Villa ended a 30-year trophy drought on Wednesday with a 3-0 victory over Freiburg at Istanbul's Besiktas Park. Their success will be celebrated on
Villa ended a 30-year trophy drought on Wednesday with a 3-0 victory over Freiburg at Istanbul’s Besiktas Park.
Their success will be celebrated on their return from Turkey with an open-top bus victory procession through the streets of Birmingham on Thursday.
More than 5,000km away, a makeshift parade of 30 motorcycles and a minibus will be travelling through the Ghanaian village of Juaben.
The village is home to about 1,000 Villa fans and the Ghana Lions, a supporters’ club headed up by Owusu Boakye.
“Yesterday was one of our best moments in life and what a time to support Aston Villa,” Boakye, a lifelong Villa fan, told BBC Newsday.
“We have hired 30 motorcycles so we can go around the whole community. We will go there to see how everybody is chanting, how everybody is feeling.
“Today we are going to use our minibus like what Aston Villa will be doing today”.
Juaben’s love for Villa stems from his grandfather, Daniel, who used to stay with a Villa-supporting family from Birmingham.
“When we were kids, he used to tell us stories and history about Aston Villa,” Boakye said. “He used to talk about a certain player called ‘God’.”
The football ‘god’ was Paul McGrath, who made more than 250 appearances for Villa between 1989 and 1996.
McGrath was part of the squad when Villa won their most recent trophy, the 1996 League Cup.
Since then, a new generation of Villa fans in Juaben have been “waiting” for the club to make history.
That was until Youri Tielemans, Emi Buendia and Morgan Rogers scored against Freiburg.
“It was amazing. What a time to be alive – the whole community coming together to support Aston Villa,” Boakye said.
“During 1982, when we won our first European Cup, most of the fans here yesterday were not born. We were waiting for our own history yesterday.”
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