Aston Villa and the cup semi-final that had it all
Villa’s spectacular 6-4 win over Blackburn Rovers happened in the Carling Cup 15 years ago this month
In a strange sort of way it's actually the first leg I remember more clearly.
Aston Villa took ten years to get back to Wembley after losing one of the all-time worst FA Cup finals in 2000. They knocked it down and built it back up again in the intervening decade and Villa’s return passage was paved by a rip-roaring semi-final second leg in the League Cup, sponsored at the time by Carling.
But the first leg against Blackburn Rovers had its moments too. It was my first game at Ewood Park. There are flaky plans to go back to cover a match but I haven’t managed it yet.
I was living in London in January 2010 and met up with my dad to head north to support Martin O’Neill’s Villa with the promise of Wembley on the horizon. They beat Cardiff City, Sunderland and Portsmouth on the way to the semi-final and the away tie on Wearside was the only round we’d missed.
There was no way we were missing this one. We packed up the old man’s car and hit the road on 5th January. The journey was short-lived. Much of England was affected by snow and ice. Ewood Park was frosted white and Blackburn was adorned with a thick white blanket. The inevitable postponement was mercifully early so we turned back and tried again nine days later.
When we finally made it to Ewood, it was still bitterly cold. The roads and pavements remained perilous with ice.
The night sticks in my memory above so many other away games because it was so typical of my early football experience: a chill in the air, a chippy round the corner, and a seat unused near the back of a big stand behind the goal at a famous old ground.
Villa dominated the first leg but had only a brilliant counter-attacking goal from James Milner to show for it. They were sixth in the Premier League, fourteen points ahead of Blackburn, but the return leg at Villa Park was precariously poised.
To say the second leg was a little more noteworthy would be an understatement. Both teams released the handbrake and went for broke from the start. It’s not often you see ten goals in any match, never mind a cup semi-final, and the scoreline barely scratches the surface of the tale of an extraordinary game.
Sam Allardyce’s Rovers went into the second leg needing a win but had won only once away from home in the Premier League in the first half of the season. The first half an hour at Villa Park flipped the first leg result on its head.
Blackburn gain the edge
Villa Park was in buoyant mood when the second leg came along just six days after the first. Villa were the better team on paper and in the previous meeting. They’d also knocked Blackburn out of the FA Cup at the start of the month for good measure.
But from our vantage point near the back of the Trinity Road Stand, we saw something we hadn’t expected. Allardyce was going for it, and going for it early. Blackburn caught Villa cold in a blizzard of claret and blue ribbons on a stick.
Nikola Kalinić had already scored at Villa Park in the FA Cup before hitting the woodwork twice in the first leg, and he scored twice in the first thirty minutes of the Carling Cup semi-final second leg to put the underdogs in front.
The Croatian striker levelled the tie just ten minutes into the second leg when his header from a corner took a nick off the back of a Villa head to divert it past Brad Guzan. Villa’s goalkeeper had hair then. Sort of.
Kalinić’s second was a tap-in after Martin Olsson’s saved header. It stunned three sides of the stadium into silence but Blackburn’s lead was no fluke. Villa were out of sorts and Wembley, just for a moment, seemed no more than a distant possibility.
If there’s one characteristic of Aston Villa that’s more significant in my imagination than in reality because of the great football lies I learned as a childhood Villa supporter in the nineties, their ability to ride the wave of destiny to an epic cup comeback is probably it.
Conceding twice meant that kind of comeback operation was required. If the tie was deadlocked after two legs, extra time would be played. If it was still level after that, the away goals rule would favour Blackburn and there was nothing Villa could do about it.
But Villa had been in similar situations in the League Cup semi-final before and they have been again since.
In 1994, they overturned a 3-1 deficit to eventually beat Tranmere Rovers on penalties on a famous night at Villa Park. Ten years later, they lost a disastrous first leg against Allardyce’s Bolton Wanderers but scored two away goals.
Winning the second leg 2-0 wasn’t enough and I was honestly shocked they hadn’t triumphed in a game they started three goals down. I felt the same when Villa were a goal away from rescuing a shambolic semi-final tie against Bradford City in 2013.
It’s just one of those things I always believe Villa will pull off even though they almost never do.
Villa dig for victory
This challenge was more molehill than mountain but Villa opted for glorious retaliatory overkill, starting with Stephen Warnock crashing the ball into the roof of the net from Ashley Young’s cross in front of the Holte End after half an hour.
Villa Park shook. Blackburn buckled. Ten minutes later, Gabriel Agbonlahor got in behind Christopher Samba and the Rovers defender put in an awkward challenge with the wrong leg – penalty for Villa, red card for Samba. Milner made it 2-2 on the night from the spot.
It wasn’t even half time and the game was still in the balance but the party had begun. It’s funny how a stadium full of people can collectively feel unbeatable. After inauspicious beginnings, it was one of those nights.
Steven Nzonzi’s own goal put Villa 3-2 up early in the second half to send the frenzy into overdrive. A Milner strike deflected off a part of Agbonlahor that may or may not have been attached to the end of his arm to add a fourth and all of a sudden it was Blackburn staring up at a sheer rock face with the arch of Wembley poking out over the apron.
By the time Emile Heskey went round Paul Robinson to clip in number five, the Villa supporters in attendance were beside ourselves. It was glee, sure. But it was bafflement too. Rapture, shock and confusion – a magical potion only the outer fringes of sport can concoct.
Blackburn had their say. Allardyce's teams usually did.
Olsson immediately made it 5-3 with a tremendous overhead kick before a mix-up between Young and Guzan allowed a tame Brett Emerton volley to squeeze under the goalkeeper with six minutes remaining and put ten-man Blackburn, improbably, back in the game.
Some people are on the pitch…
There was to be no Rovers revival. Young ran half the length of the field to finish the job in stoppage time and Villa’s ticket to Wembley was finally booked with the absolute maximum of fuss.
Referee Martin Atkinson blew the whistle and the bottom half of Villa Park poured onto the pitch. A dribble at first, then a torrent. It was quite a sight from the upper tier but my abseiling days were long since over.
Villa’s wavering fortunes in the following decade took them back to the national stadium on a semi-regular basis.
They were back in April 2010 to lose again, this time in the FA Cup semi-final against Chelsea. Five years later, they beat Liverpool in the last four and lost to Arsenal in the final. Relegation eventually led them back for successive play-off finals.
But the Carling Cup final in 2010 was Villa’s first visit to Wembley in a good long while. For a generation of supporters who grew up thinking Wembley finals were normal, ending that drought was enough to send anyone over the barriers to soak up the celebrations.
This was not a vintage Villa team. The final showed that. For all the controversy over refereeing and an early lead for the underdogs, Villa flattered to deceive against Manchester United. Alex Ferguson brought Wayne Rooney off the bench to win it after Michael Owen got injured.
The outcome and anticlimactic nature of the final have taken the edge off the semi-final’s magic in hindsight but that shouldn’t really be the case.
We all accept that football is about results and success but neither of them mean much if we can’t look back on the thrillingly futile moments with fondness too.
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