Crowd congestion had delayed the start of Villa v Liverpool by an hour and 20 minutes to 9.05pm, a time when most fans expect a game to be heading towards its conclusion. The problem was caused by thousands queuing to pick up pre-booked tickets.
Doug Ellis, said. "We couldn't serve everyone in time for kick-off and there were something like 17,000 people trying to get into the ground at twenty to eight. In conjunction with the police, we decided to delay the start.''
Villa's media relations officer, Phil Mepham, added: "There were up to 6,000 tickets sold by Ticketmaster and it was decided because of the Christmas post not to put them out in the post."
However:
Paul Williams, a director of Ticketmaster, said there were only 1,300 tickets to be collected and "it isn't our fault", though thousands more were caught in the mayhem.
"It is a general policy at this time of year to ask fans to collect tickets and we were taken by surprise by so many people arriving together," a Villa spokesman said. "Clearly the situation will be looked at in the morning and questions asked."