A bit about you:
Name: Tony Barnes
Current home town: Burton
Birthplace: Sutton Coldfield
How long have you supported your team? 40 odd years.
Overview of your club:
Favourite thing about your home ground: Red bricks. Its uniqueness. The Holte End. Walking up the stairs to the top deck and looking back to the Church and to your right Aston Hall.
Favourite match played by your team & why: European games & league cup games under the floodlights. Beating Inter Milan at Villa Park. And the Tranmere semi-final was a pure roller coaster in emotions. I had to go under the stand as I couldn’t watch the first few penalties!
Favourite player of all time who played for your club: Simple. Paul McGrath. Pure grace on the pitch.
About our forthcoming match against you:
Your favourite current player in your squad and why? Easy. Benteke. Explosive player if he gets the service.
Player in your squad we should most fear and why? Benteke. Just needs the one sniff at goal. Thank god he was playing against Blackpool!
Player in our squad you most fear and why? Ulloa. He looked good at the start of the season. With us both struggling for goals, it just needs that one piece of genius or an error (or with our recent luck, another red card) and it will be 1-0 and game over.
Up and coming prospect in your squad? Jack Grealish. Skilfull and a joy to watch. Fulham tried to kick him off the pitch last season!
Where do you think you’ll finish this season? 15th. We can’t score enough goals but we've managed to tighten up at the back so we are getting a lot of draws.
How do you think you’ll do against us? Aston Villa nil is our new name. 0-0 draw.
Any other comments? Aston Villa Supporters Trust (AVST) has been around since 2001 and last year we re-launched. If you've been to Villa Park, the McGregor statue was an AVST project through fan donations. During our re-launch, we conducted a comprehensive survey of supporters and have recently met Tom Fox, Villa's new CEO, to discuss them. Off the back of survey, we now have over 3000 members (free and paid).
Our aim is to grow our membership base larger and expand our affiliate network so we act as a collective voice. We need Villa fans to volunteer to drive the Trust still. So if you know any, then please point them our way!
Tony Barnes is a board member of AVST, you can read the latest news on their Trust via this link http://villatrust.org.uk