Our first visit to Aston Villa kicks off at 7.45 on Thursday December 29th, having been shifted forwards from Saturday by our very good friends at Sky Sports.

Villa Park is about three miles north of Birmingham city centre and can be reached by coming off the M6 at the spaghetti junction and taking the A5127 Lichfield Rd (Signposted Villa Park).

It’s mainly street parking, though a ‘residents only’ scheme will prevent you from getting too close to the stadium, and you might be pestered by kids offering to 'watch' your car for up to £4.The best bet would be in the streets around Aston station, or a mile and half away at the Star City leisure complex which is well signposted from the M6, which is at least free.

Of course it won’t be possible to get a train back to Leeds after the game, but I’ve included the following directions for our many fans who live a bit closer to Brum. The best railway station for the away end is Witton, which is on the New Street-Walsall line (which normally has two trains every hour on weekdays, with some additional services on matchdays), while Aston station is further away but has a more frequent service as it is also served by trains heading for Lichfield.

If you're coming down the M6 from the north (which I hardly need to tell you can be just a little bit congested once you hit the West Midlands) you will probably be better off by escaping from the motorway as soon as you can, to park at Bescot Stadium or Tame Bridge stations and get the train to Witton. Another option is to get bus no.7 from Birmingham city centre.

The best pubs are the ‘Witton Arms’ in Witton Road, which welcomes both home and away supporters but charges £2 to get in, and the Yew Tree on Brookvale Rd. For the latter turn right on leaving Witton station and it's a two minute walk. While CAMRA enthusiasts should seek out the ‘Bartons Arms’ on High Street Aston (the A34).

The best chippie is the Villa Fish Bar, first left after leaving the station. If you're looking for something a bit different and have time to kill there are a couple of Indian restaurants on Witton Island which serve the legendary Birmingham baltis.

Away supporters get 2,400 seats on one side of the Doug Ellis Stand (which the former chariman modestly named after himself), towards the North end of the stadium. This is split between both the upper and lower tiers of the stand. The concourse at the back of the upper tier is particularly tight and easily becomes crowded, and this means they offer a more limited choice of food than the comparatively spacious lower section.

Adult tickets cost £35, with three categories of concessions going down to £15, though some fans who have to suffer a restricted view will be compensated by a massive discount of a whole pound. Our allocation was sold through the ‘attendance tracker’ system, and there are none left.

Given the size of Villa Park there will probably be plenty of unsold home seats while Leeds fans can’t get tickets, but none of us are going to lose sleep over Villa losing money by not giving us a bigger allocation. Tickets for the home stands are only available to those ‘with a booking history’.

The current capacity of Villa Park is 42,785, but the club have planning permission to re-develop the North Stand by building extending around the current open corners at that end of the stadium. This would increase the capacity to 51,000, but there is currently no firm timescale as to when this will take place, and they would probably need to get back into the Premiership to justify the expense.

They are also looking the possibility of a 'safe standing' area at Villa Park, should there be a change in the law to permit this. This is excellent news, as it would also mean an increase in capacity and reduce ticket prices by a quid or two. Let’s hope that if it happens some of the terracing will be available to away fans.

Some of this stuff came from www.footballgroundguide.com .

Photo: Action Images

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