Getting shirty...

Martin O'Neill, if nothing else, is a good talker. (My own personal view is that he "is" something else).

The one question he never answers? "Why do you wear 31 as your squad number?- I understand there is a story behind it and you have always said you woud reveal all one day", I ask again.

"I will tell you", he jests. "One day."

It's amazing the value a reporter can get from a manager after a good win.

But it was more the following four hours yesterday that taught me more about everyday life at Villa.

For one, I was interested to see that Randy Lerner's number two Paul Faulkner seems to be spending more and more time at the club these days.

I'd been asked by a friend of a friend (Jayne who is an old schoolfriend of my wife's to be precise) to become an autograph hunter for the first time in 20-odd years.

I'd been asked to get a Villa shirt signed by the manager and a few players. I hate doing it. I feel embarassed, if the truth be known. But it was for a good cause.

I'd not asked anyone for their autograph, to my memory, since running towards Laurie Cunningham when he was a Leicester City player.

I always remember, around the early 1980s, walking up to the Tottenham team coach after a game and asking then boss Keith Burkinshaw he could pass my book to Ossie Ardiles at the back of the coach.

"Who do you think I am?", said Keith. "A bloody porter?"

I never got the Argentinian to scribble.

Then there was the time I asked Bobby Charlton and Ron Atkinson. Bobby obliged. Ron made me hold his big pink handkerchief as he signed. I kept thinking, as a kid would, that it was used.

Anyway, I digress. Here I am at Bodymoor with the shirt, waiting in the reception area from 10.30am until just before 2pm, propped up by the reception desk, Sky Sports News on the Tv and watching the world go by.

Christine, the receptionist, has just come back from Rio with her grandson. Patrik Berger takes a great interest in her holiday and says the place has been "lost" without her. That makes her day.

John Carew is very approachable and down to earth. In his wet-suit.

Thomas Sorensen wonders by searching for a post-it note. Never quite seen eye to eye with Thomas.

One by one the players troop through...Olof Mellberg is happy to take a phone call from a journalist. Olof's daughter is fine months older than my eldest. I remember chatting to him all those years ago about fatherhood. Now he has two and myself three. Time flies.

Ashley Young, Gabby Agbonlahor, Stiliyan Petrov, Wilfred Bouma (I tell him he will be signing a sheet of paper soon ( a contract), perhaps- which raises a smile but no gossip), Zat Knight, Martin Laursen, Stuart Taylor, Curtis Davies- out of plaster but still on crutches- Moustapha Salifou, Scott Carson, Craig Gardner, Isiah Osbourne, Shaun Maloney...all put marker to claret.

Even the coaching staff: John Robertson, Steve Walford, Kevin MacDonald are happy to sign.

Marlon Harewood and Wayne Routledge escape. But not to worry. I have more than enough, especially when Gareth Barry, whom I remember as a shy teenager ten years ago doing his first interviews, finally emerges from the canteen when he hears from programme editor Rob Bishop that I am waiting downstairs.

Rob has turned up to interview Salifou for the programme and he will use the expert French translation of Lorna McLelland, the club's welfare officer, to get some colour into the piece.

His trips to Bodymoor usually coincide with lunch time, for some reason, I know not why.