chrissmith921

General,

I've heard a rumour today (must stress it is only a rumour) and that is Villa Park is one of only 2 stadia being used for the 2012 Olympics (the other being Wembley)? Can you shed any light on this? (if it's been said elsewhere then please ignore me!).

Another rumour is that by 2010 Villa Park will be a 60,000 seater stadium, building above the Doug Ellis Stand and North Stand. Again, can you shed any light on this?

Sorry to be posting rumours and it's usually not my style but nevertheless, I did find them interesting from someone who said they had a tour around VP yesterday.

(if it's common knowledge then again, please ignore me...I've been away for a while :oops:).

Thanks.

I know for a fact they're using the Millennium Stadium, so cant be one of just two...

General Krulak here:

1. BELIEVE ME, I have heard you. I have communicated directly with Randy and he hears you too! My sense is that every owner in the Premiership is also hearing from their fans...the difference is that I have read your comments and passed them directly to Randy. First and foremost, Randy is not a money-grubbing foreigner who doesn't care about his Club. He, like me, loves England, loves English Football, and loves Aston Villa Football Club (I think he has shown that time and again). He would not do something that would hurt his Club or English Football. Part of "exploring" is to see and hear the feedback coming our way...we have certainly got that. I would ask one thing...trust Randy. He will not do anything that will hurt AVFC.

General, I appreciate the difficult spot this puts you (and the board) in - I can forsee that we will have the powers-that-be insisting we play abroad, and I feel it'll be you on here who gets the flack for it.

However, I believe it would be ridiculous of the club not to explore this, from purely a financial point of view. A lot of us have followed Villa for a long time - certainly pre-1995 when the big Sky cash came in (I know the deal was 1992, but 1995/6 saw the first massive bucks arrive) and remember a time when football was not so much governed by the money as it is now.

If it becomes that important to the club to play a game in China, to earn us 10 times the gate receipts that we would have had at home, please consider the price that long term, it will bring.

I can safely say I will never, ever return to Villa Park if this goes ahead, I will still support and love the club, but I will not be financially supporting it (buy purchasing merchandise, organising buses to the games for others in my area, buying tickets etc...) because it goes completely against everything I follow football for.

I hope to god that this decision isn't being rushed through and there is an opt-out clause available, because although Man Utd, Arsenal, etc will continue to fill their grounds, sell their shirts etc, we will not. We're not big enough, we don't have the global fanbase or recognition and the loyal fan base we do have will walk away, that I'm certain of.

I will certainly become a full time supporter of Bridgend Town (Welsh Div 1 - a side who pay their players in beer tokens) should this happen.

But General, I know you and Randy will do everything you can for the club, and will do whats right, but I urge you to understand what damage this will do.

Welsh Premier.

Tubby - on your point NO. This is not a thread for discussion between posters. it is for Q&A and comments for General Krulak. Please respect the site guidelines on this. Thanks. Blandy

General,

Can I say that your comment 9 shows you know more about football transfers than many of the users on here. I think people get annoyed because there is this single window to purchase players (as before 2003 - I think it was 2003 - clubs werent held by these windows, could buy right up until March 31, when there would be a window until end of the season) and they believe we should spend everything we have to buy for the sake of buying.

Keep up the good work, some people are never happy.

Hey General.

Me again. Just wondering if the club has thought of some kind of loyalty bonus to all those who renew there season tickets each year. Maybe a free tour of the ground, or free shirt printing like they did a few years back.

Things like this annoy me - you're getting tickets at a damn cheap rate, why get freebies too?

I worked for Bridgend Rugby for a while and during that time, our marketing staff had the 'great' idea of a free shirt with every season ticket.

It cost us tens of thousands, and thats with a small supporter base. The club is still a business...

Organ donation should be mandatory IMO, you should not be able to opt out. When your dead your valuable organs which can save LIVES!!! are either going to be worm food or burnt. What a waste.

Or if you're of a certain, rare tissue type, perhaps doctors may take less care over making sure you survive your RTA to save 10 others with your liver, kidneys etc?

If you want a conspiracy theory - thats one right there!

Joe Cole - the lad is an idiot.

as i am 15 and i do piss people of mainly teachers because school is so shit and depressing and a lot hrder now adays than it was say 30 years ago this has a affect on me and people of my age also other reasons

School is harder??

Are you sure??

Not the case - now schools have to hit targets, so teach kids to pass exams, rather than to learn the subject. In my case alone, my Art teachers did my coursework (worth 85% of the course) and my French teacher held cards for me to read off in my Oral exam - the school had a history of straight A*'s at Art and they didnt want to lose this, plus the French dept were struggling and needed to pull up their numbers.

What they did was wrong, but I really don't care - they did that to pull up their own departments scores, rather than help me. If they'd been that bothered, they'd have taught me the subject, rather than teaching to targets.

My father is a headmaster, has been a science teacher all his working life, in some of the worst funded valley schools there are - and he agrees that the teaching has changed to teach for the stats than for the pupil's benefit.

your right you can;t be but people have certain abilities which are clear so why push them down a route they woud never do

We know future football stars can be spotted at 6

the same goes that you know very early whetehr a kid has an appitude for say maths

I would totally scrap the national cirrculuim and devise indivudual learning based on ability

however in this country people are very hung up on the number of qualifiations

it is obvious for example that to be a doctor you need to be excellent at science, wo why then ask a prospective doctor to say do art ?

