brommy

18 minutes ago, Steero113 said:

Closed mate.

Err... I think with his new Villa contract freshly signed, Pau could afford to get Brean Sands Pontins reopened for a week or two! Whatever his good lady wants!

1 hour ago, gaz90 said:

Backed up by big Fabby Romano

 

If Pau's on honeymoon it's clearly at Villa Park (see photographic evidence above) so why would he then need to travel to England?

Romano is as clueless as Villareport!

22 minutes ago, villarule123 said:

So is the walkthrough from the Academy building to VP still happening?

In advance of any new news from today, my assumption would be - no if we don't get Euro 28; probably yes if we do.

It's all linked with the redevelopment of Witton Station, which this evening was mentioned to be government financed upon the award on Euro 28.

Access directly from both station platforms and the academy to the new North Stand, via a 2 minute walk along Station Road away from the longer walk and traffic of Witton Road, makes so much sense.

2 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

I doubt very much it'll tell us anything like that - this is a step in a process for a revised planning permission - the club presents their revised plans to stakeholders like the local community and they have a chance to raise any objections - if there are no objections, the club submits the revised planning proposal and says a public consultation was carried out and there were no objections - it's just that, there won't be any announcements.

Hopefully it goes smoothly and we can then see the plans when they are submitted to the Birmingham planning website.

 

Can we assume the changes consulted with the local community will be fairly big or an increase rather than a decrease in size and/or capacity from the already consulted and approved plans? I can't see why the club would need to consult very little change or for example, a reduction in size and/or capacity.  They'll be no complaints from local residents saying 'hang on, the roof was planned to be 32m high but it's only 29m'.

I also realise it could be to gauge local concerns to the stadium expansion without the improved access and expansion to the station and without the Villa Live facilities.

10 minutes ago, villabromsgrove said:

"Public consultation Wednesday"

We're not hanging about now are we. There seems some real urgency behind the scenes as NSWE push this project.

I suppose it depends on what the consultation tells us. It won't seem so urgent if the news is the club is delaying and/or scaling back the size of the expansion or formally announcing it won't proceed at all if the UK isn't hosting Euro 28.

4 minutes ago, TheMightyVillans said:

No monchi content today? Hopefully too busy sweet talking ferran torres

Monchi will start on Monday morning. No advantage to paying him time and a half today or double time for tomorrow.

1 hour ago, Woody1000 said:

That is basically me, except I wish my hair was still it’s natural colour!

Stop dying it then. Embrace your inner Schofield!

1 hour ago, sidcow said:

Your dream maybe. Not the dream for 95% though.  Villa Park is sacred and rightly revered throughout football.

I agree it would be a large majority in favour of staying at Villa Park. I suppose the vote result would depend what the alternative offered, but my guess would be at least 80% in favour of staying at Villa Park. Perhaps under 40s around 60-70% and over 40s above 90%.

I'd only consider a move if it was selfishly advantageous to my Villa family. We're all settled around the Lickey Hills area so a 60k+ stadium in Longbridge, with the M5 and M42 access nearby, direct and frequent train services from Lichfield, Sutton, Birmingham and Redditch and then build a new tram line from Birmingham city centre along the A38 through Selly Oak and Northfield, could possibly turn my head!

42 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

True - but the planning permission for this stand has been improved with the transport situation "as is" - other than the experience of fans attending, there's no transport reason for them not to go ahead.

I wouldn't be surprised to see it start in July 2024.

 

I agree.

I'll only be worried about the expansion going ahead if - the UK and Ireland doesn't win the Euro 28 bid (to be announced in September?) and work hasn't started in time to complete by May 28. In theory, that could be as late as May 2026.

3 hours ago, Demitri_C said:

They are aaying it wasnt suicide  and that she fell in. How did she fall in? I dont get it? 

All dogging aside, did you see how steep the river bank was? Very steep and she was wearing a calf length heavy coat that would restrict leg movement when trying to swim.

