Aston Villa Fixtures 2026/27
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About the club
Aston Villa were founded in November 1874 by a handful of young men from the Aston Villa Wesleyan chapel, by the Villa Cross junction in Handsworth, north-west of Birmingham city centre. Fourteen years later one of the club's directors, William McGregor, created the Football League - the first organised league anywhere - and Villa were among the twelve clubs that founded it. Seven league titles, seven FA Cups and a European Cup in 1982 followed, and so did the colours: Villa are credited as the original wearers of claret and blue, and West Ham and Burnley took them up afterwards.
Villa Park is not in the city centre but in a neighbourhood, about three and a half kilometres north. You get there by train from New Street - about ten minutes to Witton, then a five-minute walk - and then discover the ground was built inside an estate. The site was the kitchen gardens of Aston Hall, a seventeenth-century Jacobean house that still stands some two hundred metres from the south stand, with Aston Park running right alongside the ground. Ninety minutes before kick-off the surrounding streets close to traffic and the claret and blue pours in on foot from Witton and Aston.
The stadium
Villa Park opened in April 1897, the season Villa took the league and the FA Cup together, and the club has never moved since. At full capacity it holds about 43,000 across four stands: the Holte End to the south, Trinity Road to the west, the Doug Ellis to the east and the North Stand. Through 2026/27 the North Stand is shut for rebuilding and the capacity drops to roughly 37,000. Rebuilt in the mid-1990s with around 13,500 seats, the Holte End was then the largest single end stand in Britain, and it is still where the noise comes from - a licensed safe-standing area in the upper tier, Dutch gables on the facade borrowed from Aston Hall next door. Witton station is a five-minute walk from the turnstiles.
Full Villa Park seating map and seat-picking tips →
Things to do in Birmingham
Aston Hall
A Jacobean mansion built between 1618 and 1635 for Sir Thomas Holte, who gave his name to the Holte End; Villa Park sits on what were its kitchen gardens, some two hundred metres away. The staircase still carries the hole a cannonball left when the house was besieged in the English Civil War in December 1643. It opens Friday to Sunday on a paid ticket, but on Villa home matchdays the roads around it close and the car park shuts, so save it for another day.
Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery
Free to enter, and home to the largest Pre-Raphaelite collection in the world - Burne-Jones, Rossetti, Holman Hunt - alongside the Staffordshire Hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold. It reopened in October 2024 after a long refurbishment, the history galleries followed in May 2025, and it runs Tuesday to Sunday.
Museum of the Jewellery Quarter
When the owners of the Smith & Pepper jewellery works retired in 1981 they simply locked the door and walked away, and the factory has been kept exactly as they left it. Entry is by guided tour only, around 45 minutes, Thursday to Sunday, and it is worth booking ahead.
Gas Street Basin and the canals
Birmingham has some 35 miles of canal, more than Venice, and Gas Street Basin is the junction in the middle of the city where the old Birmingham Canal meets the Worcester line. From there the towpath carries on west to Brindleyplace, past bars and restaurants sitting on the water.
The Balti Triangle
A cluster of balti houses along Ladypool Road, Stoney Lane and Stratford Road, south of the centre, where the dish made its name in the 1980s and 1990s. More than thirty were working here at the peak; only a handful of the originals are left, so check what is open before you go.
Worth knowing
- Villa's first official match, in 1874, was against a local rugby club - by prior agreement the first half was played under rugby rules and the second under football rules. Villa won it 1-0.
- In the 1982 European Cup final goalkeeper Jimmy Rimmer went off injured inside the opening ten minutes, and 23-year-old Nigel Spink, with a single senior appearance to his name, came on and kept a clean sheet against Bayern Munich.
- Villa Park has staged 55 FA Cup semi-finals, more than any other ground, and was the first stadium in England to host international football in three different centuries - from 1899 to 2005.
- The North Stand is closed for the whole of 2026/27 while it is rebuilt, cutting the capacity to about 37,000 for now; it is due to open for 2027/28, when Villa Park will pass 50,000 seats and is set to stage four matches at Euro 2028.
Tips for the travelling fan
- 01Take the train from New Street to Witton - about ten minutes, then a five-minute walk - but Witton is a small station and managed queuing goes in after the whistle. Aston, fifteen minutes away on foot, sits on two lines and so has more frequent trains back to New Street. There is also the AV82 shuttle from Dudley Street by New Street, running from three hours before kick-off and back for up to two hours afterwards. Don't drive: parking around the ground is residents-only and the streets close about ninety minutes before kick-off.
- 02Away fans sit in the north-east corner of the Doug Ellis Stand - block Q in the lower tier, block P above - and alcohol is served only in the lower tier. Flags and banners need clearing in advance: email the club a photo at least three days before, the material must carry fire-retardant certification, and poles are not allowed. The noise is in the Holte End behind the south goal, where 'Holte Enders in the Sky' gets sung.
- 03Villa Park admits small bags only, up to 20 x 15 x 5 cm, and anything bigger will not get onto the stadium footprint. There is a paid bag drop on the Witton Lane car park where it meets Station Road, which you register for online beforehand. Nothing inside the ground takes cash - card or phone only. Turnstiles open 90 minutes before kick-off, and it is worth being early because every bag is searched on the way in.
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