Graham Taylor’s Villa lose in Division One for the first time in six games as they fall back to 5th place in the table but all eyes were on the local rag again with their barely concealed contempt for the club they reported on. It made no sense. The Evening Mail, champions of every negative thought about Villa and eager to drain any semblance of optimism surrounding the club were at it again. Like wild animals to fresh meat, a defeat away to a top 6 rival was too juicy to ignore. How could they? This was their bread and butter with a slice of sizzling stake. But after calling Villa’s relegation as early as the fourth game of the season, then damning Taylor’s side with the faintest of praise - whilst inflating the self worth of just about every opposition team - a defeat in the League Cup was just too salivating. The defeat to West Ham was not “unlucky” but “embarrassing”. If that was an over-reaction and mis-reading of a cold night in East London, just days needed to be waited by the hacks of the rag to fire up another damning indictment on B6’s pretensions. No longer tipping Villa for relegation they were certainly “still not fooled” by Villa’s achievements in 1989-90 and now could proudly condemn a title challenge to the waste bin besides their cigarette smoke infested desks. One defeat, a first in six League games that had seen Villa climb to fourth, was enough to set the poison pen letters to B6 ablaze once again. We were told Villa’s “strengths were exaggerated” and “weaknesses” ignored. If that wasn’t enough we were reliably informed Villa didn’t score enough. Despite having failed to score in the League for the first time in seven games and only the second time this season. No matter that in the last six League games Villa had scored twelve goals. No matter that Villa had won five of those six games. Worse was to come.. the goals conceded “were a joke”. Was that irony? Did they mean they were literally laughably unfortunate? or were they serious when they claimed Villa’s internationals were more bothered about playing Malta and Romania than winning the League? Yet their own goal descriptions of “dreadfully unlucky” and “going into the net off the centre-half’s backside” simply did not chime with all that preceded. Was it wilful contradiction or just an inability to ever say anything positive about the club they were paid to follow? Just what were these self appointed ‘Judges’ watching? What were they thinking? Why report on a club when any potential objectivity, or even support, or - whisper it quietly - partisan tribalism, as displayed by the Liverpool Echo or Manchester Evening News, was total anathema to them? Doubtless in time they came to love the club in their strange way. Doubtless they soon told us how they believed in Villa all along and help drive them to a top two berth once again. Doubtless they received recognition by virtue of the relationship with the club. But supporters? Never. The sad fact is it didn’t start in November 1989 and neither did it end. They had form through good times and bad. Always unhelpful, always prompting a new ‘crisis’ This, not the worst example or the most vicious, was certainly the most detached from reality given what supporters had witnessed over the last three months under Graham Taylor. Promoted the previous season to successfully fight for survival, just 12 months later the same team were troubling the top 6 of the League but even then we couldn’t count on their support and encouragement. Shameful.