOU LIONS!
