Our visit to Aston Villa will kick off at 3pm on Saturday, thanks to our very good friends at Sky Sports, who for once will not be covering one of our matches live.

Villa Park is about three miles north of Birmingham city centre and can be reached by coming off the M6 at the spaghetti junction (junction 6) and then taking the ‘Birmingham NE’ option when the slip road splits in two. At the roundabout at the bottom take the fourth exit (the A5127 towards the city centre) and Villa Park is well signposted from there.

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 railway station, or a mile and half away at the Star City leisure complex which is well signposted from the M6, and is at least free.

You could also park at Bescot Stadium (near junction 9 of the M6) and get the train from there. The best railway station for the away end is Witton, which is on the New Street-Walsall line, which usually has a half-hourly service from New Street, with departures at .00 and .30 past each hour.

But on matchdays there are additional trains, so you could also catch trains at 13.13, 13.43, 14.13 or 14.19. There are trains back to New Street at 17.23, 17.33, 17.35, 17.53 and 18.05. Aston station is further away but has a more frequent service as it is also served by half-hourly trains heading for Lichfield. One final option is to get new AV82 shuttle bus from outside Birmingham New Street station.

The best pubs are the ‘Witton Arms’ in Witton Road, which welcomes both home and away supporters but makes a small charge of 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. CAMRA enthusiasts should seek out the ‘Bartons Arms’ on High Street Aston (the A34). Also recommended is the Beaufort Arms in Hamstead, which has the option of leaving the car there and getting the train to Witton.

Away supporters get a mere 3,000 seats on one side of the Doug Ellis Stand (which the former chairman modestly named after himself), towards the North end of the stadium. Just enough to comply with Premier League rules, which say that the away club are supposed to get 3,000 seats of 10% of capacity, whichever figure is lower.

Our section 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. With such a meagre allocation on offer, it’s no surprise that our tickets have now sold out.

Adult tickets cost £30, with four categories of concessions going down to £12. But seniors over 65 and the under 21s have to pay £29.50, so get a massive 50p off. While Premier League rules limit adult tickets to a maximum price of £30, some clubs have been bumping up concessionary tickets to compensate, but none have been so blatant as Aston Villa.

Home tickets are now on general sale, but we are warned that “Tickets are sold on the basis that they are for home fans only. Supporters purchasing for away fans or those who do not adhere to AVFC ground regulations WILL lose the right to purchase tickets for future matches”. So if you do manage to get into the stadium via that route you’d better pay attention to those threatening capital letters and avoid drawing attention to yourself.

The current capacity of Villa Park is 42,785, but the club has planning permission received planning permission to re-develop the North Stand. The stand will remain open while they modernise and extend it, and when it’s all finished the total capacity will have increased to 50,000. They hope to have it all completed in time for the stadium to stage matches in Euro 2028.

As at Elland Road, they have drawn up a transport plan to accommodate the extra fans, including more off street parking and bus routes. The scheme also involves developing the area around the north stand with an exciting new club store, but whether there will be more tickets available for away fans remains to be seen.

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

Reuters