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If you read my posts (is there an echo in here?) I acknowledge that many things have improved.

See above; you used pre-historic as a pejorative.

I know you were being glib. "Pre-historic football" has an implied connotation. That Ormsmirk dinosaur could shoot couldn't he?

I wonder whether we will see anything quite as wonderful as this example of pre-historic football at Goodison next week? I have my doubts. This idea, and it's fed by "best league in the world" mantra, that the quality of football has some how exponentially increased is nonsense. [i am posting from a mobile, so the embedding of Tony Morley may not work. If a friendly Mod could work the voodoo necessary to embed it, then that would be great]

I lot of people seem to have a hard time reading my posts and appear intent on deliberately misinterpreting them, despite the content explicitly stating something to the contrary. Stevo, I haven't said I am content on us slipping down the leagues. I am not sure how you have come to that conclusion. There are several different points of discussion going on here, but to crystallise the issue of increased commercial activity, my frustration with this is that it won't have the serious impact on our ability to compete. I say this because it is the investment that comes from owners in the first instance that makes the difference in reaching the holy grail of Misnomer League football, not the gate revenue or the number of supporters coming in the door, which flows as a consequence of the success attained. Man United are perhaps more unique than Chelsea, Man City or Arsenal, because they were very well supported prior to 1992 and Edwards saw the potential to exploit that before his contemporaries. Almost ten years of unfettered access to the increased revenues and exposure of Champions League created a perfect storm; now they have an official noodle sponsor. Bizarre. The others were able to pump a lot of cash, particularly in Chelsea and Man City's case, into squads to give them that access to the Golden Cow. Arsenal and Liverpool too, as they're able to reap the benefits financially of exploiting tourist dollars, far eastern markets etc, etc- they have the Champions League money which sets their revenues apart dramatically from others, this glitz attracts additional support nationally and globally, we then have the door bolted and sealed behind them with FFP so nobody can spoil the party for the select few. None of this is novel. If Randy were to buy the Villa in 2014, he wouldn't be allowed to put in four years worth of spending equivolent to what took place between 2006-10, because if we were lucky enough to bridge that gap, we would incur a pentalty which wipes out the benefit of the "achievement" in the first place. The system is so rigged, that clubs with significant home support like Newcastle and all the fun they put on with nice bars in and around the stadium, are in exactly the same boat as the likes of ourselves or Everton or Spurs; forever doomed to get as close as pushing your nose against the glass looking in and no further. That is a rotten state of affairs. There is a core of around 20-25,000 Villa fans who turn up at B6 no matter what, there are another 10-12,000 who go very regularly. We were capable of putting 10,000 on top of that for a time; whether that was because we were consistently finishing 6th or whether it was because we were expecting/hopeful that we might bridge the gap, who knows, but we didn't make them stick. They're in a bracket of football supporters that come for the game, not so much because it's Villa but who the Villa are playing, but them coming or not was irrelevant to where we finished. Us slipping down the league table was linked with the level of investment from the owner, the reasons for that not being relevant to this discussion. That's the same with Man City, Chelsea, Liverpool and to a lesser extent Arsenal. There is probably a correlation between treatment of supporters and the decrease in dependency of clubs upon the match going fan. I wouldn't mind finishing 6th again, but it's a bit sad that will be as good as it ever gets, while prices increase disproportionately to the quality of football on display. We're on the treadmill, so we have to keep going otherwise, as you say, we will likely be relegated and the same goes for a number of clubs outside of those capable of competing. Pity we have to pay so much for it and be inconvenienced as part of the bargain too.

Stevo, free brown fish with every half and half scarf sold. If anybody was at Old Trafford the year three off side goals won them the title and specifically at the front of the away end, then you'd share my antipathy towards them. I also fail to see how anybody who has visited Stamford Bridge over the years and seen the changes and spoken to the fans, new and old could disagree with my assessment of quite easily the most loathsome club in all of English football.

Your perogative. I haven't seen a counter narrative put forward to the core of my point and would be interested to know if the people who disagree with all I say look at the state of top flight English football and are happy with it.

I like your style Kingmam, but I feel like a trip to Goodison is more like; Absolute silence, HANDBALL! General whinging noise. Handball! Villa score against the run of play. Absolute silence. More absolute silence. HANDBALL! Increased general whinging. Villa have a corner, but you can't see this. Absolute silence. Everton equalise! Silence. Whinging. More whinging. The noise of Scousers moaning is getting in your nerves now. More whinging. Silence. Everton take the lead. "Everton, Everton, Everton!". Villa equalise immediately. Absolute silence. Whinging. Handball! Game ends. Everton have the worst support in the league by a mile. We have drawn 8 of the last 10 up there, lost 1 and won 1, losing 4 in 20 years. I back a draw, especially as they're about as good as defending as he Iraqi Army.

