Press Release: A Generous Response to Repeated Easter Disruption

Aston Parish Church, in the shadow of the Villa Park ground in Aston, is holding a ‘generous protest’ against the organisers of the football match being held at Villa Park on Easter Sunday lunchtime. This is not the first of its kind and local vicar, Revd Andy Jolley says, “enough is enough.”

“There are very few moments in the year that remain special days for families and Easter Sunday is one of them. By scheduling a game to be played at this time, BSkyB and the Premier League are forcing hundreds of workers to forsake this precious time with their families and thousands of fans will be spending their day travelling to and from the ground. The local community will also find it impossible to enjoy a quiet day at home. On top of this, members of churches in Aston will have to battle through crowds of football supporters to celebrate the most important date in the Christian calendar at their churches. This has been going on for nearly 15 years and enough is enough.”

Ignoring requests of local churches and residents, and the preferences of many people, the match between Aston Villa and Liverpool will be taking place this Sunday at 1.30 pm and will be, once again, causing havoc and upset for workers, fans and local people.

When the churches were first made aware of the Easter Sunday fixture in January a meeting was held with representatives of Aston Villa and the police to try and mitigate the problems. An offer was made to change the time of the kick off to 2pm but, as local roads close an hour before the match, this would create worse problems for church attenders going home after church. Revd Andy Jolley wrote letters to BSkyB and the Premier League on behalf of local churches outlining the issues and although he received a sympathetic but unobliging reply from the Premier League he has never heard back from BSkyB.

Revd Jolley said, “There have been ample opportunities to review and reschedule this match and keep Easter special. Also, Sky’s planned televised fixture for 4pm on Sunday has recently been rescheduled to Monday giving an opportunity for Villa’s match to be moved later in the day and cause less disruption to the Easter services. But, as BSkyB haven’t even had the courtesy to acknowledge our concerns, we are left in the dark as to why this hasn’t happened.”

Recognising that this is not the fault of fans or workers affected by the match, Aston Parish Church will be holding a generous protest:
“We are inviting Villa and Liverpool supporters who want to celebrate Easter as well as go to the match to join with us for worship at the church. We’re looking forward too to sharing hot cross buns and Easter eggs with fans, workers in burger vans, police and car-park attendants. We’ll also be acting out some scenes from a contemporary ‘passion play’. Our message is that, despite Sky’s best efforts, Easter in Aston will not be cancelled!”

With three in the last eight years, it is felt that the community and churches of Aston have suffered disproportionately from Easter Sunday matches, a relatively recent innovation brought in by BSkyB. Matches in Europe are scheduled to kick-off at 4pm or later.

The last protest took place in 2009 when, after correspondence with the Premier League and Setanta, an appropriate kick-off time could not be fixed. Church members gave out hot cross buns to fans, took Easter eggs to the police, and performed an open-air presentation about Easter. When petitioned, the overwhelming response from fans and staff alike was that they didn’t want the match to be on Easter Sunday. It seemed the only people who did were the TV companies.

Protests began back in 1999 with the then vicar, Revd Keith Sinclair, ringing the church bells for the duration of a match held on Good Friday. Then again in 2006 with West Brom and Birmingham City on Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday, the noon kick off making it nearly impossible for local people to attend church. Many supporters walking past Aston Parish Church on their way to the Villa ground signed a petition agreeing that it was inappropriate to hold a match on Easter Sunday.