Shock moment Aston Villa and PSG fans brawl ahead of Champions League tie as chairs & punches thrown

BY Dave Kidd, Sun's Chief Sports Writer

IT was a night of nights in early October when Villa Park welcomed back elite European football after a hiatus of four decades.

To be there at one of English football’s grandest, most historic and atmospheric stadiums as Bayern Munich were vanquished in a Champions League group match was a rare privilege.

Villa won the game and I left the ground feeling delighted for Villa’s supporters.

Which is strange because, usually, when English clubs play in Champions League football, I couldn’t honestly care less whether they win or lose.

I don’t think I’m alone in this. The Premier League’s traditional Big Six were difficult to love even before they tried to sell English football down the gurgler by signing up to a breakaway Super League.

And Newcastle, with their bottomless Saudi wealth, leave many of us equally cold. But Villa’s European adventure — next stop Paris Saint-Germain’s Parc des Princes in tomorrow’s quarter-final first leg — feels different.

It feels like a throwback to decades gone by, when English football fans would genuinely want other English clubs to thrive in Europe.

When Villa face Qatari-backed PSG in the French capital, most of England — except for the blue half of Birmingham and the Black Country supporters of Wolves and West Brom — will be firmly behind them.

And that’s because Villa’s successes under Unai Emery give the supporters of many other clubs something realistic to aspire to.

Villa are not a member of the modern elite, with all the spoilt-rotten sense of entitlement that status brings.

They are an authentic club, competing at Europe’s top table with underdog status, with a modest net spend, with a likeable, talented manager and with supporters who have followed their club through thick and thin, providing consistently the best atmosphere in the Premier League.