Villa play their final game of the 1953-54 season 24 hours after their penultimate game having trailed the remainder of the league on games played throughout the latter part of the season.

Villa end the season on defeat despite Derek Pace scoring his third goal in three but the defeat should never have been after not only having the balance of play, having played the better football throughout, the referee awards Wednesday an 80' winner that his linesman deems offside and whose protestations - and those of the Villa team - are waved aside.

In truth it doesn't really matter as Villa finish a poor campaign in 13th in what proved to be Eric Houghton's patchy first season in charge.

Villa end a run of six games unbeaten to make it sixteen wins, nine draws and seventeen losses in their forty two division one games in 1953-54.