Villa Park

Villa Park is an association football stadium in the district of Aston, Birmingham, England, with a seating capacity of 42,682. It has been the home of Aston Villa Football Club since 1897. The team previously played at Aston Park from 1874 to 1876 and Wellington Road from 1876 to 1897. The ground is less than a mile from both Witton and Aston railway stations and has hosted sixteen England internationals at senior level, the first in 1899 and the most recent in 2005. It was the first English ground to stage international football in three different centuries. Villa Park has hosted more FA Cup semi-finals than any other stadium, having hosted 55 matches in total.

In 1897 Aston Villa moved into the Aston Lower Grounds, a sports ground in a Victorian amusement park situated in the former grounds of Aston Hall, a Jacobean stately home. Over the course of its history the stadium has gone through various stages of renovation and development, resulting in the current stand configuration of the Holte End, Trinity Road Stand, North Stand and the Doug Ellis Stand. The club has initial planning permission to redevelop the North Stand, which will increase the capacity of Villa Park from 42,682 to approximately 50,000.

Villa Park (disambiguation)

Villa Park may mean:

Villa Park station

Villa Park is a Metra commuter railroad station in Villa Park, a western suburb of Chicago. It is served by the Union Pacific/West Line and lies 17.8 miles (28.6 km) from the eastern terminus. Trains go east to Ogilvie Transportation Center in Chicago and as far west as Elburn, Illinois. Travel time to Ogilvie ranges from 43 minutes on local trains to 31 minutes on express trains, with faster times during peak hours.

The station is on ground level, at N. Ardmore Ave. and W. Terrace St., with parking lots north and south of the tracks. Villa Park's commercial district is centered on Ardmore Ave. and Saint Charles Road, several blocks south of the station. It serves as a replacement for the original Villa Avenue Station, which was built by the Chicago, Aurora, and Elgin Railroad in 1908 and has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1986.

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