'I couldn't get out of Birmingham City quick enough!'

‘I couldn’t get out of Birmingham City quick enough!’ – Aston Villa legend’s St Andrew’s confession.

Mat Kendrick was given a tour of Lee Hendrie’s eventful Aston Villa career and his family’s history with Birmingham City.

“It was me, of course, the Boy Fan,” says Lee Hendrie.

During our ninety-minute Zoom talk, we start laughing so much that the topic of a Birmingham Evening Mail item in the former Aston

Villa player’s scrapbook comes up. The clip in question features an adolescent Hendrie, complete with curtain haircut and fist pumps,

photobombing Ron Atkinson’s more restrained celebrations following Phil King’s game-winning penalty kick that sent Villa Par in a

UEFA Cup shootout triumph over Inter Milan.

Even with all of the excitement that was beginning to surround him at the time, Hendrie was still mostly unknown. The headline on

the front page of the Mail on September 30, 1994, the day after the previous evening, simply referred to him as “Boy Fan.”
on.”

With what we now know, the term greatly undervalues a player who went on to play 308 games for the claret and blue; however, as we

can see from the 45-year-old’s youthful joy in the Claret & Blue video link-up, “Boy Fan” is spot-on.

Hendrie recalls that balmy night. Stationed as a ball boy near the tunnel on the Trinity Road track, Hendrie, then 16, had a perfect

view of a dramatic moment in Villa’s illustrious history and it had the desired effect of making him want more.

“I remember that, because it was in the paper the next day with Big Ron stood there showing no emotion and then you’ve got me with

this dodgy barnet behind him giving it the big one in the background,” he says with a laugh.

“‘Big Ron and the Boy Fan’ was what the clipping said. With all my football clippings, I still have it.

“To be honest, the caption ‘Boy Fan’ makes me laugh a lot, especially since I was a member of the young team before becoming a club player.

“All it did was depict my feelings.” It was incredible to watch Kingy score the penalty, and I felt the same way every time I scored a goal for the team.”

The Boy Fan went on to live the dream for his beloved club – but his football upbringing was far from routine for a Villa supporter.

For a start his Dad, Paul, had played for Birmingham City, his Nan a St Andrew’s season ticket holder, he lived in Bordesley Green and

– he divulges this bit in hushed tones – he endured a brief spell on schoolboy forms for Villa’s fierce rivals Blues before Big Ron came knocking.

Despite growing up in enemy territory, a Villa Park stadium tour with some mates had already set in motion Hendrie’s staunch claret

and blue allegiances by the time he joined Blues for a year at 13 .

“I was living in Bordesley Green which was a stone’s throw away from that terrible place down the road,” he explains with a

mischievous smile.

“Nan and my uncle were big Blues fans. We lived with Nan in Blakeland Street. I didn’t get pushed into Blues, no. Don’t get me

wrong I think my uncle used to always try to throw a Birmingham shirt on me, but it was never the case, I always wanted to play for Villa.

“Not many people know but I did sign for Birmingham on a school of excellence form for one season. Villa didn’t come and

scout me at the time and Blues were the first club that did. It was an opportunity for me to get myself into the pro ranks and see what it was all about.

“Dad said it would be good to go and have a feel for it which I did and I couldn’t get out of the place quick enough!

“We’ve watched him a hell of a lot, and I can’t believe we haven’t had him down here and training with us,” Big Ron said to Dad over the phone.

“We just want to skip to that and get him signed for Villa.”

Hendrie’s description of Big Ron and his father, who served as his yin and yang, good cop and bad cop, respectively, is telling.

One would allow him to live on a cloud while the other would ground him in reality.

Hendrie recalls being 14 years old when he signed on the dotted line at Bodymoor Heath. Big Ron had raised him up, and his old man had immediately brought him back down.

“I’ve got to give lots of credit to my Dad,” he replies. “I felt like I had made it when we emerged from the training after I had signed and was given a tonne of training materials.

“This is the beginning of a long road, so take a step back, you, you ain’t got nowhere yet,” my father said. It doesn’t necessarily

follow that you are a professional football player and an Aston Villa player just because you have all the gear. So chill out.

“When Dad said that in the Scottish voice with a little bit of a tone on it, it was a bit of a slap around the ear and did make me think I need to slow myself down.”

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