Aston Vila

Aston Villa Football Club (nicknamed Villa)[5] is an English professional football club based in
Aston, Birmingham. The club competes in the Premier League, the top tier of the English
football league system. Founded in 1874, they have played at their home ground, Villa Park,
since 1897. Aston Villa were one of the founder members of the Football League in 1888 and of
the Premier League in 1992.[6] Villa are one of only five English clubs to have won the European
Cup, in 1981–82. They have also won the Football League First Division seven times, the FA
Cup seven times, the League Cup five times, and the UEFA Super Cup once.
Villa have a fierce local rivalry with Birmingham City and the Second City derby between the
teams has been played since 1879.[7] The club's traditional kit colours are claret shirts with sky
blue sleeves, white shorts and sky blue socks. Their traditional club badge is of a rampant
lion.[8][9] The club is currently owned by the NSWE group, a company owned by the Egyptian
billionaire Nassef Sawiris and the American billionaire Wes Edens.
The club colours are a claret shirt with sky blue sleeves, white shorts with claret and blue trim,
and sky blue socks with claret and white trim. They were the original wearers of the claret and
blue. Villa's colours at the outset generally comprised plain shirts (white, grey or a shade of
blue), with either white or black shorts. For a few years after that (1877–79) the team wore
several different kits from all white, blue and black, red and blue to plain green. By 1880, black
jerseys with a red lion embroidered on the chest were introduced by William McGregor. This
remained the first choice strip for six years. On Monday, 8 November 1886, an entry in the club's
official minute book states:
(i) Proposed and seconded that the colours be chocolate and sky blue shirts and that we order two
dozen.
(ii) Proposed and seconded that Mr McGregor be requested to supply them at the lowest
quotation.
Aston Villa forwent commercial kit sponsorship for the 2008–09 and 2009–10 seasons; instead
advertising the charity Acorns Children's Hospice, the first deal of its kind in Premier league
history.[53] The partnership continued until 2010 when a commercial sponsor replaced Acorns,
with the hospice becoming the club's Official Charity Partner.[54] In 2014–15, the Acorns name
returned to Aston Villa's home and away shirts, but only for children's shirts re-affirming the
club's support for the children's charity.
In the 2019-20 season, Aston Villa's kit sponsors are W88, an Asian betting and gambling
company.[55] Previous commercial sponsors have been Davenports (1982–83), Mita (1983–93),
Müller (1993–95), AST Computer (1995–98), LDV (1998–2000), NTL (2000–02), Rover
(2002–04), DWS Investments (2004–06), 32Red.com (2006–08), (2018–19) FxPro (2010–11),
Genting Casinos (2011–13), Dafabet (2013–2015), Intuit QuickBooks (2015–2017) and Unibet
(2017–18). In the 2019-20 season, Aston Villa's kit will be designed by Kappa.[56] Previous
manufacturers have been Umbro (1972–81, 1990–93), le Coq Sportif (1981–83), Henson (1983–
87), Hummel (1987–90, 2004–07), Asics (1993–95), Reebok (1995–2000), Diadora (2000–04),
Nike (2007–12), Macron (2012–16), Under Armour (2016–18) and Luke1977 (2018–19).
Aston Villa's current home venue is Villa Park; the team previously played at Aston Park (1874–
1876) and Wellington Road (1876–1897). Villa Park is the largest football stadium in the
English Midlands, and the eighth largest stadium in England. It has hosted 16 England
internationals at senior level, the first in 1899, and the most recent in 2005. Thus, it was the first
English ground to stage international football in three different centuries.[57] Villa Park is the
most used stadium in FA Cup semi-final history, having hosted 55 semi-finals. The club have
planning permission to extend the North Stand; this will involve the 'filling in' of the corners to
either side of the North Stand. If completed, the capacity of Villa Park will be increased to
approximately 51,000.
The current training ground is located at Bodymoor Heath near Kingsbury in north
Warwickshire, the site for which was purchased by former chairman Doug Ellis in the early
1970s from a local farmer. Although Bodymoor Heath was state-of-the-art in the 1970s, by the
late 1990s the facilities had started to look dated. In November 2005, Ellis and Aston Villa plc
announced a state of the art GB£13 million redevelopment of Bodymoor in two phases.
However, work on Bodymoor was suspended by Ellis due to financial problems, and was left in
an unfinished state until new owner Randy Lerner made it one of his priorities to make the site
one of the best in world football. The new training ground was officially unveiled on 6 May
2007, by then manager Martin O'Neill, then team captain Gareth Barry and 1982 European Cup
winning team captain Dennis Mortimer, with the Aston Villa squad moving in for the 2007–08
season.[58]
It was announced on 6 August 2014, that Villa Park would appear in the FIFA video game from
FIFA 15 onwards, with all other Premier League stadiums also fully licensed from this game
onwards.

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Aston Villa Football Club (nicknamed Villa)[5] is an English professional football club based in

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