Aston Villa F.C.

Formation and rise to prominence (1874−1886)

Aston Villa are believed to have formed on 21 November 1874, by members of the Aston Villa Wesleyan Chapel in Handsworth: which is now part of Birmingham. The chapel stood at Villa Cross, a road junction whose name derived from a house known as Aston Villa, a suburban Georgian villa that over time had given its name to the surrounding locality. The four founders of Aston Villa Football Club were Jack Hughes, Frederick Matthews, Walter Price and William Scattergood, who were members of the chapel's cricket team looking for a way to stay fit during the winter months. Having watched a fellow member of their Bible class playing in a rugby match, they paused beneath a dim gas lamp near Villa Cross and agreed that rugby was a little too rough, deciding instead to play association football. The meeting beneath the gas lamp is traditionally regarded as the birth of Aston Villa F.C. Due to the lack of local football teams Aston Villa's first match was against the local Aston Brook St Mary's Rugby team. As a condition of the match, the Villa side had to agree to play the first half under Rugby rules and the second half under Association rules. Villa won their first game 1–0. The infant club's fortunes changed forever when a young Scotsman called George Ramsay stumbled across the Villa players' practice match in Aston Park in 1876. He was asked to make up the numbers, and they were amazed by his skills; they had never seen such a…

Aston Villa have won both European and domestic league honours. The club's last English honour was in 1996 when they won the League Cup, and most recently they won the 2025–26 UEFA Europa League.

Domestic

League

First Division / Premier League (level 1) Champions (7): 1893–94, 1895–96, 1896–97, 1898–99, 1899–1900, 1909–10, 1980–81 Runners-up (10): 1888–89, 1902–03, 1907–08, 1910–11, 1912–13, 1913–14, 1930–31, 1932–33, 1989–90, 1992–93 Second Division / Championship (level 2) Champions (2): 1937–38, 1959–60 Runners-up (2): 1974–75, 1987–88 Play-off winners: 2019 Third Division (level 3) Champions: 1971–72 Cups

FA Cup Winners (7): 1886–87, 1894–95, 1896–97, 1904–05, 1912–13, 1919–20, 1956–57 Runners–up (4): 1891–92, 1923–24, 1999–2000, 2014–15 Football League Cup / EFL Cup Winners (5): 1960–61, 1974–75, 1976–77, 1993–94, 1995–96 Runners-up (4): 1962–63, 1970–71, 2009–10, 2019–20 FA Charity Shield Winners: 1981 Sheriff of London Charity Shield Winners (2): 1899, 1901

European

European Cup Winners: 1981–82 UEFA Europa League Winners: 2025–26 European Super Cup Winners: 1982 Intertoto Cup Winners: 2001 Co-winners: 2008