Aston
Villa Football
Club
Members
of the
Aston Villa Wesleyan church
formed
Villa as a football club in the
year
1874 and the team were one
of the
12
founder members of the
football
league
in 1888. By this time they had
already
won their first honours with an
FA Cup
final victory in 1887 and
they
dominated the early league
winning
the
league championship five
times in
its first
twelve seasons. The year
1897
was
Aston Villa's highpoint as they
became
double winners.
Most of
Aston
Villa's club history has been
spent in
the top flight division but top
level
success was only found in cup
competitions until
1981 when they caused
a major
upset by winning their first
league
championship for more than
seventy
years. This was followed up
by a
European Cup win
the following year.
Manager Graham
Taylor took Aston Villa
within
inches of a second title in
1990
when
they once again finished
second in
1993's
inaugural
Premiership,
though they have
struggled to match
that performance from
then
onwards.
There
have
been numerous League Cup
finals and
successes, but
Aston Villa have never
come
close to finishing up near the
top
of the
league under the likes of Ron
Atkinson, John
Gregory or Brian Little.
Graham
Taylor's return in 2002 proved
to
be a
mistake as he only just
managed to
save
the club from relegation to the
Championship, and
he stepped aside at
the end
of the season.
David
O'Leary
followed him, but couldn't turn
the tide
and was sacked in 2006. He
was
replaced by Martin
O'Neill, and that
summer also saw
the arrival of American
businessman
Randy Lerner, who bought the
club
from Mr Doug
Ellis.
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