Home is where the Holte Is

On August 24th, 1996, Aston Villa beat Derby County 2-0 in a Premier League game at Villa Park, Julian Joachim and Tommy Johnson (a penalty) scoring the goals in front of a crowd of 34,646.

Among that audience was a fresh-faced seven-year-old by the name of Christopher Woakes. The latest scion of a family of ardent Villa supporters paid his first visit to the club’s historic home.

Nearly 30 years later, Chris has visited many of the world's top sports venues and, as an international cricketer, played at a fair few of them. But, as he tells Reports from Arbroath, Villa Park is his favourite sporting place in the world.

During his stellar career as an England all-rounder, that love for Villa has accompanied Chris round the world and helped keep him going in hotel rooms from Durban to Dubai and from Bridgetown to Brisbane. It is a passion which every fully committed footy supporter of any club will recognise but for Chris, part of that joy, having had to so often follow them from afar, is the connection the club affords with his beloved home city.

Chris speaks engagingly about his passion for Villa but equally of his love for Birmingham, the city in which he was born and bred, where he still lives and to which, wherever in the world he travels, he will always return.

You could not meet a prouder Brummie than Chris Woakes – a man who falls into that most impressive of categories; people to have reached the very top of their procession while remaining totally humble and grounded.

Chris is deeply proud of Birmingham – and that pride is 100% reciprocated.

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