A great send off for Riccy Scimeca

This football season has been like a rollercoaster for all of us connected with the club, and a few players seemed to take that as an encouragement last week and were sick everywhere whilst letting their hair down on their Friday night out.

All the lads were really pleased to hear the news of players coming back to fitness. Joe Ledley is back running now after his long injury, and it shouldn’t be too long before Stevie Mac is also back running.

We’re obviously approaching the business end of the season in good spirits, and no one is more aware of the business end of things than Tony Capaldi, who has a decade’s worth of experience working in IT. Thankfully for Tony he has very understanding employers who allow him to take time off for away matches (he takes annual leave for pre-season tours) and give him the flexibility to do the media work that is required of a full time professional footballer. I can only assume he is very good at his job. The former Plymouth Argyle fullback has had a very busy week, not only is he holding down a full-time job, he’s also had big shoes to fill at left full back following my enforced absence due to injury. Not only that, he’s also had to help organize Riccy Scimeca’s big send off.

As I’m sure you’re all aware Riccy tragically had to retire from professional football early this season. He’s a big miss from the field but more so the changing rooms where he used to regale us with stories of his days on tour with the England B side. He only played once for them, but had lots of stories. I wouldn’t call him a liar, but I think he may have been slightly economical with the truth on more than one occasion.

We all wanted to give Riccy a good send off so along with Mrs Scimeca we arranged a party at his house. That’s where Tony C comes in, we thought it would be nice to have a slideshow of some of Riccy’s best footballing moments. So, with this in mind, Tony C has borrowed Tony G’s laptop and has created a Powerpoint presentation from pictures of Riccy he’s downloaded from the net. You’ve got to give credit to Tony, for me he’s one of the most diligent lads at the club, not only has he spent time on google searching for Riccy piccys, he’s also sourced some old Shoot annuals and has scanned in some pictures of Scims in his pomp.

When I finally arrived at the party (it had taken me ages to get there, Riccy lives in the middle of the country outside of SatNav range - it’s never an easy place to go) it was already well underway. Whitts was DJing, playing Lady Gaga, Little Boots, his discs spinning faster than Stevie Mac trying to retain possession against a five-man midfield. Quinny quickly collared me and told me to check out the amazing buffet Mrs Scimeca had put on. He might have been impressed, but I wasn’t so sure. I’ve been in the game long enough (42 caps for Republic of Ireland, 4 for the U21 lads) to recognize that all Mrs S had done was buy big bags of party food from Iceland and some mutli-pack Monster Munch. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of Iceland’s party food but there’s a time and a place for everything, I feel that a celebration of a long and distinguished career in football playing for clubs such as Aston Villa and West Brom deserves more than that. Mrs K would certainly get the cold shoulder from me should she try a thing if (God forbid) I ever had to retire. Saying that, a lot of effort had gone into a baking cake shaped in the image of Villa Park (circa 1995) that had been specially ordered for the occasion.

Not only are Riccy’s ex-teammates at the party but he’s also invited many of his ex-teammates along. The room is a veritable who’s who of mid 90s Aston Villa footballers although Andy Townsend did cause absolute chaos by parking his Tactics Truck on the front lawn, however there’s no denying that these players are literally household names in football circles.

We’re all having a good time, if there’s anything that the lads are good at it’s organising a party. Whitts has got some cracking tunes on, Darcy’s pestering Mrs Scimeca about getting tokens off the Monster Munch and some of the Academy lads are trying to form a human pyramid in the kitchen under the tutelage of Tony G (Ards would be furious if he knew what they were up to, but he was too busy sucking up to Andy Townsend and the Villa boys).

