Football clubs often have nicknames, which are most usually given to them by their own supporters, but sometimes might receive less friendly ones from opposition fans. Sometimes, the nickname given will be an obscure one, linked to something from the local area or from the history of the club. Other times it will be a nice easy one, like how Liverpool are known as ‘the Reds’ or Chelsea are called ‘the Blues’. In the case of Aston Villa, their nickname of the Villans comes from the second word in the club’s name, being something of a play on how it sounds and how it is written.
The Origins of Aston Villa
If you want to get a sense of where the club’s nickname comes from, you first need to understand the very foundation of the football club. History has it that the club was formed on the 21st of November 1874, with members of Handsworth’s Villa Cross Wesleyan Chapel, Jack Hughes, Frederick Matthews, Walter Price and William Scattergood, looking for a way to keep the cricket team fit during the winter. They would often practice in Aston Park, so a cross between the location where they kept themselves fit and the church from which the club emerged helped to form the name.
During the club’s more formative years, there were no other football clubs in the Birmingham area. As a result, the first game saw them play against the rugby team of Aston Brook St Mary’s, playing to rugby rules in the first half and association football rules in the second. Whilst other clubs hadn’t even been formed yet, Aston Villa were playing matches and winning FA Cups, lifting it for the first time in 1887. It was even before then that the club’s best-known nickname was formed, coined by the editor of the club’s programme, Jack Urry, as long ago as 1879.
Villans, Not Villains
One of the things that is most noteworthy about the club’s nickname is its spelling. You will often come across people spelling it as you’d imagine it to be spelled, given the fact that the word ‘villains’ is an actual one in the dictionary. Instead, it is far more directly linked to the football club, with the second ‘i’ being missed out in order to see it spelled as ‘Villans’. Whilst this is suggestive of something treacherous, the club itself denies there is any treachery involved in the name. What makes the lie of that statement is the fact that the ‘Villa Villan’ has been around since 1959.
In 1933, Ogdens released a load of cards in 1933 that said that Aston Villa were known as the Villans because they were ‘one of the most formidable teams in the land’ that boasted a ‘classical style which is the envy of their rivals’. A fanzine published in 1968 had the ‘Villa Villan’ on the front, whilst in 1986 a Panini Sticker Book showed the Villa Villan having tied up a member of the opposition. The character was first drawn by a cartoonist named Tom Webster in 1905 and has been in circulation ever since, looking decidedly evil and like he’s up to no good, perhaps stealing the ‘I’ from his name…
A Club with Three Nicknames?
Whilst ‘Villans’ is the best-known of Aston Villa’s nicknames, there are actually three that the club is referred to as interchangeably by its supporters. It is not unheard of for the club to be known simply as ‘the Villa’, for example, which is a name that isn’t difficult to understand the origin of. One that is slightly less well-known is the fact that some people called them ‘the Lions’, which is based on the fact that there is a close association between Aston Villa and a Lion Rampant. A lion appeared on the Aston Villa crest as long ago as 1957, being a nod to the Scottish origins of the club.
That is because two of the most important figures in the history of Aston Villa, William McGregor and George Ramsey, were both from Scotland originally. As a result, the Lion Rampant from the Scottish flag was added to the crest, remaining in place ever since. Even today, the Aston Villa badge sees a yellow Lion Rampant rearing up on a blue background, with a claret border and the words ASTON VILLA written in claret underneath it. It is usually older supporters who will refer to Villa as the Lions, but it isn’t unheard of even in the modern day, so it is worth noting here.