Ray Graydon must have mixed feelings about coming back to play in the city where his League career began.

In September he was booed off the field even though Villa had just gone down 2-0 to his old club, Bristol Rovers, and on Saturday his determination to save a point earned a chorus of whistles and insults, this time from the Ashton Gate crowd.

Graydon’s duel with Geoff Merrick had been the main feature of a match which was otherwise hugely anonymous, and the City skipper’s booking after 64 minutes for taking Graydon in preference to the ball only spurred on the fans in their attempts to upset Graydon and encourage their own team.

“They’re a negative crowd.” said Alan Dick’s, City’s manager. “They picked on Graydon because he was obviously the danger man. It was only because they were against him, that they were for us.”

City’s crowd problem is a matter for them to worry about. Ron Saunders, Villa’s manager, was only upset by his team’s failure to gain at least one point. “It is incredible that we can play as we did in the second half and yet come away without a point.” he said. “In the end, when we started moving the ball around, we had enough of the play to have won.”

Villa appeared slow to realise that with Gerry Gow having gone off after 23 minutes, both Torn Ritchie (knee injury) and Kevin Griffin (badly-bruised ribs) were mere passengers in the second half. Indeed, Dick’s halftime instructions to Griffin were: “If the ball comes near you. Just walk the other way.”

Villa, badly missing John Gidman, Sammy Morgan and Leighton Phillips, were the more inept of two poor teams in the first half and conceded a soft goal after 28 minutes when Jimmy Mann headed in a long throw from Paul Cheesley.

Villa recovered later, but rarely encroached into the City penalty area and their shots - mainly from the irrepressible Graydon - were from long range