A lifetime of Villa history up for sale

Mar 21 2007

DEVOTED Aston Villa fan Gerald Harris spent much of his life dutifully collecting programmes and photographs of his claret and blue heroes.

The lifelong Villa supporter organised the club's programme sales, helped collectors hunt down acquisitions and built his own cherished collection over nearly 40 years.

But today, the extraordinary collection, including hundreds of pre-war programmes bound in hardback claret and blue volumes, and framed sepia team photos from the early 1900s, was to be sold off at auction, with the collection expected to fetch around £70,000.

At the same auction, at Bonhams at Chester, the FA Cup winner's medal won by Villa centre-half Frank Barson in 1920 is also up for sale, with an anticipated price of up to £6,000.

A Bonhams spokesman said: "Mr Harris spent a large part of his life working for Aston Villa, organising their programme sales and helping collectors find programmes to complete or further their collections. He was a lifelong Villa supporter and collected football programmes for nearly four decades."

The most valuable items in Mr Harris's collection are two bound volumes of Villa programmes for the 1925-1926 and 1919-1920 season - when professional football resumed after the First World War - which are expected to fetch up to £5,000 each.

Eight framed photos of trailblazing Villa teams from the early 1900s are valued at about £4,000 and the oldest of these - of the 1905 FA Cup winning team - is tipped to sell for up to £600.

There is also a team photo of the 1913 FA Cup winning side which also finished runners-up in the league.

The oldest and one of the rarest programmes in the collection was issued for the Aston Villa reserves versus Kidderminster game of 16 February 1907.

Immediately after the sale of the collection, Bonhams will auction Barson's 15 carat gold FA Cup winner's medal.