How dare you remove the right for people to jump to conclusions!

They didn't cover themselves in glory 6 years ago in Manchester either.

He didn't punch him, mores the pity. I am glad he has publically highlighted what a knob Mourinho's actions are. His comments about Fetgies followers is spot on too.

I don't see how your first point point suggests my analogy is incorrect. If you're undecided, then you're not a fan yet. In any event, the majority of match going adults now will have likely have had match going parents, the point being that there isn't often a great deal of choice in who you support. A case in point being Small Heath and their continued existence. In respect of your second paragraph, you're probably right, the only way of dealing with Brummie Reds is to pretend they don't exist and ignore them. They really are the lowest of the low. The problem is their consequence on the game; they make it more expensive because clubs know they can exploit loyalty by charging what they like, with there being a column of Sky zombies waiting in the wings to steal your seat. That is what keeps a lot of fans out of the game, it's too expensive and that is a symptom of modern football, no matter how much you try and laugh it off. I don't have a problem with the way Villa have the family fun days; they're clearly targeting a specific demographic and trying to make it easier for their parents to get their children excited about coming to the Villa; whatever you bribe them with in those early games is fine by me; face painting, sweets, swearing, it really doesn't take much to get the bug. That's what you want, fans who, money and time dependant, want to come and watch their local club when they can and provide support unconditional of success or lack of. That is a significant distinction. In terms of raising revenue, it all begs the question (and this is why the state of the English game in 2014 is so thoroughly depressing) of what are we competing for? We cannot compete for trophies on a consistent basis, with one or two aberrations, the same five or so sides have a monopoly on them only equalled in their strangle hold on the cash cow that is the Misnomer League. FFP has pulled the ladder up, so who wants to invest in that? That's what is so lamentable about modern football, and you can scoff at it as much as you want, I haven't seen a convincing argument otherwise, that families with a long history of attending games or people keen on getting down the football are priced out in the first instance and denied any genuine competition even when they can go to the games. The clubs are equally complicit in this deceit, we've talked about targeting the tourist supporter, but there is the bigger sham when you consider the vast quantities of money that has been poured into the game since 1992 and the overwhelming majority of it has been squandered on players of dubious quality who have stolen a living. We as Villa fans know this all too well. What is the solution? I feel the game is dead as a competition in England. It’s an expensive cartel and we're not invited to eat at the buffet; wage caps might level the playing field or Man United et al disappearing to go and play Real Madrid every week in a super league of sorts is another.

I wasn't aware we had been discussing anything. You could always provide your side of things in response to my previous post or not. What is it that you disagree with in either paragraph, specifically?

Being a Villa fan, or any football fan, is like being pregnant, you either are or you're not, regardless of how often you can get to a game. Unfortunately there is plenty of room for the Tim Lovejoy fans of today. I see them down at Stamford Bridge every season. 15 years ago I didn't, I saw them at Highbury or blocking the way north to Old Trafford on the M6.

I read the original post in the context of the re-thinking of the 39th game, so that instead of the additional game you would have one of the regular 38 games would be played abroad instead, this story breaking the same day as this thread opened. There is an inevitability about the eventual outcome of this and when taken in conjunction with the death knell to anybody breaching the boys club that FFP has established, on top of the recent visits to and from these grandees, leads me to the conclusion that football has slipped into a coma from which it's unlikely to awake. It annoys me, because the clubs were complicit with the selling of the game to Sky post 1992 and slowly but surely it's been eroded, with the match going fan, however frequent, marginalised; kick off times and the pricing of the game being perfect examples. Not everything post-1992 has been bad, football supporters now are merely exploited and sneered at by the Tim Lovejoy generation, rather than held in utter contempt by the Government and Police as was the case during the 1980s. Stadium facilities have improved and its encouraged more women and families to watch the sport than before, with away games being far less moody generally speaking. But it's all predicated on this lie that we're watching "the best league in the world", when its plainly not. If you want to encourage local children and their parents in the West Midlands or anywhere in the country for that matter, to go and watch their local club, then not pricing them out of the game would be a good start. Having family fun days with clowns and meeting the players (no jokes please) or whatever is fine. I only needed to be bribed with sweets for a few games to keep me going until I got the bug, but whatever works for them. This is quite separate though from the tourism culture that has clubs like Man United in particular's eyes rolling in their heads. It’s a symptom of success, rather than a cause, which is quite simply down to the revenues that these clubs generate in the Misnomer League in comparison to the rest of us left behind, now barred under the rules from blitzing our way into the club with lavish spending. We're told though, that this is what is necessary to maintain that "Best League in the World" nonsense. Somebody better wake up the Germans and tell them they've been getting it wrong all these years with their quality of football, packed grounds, cheap prices and fan inclusion.

