Monty Villa FC History
A few drunken men sat in a pub wondering how they could possibly find a football club willing to sign them up....
20 years later and the team they founded, Montpelier Villa FC are now (2007) the biggest club in the Brighton, Hove and District Football League.
MVFC also have a strong second team in Div 1 and an equally strong, but slightly slower, aged, and some would say, uglier, team in Div 4.
The first team have been in the Premier league for the last 9 years and have finished in the runners up spot for the last 2 seasons.
Honours:
06-07 - Premier Division Runners Up.
05-06 - Premier Division Runners Up. The 2's are Division 1 Runners Up and Cup Final Losers in 2 competions.
04-05 The 1's are College Cup Winners and the 2's are A,W Bridle Trophy winners.
03-04 Cup Runners Up for the First and Second Team.
02-03 Vernon Wentworth Cup Runners Up
... (short gap in winning things to celebrate being in the Prem)
...
...
95-96 Div 1 Champions and Intermediate Club of the year!
94/95 Div 2 Champions
93-94 Div 4 champions, Hove and Worthing Cup winners and Junior club of the year
91-92 Div 6 champions
The Full Story..
Here's the story of Montpelier Villa from one of our founding members and current Chairman, Gary Pleece.
The year is 1987. Acid house is just kicking off all over the UK and
we're in the fag end of Thatcherism.
Brighton is a down at heel place with a chip paper in the wind
melancholy etched on its chip on the shoulder psyche. Oh, and I - Gary
Pleece, club chairman - moved down to Brighton.
Fast forward 4 years to a pitch in Newhaven and a Lewes District Sunday
league game between Newhaven Taxis and the University Associates. Up
front for the UAs - who were full of blokes called Martin in
ill-fitting shorts with pockets in, white trainers and milk bottle
thighs - were a certain Franklin Barrett and Gary Pleece, who were to
become the only
2 club chairmen, thus far, in Montpelier Villa's history. The score that
day: NT 15 UA 0. The next day, in a pub, after several UA defeats and
ales, Montpelier Villa was born. The reason? We were fed up with being
trounced by Taxi firms and blind nun amputees and things had to change.
Franklin Barrett, Miles Jefcoate, Mark Burletson and Gary Pleece,
nursing pints and huddled together in the soon to become legendary boot
room of the Lion and Lobster pub, then plotted a course of action that
would change the face of, well, nothing in particular for the next
16 years.
Initial names for the new club to come out of the meeting were: Travis
Europa, Hampton Metaphysicals, Roll out the Barrett FC and Husker Doodle
do City. None of these, however, had the ring of Saturday afternoon park
football authenticity.
Then, Eureka,
nay, Europa, of course! A lot of us were living in the Montpelier area
of Brighton at the time, but hardly in the lap of luxury, so the
juxtaposition of calling ourselves after the road with some of the most
expensive houses in central Brighton (Montpelier Villas without the s,
obviously) meant we could smugly, and successfully, call ourselves a
name that had exotic appeal, but also had a sprinkle of classic English
football resonance.
We began our life in division 6 in the 1991/92 season at fortress
BHASVIC our spiritual home and, with half of the team made up of our
Crawley connections, a connection that was to serve us well over the
next 10 years or so, we won the league at a canter. We also won division
5 straight off and division 4 and we had the hardest centre forward in
the league who had the biggest penis I've ever seen, Phil Threlfall. Six
foot tall, full of muscle (and gristle) shot/knob like a sledgehammer,
our very own hot shot Hamish. He was rivalled in the big leggy stakes by
part time-porn star and genial goalkeeper, Johnny Harley. It wasn't
until Johnny packed up playing that he told us he couldn't see past the
end of his nose. A lot of us couldn't see past the end of his dick.
Still, with a team like ours, he had shag all to do most of the time
anyway.
Despite these freaks of nature playing for the side, Monty Villa have
always had a reputation for being Guardian reading shirt-lifters, a
description and mantle we wear with (gay) pride to this day. We also
play damn attractive football, quick, slick 2 touch football, that often
has the obligatory one man and his dog (spot) purring, or woofing, on
the touchline. And, with our entrenched 'No Wankers' policy holding firm
too, the club, resplendent in Argentina 76 get up, is a joy to play with
on and off the pitch. Some of the 'boot room sessions' in the Lion and
Lobster days have passed into Villa folklore and it is nice to see the
spirit living on today in the Constant Service.
We had 1 stumble, finishing 3rd in Division 3 before winning that league
and then the second and the first in quick succession. By 1995/96, we
were in the Brighton premier where we have remained to this day. We have
won several cups over the years, but blow me if I can remember them - go
on then, blow me and I'll try - and now the quest is on to win our first
Premier league championship.
We will try as we always do, to play the game in the Corinthian spirit
- with a drizzle of chav - neither chastening the referee or offending
the single mum with coarse language as she strolls across pikey valley
of a Saturday afternoon and we will win; we will win because we are the
Mighty Monty Villa, born of kings made up of herberts and, as Franklin
Sholto Morgan Barrett watches on from the luxury of his lady boy's back
bedroom in Oz, we will say ONCE MORE FOR FRANKLIN AND FOR GARY INTO THE
FRAY!! Or Wish Road.