Residents living near Villa Park reveal how rowdy football fans make life misery

Residents living near a historic Premier League ground have revealed how rowdy football fans make life a misery - by smashing windows, vandalising cars and dumping rubbish in gardens.

Villa Park in Aston, Birmingham, has been home to Aston Villa for 126 years and attracts royal fans and Hollywood megastars to its 42,640 capacity stadium.

It is one of Britain’s oldest grounds and will also host European football next season after Villa secured 7th place in the Premier League.

But residents living next to the famous stadium have now told how life can be a “nightmare” on match days as thousands descend on the residential city suburb.

They revealed their house and cars windows have been smashed, driveways regularly blocked by parked vehicles and how fans urinate in their front gardens.

Other locals are forced to clear up discarded litter themselves and say they plan going out by studying the fixture list to avoid the mayhem of match days.

Abu Zaman, 26, is a Villa fan but says living near the team he supports isn’t all it’s cracked up to be as his car has been damaged on multiple occasions.

Business owner Abu, who has lived on Trinity Road all of his life, said: “The parking and the traffic are really bad.

“We get people who scratch our cars and previously had people smash our windows. Our road is shut on the day. On a match day you have to wait for the game to start at which point your whole day is wasted.

“Then there’s the parking, the litter and the vandalism. The roads are open but the supporters are walking on the road and blocking them. In the 26 years Villa have only approached us for once for planning permission for the ground extension, they don’t care about the local community.

“As long as their pockets are lined, they don’t care. It’s all about tickets and season tickets for them. The roads are covered in alcohol bottles, burger wrappers, pretty much everything.”

Villa have had a near 10,000 seat new stand approved in the past few months, which locals fear is just going to make the problems worse.

Dad-of-one James Payne, 35, who lives on neigbouring Endicott Road, added: “This is a built up area, the infrastructure can’t support even more fans.

“It’s bad enough as it is - having to wade through a sea of beer bottles and takeaway wrappers just to get to your front door. We’ve had people urinating in our front garden, I’m sure people act like they wouldn’t usually do when they go the football. They turn into yobs.

“Someone once ripped our fence post up and began attacking a rival fan with it. It’s just bonkers. They get famous fans like Prince William and Tom Hanks seeing all the glamour of Premier League football - but just a stones throw away for us it’s a nightmare.”

Andrea Sawyers has lived on Trinity Road since 2012 and said she and her mum have to clean up huge piles of litter left behind by fans themselves.

Mum-of-two Andrea said: “I’m a bit of a Villa fan, I’m not a massive one but a fan. The garbage after is the problem, no one cleans up. My mum and I have to do it. All the beer glasses and bottle all over the bins.

“They throw in my garden, all the chip wrappers too. There’s also nowhere to park your car, it’s always a busy time.

“They’ve smashed my neighbours car windows a couple of times. It’s crazy. I don’t get why they have to go so crazy.

“It’s mainly the rubbish, it’s left to locals, you have to clean it up yourselves.”

Osman Mohammed, 30, is a council worker and has lived on Endicott Road all of his life.

He says he has to plan over a week in advance before he goes out on match days to make sure he can get out of his own home.

He added: “It gets quite busy. Our issue is we have residential parking nearby, supporters can’t park there, but some try anyway. I sometimes look when Villa are playing and plan ahead.

“I don’t leave the house at game time as I can be stuck in traffic for around an hour just to get around the corner.”

Shop owner Md Gias Uddin, 58, admitted there is a litter problem on matchdays but the increased footfall was good for local businesses.

Mr Uddin, who owns a shop on Endicott Road, said: “All of the supporters like my shop mostly, most of them say it’s neat and clean. My experiences is very nice.

“The litter is problem is when the most of the people come to see the football match. The litter bin is full and there needs to be more bins. There are a few bins around. People will put their rubbish in the bin if there were more.”

Fellow shop owner Ash Mahmood, 59, has worked in the area for 40 years and says matchday traffic means it can take over an hour to travel a couple of miles.

Ash, who owns Ash Food Fair on Witton Road, said: “The worst part I think at the moment is the parking for the customers. Residents moves their cars and park them near me.

“When you finally get out of here, it takes a while to get out. It took me an hour to get out of Aston. Years ago there used to be fights around here all the time but now it’s all controlled by the police.”