People who buy 50/50 scarves for when we play sides like Arsenal or Man United who we have played over 50 times in the past twenty years, should be hanged with said scarves from the Upper Holte like the "where's the Holte End mate?" day tripping tourists they are. If that is too extreme, then they should be at least pelted with rotting fruit and laughed at for the sub-species they are. I would personally like to reach out to those fathers with sons and daughters from Birmingham or the Black Country and have them hooked into this rigged sport, rather than pander to some lunch box buying day tripper. Stevo, the problem we have is that there is really only a core of 25-30 thousand Villa fans who will turn up rain or shine. There are another 10 thousand floating who turn up dependant on the opposition. You look back over the Premier League years and the attendances have by and large reflected that, while going back to when we were the best side in England and subsequently Europe, you'd get massive swings from low to high attendances then. There are factors such as our home form being historically quite poor, but that is separate from what we're discussing. We're in agreement that ultimately, fans of clubs as big as ours are waiting to win the lottery so to speak and have the club bastardised into some vile brand; exchanging soul for silverwear, because there is no otherway. Clubs are businesses and will want to maximise profits, fine; sell more hot dogs, have more family fun days, wahtever, but even at the heart of any success is this corresossive dismissal of the real supporters of a football club. I provided an exmaple of Man United, the epitome of Brand FC. I don't actually hate them, I respected Fergie and although I couldn't abide our bi-annual defeats to them, I don't think they're anywhere near as bad as Chelsea… until you walk up to the ground and you see the coaches lined from all over the country (with the practical impact of making the M6 an absolute nightmare) whose support of Man United takes money away from their local clubs. You have people milling around their megastore lapping up all sorts of tat, while you walk across the rear of the South stand through the swell of day trippers from all over the world pressing to take pictures of the Best, Law and Charlton statue, while the stand itself is decked out with a giant poster of Rooney endorssing Turksih airlines or something equally as vulgar. Inside the ground its deathly silent, save for an epileptic fit enducing barage of camera flashes everytime a player takes a corner and then I remember why I hate them. But I also feel sorry for them. Their fans have been spoilt, no doubt. But I wonder if I were from that neck of the woods and I supported them, then I would have a season ticket and follow them home and away because they'd be my club. I would bloody love winning the title, but then as you'd turn to celebrate it, you see the man standing next to you is some gobshite from Surrey and it would sour iot, because I would come to a realisation. It would be because of people like him, that I would rarely see my club kick off at 3pm on a Saturday because for the 37 other games a season he doesn't go to, he wants to watch them on Sky and his wishes as a day tripping Johnny Come Lately count for more than mine as a loyal match going fan. It would be because of him that I would pay an absolute premium for tickets, because there are tens of thousands of his ilk that would swell into my seat if I vacated it. I would be penalised for my own teams success in match prices, which rise expenentially above inflation or wage increases. There is a reason Man United fans act with such forced boisterousness away from home; its because they share the antipathy for the day trippers who fill Old Trafford and they're keeping the away end sacrosanct. Some of them hated what the club has become so much they formed a new club. I expect those Chelsea fans who formed part of 9,000 who were there at Stamford Bridge against Coventry not so long ago may feel pretty similar. Yes, for a club as Mickey Mouse as Chelsea, what they have won is an absolute dream, but if it costs you £1500-1800 a year to watch the home games, effectively pricing the ordinary man out, then what’s the bloody point if you cant get into see it? As for Aston Villa, a lottery win by some human rights abusing soverign wealth fund or an oligarch would have allowed us to compete before the FFP allowed the other clubs to pull up the ladder behind them, and would have given us the chance to compete. With that option now out the window, our only hope is that some monsterous super league is created and the likes of Chelsea and Man United can disappear off into the night.

