{"id":285527,"date":"2025-07-23T15:33:15","date_gmt":"2025-07-23T15:33:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/285527\/"},"modified":"2025-07-23T15:33:15","modified_gmt":"2025-07-23T15:33:15","slug":"ozzy-osbourne-fans-remember-birmingham-star-who-was-a-big-part-of-our-lives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/285527\/","title":{"rendered":"Ozzy Osbourne fans remember Birmingham star who was \u2018a big part of our lives\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

The heavy metal vocalist, who was diagnosed with Parkinson\u2019s disease in 2019, died at the age of 76 on Tuesday morning surrounded by his family.<\/p>\n

Christine Turner, from the Hodge Hill area of Birmingham, wore her Aston Villa football shirt to pay tribute to Osbourne at the Black Sabbath mural in the city.<\/p>\n

\"OzzyFloral tributes are left by the Sabbath Wall on Navigation Street in Birmingham (Jacob King\/PA)<\/p>\n

She said her father was a childhood friend of the rock star and they used to play football together in Lodge Road, where they grew up.<\/p>\n

She told the PA news agency: \u201cHe has been a big part of our lives, my dad was childhood best mates with him, so I\u2019ve come up to pay my respects.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked how she felt when she heard he had died, she said: \u201cShocked. I think deep in our hearts we knew it was coming, but it was still a shock last night.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was supposed to have done the washing last night but it didn\u2019t get done after I found out at about quarter past seven.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was upset, tears were shed last night.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"OzzyFloral tributes are left on the Black Sabbath Bridge bench on Broad Street in Birmingham (Jacob King\/PA)<\/p>\n

Jimmy Smith, from Bristol, who was in the city to visit the Ozzy Osbourne exhibition at Birmingham Museum, stopped at the scene on Wednesday morning to pay his respects.<\/p>\n

He told PA: \u201cI did like Ozzy, I saw him a few times back in the day. It was quite sad yesterday (when he died), but with the concert at Villa Park a few weeks back, I had a feeling it was coming. It felt like his final bow.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was up here a few weeks ago for the Iron Maiden concert so I knew the mural was here, so I thought I would come and have a look, and I\u2019ll also go to the Black Sabbath bridge before going to the museum.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two Black Sabbath fans from King\u2019s Norton jumped on a train to visit the mural of the band in Birmingham to pay their respects to Osbourne following his death.<\/p>\n

Megan and Mia, who did not want to give their surnames, said they wished they had been able to go to Osbourne\u2019s last show at Villa Park on July 5.<\/p>\n

\"OzzyTributes left outside The Crown public house in Birmingham (Jacob King\/PA)<\/p>\n

Megan said: \u201cIt was really sad and heart-breaking (to hear he had died), I think I was expecting it to happen soon but not that quick.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked how it felt to visit the mural after Ozzy\u2019s death, Mia said: \u201cIt\u2019s surreal but it\u2019s nice that people have put flowers out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mia added that she believed the next Aston Villa football game would be \u201ceven more packed than usual\u201d in Osbourne\u2019s memory.<\/p>\n

She said: \u201cI know there will be some form of respects paid to him at the game, definitely.\u201d<\/p>\n

Osbourne played a final farewell concert in front of a home crowd at Villa Park earlier in the month.<\/p>\n

Black Sabbath were the last to appear on stage as part of a star-studded line-up for the Back To The Beginning concert that took place not far from the Crown pub where they played their first gig in 1968.<\/p>\n

\"OzzyBlack Sabbath\u2019s first manager Jim Simpson views the floral tributes left on the Black Sabbath Bridge bench on Broad Street in Birmingham (Jacob King\/PA)<\/p>\n

Also paying his respects was Black Sabbath\u2019s first manager, Jim Simpson, who spoke on Broad Street, where dozens of fans had gathered to pay tribute to the rock legend.<\/p>\n

When asked how he felt when he heard the news Osbourne had died, Mr Simpson said: \u201cDeep sadness, but no surprise, because it\u2019s been on the cards for quite a long time.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe even said beforehand that he expected to die on the stage at the July the fifth show at Villa Park. The world\u2019s lost an inordinately nice, balanced, human being.\u201d<\/p>\n

Referencing the amount of people who had turned up to pay tribute to Osbourne following his death, he said: \u201cThe fact is, there are people here who are 80 years of age or eight years of age and all stages in between and it shows he had a remarkable way of contacting people.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has been 55 years and still (Black Sabbath) are more popular than ever.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is remarkable and they have all done a great job and they should be proud of themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

Black Sabbath, comprised of vocalist Osbourne, drummer Bill Ward, guitarist Tony Iommi, and bassist Terence \u201cGeezer\u201d Butler, formed in 1968 and were credited with shaping the heavy metal genre.<\/p>\n

The group were inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame in 2006 and Osbourne was added for a second time, as a solo artist, last year.<\/p>\n

In the noughties he featured in MTV series The Osbournes, which followed the lives of him, his wife Sharon and two of their children, Kelly and Jack.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The heavy metal vocalist, who was diagnosed with Parkinson\u2019s disease in 2019, died at the age of 76…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":285528,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7820],"tags":[855,748,393,4884,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-285527","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-birmingham","8":"tag-birmingham","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114903279987680270","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285527\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}