1940–41 Aston Villa F.C. season

Aston Villa 1940–41 None President Patrick HannonAston Villa Meeting, Birmingham Evening Mail, 5 July 1941, p3 Fred Normansell Villa Park First Division suspended FA Cup suspended 1939–40 1945-46 The 1940–41 English football season was Aston Villa's second season disrupted by Word War II. Villa Park found itself in an evacuation district designated under the British Government's civilian evacuation scheme.No Competitive Football, Chronicle, 16 September 1939, p5 In 1939 the Police Chief Constable of Birmingham, C.C.H Moriarty, intimated that he would not sanction football matches within the city of Birmingham.No Football at Villa Park or St Andrews Yet, Evening Despatch, 25 September 1939, p6Swindon Advertiser, 10 November 1939, p8 The matter was first raised in Parliament in November 1939, but the Home Secretary was unwilling to intervene in what he perceived as a local issue outside his jurisdiction.Written Answers (Commons): Civil Defence: Football Matches (Spectators) Hansard 15 November 1939 353 cc726–7W https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/written-answers/1939/nov/15/football-matches-spectators 19 February 2019Commons Sitting: Civil Defence: Football Prohibition (Birmingham) Hansard 22 February 1940 357 cc1515–6 https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1940/feb/22/football-prohibition-birmingham 19 December 2015 The Football League's Scheme for War-time football, second year aimed to minimise interruption to the job of winning the war.Next Season's Football Plans, Sunday Mercury, 30 June 1940, p18 Aston Villa announced their intention not to participate citing the commandeering of Villa Park for the War effort. December 1940 Nazi Germany 0–27 https://www.wlv.ac.uk/research/research-centres/centre-for-historical-research/football-and-war-network/football-and-war-blog/2022/the-match-that-probably-never-was/ Aston Villa Stalag XXID Poznań W In December 1940, the story went viral that players of the Aston Villa reserves had been captured at Dunkirk and had thrashed their German captors in a football match.Aston Villa 27 Germany 0, Daily Herald, 31 December 1940, p1England defeats Germany 27-0, Manchester Guardian, 31 December 1940 TIME Magazine issued an apology for, when reporting the match, erroneously placing Aston in the city of Liverpool."TIME hastily restores Aston Villa (soccer) to Birmingham where it belongs" LETTERS. TIME Magazine, 0040781X, 2/10/1941, Vol. 37, Issue 6 There was indeed an "Aston Villa" football team at Stalag XXID and two former-Villa fringe players James Allen and George Hardy may possibly have played as British POWs. Villa Chairman Fred Normansell was unable to confirm the story and suggested an imaginative American London correspondent as the source.The Match That (Probably) Never Was..., Roger Slater, 26/04/2022 In Villa's last pre-war reserve team match in 1939 they played Derby Reserves at home (Carey in goal, Houghton, Moss, Barker, Goffin, Shell, Osborne, Godfrey, Guttridge, L.J. Latham, J. Bate).Star Villa will miss The Daily Sketch, 1 September 1939, p27 That September 1939 the club closed down and the players were paid-off. Birmingham and District League In June 1941 the directors report highlighted the club's youth policy: With a view to the future, a team was entered into the Birmingham and District League, and the promise shown by a number of young players including amateurs has been encouraging.Association Football, The Birmingham Post, 20 June 1941, p4 References Category:Aston Villa F.C. seasons Aston Villa F.C. season