Nobody is given up, that is what is desperately sad about how the game has been destroyed. Putting petty tribalism aside, there are some big clubs in ourselves, Everton, Spurs, Newcastle in this league outside the monied 5. How many FA cup finals have that lot played in over the past ten years? How many leagues titles have they won? How many FA Cups? How many League Cups? You can count the answer on one hand, but that will be dismissed because there are two qualifications to the Misnomer League. The amount of organic hot dogs sold outside Villa Park or children's faces painted won't put Villa in a position to compete. Talking about fans who are consistently shat on by the game, willfuly sold to Sky, and dismissing their complaints that they're paying more money to watch a rigged sport, being messed around with kick off times (only one of our first 7 home games being a 3pm kick off) as being part of the problem is nonsense. Chelsea spent £90 million this summer, they'll do the same next. Man City, Man United, Liverpool and Arsenal all spent small African nations GDP. They'll do it again next year to keep the shop closed. That's an awful lot of tourists you'd need to flog lunch boxes to. The foreign game will eventually come to fruition. They will keep coming back for it, your loyalty be damned. It doesn't matter that you cannot afford to go or that one of the games your season ticket has paid for is now in Dubai or Hong Kong. They're only interested in protecting the "brand" of the "best league in the world" and chasing that tourist dollar. The day it happens is the day I will be able to do something else at noon on a Saturday, half five on a Saturday, half one on a Sunday, four o'clock on a Sunday, eight o'clock on a Monday or rarest of events, three o'clock on a Saturday.

You talk as if the solution is organic; you need a team backed by hydrocarbons of an oligarch or a sovereign wealth fund. The day trippers are the corrosive by product of that which gives clubs like Chelsea the ability to charge £55.00 a ticket for an away game or clubs like Arsenal who charge £1500 a season tickets, with support so gentrified they can't be bothered to turn up for every game. The game was bought and willfuly sold on the lie of the Premier League, to aid the national team they said, but the likes of Edwards at Man United saw the money to be made. The Misnomer League delivered the fatal, if not final blow. The game disappeared a long time ago. The Germans have some measure of it. You wouldn't be paying forty odd pounds to travel to a club of West Hams size that is for sure. The game has gone. When you have Scudamore's ugly head raising this foreign game malarkey again, you know what utter contempt genuine supporters are held in. Season ticket holder? Your game against Crystal Palace has been moved to Hong Kong. Can't afford it? Tough, you don't count.

http://youtu.be/3CeNJGMly28 If you lived till you're a hundred you won't see the Villa win the league. You can post all the witty, but ultimately meaningless, YouTube videos you like, it it won't change the fact that a club as big as Aston Villa will never compete at the top table again. It will keep getting more expensive though, you can be sure of that.

All that investment post 1992 and it's gone on bang average players. It won't do us any good.

I'd rather the Villa not pander to the one game, half and half scarf, kodak snapping tourist. I cannot see how any football fan can walk up to Old Trafford for example and not be sickened by the number of Tarquin tourists milling about, taking photos and buying lunch boxes and other assorted tat from the "mega store". Arsenal are another club packed full of Fever Pitch Nick Hornby types. Chelsea the embodiment of the Tarquin, while half of Oslo have season tickets at Anfield. Modern football is shite and the money spun out of the Johnny Come Lately's who infest "Premier League" games is what gives the likes of Scudamore the bear cheek to suggest a 39th game or as we've seen again today, one of the regular 38 league games played abroad. We don't need the tourists money, it won't make a jot of difference. The Misnomer League and the ladder pulling exercise of the FFP that has followed it has closed the shop.

I've never noticed the outside facilities at Citeh, but then I drink in town and walk past Mary D's, which looks like a small prison, and into the away end. I am not interested in seeing live bands or outside bars selling me official beers at £4.50 a go or any of that other half and half scraf sounding, post-1992 shite.

I wonder whether it will be he threat of the PKK kicking off again in Turkey which forces them to act regarding Kobane? Turkey might be buddies with IS, but the strategic ball ache of having them sat on their border, linking the northern flank up of IS, should be a bridge too far. The US has finally provided sustained support above Kobane to the YPG.

Sold out. 1800 down there on a week night, live on the box and at those prices is good going. Is that the full allocation down there in the Premier League? The ground only holds about 16,000 doesn't it? I remember years ago you'd get all behind the goal, but that may have been back when there was standing at Loftus Road.

With the political settlement on the issue in Westminster as it is, the only way we'd get involved in Syria now is if IS attacked Turkey, as article 5 of NATO would be invoked. It makes no sense to try and tackle IS, but not focus on the areas where they're strongest. There is a delicate balance from the west not wanting to up set the Turks regarding the Kurds, but its clear from Biden's comments at Harvard the other day what Obama et all think of our friends. The Turks in turn are playing they're own form of brinkmanship; they don't want IS to take such a strategic town, as the flow of men and material can come into Turkey, as well as out, but equally, somebody new getting stuck into the Kurds won't displease them and all of this is framed under getting rid of Assad.