I visited Villa park earlier this season when my team, Hull, lost 2-1. Result aside, it wasn't the best of days out. Before arriving, having never been before, we were looking forward to getting to the ground considering it used to stage FA Cup semi finals and always looked half decent on TV. Well, what a difference reality makes! Firstly, we were staggered that there was no drinking within the ground. I have never come across that before and I can only imagine it's an away end rule, but why? There was no signage alerting the fans that once they were inside the ground, that they wouldn't be served. So obviously, there were a few unhappy Tigers fans. Didn't think much to the concourse, very old school. Dark, small and very crowded with no relief of TV screens etc. We all had a chuckle that as the game kicked off, the stadium was half empty. We couldn't help but be axed when we looked between the stands across the road to see the Villa ticket office serving what looked to be a que of thousands - presumably for tickets to the game that was disappearing whilst they were que'ing. So the atmosphere inside didn't really pick up until villa scored their first. Even then they were very quiet. The only 2 upsides for me were that the view was good, and there was 1 steward near us that had good banter and made the defeat a bit easier to stomach. Ultimately, disappointed with the ground, facilities, atmosphere and that's why Iv only rated Villa Park a generous 2 stars.