15 hours ago, Hank Scorpio said:

Luton got promoted and hes been vital to them. Anything less than £10m and we've been mugged off

Would you rather keep him and turn down £5m+? What's the cheapest you'd sell Marv for?

5 minutes ago, useless said:

Antoine Thompson has been named Operations Director at our academy in Gloucester, he was Head of Academy operations at Reading last season, and previous to that was Academy Director at Cheltenham.

 

We have an academy in Gloucester?

46 minutes ago, Captain_Townsend said:

Just occurred to me: our new stand is contingent on the station upgrade, the station upgrade is contingent on Birmingham being a host city for the Euros and Birmingham being a host city for the Euros  is contingent on us building a new stand?

Are we actually in a bit of a bind here?

Only if the UK and Ireland don't win the bid to host, which will based on the proposed capacity of 50k, as they'll trust it will be completed before 2028. We should find out in September, but if Turkey win the bid, it won't be because of Villa Park and its adjacent station.

Whilst Villa want their fans to be able to access the stadium without excessive hassle, I expect they'll be more focused on the extra income the increased capacity and vastly larger hospitality will bring. If the station expansion/increased access isn't finished, it'll be the council getting it in the neck from local residents complaining.

If the UK and Ireland get the tournament, I'll be surprised if the expansion and station isn't completed. If we don't host the tournament, Villa will still want to expand but we'll see how bothered the council are about the station. Hopefully the council aren't so small minded to refuse investment in their own city infrastructure. Birmingham has already fallen behind some smaller cities in that regard.

1 minute ago, VillaJ100 said:

*Villa fans in the shires etc*

Born in Selly Oak hospital and lived close by for 22 years, the past 3 decades has seen me just the other side of the Lickey Hills at around 2 miles from the Birmingham border. Still closer to Birmingham than many parts of Solihull are though.

1 hour ago, blunther said:

Surprised at that - went to the train station after the gig and the queue for the platform back towards town/barnt green was as far as the eye can see. Way worse than a matchday, and I'd be surprised if most of the crowd even managed to get on a train ebfore they stopped running. You must have got out quick!

I think it ended about 22:55 but because we were in the Lower Holte we were out of the large exit doors and then out near The Holte Pub within 5 minutes. A brisk walk to Aston station, arriving at 23:08 and walked straight up on to the southbound platform. Unfortunately we'd missed the last Redditch train (23:02 - sod's law it was on time!) towards Barnt Green so we got the 23:12 to Longbridge and got an Uber to Barnt Green which was obviously much cheaper than getting a taxi from central Birmingham.

My biggest issue is why don't Birmingham Council (who will have approved the concert and be welcoming the extra 'tourist' money coming in to the region) liaise with West Midlands Passenger Transport Executive to extend the latest train services when there's mass people events on in the city. There's no bottle neck at New Street at midnight so another half a dozen Lichfield to Redditch line and Birmingham to Walsall line trains would have avoided any overcrowding that my wife and I had obviously just missed.

If anyone thinks more late trains just isn't the sort of thing that can be done, I worked on the train and tram network in Manchester from 2010 to 2021 and every Parklife festival at Heaton Park had extra services arranged, including trams that ran through the whole night.

4 hours ago, The Fun Factory said:

Not a great look for Villa all of these problems coming from the concerts last week. For many of us sounds all too familiar!

It seems like there were more albeit minor issues for Springsteen but I can only speak from the experience of sitting in the Lower Holte for the pink concert. Apart from the unexpected queue arrangement (tickets were shown at the entrance to the Holte End car park but then not required again as the large Holte End exit doors were wide open making it feel open plan to the area behind the Holte), and a 10 minute queue for beers on a very warm night, I was very proud of how Villa Park looked and performed.

My wife and I caught the train from Barnt Green to/from Aston with no waiting or overcrowding so I suspect the traffic delays were caused by not enough people using public transport.

