The reckoning

Celtic are coming to Villa Park. It’ll be interesting.

What seems an eternity ago, when the Champions League draw took place, two matches at Villa Park stood out. We didn’t have to wait long for the first one, and what a night it was. The second’s taken a bit longer to come round but that hasn’t stopped the excitement from building.

In context, it shouldn’t be much of an occasion. Both teams have qualified for the next stage, we’ve got a good chance of avoiding the play-offs while the nonsensical format of the competition means that the opposition, from one of Europe’s lesser leagues, might be better off losing. But it’s Celtic, the sort of name that get brought up whenever potential opponents for Great European Nights are talked about.

Even though the novelty might have worn off for them and Rangers travelling down here they’ll still have thousands in town and in the unlikely event of them scoring the ground will again look like a meerkat convention with visiting supporters being sought out where they shouldn’t be. This is, of course, one of the most glorious of footballing double standards – when thousands of us go abroad without tickets and end up all over the ground it shows what great support we’ve got. When clubs do it at Villa Park the end of the world is nigh.

Anyway, this will be another chapter in Villa’s connection with Scotland – from George Ramsay to Super John McGinn the story will live on as long as we have a club to support. We sold them one keeper in the summer and another’s old man played for us briefly. Billy McNeill and Paul Lambert captained them – if we ever look like appointing another former captain of theirs as manager, someone kidnap the board and hide them away. Their supporters will make a lot of noise and some of it will be about football.

If we’re lucky Tyrone Mings will be playing but even if he isn’t we’ll win and the other results will go for us. All’s set for another night to remember.