Outside of Villa Park...

[Stevo985]

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.

And if you don't have the backing of an oligarch?

We just give up?

"Nah, don't do that. I'm too old fashioned, let's do what we've always done"

Maybe increasing revenue but by bit don't solve our problems. But maybe it would make us look more attractive to a sheik or a bazillionaire?

I just don't buy this football had changed so I can't be arsed to try and keep up attitude.

[villa4europe]

Agree, I think somewhere between in here and the grealish wage discussion, the idea that we're aston villa why should we do what everyone else does and pander to to the ridiculousness of modern football... We're going to be further behind if we don't

Also agree that things like this will mk a us more attractive to potential buyers and to sponsors

Edited October 9, 2014 by villa4europe

[Ads]

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.

Edited October 9, 2014 by Ads

[Stevo985]

But nobody is saying that a few activites outside the ground will make us compete.

 

But maybe it will raise revenue and attendances a little bit?
And then we try something else out and that raises revenue a little bit.

And then something else similar and that raises revenue a bit.

 

Then all of a sudden you've got 5 or 6 new revenue streams and it's generating a bit of cash.

 

Is that enough to make us competitive moneywise with the big clubs? No.

 

But as I said, maybe someone will come along and think "This club are doing it right. It's a good club to buy"

As opposed to "This club are behind the times and aren't even trying. I'll buy someone else"

 

 

I hate that football is like this. I hate that the only way to succeed is to hang around and hope somebody rich buys us. But that's the way it is. Either we try things like this or we are too stubborn to try anything new. IMO the latter will see us continue to slide further and further.

Football won't change. You can moan about how unfair it is all you like. You're right, you won't find me or many others disagreeing. But it's not going to change the game. So you have to try and grow with it.

You sound like someone in their 30s sitting in the house all day not doing anything because you'll never be a millionaire and eventually you'll die.

Yeah you can wait around to die, or you can do something with your life.

 

That's us. We either try and make the most of what we have or we just lie down and let everyone else overtake us.

[Mic09]

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.

and maybe thats our mentality.

Personally, I would love kids from london to aske their dads to come to Birmingham for the weekend to watch us play and get a 50/50 scarf. Isnt that what is know as a 'PR win'?

[Morley_crosses_to_Withe]

It would be ridiculously negligible from a revenue perspective, and I doubt a circus in a car park is going to sway a multi billionaire's purchasing decision. Saying that, it would be okay to have, but over priced beer and gourmet pies would lead to wide spread moaning from large swathes of our fan base. The club could barely put £50 on a season ticket or 30p on a pie without drawing criticism.

This kind of thing is something, as Ads said, for the tourists. We're not successful enough to pull the floaters in and this alone isn't going to woo them. It's all well and good putting on a pre-match carnival on a Champions League evening or because you are competing for the glory seekers' filthy pound, but we are in neither category because we just don't and won't win anything.

[Stevo985]

But like I said, nobody is saying THIS one idea is the solution to all our problems.

 

But lots of small ideas like this could at least get the revenue moving upwards.

[Ads]

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.

Edited October 9, 2014 by Ads

[Morley_crosses_to_Withe]

But like I said, nobody is saying THIS one idea is the solution to all our problems.

But lots of small ideas like this could at least get the revenue moving upwards.

And as people went lengths to grumble about in the General's thread - an extra, say, £50 on a season ticket at 20,000 sales per season generates £1,000,000 a year in extra revenue, so why should the fans stretch an extra £50 each when it won't even cover a squad player's wages. That was the argument at the time. Whacking 50p on pies and pints so we can have a 'match day experience' won't wash with our fan base.

[Stevo985]

 

But like I said, nobody is saying THIS one idea is the solution to all our problems.

But lots of small ideas like this could at least get the revenue moving upwards.

And as people went lengths to grumble about in the General's thread - an extra, say, £50 on a season ticket at 20,000 sales per season generates £1,000,000 a year in extra revenue, so why should the fans stretch an extra £50 each when it won't even cover a squad player's wages. That was the argument at the time. Whacking 50p on pies and pints so we can have a 'match day experience' won't wash with our fan base.

 

But our current fan base isn't the problem.

 

Nobody is saying we have to increase the price of anything. It's about offering something extra that might attract new fans or stop current fans staying at home.

 

It's not making the things fans need more expensive. It's offering something fans want.

 

Nobody is going to force you to go to some match day experience. But if it attracts new fans then what's the harm?

I know Ads seems dead against attracting "tourist" fans, but like I said, we either attract new fans or we die. I know which I'd prefer.

[ismail-villa]

The North Stand needs a definite refurbish. Seeing the outside of it, it looks hideous tbf

[DelboyVilla]

But like I said, nobody is saying THIS one idea is the solution to all our problems.

 

But lots of small ideas like this could at least get the revenue moving upwards.

 

 

What about setting up some stocks and putting Lambo in them? I'd pay a couple of quid every home game to throw something at him??? LOL!

[briny_ear]

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,

It is too extreme. No-one wants to see calls for people to be hanged, even if it is just an ill-judged attempt at humour.

[Stevo985]

 

But like I said, nobody is saying THIS one idea is the solution to all our problems.

 

But lots of small ideas like this could at least get the revenue moving upwards.

 

 

What about setting up some stocks and putting Lambo in them? I'd pay a couple of quid every home game to throw something at him??? LOL!

 

Hilarious.

[villa4europe]

i dont see why those opposed to it are focusing on the match day experience of football tourists, what about the youngsters who come to 1/2 games a year and can spend years without watching us win? 

 

if it helped us keep young fans interested in supporting us then i dont see how anyone could complain, we certainly arent going to keep them interested with the majority of our home performances

 

the club should trial it on the family games or on acorns day

[kurtsimonw]

i dont see why those opposed to it are focusing on the match day experience of football tourists, what about the youngsters who come to 1/2 games a year and can spend years without watching us win? 

 

if it helped us keep young fans interested in supporting us then i dont see how anyone could complain, we certainly arent going to keep them interested with the majority of our home performances

 

the club should trial it on the family games or on acorns day

Yeah it's pretty narrow minded. Funny enough, it's the same people whining about these "tourists" that're complaining about how we'll never compete. I'd happily have 10,000 "tourists" at the game, every week. More cash for the club.

[Ingram85]

Why do you need to be plunged into supporting villa through thick and thin? Why can't you be the person that likes to turn up a few times a year and take a few photos, buy the scarf etc...?

Why do you have to go into it 100% and if you miss a game then you are out of some bull **** 'better fan' inner circle?

There is room for all types of fan surely?

[Ads]

i dont see why those opposed to it are focusing on the match day experience of football tourists, what about the youngsters who come to 1/2 games a year and can spend years without watching us win? 

 

if it helped us keep young fans interested in supporting us then i dont see how anyone could complain, we certainly arent going to keep them interested with the majority of our home performances

 

the club should trial it on the family games or on acorns day

 

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.

[Ads]

Why do you need to be plunged into supporting villa through thick and thin? Why can't you be the person that likes to turn up a few times a year and take a few photos, buy the scarf etc...?

Why do you have to go into it 100% and if you miss a game then you are out of some bull **** 'better fan' inner circle?

There is room for all types of fan surely?

 

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.

[villa4europe]

 

Why do you need to be plunged into supporting villa through thick and thin? Why can't you be the person that likes to turn up a few times a year and take a few photos, buy the scarf etc...?

Why do you have to go into it 100% and if you miss a game then you are out of some bull **** 'better fan' inner circle?

There is room for all types of fan surely?

 

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.

 

 

you're so far off im not sure its even worth trying to discuss it anymore