Player #883 for Aston Villa, Mark John Bunn, played as a goalkeeper for the club between 2015-16 and 2018-19, making 21 appearances.

Bunn, born in Camden on 16 November 1984, was the 95th custodian of the Villa goal in professional football.

Signed from Norwich City on a free transfer on 9 July 2015, Bunn was one of a series of controversial signings undertaken ostensibly under the leadership of Tim Sherwood but in truth driven by the sheer idiocy of Sporting Director Hendrik Almstadt and Director of Scouting and Recruitment Paddy Riley. Two names that would be painted into Villa folklore for their footballing illiteracy and ultimate responsibility for Villa’s first relegation in three decades.

Bunn, although not the worst of the intake by any stretch of the imagination, joined a squad marked by its lack of goalkeeping prowess with only the frequently fallible Brad Guzan and the youth team player Brad Watkins as alternatives.

The folly of expecting performances from such a threadbare goalkeeping unit was clear for all to see, as was Sherwood’s reticence to play Bunn.

Indeed, Guzan was consistently favoured over Bunn by Sherwood and would only make a single appearance under Sherwood in the Second Round 5-3 League Cup win over Notts County on Tuesday, 25 August 2015, aged 30. Conceding three goals against a team that would finish bottom of the Football League come season end. That less-than-auspicious start was simply a foreshadowing of the difficulties to come.

Sherwood’s successor, Rémi Garde, continued to favour Guzan and played the USA international across nine successive games despite that run delivering no wins, five losses and seventeen goals conceded.

That was finally enough for Garde to hand Bunn three consecutive starts, and to his credit, he helped Villa’s form immediately improve, remaining unbeaten with one win and just two goals conceded.

Inexplicably, however, the hapless Garde would again select Guzan ahead of Bunn, only to see him concede four goals on his reappearance as Bunn sat on the bench.

By this point, Villa were beyond salvation from relegation, and the goals against were speedily racked up.

Following his ridiculous error in bringing Guzan back into the starting XI, Garde reinstated Bunn, but the rot had well and truly set in, and in four consecutive appearances, Bunn conceded ten as Villa lost three, winning once.

Although Bunn was no world-beater, he was the most competent of a poor choice of ‘keepers, and so there was understandable incredulity when Garde, seemingly fighting the world, reacted by once again bringing Guzan back, and in typical fashion, he responded with four losses and another ten conceded.

Garde left the club soon after, unmourned.

Bunn must have wondered what he’d done in a former life as Garde’s replacement, caretaker Eric Black, continued to favour Guzan, who added a further four losses and eleven conceded.

Enough was certainly enough this time, and to the relief of many, the gormless Guzan would not play for Villa again.

Black turned to Bunn, and he was named in the starting line-up for the final three games of Villa’s torrid 2015-16 season. Drawing one and losing two saw him concede a further seven goals.

In total across the season, Guzan had played 32 games, conceding 64 goals, whilst Bunn appeared in 12 games, conceding 22.

Neither was good enough for the Premier League, but Bunn, however, remained with the club following relegation to the second tier and was expected to remain part of the goalkeeping unit, if not the number one.

2016-17, unsurprisingly, saw an overhaul of this most abject of Villa squads. Guzan had been moved on, but Bunn faced fresh competition in new arrivals Pierluigi Gollini and later Sam Johnstone, as well as the re-emergence of the criminally under-played Jed Steer and the youthful potential of Matija Šarkić.

With Gollini initially favoured under Roberto Di Matteo and his excellent figures of just 19 goals conceded in 20 games restricted Bunn to a single appearance in each of the EFL Cup and Championship.

With Di Matteo’s short spell as Villa boss over and his replacement Steve Bruce in the post, Gollini agitated for a move away, having lost his Italian goalkeeping coach.

Bruce immediately installed Bunn as Gollini’s replacement, and he kept goal for four consecutive matches, winning two, drawing one and losing one whilst conceding three. Bunn appeared to have found his level.

Bruce, however, wanted more quality and recruited on-loan goalkeeper Sam Johnstone from Manchester United, with Bunn acting as backup but with no further appearances for the club in 2016-17.

With Sam Johnstone retained for the 2017-18 season and Jed Steer promoted to substitute goalkeeper, Bunn would initially feature only as a backup to Jed Steer in the EFL Cup before Bruce needlessly sent Steer out on loan to leave Bunn once again Villa’s goalkeeping backup.

Bunn, however, made just a single appearance - in the final game of the regular Championship season - as Johnstone was rested ahead of the Play Offs.

The following season, with Johnstone gone, and new arrivals Ørjan Nyland and André Moreira rivalling Bunn and Steer for the goalkeeper’s shirt, Bunn made his sole appearance of the season and final appearance for Villa in the 3-3 Championship draw with Preston North End on Tuesday, 2 October 2018, that also saw Steve Bruce sacked.

New boss Dean Smith would use Bunn as substitute goalkeeper through his first fourteen games, as back up to Ørjan Nyland, before buying Croatian international goalkeeper Lovre Kalinić and installing him as first choice with Jed Steer as back up.

Kalinić’s time in goal was a disaster, however, conceding 15 in 8 games before being dropped.

Thereafter, Jed Steer was made Villa’s number one, as the solution to a half-decade of goalkeeping crises had been staring successive managers in the face throughout.

Steer would lead Villa on a record run of 10 consecutive league wins and promotion back to the Premier League after three seasons away via the play-offs.

Bunn, for his part, wouldn’t even be part of the squad under Dean Smith after New Year’s Day 2019 and left with a record of 21 appearances, 38 conceded goals at a rate of 1.81 per game across his four seasons in and around the Villa squad. Bunn had kept five clean sheets.

Bunn was released by Villa in May 2019, aged 34, before retiring from football. By no means the worst personality or player of the era, Bunn, however, typified the sub-standard fare that was being brought into the club; that there would be no further takers for his services spoke volumes about the contracts being handed out by Villa to players who had no business signing for the club.