IT WAS three years to the day since Aston Villa had been humbled at Valley Parade.

Fittingly, one of the City “history makers” of 2012-13 was on media duty.

But Kyel Reid’s role in that famous Capital One Cup semi-final had been purely a watching one; an injured spectator on the sidelines as the drama unfolded.

Reid’s groin injury, sustained three months before at Rochdale, had stopped him facing Wigan and Arsenal as well.

And while he made the bench at Wembley, there was no opportunity to strut the hallowed turf once Matt Duke’s red card forced a substitution rethink.

By last season, he was a Preston player as City seized the giant-killing headlines once more by toppling Chelsea and Sunderland on the way to the FA Cup quarter-finals.

No wonder, Reid is now hungry to make a fresh mark on the club’s well-established knock-out reputation.

But as they eye a place in the last 32 again by winning next week’s replay with Bury, the winger can feel that he helped build the foundations for the exploits that followed.

Remember Watford away in August 2012?

Few gave City a prayer away to a Championship side 47 places above them – especially when the home side broke the deadlock 15 minutes from time.

But Reid came off the bench to hammer them level with five minutes left. And then, deep in stoppage time, his cross dropped for Garry Thompson to lash home a shock winner.

The rest, as they say, is history.

“The gaffer said he was going to rest me that night,” recalled Reid. “But in my head I was thinking ‘I really want to play’.

“I knew when I came on how much I wanted to do my bit. It worked out brilliantly because I got the equaliser and then put in the cross for Thommo.

“Looking back now, that win at Watford was what kick-started us off. But it got forgotten a bit.

“Watching (the later rounds) was frustrating because I wanted to be a part of it.

“But those games probably did come a bit too soon for me. I’d had quite a bad groin injury and I wasn’t 100 per cent right at that time.

“The team did very well. It was a great squad who worked so hard – but I think the one we have now has got so much more ability.

“When you look round the league, we’ve got to fancy ourselves massively with the players the gaffer has brought in.

“We are one of the big clubs at this level. With the way the league’s going, I still think we’ve got a great chance of achieving something big.”

Before Bury part two, City host struggling Oldham on Saturday as they look to regain some ground in the play-off race.

It will be their first game at Valley Parade since December 6 – and kick off a run of four at home in a fortnight.

Reid added: “That works in our favour. When you’ve got 17,000-18,000 behind us it’s a bonus and that’s probably where we play our best form of football.

“We just need to get back to winning ways. Take the last two league results out of it and focus on what we were doing before with the long unbeaten run.

“We’ve got to focus on the basics and listening to what the management want us to do. They spend a lot of hours analysing the teams we’re playing and we need to take that information on board.

“We had that momentum and then Boxing Day and the home game before that got cancelled.

“We couldn’t even train properly because of the weather. We had two days when we had to use the heart-rate belts, it’s not the same as coming in and getting the legs going properly.

“You can’t make excuses because obviously it’s happened but I think it did affect our rhythm. But we need to get back to that now.

“This club means a lot to me and it’s a tremendous feeling to be part of it for the rest of the season.

“Who knows what history we can make this year with the squad that we’ve got.”