As it’s revealed that Ozzfest will come to Villa Park Stadium, let’s remember the far less famous football team that Ozzy had an interest in – a Sunday League boozer team in Great Barr.
15:30, 15 Mar 2026
Garry and Ozzy(Image: Garry Raybould)
Ozzy Osbourne’s relationship with Aston Villa is a well-told tale: the Black Sabbath singer was born and raised in the shadow of Villa Park Stadium and his final Back To The Beginning show was held on its pitch weeks before he died.
His coffin was carried from the club and into town afterwards, to where fans were waiting to say goodbye. Many of those same fans will be champing at the bit to get tickets for Ozzfest, the long-dormant music festival that Sharon Osbourne promised would be returning with two 2027 dates up the Villa.
But there is another Birmingham football club that Ozzy once backed, a failing Sunday League pub team in Perry Barr.
Read more: The unbelievable true origin story of Black Sabbath Bridge and the Birmingham debt that started it
If you read our story about Garry Raybould, the heavy metal fan who played an intrinsic role in security Ozzy’s legacy on Broad Street, you’ll have read about his tenacity and determination to honour the founding father of the genre that put Birmingham on the map.
But what we didn’t tell you then was the support that Ozzy and Sharon gave to Garry way before there was ever a Birmingham Walk of Stars.
Before a Black Sabbath Bench appeared on Broad Street, the heavy metal family had turned their attention to the fan who had dedicated so much of his life to celebrating their patriarch.
At the height of their global MTV success, The Osbournes had an eye on the Birmingham fans, and they were bankrolling Garry’s down-on-its-luck Sunday League Great Barr boozer football team!
Council worker Garry had joined The Boars Head lads in 2004 to try and reclaim some of himself after being in heightened dad-mode with the arrival of his three sons Luke, Jake and Lewis.
He stepped up to the role of gaffer in 2006 when the boss didn’t show up for a game and, on a long and disheartening run of losses, he set about trying to change their fate the only way he knew how: By harnessing the power of heavy metal!
“We lost every game, we were useless,” Garry admits. “But the camaraderie of it was great.”
Hearing there was a BRMB campaign to get Ozzy the Freedom of the City of Birmingham, Garry printed ‘FREE OZZY’ on the team’s kit by way of supporting the cause.
“I had to convince my team, who had never heard his music, to wear them!” he said. “I said, it’s a big thing for me. We hadn’t won a game in a season and a half.
“My brother in law Garry Fisher was my assistant manager. You have to have someone to believe in you, and that was Garry. He supported it and we went out, and we won!
“I said ‘it’s these magical shirts!'”
Ozzy Powered FC(Image: Garry Raybould)
The team carried on winning, and while BRMB promoted their success, the campaign soon lost momentum. Garry didn’t give up.
“I rang up the Lord Mayor’s office and said ‘is he in?'”
The Boars Head team showed up to the Council House in their kit and tried to get buy in. It was a no, and Birmingham Mail continued to report on the team’s efforts.
In his determination to celebrate Ozzy, Garry pushed to get Black Sabbath stars on what would eventually become the Broad Street Walk of Stars. You can read about that in full here, including the trip he took to Los Angeles to convince Ozzy to come and claim one in person.
It was on that trip that he told Ozzy’s team about his football team, and how their new sense of purpose had inspired brilliance on the pitch.
Not long after, Garry said that a member of Sharon Osbourne’s team contacted him to find out more about the team, inviting him to London on his 40th birthday to see The Sharon Osbourne chat show filming.
“She said ‘do you want us to sponsor you?’ so I said yes. You’re not going to say no, are you?
“They offered to design us a new badge and kit with ‘never say die’ on the back and they paid to print these beautiful embroidered kits.
“That’s when we decided to change the name to Ozzy Powered Football Club! And they bought us a minibus with the new name written all over it!
“I had to go and sit in the crusty boardroom to formally change the name. They didn’t believe we were sponsored by Ozzy Osbourne!”
Garry said that they ‘rinsed the life’ out of their newfound fame. “We were a backstreet football team now sponsored by a rock god!”
Ozzy Powered FC manager Garry Raybould with team members James Butler Aaron Blackwood, Richard Bamber, Steven Curly, Dave Hodgitts, Lewis Raybould and Dave Buckle.
They put posters up all over the city and began attracting interest from semi-professional footballers who wanted to be in Ozzy’s team. They had no money to pay, but the footballers kept coming.
“We were just regular Joes and we kept them, but we got better players. Scott Cormell had played for Aston Villa reserves.
“We won every game. Three cups in one season. I got a call in the middle of the night and it was MTV. They reported it in America, that Ozzy’s team was winning.”
Over time the team got larger than life. Heavy metal fans would show up to watch them in droves on a Sunday and the lads were getting shout-outs from DJs in night clubs.
“Our pitch was covered. We made hats, scarves, we had a guy turn up as the grim reaper who’d stand behind the net pointing a scythe at the opposition’s goalies.”
As part of their newfound fame, Garry bought reindeer harnesses and eight of the lads pulled the Ozzy Powered FC mini bus from the star’s childhood home in Lodge Road, Aston, to Broad Street, blasting Black Sabbath and raising more than £5,000 for Children In Need.
“We pulled that van across Aston, over Newtown traffic lights!”
Matches with 10 Ozzy Powered goals from a single player sent them into the stratosphere. Garry would drive to work in the minibus.
“We were doing quite well, we were in the FA Cup of our league. We used to play at the back of Alexander Stadium, at the back of the Church Tavern pub.
“We pulled a team from Coventry who were about six or eight divisions above us. We go down to play them on a Sunday morning and this big posh coach pulls up and lads get off it in suits with their girlfriends and families.
“They thought they were playing at Alexander Stadium. They thought we were playing there and we did get changed in there, but then we had to walk across a dog crap-infested walk to the actual pitch!”
After three more seasons, the excitement died down and the team disbanded, the lads carrying on with their lives. But Garry’s love for Ozzy and Sabbath continued.
“I didn’t want the story to end,” Garry said. “We all kept our shirts and have them in frames.”
Garry took his to Black Sabbath Bridge when Ozzy’s funeral cortege came, hanging it over the barriers outside O Bar to show support for the family that had supported him.
Garry on Broad Street the day Ozzy’s funeral procession passed(Image: Garry Raybould)
“You don’t have to know people to do things,” Garry said. “I’ve always said it. I was 13 when I found Sabbath and I needed something to grasp on to. It infected my body!
“It was absolute madness, the whole thing. We enjoyed it so much, pulling the bus and all the games.
“But all that madness?” he says, remembering Ozzy and all of his chaotic, headline-making caper. “That all came from madness!”