While an open-top bus carried Aston Villa's Europa League-winning squad through the streets of Birmingham on Thursday, a minibus and 30 motorcycles rolled through a village in Ghana doing the same thing.
The village of Juaben, home to roughly 1,000 Villa supporters, organized its own celebration after Villa defeated Freiburg 3-0 on Wednesday in Istanbul to end a 30-year trophy drought, according to BBC Sport. The match was played at Besiktas Park, with goals from Youri Tielemans, Emi Buendia, and Morgan Rogers sealing the win for Unai Emery's side.
The Ghana Lions supporters' club is based in Juaben, and its leader, Owusu Boakye, described the mood in the village after the final whistle. "Yesterday was one of our best moments in life and what a time to support Aston Villa," Boakye told BBC Newsday.
The club's connection to Villa goes back generations. Boakye's grandfather Daniel once stayed with a Villa-supporting family from Birmingham and brought stories of the club back to Ghana. "When we were kids he used to tell us stories and history about Aston Villa," Boakye said. "He used to talk about a certain player called 'God'."
That player was defender Paul McGrath, who made more than 250 appearances for Villa between 1989 and 1996. McGrath was part of the Villa squad that won the 1996 League Cup, the club's most recent trophy before Wednesday's Europa League title.
For the younger generation of fans in Juaben, the wait for another piece of history stretched across their entire lives. "During 1982, when we won our first European Cup, most of the fans here yesterday, we were not born. We were waiting for our own history yesterday," Boakye said.
The parade through Juaben was designed to mirror what Villa's players were doing back in England. "We have hired 30 motorcycles so we can go around the whole community. We will go there to see how everybody is chanting, how everybody is feeling," Boakye said. "Today we are going to use our minibus like what Aston Villa will be doing today."
