Monday afternoon’s Championship Play-Off Final between Aston Villa and Derby County was largely a celebration of football although it certainly got a bit tasty on the pitch at points – but that’s the game we love.
Off pitch, the vast majority of stories coming out of the game was good fun, decent banter and a great day out for both sides even if Derby travelled home with disappointment having again missed out at Wembley.
Head coach Dean Smith and our boys had the correct praise for the opposition after the game, as did Frank Lampard and his boys and despite the testy nature during the 97 minutes of hell, the handshakes at the final whistle helped put that in perspective.
Sadly not for some fans ahead of kickoff who took full and stupid opportunity to create the wrong headlines as they turned on a Derby supporters bus stuck in traffic.
I’m certainly not linking some of the video footage doing the rounds on social media but thankfully it seems no one was seriously hurt – however, that’s not quite the point is it. I would imagine there will be bans to come in the future and the message is again, if you can’t handle your beer, don’t drink it. If for some, it wasn’t beer-fuelled, that’s even worse.
The ever loveable Dave J (@yorkshireAVFC) on social media had the perfect response yesterday and did a fair bit of chasing to show the true side of Aston Villa fans.
https://twitter.com/yorkshireAVFC/status/1133302138426331136
Reaction was what you’d expect from the faithful and there have been some great reactions from those caught up in the nonsense (Derby side) as well who know the idiots don’t represent the majority of Villa fans.
At the time of typing the Just Giving page had topped £6000 and whether or not the target is reached, in some ways that’s actually irrelevant. It really is the thought and effort that counts here and I applaud everyone (Dave especially) for showing the actions of real fans here and not the brainless.
Update – Big Green Coach have decided that all funds raised will go to the Derby fans directly affected (+ driver) so the target has been lowered and it’ll close on Sunday at 10pm for anyone who wants to chip in.
*Huge Update*@biggreencoach have decided that all funds, in their entirety, should go to the affected Derby fans (and driver) on the coach. ????????????????????????
I have lowered the target to £12,800. I'm leaving the fundraising open until Sunday evening 10PM.https://t.co/dTl1q1B6pw
— Dave J (Yorkshire AVFC) (@yorkshireAVFC) May 29, 2019
