When Aston Villa did a US tour in the States in 2012, they stopped off in Philadelphia to play a friendly against the Union. As part of the festivities for that match, some fans were invited to see an open training session, meet a few of the players, and then a group of us were able to go onto the field at Subaru (then PPL) Park to play against a group of Union supporters. The Villa side, however, got a ringer: Ian Taylor, who scored for Villa in the 1996 League Cup Final, and has since worked for the club as an ambassador, played in midfield. He did his very best, but we were by and large older, slower and less coherent as a team than the Union lads, and the scoreline showed that.

In the first half I tried to hero ball it from left back, bypassing a wide-open Tayls in midfield, and Philly broke off of that turnover to score. I saved some face with a goal-saving slide tackle in the second half that Taylor said was "tackle of the night."