 By the outbreak of the Second World War, Aston Villa were back in the top-flight of English football.Their Aston Villa reserves (or seconds) team enlisted in the army and were captured at the Dunkirk evacuation in June 1940.In December in an Eastern German camp, a German Guard regiment challenged British prisoners of war to a game of football; the guards were being defeated 27–0 when they stopped the game, only then learning these prisoners were Aston Villa's second team.