[Post edited 12 Jul 2019 9:49]

[Post edited 11 Jul 2019 22:14]

The Rommy Report - with a few comments from my grandad by The_Romford_Blue 12 Feb 2017 16:20
I'm not gonna even try and copy the elegance in speech of mullet or Harry (two great reports btw chaps) but will just post as I'm thinking.

Where to start? The team news. Bart, Emmanuel, Knudsen, Chambo, Taylor and Berre. Berre? Who the fook is Berre? They couldn't even be bothered to spell our CBs name correctly. But aside from that, standard starting line up at the back. Midfield of Ward, Diags and Huws was exciting to think about with the memories of reading just 7 days prior. Bales apprentice playing up top with Didz. A recipe for us to get forward with confidence and play some lovely stuff or we would be completely overrun. Only time would tell.

We started ok. Not great. Not bad. Villa looked a threat with the bloke with that strange haircut playing it forward to Kodjia. The latter was causing Taylor problems with some silly fouls being given away. One of those fouls led to a corner which led to Bart making a fantastic save down low to his right. Did he see it late or was it just the speed of the strike that made him seemingly dive later than normal? Who cares. He saved it.

Then Berra had hold of one of the midlanders shirts from a corner which could've been fatal if the ref or the lino decides to be brace and give it. That lino seemed to be constantly give yards behind play. If ever you listen to a stream and the radio commentary at the same time and there's that 3 second delay, that was the link to the play yesterday. Only real thing of note In an average first half was us allowing the bobblehead guy a free shot from a free kick 16 yards out. Crash onto the bar. Phew! Shoutout to the town fan who tried to start a rendition of 'Mick McCarthy your football is sh1t' about three minutes into the game. He was very drunk. He also shouted to Berra within two minutes that 'its time to go back up north'. Tremendous support.

Grandad thought that we were as good as Villa at half time other than a couple of chances for villa earlyish that I've said above. A draw seemed the right result. An average both halves between two mid table teams in honesty.

Second half we looked very sharp - very quickly. Diags was immense at stopping Lansbury and bobblehead and then feeding huws and Ward who ran at players. It was a sight to behold. At the 60 minute mark, my grandad turned to me and said 'you're playing very well second half. Look Better than them so far'. That seems a fair comment. Every time the ball went into the middle of the pitch, it was ending with Town getting forward. We played it on the floor. I can't stress enough how good it was to see us building at pace with players like Knudsen, Emmanuel, Huws, Ward, Diags, Lawrence and Didz linking up. On the floor.

As the game went on, myself and my grandad agreed that we can't let villa back into the ascendancy as the crowd will lift. At the minute, they were turning slowly on their side. They were struggling to deal with the fact that Town looked like they wanted the win more than them. We were the ones having runners from midfield. We were the ones playing it in their half.

It seemed appropriate that the goal came from a villa player worrying about Lawrence allowing yet another runner from midfield in Huws busting his b0llocks to get on the end of Didzs pinpoint cross/pass to cause pandemonium. As you will have noted, my grandad was in attendance. It was his Christmas present from myself. He loves a day out at the football but hasn't been in an away end since 1985. We'd planned to go to the front row and he could sit and I'd stand. However the people in those seats wanted them so we found ourselves in the middle of the lower tier. We had to see if his knees would cope with standing for 90 minutes. Thankfully they did. The point I'm making is that as we scored, the away end went crazy. People jumping on each other as usual like at Sheffield Wednesday, Charlton and Watford. As I turned to my left, i saw something that absolutely made the day for me. My grandad was like every other town fan jumping around with complete strangers from the town behind us with the biggest smile on his face. That for me was worth it even if villa had scored two in injury time. Thankfully they didn't.

On the train home, which we got stuck in delays because of 'overhead wire failures' and had to go via Northampton meaning the journey to London was double the time. More time to discuss the game as we'd done in less detail at a local Tesco a cafe waiting for the train. '100% deserved the 3 points based on that second half performance' said my grandad. Hard to disagree even for villa fans who, to their credit, agreed it was coming. From 70 minutes on, villa had (in assuming) far less possession than we did and we just had to hope we'd make that one chance from it. Massive credit to Huws as we saw the replay for the goal on the train. 'I'll tell you what that's one hell of a finish to hit that mid-stride'. Well said. It's one thing busting the gut, but it's a different challenge entirely to keep composure as 2000 town fans breathed inwards in mass anticipation. 1 big chance. 1 huge goal. Get f*cking in!

Days out like yesterday tell me exactly why I spend my cash going to places like Barnsley to watch us. You doubt your sanity after the Derby game. I lost my head that night questioning what the f*ck we were doing signing a loanee. 'A loanee. Another f*cking loanee' was what I posted on here. Can I just have it on record that I'm so so SO glad we made that signing. That signing was Huws.

Asides from the footy, the hotdog was different to normal. As well as being about two times bigger than the roll, it had a sweeter taste than normal hotdogs. I have to give it an 8/10. Well done Villa. On the way home, asides from a hot chhocolate at Tesco cafe, we found an outlet selling food at Birmingham new street station. 'Two sausage rolls please' said my grandad. Incredibly their was two jumbo ones for £3 or some poshboy ones that were like a quarter of the size for £3.89. 'Seasoned with herbs' was their excuse according to the tag. What's that about?

My grandad has now seen us 7 times, including the Watford, Charlton and yesterday late winners, with 6 wins. He obviously loved his first taste of an away end in 32 years as we've sorted out him coming to Fulham away with me in April where he will be amongst the riff raff of town fans once against.

Hotdog - 8
Sausage roll - 9
Day out - 10
Last minute winner - 10
Seeing my grandads face for the goal - 1684552

[Post edited 11 Jul 2019 22:28]

[Post edited 12 Jul 2019 9:36]