How Aston Villa’s viral kit video came together: Ozzy Osbourne, Geezer Butler, transfer trickery

By
James BAOUCH
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“Villa used to play Black Sabbath’s Paranoid as their walk-out music and that’s why we used it,” says Charlie Parker, creative director at Homeground, the creative agency Adidas entrusted with launching Aston Villa’s new home kit.

“Nowadays, the song is Crazy Train by Ozzy Osbourne. We reached out to Sabbath’s team and said we would like to use Paranoid and they said, ‘If you’re going use it, we would really like to be in it.’

“It was amazing. I went to Hollywood to see Ozzy and he was great. He is not as big a Villa fan as Geezer Butler but he was saying how he used to live closer to the stadium than Geezer. He was talking about how he used to get paid to wash people’s cars outside of Villa Park as a teenager.

“Deep down, I think Ozzy was doing it because he knew how much it would mean to Geezer. He told this amazing story about Sharon Osbourne’s dad being the manager of the Electric Light Orchestra (ELO). Geezer walked in one day and Ozzy was playing an ELO vinyl. Geezer went mental and said, ‘You can’t play that because they’re Blue Noses, Birmingham fans’.”

Seven days on, the video launching Villa’s 2024-25 home kit has racked up 4.3million views on X. In the first three days, it was watched 6.5million times on Instagram, surpassing other Adidas teams including Manchester United (4.8m), Newcastle United (3.7m) and Arsenal (1.7m), all of whom had already launched their home kit.

The kit announcement has earned wide recognition and praise. Innovative and sharp-witted, it is intrinsically Villa and is sprinkled with stardust thanks to Black Sabbath frontman Osbourne and guitarist Butler, the 75-year-olds who have sold more than 75million records worldwide with one of the most impactful heavy metal bands of all time.

The video starts with Osbourne, sitting in the new home shirt, calling Butler and insisting they played at Villa Park together. In the shot, Osbourne has his dog, Bugzy, next to him.

“There was a pitch to us from Homeground, which we finessed before I took it to Sabbath’s team,” says Neil McSteen, an agent at Create Artists Agency (CAA), who coordinated the partnership between Black Sabbath and Homeground. “It was Ozzy and Sharon’s idea to put their dog in the Villa kit.”

Intricate, knowing flourishes only a hardened Villa supporter would recognise then followed, with a fan praying to a picture of Paul McGrath — known as ‘God’ in his playing days — a group of men and women practising Unai Emery’s high line and a male supporter, who was among the several Midlands-based actors Homeground hired from a casting agency, inside the Villa Park changing rooms with the players.

“We needed to pay homage to the long-standing fans,” says Parker. “We had little detailed references in the film, such as the traffic cones as a reference to the fancy dress of away fans. Dressing up as traffic cones had become a folklore thing.

“Then we had bandanas, which was the cult story about Savo Milosevic and when he wore the bandana for the first game and Aston Villa printed loads of them for his debut. He never wore it again after that. Then you see Tony Daley, who is now a personal trainer and we did a quick shot of him doing sit-ups. We call them the ‘Easter eggs’ — those little things only you can spot.”

The finer nuances of the film were helped, in part, by Parker’s fellow creative director Jonny Marsh, one of two Villa supporters who work at Homeground, a company of 15 full-time staff. Marsh led on the subtle references that would appeal to the fanbase.

“We would read and research a lot but there were more clues that didn’t make the cut,” Parker says. “But when you get something that helps your reach globally with Black Sabbath, it helps the video travel. They show what Birmingham can do, where working-class heroes become rock stars.”

Villa’s first kit launch under Adidas has been an undoubted triumph, despite the controversy that led to the agreement after the club broke out of their previous kit manufacturing contract with Castore. Villa stated “thousands” of supporters turned up on the day the shirt was revealed, queuing around the stadium to get into the Holte Store. This contributed to Villa’s highest-ever opening day of home kit sales, in-person and online.

“We were approached on May 13,” says McSteen.”Sabbath and their team got it (the idea) straight away. They’ve always been Villa, especially Geezer. From the Villa badge he wore on the cover of Sabotage to his Aston Villa bass guitar — the only words he said when Sabbath were inducted at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame were, ‘Up The Villa’. The best thing about this project was seeing Geezer and Oz talking like old mates.”