Birmingham Council want the large scale events to increase the status of the city and bring in external money to the city. Last week should a reminder to the Council that they need to invest in better transportation and traffic management. Increasing trains to the incredibly close Witton station (especially when the underpass to Station Road is completed) should be a high priority, no matter how tricky it could be at New Street.

6 minutes ago, TRO said:

and the 3 Villa, might have been Blues......I thought Rubery/Longbridge/ Northfield was Blues territory.

Not a single blose shirt in sight but perhaps the Villa shirts were being worn ironically!

It feels like NSWE have really spotted the potential of the stage we're currently at. If we don't achieve reliable CL status within the next few years, it won't be for not trying.

If only Ellis and Lerner had put so much thought and investment into our staff structure when we were knocking on the door of fourth under Little and MoN. Nevermind, here's to our NSWE future!

Edited to correct the owner - manager timeline!

A small sample size - I was at a barbers in Rubery for 20 minutes on Saturday morning. 4 football shirts were spotted passing on the high street. I'm pleased to say 3 were Villa (including a circa 1988 Hummel Mita Copiers home shirt) but the fourth was a lad in a man citeh shirt. I'm assuming it would have been a manu shirt around a decade ago.

11 minutes ago, AshVilla said:

I wonder if we can go for any of the targets he had lined up for Sevilla prior to him joining or if it will be stipulated in his exit deal from them that we can't.

Will be interesting.

That could be difficult to enforce as it would be difficult to prove Villa weren't already interested in the same player(s) prior to Monchi switching to us.

1 hour ago, alreadyexists said:

DHUTWU?

MONCHI MAGIC!

1 hour ago, AshVilla said:

I wouldn't pay more than 20m.

I expect Leicester will believe Barnes adds more value than £20m in their attempt to return to riches of the Premier League. Unless Barnes refuses to play in the Championship, I'd be very surprised if they accept less than £30m.

1 hour ago, thabucks said:

Anyone  know if there’s a chance that they could tweak the design to add an extra couple of thousand seats or would that need a whole new planning application. Could they raise the roof a few metres or tweak the flanks? The new Anfield Road stand is a similar design and will seat circa 16k… 

I don't imagine the club will significantly change the designs to accommodate a couple of thousand extra seats. The next phase exactly doubles the current North Stand capacity of 6537 to 13074 with another 636 added to the Trinity and 235 added to the D.E. via the wraparound of the lower tiers. I guess where the new North Stands ends and the Trinity or D.E. begins on the lower tiers is dictated by which stand the seats are accessed from.

If you count all the new seats as added capacity of the new North Stand work, it's capacity is 13945. Villa made a decision to keep some of the existing character of Villa Park by not doing a complete wraparound design and not enclosing the upper tier connections to the Trinity and D.E.. This has probably reduced the feasible capacity by a couple of thousand.

Cons -

Reduced potential income (assuming the success of the team means we fill those couple of thousand seats above the proposed 50k.

Pros -

Lower construction cost;

Maintains more of the Villa Park identify;

No awkward looking angles as the profile of the new North meets the differing profiles of the upper Trinity and D.E. stands (this is unavoidable for the lower wraparound);

Slightly lower transport access concerns.

40 minutes ago, Captain_Townsend said:

I am beginning to think they have over complicated this by planning on incorporating new dressing rooms, moving the tunnel etc. This has no doubt made the stand a more complex project and will also involve a lot of reconfiguration of the Trinity- our newest stand.

I would ne inclined to just get a new stand up and then figure out the Witton Lane.

That would be a catalogue of missed opportunities.

Villa have obviously identified what the possibilities are and will tackle the issues at the first and best opportunity. It might add 5% or 10% and another month or two but on a project costing £100m+, probably over a two year timeline, it's very little pain for long term gain.

Not doing it in the next phase, people would be looking back in a decade's time and saying - these facilities could have been so much better - why didn't they do it when the North Stand was rebuilt around 2025? Now the costs are even higher and Villa have missed out on a decade of improved facilities and income.