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Sometimes things are written in the stars, destined to happen. The Ayew brothers were destined to make their mark playing against each other and Tim Sherwood was destined to leave Aston Villa and I can't have possibly been the only person who thought that. Of the 33,000 filling Villa Park on Saturday, I can guarantee that every single one of them felt that in someway or another, Sherwood would not be the Aston Villa manager in the near future.
The weather in Aston was as mixed as the game itself, with intervals of drizzle and pour combined with bursts of hot sunshine. It was one of those indecisive days, unfortunately, and I found myself having to shell out for a coat as the weather had lied to me, once again. The game itself proved to be a topsy-turvy affair, and both Swansea and Villa made their mark on the match. The final result says all you need to know, and you've already heard enough about the game without me going on and on about Villa performing poorly.
I had the joy of watching the match with my uncle and cousins who had come down from Scotland as Motherwell and Kilmarnock supporters and hopefully left with a fondness for Aston Villa (I doubt it) that will one day match my own. Speaking with my cousin, who watches every Motherwell game, brought me back to my recent trip to the Paget Rangers and although Motherwell are certainly better than the Rangers - it's still that same community bond that's likely diluted in the Premier League and it was eye-opening to hear some tales of proper football in North Lanarkshire and the massive quality and money gap in the SPL: Celtic FC, on average, pay their footballers more than every single other club in the SPL put together. Never again will I moan about the ridiculous separation between the top four and everyone else in the English Premier League. As the match progressed, I could actually see my cousins mouthing a few chants and actually enjoying the game! Marvelous! Something had clearly clicked and they were ready to bleed claret and blue. Or maybe they just didn't fancy being harassed by some idiot in the Holte End.
With Villa doing so poorly recently, It's easy to judge them by another measure - entertainment. I'm certainly being entertained at Villa Park right now because I simply don't care. I do not care when the other team scores, I refuse to acknowledge it and therefore in my world it did. not. happen. Sigurdsson did not score. Andre Ayew did not score. Aston Villa won 1-0 and Tim Sherwood got sacked simply because Randy Lerner felt like it. I'm starting to prefer my own narrative compared to the one given to me by the real world.
With every Micah Richards run and Gabby Agbonlahor shin-punt-run-kick, I'm out of my seat. With every Grealish & Gil touch plus turn, I'm on my feet. Jordan Ayew scores and it's Friday (well, Saturday, but artistic license and all that) - I'm in love. Goals are the cure to whatever slump I'm in, whatever slump Villa are in; it doesn't matter. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday can throw whatever they want at me - but if I see a goal, I'm all good. Boys don't cry, but I might have shed a tiny tear when we scored. I might have. I've tried to cover all of this up with lies about what it's like to be a Villa fan, but it's all about goals - someone representing my corner of the world scored against a bunch of Welshmen and that's all she wrote, that's all that matters to me.
And thus poetically, it fell apart. Boos rang out and the f-bomb was dropped (you can hear a few in the video below), Lerner was cussed out the house along with Sherwood. Did I care? Not really! I think my trip to the Paget Rangers was in it's way a sort of religious pilgrimage that freed me from giving a shit about Aston Villa's performances and allowed me to appreciate the little things, like a Jordan Ayew goal.
It's funny. Every single one of us acts like Villa mean the world to us, when in fact it's the opposite way around - Aston Villa is another one of the 'little things'. We owe nothing to Aston Villa. And they owe very little to us. Not wins, and not success. But we should at least be able to expect awe. They take us from the week and plunge us into the weekend and that's why that goal means so much - because we just let go and feel it and maybe that one goal will mean more than any other goal this season, because it, in a way was like ripping the cap off a dropped bottle of Coke all of our internal pressure was lost in a second and I celebrated Swansea's goals with a giddy laugh because they couldn't take this away. No, not from me and certainly not from you.
In my own way I'll come to terms with the Sherwood sacking. I'm certainly not a sample Villa fan and my views might contradict everyone else, but I liked him because he reminded me of a football fan, which I definitely am. He was living the dream and got caught up with the crud. Was he out of his depth? Yes. Aren't we all? Yes. I guess that's why we get so caught up with it all. We're all out of our depth and I don't think many of us are on an upward trajectory. So much more in our lives can go wrong than go right and that's what this is all about. For Sherwood this season went wrong, and as a result he won't be returning to Villa Park. But I will be, and so will thousands of others. And we'll just be looking for something to go right.