When music and football collide

Adidas is among Homeground’s main clients and was tasked to lead the creative process. Homeground had worked on several of Adidas’ kit launches, including Arsenal’s first collaboration with the German company in 2019. It has done the photography for Villa’s upcoming away and third kits.

“When Adidas got the partnership with Villa, we got a little nod and a wink to say something exciting is coming our way,” says Parker. “Then we went through the usual process of establishing what the angle would be. Kit launches are special. We wanted a theme or a story. When you’ve got a sleeping giant like Villa, we were lucky they gave us the storylines because of what they achieved last season.

“Our first work with Villa was the Adidas partnership announcement where we did the crest with the Adidas logo and came up with the ‘Prepared’ motto. That was in February but because Villa terminated the deal with Castore (Adidas was only confirmed in May), we had to do things really late because we weren’t allowed to legally shoot anything.”

Homeground and director, Jake Erland storyboarded the initial outline of the film but, due to the late and staggered filming, the project faced logistical challenges. 

“You never know how the clients are going to react so we had backup plans, but Villa were on board with everything,” says Parker, who filmed first-team players at the start of May, before they went on holiday and the transfer window opened and Villa extremely active in the market. “We had scenes that we had to cut, due to the time we shot them.”

Osbourne was filmed at the start of July, while Homeground only managed to shoot Emery and Butler two weeks before the kit announcement.

“It was very unusual and there was pressure,” says Parker. “It was tricky. With Unai, he had gone on holiday and we knew we had to get him on the film. When we shot Geezer, he said he wanted to be as close to the football as he could, so we took him to Bodymoor Heath, Villa’s training ground.

“He is a global rockstar who had played with the Foo Fighters a few weeks before at Villa Park and he said that was his dream. When he walked into Bodymoor, he got his wife to take a photo of him in the boardroom.

“He was reminiscing about Villa winning the European Cup in the 1980s. He told us he was listening to the match in a phone box while on tour in America. He had called a roadie and made him hold the radio to the phone. Where we filmed, he was overlooking the gym and all the players were coming back for pre-season. He was in awe watching them.”

In true homage to Villa’s partnership with Adidas, Osbourne shouts, “Sharon! Where’s my Preds?” His Predator boots, as it turns out, are on the feet of an older woman sitting at a local bus stop. It is witty, full of verve and indicative of a turbo-charged video that, Parker says, had been trimmed from three minutes to one minute and eight seconds to ensure it maintained “energy and spirit”. The final cut was quickly approved by Osbourne and his team.

“We wanted the idea of Ozzy shouting ‘Sharon!’ as he did in The Osbournes reality doc, as we felt it would be extremely funny,” laughs Parker. “I had to explain to him what ‘Preds’ were. Then he said it was all good and he just did it. Him and Sharon were so easy to work with.

“Ozzy wanted a small crew of about five of us. It was a 48-hour round trip to his house in Hollywood and back. I was the only one from the agency. Sharon insisted we put Bugzy in a shirt and got him in the video. It was an hour shooting and Ozzy was an absolute pro. He brought little bits and flavour. I was fortunate to talk to him and Sharon after for half an hour and they were reminiscing about when they lived near Villa Park, how important football is to the city and how much Geezer loves Villa.”

The video ends with fans, former players, Butler and Osbourne shouting, “Up the Villa!” before a closing shot of Emery and a young girl, Atalia, holding the shirt.

“We got Atalia from a modelling agency,” says Parker. “We tried to get as many local people as possible and Atalia and her uncle are massive Villa fans. On the day of the shirt launch, a screen was playing the video next to the queue. There is a great photo of Atalia holding the shirt her uncle had just bought, with the video in the background of her and Emery.”

The video intertwined the localness and history of Villa while capturing broader attention through its creativity and star power, aptly reflecting the club’s new-found Champions League standing. Villa is renowned for its celebrity supporters in the likes of Prince Willian and Tom Hanks but in Osbourne and Butler, who grew up in the Aston area, Parker felt they were best inclined to resonate.

“Birmingham is a place built on industry and Villa Park is like that,” he says. “That’s why the atmosphere is electric and why Villa are so good at home. Villa fans have this distinct grit and we needed to give it the justice it deserved. Adidas is our client and two giants met. The fans know that because this is the fastest-selling kit in Aston Villa’s history.”

(Photos: Homeground/Aston Villa; top graphic design: Eamonn Dalton for The Athletic)



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