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60 free Aston Villa trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Aston Villa were founded by four cricketers under a gas lamp, hired the world's first professional football manager, and had a director who invented the Football League. This quiz covers the whole story: the first match played half under rugby rules, George Ramsay's passing game and 150 job applicants, Archie Hunter, William McGregor's letter of 1888, the five Victorian titles and the 1897 double, Pongo Waring and the 128 goals, Ted Drake's seven, Jimmy Hogan's Viennese waltz, the 1957 win over the Busby Babes, the first League Cup, the drop to the Third Division, Ron Saunders and 14 players, Peter Withe and Nigel Spink in Rotterdam, the North Stand scandal, Graham Taylor, Ron Atkinson and Brian Little's League Cups, Doug Ellis and Randy Lerner, the 2016 relegation, Dean Smith's play-off win, Grealish's £100 million, and Unai Emery's 2026 Europa League. Early questions suit anyone who has stood on the Holte End; later ones are for Villans who know their Trinity Road from their Witton Lane: which colours the club first wore, what the minute book of 1886 actually ordered, and who kept goal in Rotterdam after ten minutes. Good for a supporters' club night or a Birmingham pub quiz. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's article on the club and its records, and each question shows its source.
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Q 01Aston Villa are said to have been founded in 1874 by four chapel cricketers meeting where?
Beneath a dim gas lamp
They had watched a rugby match, decided the game was 'a little too rough', and chose association football instead.
Q 02What was the unusual condition of Aston Villa's first ever match, against Aston Brook St Mary's?
One half under rugby rules, one half under football rules
Villa won 1-0 against what was, after all, a rugby team.
Q 03Which club's 'combination football' influenced George Ramsay, who joined Villa in 1876?
Queen's Park
The Villa players had never seen close ball control like his and immediately made him captain; his nickname was 'Scotty'.
Q 04What annual salary did Villa offer in 1886 for the world's first professional football manager?
£100
There were 150 applicants; George Ramsay got the job and went on to win six titles and six FA Cups.
Q 05Which Villa captain became the first player to score in every round of the FA Cup, in 1887?
Archie Hunter
Villa were the first Midlands club to win the Cup and Hunter became one of the game's first household names.
Q 06How many consecutive Saturdays of cancelled Villa matches led William McGregor to propose the Football League?
Five
He wrote to Blackburn, Bolton, Preston and West Brom; twelve clubs kicked off the world's first league that September.
Q 07Frederick Rinder's February 1893 speech criticising what forced Villa's entire committee to resign?
Ill discipline and players' drinking
All fourteen members quit; Villa won their first league title the very next season.
Q 08By the end of Queen Victoria's reign in 1901, how many league titles had Aston Villa won?
Five
They added three FA Cups in the same period, including the 1897 double, and were the most successful club of the Victorian era.
Q 09Villa moved to their present ground in 1897. What was the site officially called?
The Aston Lower Grounds
Supporters coined the name 'Villa Park'; no official declaration ever listed the ground under that name.
Q 10Who is Aston Villa's record goalscorer, with 244 goals in 531 appearances?
Billy Walker
He captained both Villa and England; the club won the FA Cup for the sixth time that season.
Q 11How many of Aston Villa's record 128 top-flight league goals in 1930-31 did centre-forward Tom 'Pongo' Waring score?
49
Winger Eric Houghton added 30, yet Villa still finished second to Arsenal, who scored one fewer.
Q 12Which Arsenal striker scored seven in a 7-1 win at Villa Park in Villa's first relegation season, 1935-36?
Ted Drake
Villa conceded 110 goals in 42 games and spent £35,500 on seven signings trying to stay up.
Q 13Which coach, hired from Austria in 1936, likened football to a Viennese waltz at Aston Villa?
Jimmy Hogan
'One-two-three, pass-move-pass', he told his players; the war ended his project.
Q 21Which club beat Third Division Aston Villa in the 1971 League Cup final with two late goals?
Tottenham Hotspur
That December the board bought the 20-acre Bodymoor Heath training ground.
Q 22Which Villa left-back holds the club's appearance record with 659 games between 1959 and 1976?
Charlie Aitken
He played through the relegations to the Third Division and the revival under Ron Saunders.
Q 23Which Villa striker was the first to win PFA Young Player and Players' Player of the Year in one season, 1976-77?
Andy Gray
Villa won the League Cup and finished fourth that season under Ron Saunders.
Q 14Villa Park's record crowd of 76,588 came in a 1946 FA Cup quarter-final against which club?
Derby County
Derby went on to win the Cup that year, the first post-war final.
Q 15Which player, requesting a transfer in 1954, said Villa 'had grown fat and lazy on its old traditions'?
Danny Blanchflower
He went on to captain Tottenham's 1961 double side; Villa never finished above sixth in the 1940s and 50s.
Q 16Which Northern Irish winger scored both goals in Villa's 1957 FA Cup final win?
Peter McParland
It was a then-record seventh FA Cup win and the club's first trophy in 37 years.
Q 17Which England centre-forward scored 42 goals in 1960-61 as Villa won the first League Cup?
Gerry Hitchens
Joe Mercer's young side, 'Mercer's Minors', had just come up as Second Division champions.
Q 18Which Italian club paid £85,000 for Villa's 42-goal centre-forward in the summer of 1961?
Inter Milan
His replacement Derek Dougan was not a success and Villa slid backwards.
Q 19Villa's only relegation to the Third Division came at the end of which season?
1969-70
Vic Crowe could not save them after Tommy Docherty's 13-month reign; two years later they went up as champions with a record 70 points.
Q 20Doug Ellis became Villa chairman in December 1968 after control was bought by which London financier?
Pat Matthews
Ellis recalled 'you could write your name in the dust'; a share issue raised £205,835 to clear the debts.
Q 24How many players did Aston Villa use in winning the 1980-81 First Division title?
14
Seven were ever-present; it was the club's first title for 71 years and Gary Shaw was PFA Young Player of the Year.
Q 25Who guided Villa to the 1982 European Cup after Ron Saunders quit mid-season?
Tony Barton
The softly-spoken assistant had been promoted from within after Saunders fell out with chairman Ron Bendall.
Q 26Who scored the only goal, in the 67th minute, of Villa's 1982 European Cup final win over Bayern Munich?
Peter Withe
Villa became only the fourth English club to lift the trophy.
Q 27Which sub keeper, with one prior first-team game, kept a clean sheet for Aston Villa in the 1982 European Cup final?
Nigel Spink
Rimmer had also been on the bench for Manchester United's 1968 European Cup win.
Q 28Villa won the 1982 European Super Cup 3-1 on aggregate against which club?
Barcelona
Their European Cup defence ended in the quarter-finals against Juventus the same season.
Q 29How much of the £1.3 million spent on Villa Park's North Stand (1980-82) did an inquiry find unaccounted for?
£700,000
Police raised questions of fraud and Deloitte cited 'serious breaches of recommended codes of practice'; Ellis returned as chairman soon after.
Q 30Villa were relegated in 1987, how many years after being crowned European champions?
Five
Graham Taylor took them straight back up and to second place in 1989-90 before leaving to manage England.