The Birmingham Mail are carrying a story about Barry Fry who last week wound things up before the FA Cup tie between Aston Villa and Peterborough slating our owner Tony Xia.
At Villa Park he had a conversation with Steve Bruce, who put him right about a few things.
Fair play to Barry Fry, he could have just kept quiet and people would have forgotten, but he`s been a decent person and apologised.
‘First and foremost I must apologise to Tony Xia, the owner of Aston Villa Football Club for questioning his ambition last week without knowing the full facts.”
He said Bruce explained that Xia had put in £80million.
‘As usual, I got the wrong end of the stick and I apologise to Mr Xia. I had read an article a few weeks ago where Steve Bruce was quoted as saying he wouldn`t have any funds in the transfer window and that he had to beg, steal and borrow from his mates in the Premier League. Steve explained that was down to the Financial Fair Play rules, which we all have to abide by. I wrongly took that as the Villa owner and board were not backing Steve.”
‘I should have got my facts right and I am sorry.’
Now fair enough, some don`t like him because he managed ‘them` but how many people in life, let alone in football are man enough (is that sexist? or woman enough?!) to stand up and apologise?
And, shock horror, he also thanked the Villa fans for ‘their sportsmanship` in clapping the Peterborough players off the pitch after we took our tonking and for some “wonderful comments we received after the game.”
He goes on to ‘urge` Villa fans to stay united behind Steve Bruce.
And Tony Xia has responded on twitter.
It`s fine that everyone made mistakes. However I agreed we still need to work harder to improve, step by step closer to our targets. Right now I have to admit it`s still a piece of business far away to my expectations, if it`s not the worst among RECON`s different segments. https://t.co/QzaJegrKhd
Dr. Tony Xia (@Dr_TonyXia) January 8, 2018
Interesting he`s saying the business is far away from his expectations at the moment!
Anyway. In conclusion, I`ve always thought Barry Fry is a bit of a daft sod, BUT he`s proper football, he`s a character and in this magnolia world of £ootball these days, it`s great to still have some real people and characters in the game.
