The Story of the Club
1874–1914: Founders and first dynasty
Formed in 1874 by members of the Villa Cross Wesleyan Chapel cricket team in Aston, Birmingham, Villa were a founder member of the Football League in 1888 — and its first superpower. Director William McGregor was the League's founding father, and the side built around Archie Hunter and later the great half-back lines won five league titles and four FA Cups by 1905, including the double in 1896-97, a feat not repeated by any club for over 60 years. The club moved to Villa Park in 1897 and has been there ever since.
1914–1975: Long middle passage
A sixth title arrived in 1909-10 and a sixth FA Cup in 1920, but the interwar years brought near-misses — including the extraordinary 1930-31 season, when Villa scored 128 league goals, still a record for the English top flight, and finished second. Pongo Waring's 49 league goals that season remain the club record. After the seventh FA Cup in 1957 came decline: relegation in 1959 was followed by yo-yo decades, and in 1970 the founding giant of English football fell to the Third Division. The recovery ran through Vic Crowe's promotion side and two League Cups.
1975–1982: Saunders' summit
Ron Saunders rebuilt Villa into champions. The 1980-81 title — won with just 14 players used all season — set up the club's greatest night: May 26th, 1982, in Rotterdam, when Tony Barton's side beat Bayern Munich 1-0 through Peter Withe's shinned finish and Nigel Spink's heroics in goal after coming on for the injured Jimmy Rimmer inside ten minutes. Villa became just the fourth English club to lift the European Cup, adding the European Super Cup the following January.
1982–2016: Premier League era, cups and slow fade
Villa were Premier League ever-presents from its 1992 founding — twice runners-up in the 90s under Ron Atkinson and Brian Little, with League Cups in 1994 (denying Manchester United a domestic treble) and 1996. The 2000 FA Cup final, the last at old Wembley, ended in defeat to Chelsea. Under Martin O'Neill Villa knocked three straight times on the Champions League door, but Randy Lerner's withdrawal of investment began a slide that ended in relegation in 2016 after 28 consecutive top-flight seasons.
2016–present: Resurrection
Three Championship seasons ended with Dean Smith — a boyhood Villa fan — winning the 2019 playoff final through Anwar El Ghazi and John McGinn. Jack Grealish's British-record £100m sale to Manchester City in 2021 marked the low point of ambition; Unai Emery's arrival in October 2022 marked the turn. Emery took Villa from 14th to Europe, back into the Champions League for the first time in 41 years, and then, on May 20th, 2026 in Istanbul, to the club's first major trophy in 30 years: a 3-0 dismantling of Freiburg in the Europa League final, with goals from Youri Tielemans, Emiliano Buendía and Morgan Rogers. The full story of the man behind the turn — from Hondarribia to a record five Europa Leagues — is in our Unai Emery biography.