I’m taking each sausage roll as it comes (I’ve been in the game long enough to know looking any further than that is fatal – though I do have my eye on some mini hot dogs) whilst listening to another cock and bull story from Riccy (he’s claiming to have invented the ‘square pass’), when I notice Gavin Rae out of the corner of my eye. There’s literally steam coming out of his ears, he’s seething. You see, Riccy has spent most of the evening chatting with Stevie Mac about the old times, mainly the early part of the 06/07 season when the two were in imperious form. Gavin is trying to bring the subject of conversation onto his partnership with Stevie Mac during the FA Cup run of 20078. But Scims is barely listening and Stevie Mac doesn’t want to know, if anything he’s getting annoyed by Gav’s constant wittering. In a fit of annoyance Macca’s asked Gav to get him another cup of Um Bongo, and Rae’s stormed off, Scims and Macca happily continue their conversation.

It’s at this point that Tony C taps Whitts on the shoulder and gets him to turn down the music. Mark Draper and some of the Villa lads are livid as they had a dance routine planned for Cotton Eye Joe and have been cut off in mid flow. A few minutes of commotion ensue whilst Julian Joachim attempts to force Whitts to put the music back on, but once Tony’s Powerpoint presentation begins everyone is spellbound. It’s certainly a touching piece from the Northern Ireland international fullback, pictures from Riccy Scimeca’s playing career to the backing track of “These are the Days of our lives” by Queen caught the tone of the occasion perfectly. There’s barely a dry eye in the room.

However, during some pictures of his time with West Bromwich Albion a picture that none of us expected to see is shown. It goes to show, however many years you have in the game you can still be surprised. On the projector screen, as clear as the large eyebrows on my face, is a badly Photoshopped image of Riccy Scimeca in a compromising position with a goat. I instantly knew what had happened. During the hullabaloo when the music was turned off Gavin Rae had snuck up to the machine and added a picture to the slideshow from Tony G’s “lol” folder. Tony loves making funny pictures on Microsoft Paint and pinning them up on our lockers. The images are crude and poorly done but these things are all part and parcel of the banter that goes on at any football club up and down the country.

The image is obviously about as real as one of Riccy Scimeca’s anecdotes, but the impact is still felt keenly. Stevie Mac instinctively covers young Aaron Wildig’s eyes (though he’s peeking through) whilst Mrs Scimeca bursts into tears and storms out of the room and into the kitchen.

It’s unfortunate timing for Mrs Scimeca. Just before she entered the kitchen Darcy was climbing to the top of the human pyramid to the delight of Tony G. It’s in these sorts of situations that you think you’re immortal, you think you can do anything, you think you’re too good to go down. However, he’s wrong. As soon as you start thinking these sorts of things you’re likely to be taken down to earth. And this is exactly what happened to Darcy. The door has hit one of the Academy lads and the pyramid has collapsed quicker than the end of our 2009/2010 season. Darcy’s gone into freefall and has landed onto the Villa Park cake, annihilating the Holte End as he lands.

The noise from the kitchen is terrible and a few people rush into the kitchen. Andy Townsend in particular is furious when he sees the Holte End is destroyed, he sees it as a personal affront on “The Villa”, Darcy had to hide, covered in cake, under Townsend’s tactics truck for over an hour whilst Neal Ardley and Ian Taylor attempt to calm Andy down. I think a good night was had by all – especially as the incident meant that there wasn’t time for a speech from Brian Little and even Townsend and Mrs Scimeca saw the funny side of it in the morning.


Another very good indication as to how good team spirit is in the camp came on Monday. Ards and Wilko were searching for some kit at the training ground and they heard some scratching from one of the cupboards. When they unlocked it they saw a withered man, who obviously wasn’t well. The poor guy could barely speak.

When given something to drink they realised the man was Kelvin Etuhu who has been on loan to us from Manchester City. They soon got the full story from the poor lad and apparently he was locked in the cupboard by Tony G “for a laugh” a couple of months back. Not only had Tony G forgotten he had done it, the coaching staff and players had also clean forgotten about Kelvin. I think we assumed he’d gone back to Manchester.

Kelvin had apparently survived by eating a whole set of 1998/1999 away kits that were in the cupboard. He was disappointed to learn that the value of those kits would be deducted from his wages by Peter Ridsdale but he soon saw the funny side and he cheered up a treat once he was named in the 18 for the Sheffield United game. That’s the thing with Tony G, you never know what he’s going to do next, typical Scouser.

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