That would suggest that a child's future could be chosen for him/her by the time they are 10 years old (or even younger?)

A proof of why that shouldnt happen I can apply to my 13 year old brother - until he was 8/9 he was awful at 'maths' (I refuse to call colouring in circles maths...) but he will be taking his GCSE this year - he's in year 9...

By your theory, he would have been removed from following the maths/science route despite now it being clear he is very strong (in comparison to classmates) at these subjects?

Maybe a one-off case, but you can't say there arent more like that?

Throw away your television - Chili Peppers

O'Neill was raised by several on one of their forums, and they seem to think of him as a 'possibility'.

O'Leary.

Cheers

Is there usually space there?

General,

Another nice gesture with the 2000 tickets at £10 for Birmingham City Council workers.

On top of all the other ticket offers this last 18 months I am sure 99.9% of fans are very appreciative.

I'd be even more appreciative if they offered free tickets to computer programmers from South Wales!

Anyway back to my main point - obviously the roads around Villa Park are completely out of Villa's control, so can spend upto an hour queuing to try to get out of the area, ultimately, I aim to leave when the 4th official holds the board up with remaining time - as I have a 2 1/2 hour drive afterwards so those 3-4 minutes save me an hour usually.

My point is, as others obviously do the same thing, it means many are left in and around the ground after the game - is there anything the club can do to help with the traffic situation in the area after games? Park and Ride, deals with the train companies that people with match tickets or season tickets travel for free on trains to Witton, etc etc..

I'm not alone in people who leave early to avoid the traffic - but I wonder if theres an opportunity for some brownie points in terms of PR here?

Thanks for taking the time to read this

Chris

Regarding Ticket Prices..

Surely nocking say £5 of each ticket would of made so much differance. Plus they would of made there money back by food and drinks sold during the game surely?

Id rather have a full house and villa making the money through the catering etc, rather than a empty ground.

To be quite honest it wouldnt have made any difference whatsoever.

If someone wont pay £32 they wont pay £27.

You'd have to drop it a ridiculous amount (£15 or so per ticket) before anything like that would have gone on.

You only have to listen to 606/talkSport to know that Spurs fans are the worst for this.

Newcastle are very, very close mind you.

lets get ready to rumbleeeeeeeeeeee

What would have happened if the other guy had drawn the 'missing' ball?

No way a conspiracy, nohthing in it in my mind.

My worry would be with that, David (having worked in Rugby League ticketing etc) you find that people get a bit angry having paid full price when others get it cheaper by leaving it late.

I would suggest the inverse of what you've said there (keep the Aston Postcode idea...) but reward those who bought their tickets a month before... etc. It allows the club to know as well what revenue they have.

WHO IS THE STIG???????????????????

A bloke called Ben Collins, apparently.

Google it.

Would they be willing to pay Liverpool the huge amount it would cost to get him though?

Of course, any nation on earth would miss a player like Giggs, he was a once-in-a-generation player and respected the world over (even the Czechs, on his final game brought a 'We'll miss you too Ryan' banner) - Giggsy was the last of our golden generation of 1992/94/96/98 to retire from his country but I think what we've lost with Giggs we've gained with a similar style to when Everton lost Rooney - pulls everyone together and fight for the cause.

Having Gareth Bale, who in my opinion is the best left back in the country by an absolute mile, coming through in a 3-5-1-1 system we play does mean the loss of Giggs doesnt have the impact it would if say Sam Ricketts (Hull) was our next option...

Fair enough Chris, and well put. I honestly didn't realise there was a sense of optimism around the Welsh setup. I thought the thinking over there was that Toshack was achieving precious little and that life after Giggs was going to be hard.

If you are saying that I am in fact way off the mark and that Wales are going in the right direction then that makes it 5 out of 5 - i.e. 5 out of 5 countries who would have genuine reasons to want to have a 'home internationals' tournament next summer.

Thinking about it now, it'd be silly NOT to have one

There are some supporters here who are unhappy with Toshack, but they are the same fans who chanted 'Hughes out' after we drew with Finland and thus finished 2nd, rather than top, of our Euro2004 qualifier. Savage goes around creating unrest but where in the beginning he was backed by the sizable majority of fans, he is now ridiculed to the point that they've replaced the Bart Simpson p*ssing on an England flag t-shirts with him p*ssing on Savage.

Toshack has completed stage 1 - hes cleared out everyone who used Wales games as a free holiday. Those being - Savage, Thatcher, Page, Hartson and a few others who barely featured. People have criticised this but in doing so he's put a marker on the squad, youngsters are getting games for their country and we're playing good stuff. The crowds are higher than they were under similar results under Hughes, Gould and even Yorath (our most successful recent manager) and he actually has a better wins:games ratio than any of those as well.

There are people who aren't happy, but as above those are the people who somehow believe that we should be qualifying with ease etc.

The side we are developing now is our best since 1992, when we were 13th in the world, with Rush, Saunders, Hughes, Giggs, Southall etc. I have no doubt that whoever we draw to qualify for World Cup 2010 we'll still be in with a shout with 2 games to go.