Fantasy Villa Team No.4: 'ello John, gotta new motor?

Well, we thought, this one would be dead easy. John is a fairly common name, or so we'd imagined; pulling together a fantasy Villa team full of Johns should have been a total doddle, right?

Wrong!

There doesn't seem to be a single John on the entire current playing staff. We could - at a push - have included Jean II Makoun, but if three successive managers have ignored him, why should we be any different?

John appears to have been most popular with 70s era players so a large chunk of our squad comes from that decade. We had to have Budgie of course, total legend; John Gidman was shoo in at right back and the much missed John Robson gets the call at left back. Struggling for centre halves, we've gone back to the 1920s for Scottish hero John Johnstone.

In the middle of the park we use utility man John Gregory, flanked by Sixties wing wonder Johnny MacLeod and legendary 19th Century Captain Fantastic John "Jack" Devey.

We'll take any excuse to sing "He's bigger than me and you" hence Carew's starring role along with FA Cup hero Johnny Dixon and part of Villa's exciting mid-seventies forward line, John Deehan.

Frankly there weren't many options. There just aren't as many Johns as you'd think.

Fantasy Villa Team No.2: The BlueNose Connection

For our second fantasy Villa team we've bitten the bullet and cobbled together a team of players that have pulled on a Birmingham City shirt as well as playing in the old claret and blue.

Unlike our PFA team, there were plenty of options when putting this one together. We were spolit for choice. We could have included four members of our European Cup Winning Team but it still pains us to think of them in blue and white.

We could have included the likes of Noel Blake or Robert Hopkins, but we must have hurled so much abuse at them during the eighties that mere mention of their names resulted in a volley of four letter words. No Curtis Davies either. The mere mention of his name reminds us of just how much of Randy's money was spunked up the wall by Martin O'Neill.

We were tempted to include Kevin Poole, still thought of as a hero by those of us old enough to remember Villa's triumph in the Daily Express 5-a-side tournament in which he was truly heroic (well, he made a few saves). We went with the much missed Les Sealey instead. Loved a laugh with the fans did Les. Top bloke.

Some of these only get in by the skin of their teeth, Rioch, Charles and Small made less then ten appearances between them for the noses, but to avoid allegations that we've made a Blues related team weak on purpose, we have picked a strong forward line...and David Geddis.

Here's our line-up: