What do we do about it?

[terrytini]

I just searched and see Mike Mckenna raised this a while ago..........apart from it being pretty dreadful some of the insults he got, what a negative response !!!  But more importantly, what a load of ill informed half guesses......what looks clear from that is that nobody KNOWS what would happen.  A lot of clever dicks saying 'pie in the sky' and all that does not an argument make ...

Also I wonder if times have changed. Back then people were worrying about how we'd finance player purchases and the like, and had fears we'd do no better than the Championship,...well, I've got news !!

So I guess the biggest question is, would you rather have control but be in League 1, or have Randy and be wherever that takes us ?

I know which I prefer but if I'm the only one we're stuck with him  !

At any rate, I will now PM Mike and alert him to the efforts I'm suggesting.

 

 

 

 

The most constructive was this ............(and this is pretty pessimistic !)...last line is the key !

 

 

 

"If you managed to get 50,000 people to poney up £3,000 a pop, you might get Lerner to take the £150m and run, but where would that leave the club? After buying it, suddenly there's less money than there was under Lerner. While it's easy to look at transfer fees and say Lerner has put **** all in, that's not true. There's the massive financial deficits we've been running up for the last 5 years - they'd need to be covered too. A £20m shortfall that season would see everyone need to pay over another £400 a pop, just to keep the club afloat. If we wanted to have any kind of money to spend on players, say £30m net, that's another £600 each - bringing it up to £4,000 per person. You wouldn't be getting a season ticket or anything like that for your money either, because that would cost the club more money, since they wouldn't be selling season tickets at all. Let's say the average price is £450 in the ground, and there's 35,000 season tickets, that's another £15,750,000 that the new owners have to make up (if they all got STs as part of the deal), which brings the figure up to £4,315 per person.

We don't have anything close to 50,000 supporters who would be willing to spend that kind of money on the club, it'd be closer to 10,000 if even that. That'd bump the price per person up to £21,575 per person, which would mean there'd be even less able to spend that kind of money... you'd probably be down to about 500 people if you were lucky, which would bump the price up again, this time to £431,500 per person. How many Villa fans could afford that? 25-50? Let's say it's 50. Because of the further reduction in people able to pay that kind of money, it then becomes £4,315,000 per person, and so on and so forth.

So, assuming then that you don't give a season ticket to any fans investing, the total money needed (if Lerner was feeling generous) to make a fan takeover happen, shore up any deficit and offer the manager money to spend, would be in the region of about £200m. If we used my incredibly flawed calculations and worked backwards, you'd have something like this

Willing and able to pay £4,315,000 as part of fan takeover - Approx 2 fans

Willing and able to pay £431,500 as part of fan takeover - Approx 50 fans

Willing and able to pay £21,575 as part of fan takeover - Approx 500 fans

Willing and able to pay £4,000 as part of fan takeover - Approx 10,000 fans

Total fans so far: 10,552

Total money so far: £80,992,500 - £119,001,500 short of what it'd take for this to work

If you put a price tag of £1,000 for anyone else willing to help out, you'd need another 119,002 people to be involved. We don't have that many supporters.

Lovely idea, but crippled by the harsh reality of the figures

There is no way on this earth that any club in the Championship is worth 150m. Lerner would have to take a hit and be lucky to get 60m for the club and that's from a fan buyout, an oil sheik or dodgy chicken farmer. That makes the figures a little more realisitic?"

 

 

Edited February 3, 2016 by terrytini

[terrytini]

Ha ha...just FULLY read the other threads.......Wish I'd checked first,,,and sorry Limpid, wont happen again !

.I see I have just wasted my time.  I will buy a piece of white cloth instead.(wow).................well I feel a lot less inclined to shout at Randy having read that almost the entire VT base thinks such a thing beyond us, or at best will mean lower League football.

No good moaning at Randy when he can use your own views against you!

It will have to be just me that buys him out then, off to save up.

So if I get this right, theres a few who think Randy is as good as it gets, a few who think we might get a zillionaire, and a whole load in the middle who are just complaining ?

 

[dont_do_it_doug.]

Personally not interested in owning a football club, particularly not one I love. 

[HanoiVillan]

2 hours ago, terrytini said:

Here is a copy of an e-mail I have just sent to Tom Fox.

 

Dear Mr Fox

This is a serious e-mail from a genuine supporter, I will forward all my personal details by return in order you can verify this.

We are all aware of the position of the Club, and the desire of the owner to sell.

As fans we are all asking each other what should we do about it.  Should we protest, go on 'strike', get behind the Team, what ?

The one proposal I am as yet unaware of is a genuine and credible effort by the fans to buy the Club.

It is my view that since this hasn't been explored fully, to my knowledge, there is no way of knowing if it could work.

As such, it seems that the idea should at least be explored, and I can think of no better way to begin a process foreign to me and most fans, than writing to you.

I would ask in the initial stage that you advise me of who it is that  I, or whoever begins looking into the feasibility of this, should make contact with. In other words, if I were a giant Corporation, where would I start, and is there any reason it is not the same place for a single fan ?

Thank you in anticipation of your assistance,

Regards
 

Are you perhaps hoping to publish this email, its response, and others like it in an amusing yet disposable non-fiction book of the sort that can be found next to the tills in a motorway service station branch of WH Smith's? 

[terrytini]

Are you so sure I can't afford to buy him out !

[PussEKatt]

20 hours ago, limpid said:

Are you volunteering to organise this?

I wish I could from over here,I see it as the only way to get the right message across to everyone.

[Stevo985]

9 hours ago, terrytini said:

Ha ha...just FULLY read the other threads.......Wish I'd checked first,,,and sorry Limpid, wont happen again !

.I see I have just wasted my time.  I will buy a piece of white cloth instead.(wow).................well I feel a lot less inclined to shout at Randy having read that almost the entire VT base thinks such a thing beyond us, or at best will mean lower League football.

No good moaning at Randy when he can use your own views against you!

It will have to be just me that buys him out then, off to save up.

So if I get this right, theres a few who think Randy is as good as it gets, a few who think we might get a zillionaire, and a whole load in the middle who are just complaining ?

 

Yeah, us fans who don't think it's feasible for us to buy the club are a right bunch of morons 

[KHV]

12 hours ago, dont_do_it_doug. said:

Personally not interested in owning a football club, particularly not one I love. 

I wouldn't mind owning a football club, but not one that loses money hand over fist which rules Aston Villa out!

[terrytini]

3 hours ago, Stevo985 said:

Yeah, us fans who don't think it's feasible for us to buy the club are a right bunch of morons 

I didn't say anything about intelligence, I said it was extremely negative, which kind of renders the vitriol poured at the guy who does own it as maybe a tad hypocritical. I also simply said there was a lot of assumptions made about why it couldn't work, without much factual input, which is true.

Although it doesn't alter the fact he is breaking his word by not selling us, nor that he has created the mess.

Anyway, the creation of disorder was the other suggestion, that IS possible, and won't cost anybody anything.

[Woodytom]

22 hours ago, thunderball said:

Get the message across on an unmissable bloody enormous white sheet so the board can see how pissed off we all are.

you won't miss much being under it.

What message do we need to get across that they don't already know?

 

[VillaChris]

The message currently is Lerner wants to sell at 150m.

Need to try stuff that makes him want to sell as quickly as possible and at a lower price.

[villa4europe]

Someone made a good point to me on Tuesday at West Ham, do a deal like modern day transfers, £75m upfront + 10% of the TV money for the next five years if we get promoted

I'm still holding on to the hope that someone sees us as a bargain in the championship

[benireduk]

Think we should support the team until we're officially relegated. Then I will completely boycott all games. That way we're already down so results are in a way irrelevant.

Imagine the impact an attendance of around 10k in the PL would have.

We've been embarrassed as fans over the past few years, lets embarrass our owner and board

[VillaChris]

I just can't see on what grounds he can demand the same price for a drop in division, just because he wants to isn't a good enough reason.

Surely he must realise the bloke/consortium coming in are going to have try to bankroll us to win promotion on a fifth (and that's a guess) of revenue streams we get now.

[Villarocker]

On 2/2/2016 at 10:53, Dante_Lockhart said:

What Would the Vikings Do?

WWVD

Oh what we would give for form stats of win, win, void, draw! 

[ozvillafan]

13 minutes ago, villarocker said:

Oh what we would give for form stats of win, win, void, draw! 

The "V" is for "Victory". Why is that different from a normal "W"? Because it will be against ManUre.

[hycus-flange]

On 2 February 2016 at 10:42, Richard said:

So we all seem to be pissed off ,  if not by our transfer window then certainly where we are as a club.  Some blame the manager,  some the players but in the main the board / owner/ chairman / ceo are the ones that ,  from this site at least,  are getting almost total blame.  A majority at least.

There are many ways in which people have suggested that this should be expressed to the club / the outside world in order for that focus to be brought onto the club.  There are also people who are saying "what's the point,  he wants to sell anyway so what more can he do".  But surely it is now beyond that?  Given the events that the club and its fan base have had to endure these last 5 years culminating in the non event of team strengthening this winter - for that is what the window should be about STRENGTHENING the team and god knows we need that strengthening be it for this season or beyond - surely now we as a collective need to take some action ,  move away from the comfort and safety of apathetic inactivity to the stage of persuading a seemingly (although I doubt to what extent) willing seller to become even more motivated to divorce himself from the club.  For him to extricate himself from B6 at greater speed and haste so that the club can try and rebuild itself,  can have a chance at not dying.  I know some will accuse of dramatic hyperbole but this is ,  I fear,  not the end of the bad times for us.  It is a journey to as yet untiold bad times whilst the owner and his current crop continue in post.  Continue in  their arrogant out of touch way.

So ,  without making this another thread where we bemoan our woes.  What do you suggest we do?

Stay away as many as already done ? - Not sure this matters a jot save for the fact that if we get less than 10K attendance it will highlight what we as a club have become and bring ridiculke from fans as Newcastle fans were ridiculed when their team languished in the lower division in the 80s.  

Protest - To what end?  It has to be a clear and concise message grabbing the attention of a willing media for they will be willing for a story this huge.  It cannot be just Lerner out.

Something else ? - banners ah the good old bed sheet?

What do you think? Surely with the collective intelligence and imagination of the fans of this website we can come up with a workable idea we can all get behind,  buy into and become a focus for the majority to be a sustained and consistent attempt at positive regime change?

I think everyone should chill out a bit, Villa stay up, Villa go down, the world keeps spinning, you still have bills to pay, families to love/miss, your health and the health of your loved ones to worry about, kids making you proud/annoyed, will you have a job next week/month/year, can't afford to put a proper meal on the table, and many many more things to worry about before letting a football team that you like spoil your life. 

Im sure the players drawing their massive wages every week couldn't give a shit where villa are next year, because they know they won't be any where near us.

we will still be turning out a team every week, what difference does it make what level it is at?

the only person to loose out here is the dopey owner who stands to loose millions more of his dad's money, and TBH I'm not going to let that worry me, I've got my own worries.

[Straggler]

Right I think I have the bones of a protest.

I think one of the biggest problems that we have is that almost all forms of protest are negative.  There are many forms of negativity in that some can affect the team, some impact on us going to games, some will be interpreted in a negative way by the media and others appear unachievable and make us look foolish as a fan base.

As such I have been thinking on a positive way to get our message across.  I also have a few prerequisites that are personal to me, but will help inform you about how I’m thinking.

Prerequisites

1. I am going to keep going to the games.  This season and next season and for the foreseeable future I will keep on going.  There are lots of reasons for this, based more around friends and family than they are about the club, but for me it needs to be a protest that includes me coming to the games.

2. I don’t do hate.  I’m a passionate fan, but wishing ill on people just isn’t my bag.  I’m not a religious man, but do un to others as you would have done un to you is how I try and live my live.

So how do we do a positive, wishy washy liberal, be nice to your fellow man protest at the game.  We do Randy a favour and help him sell the club.  Rather than wave white flags let’s hold up For Sale signs.  The premise behind this message is:

The decisions being made at the club have been a combination of baffling, counterproductive and incompetent.  I can’t help but feel the same inadequate performance has been delivered in our efforts to sell the club.  We may hear that good solid professionals have been hired to sell the Villa, but we have had good solid pros installed all over the club, if we are to believe the hype and I have serious doubts that the right people have been hired.

So let’s take the sale out of the hands of Randy’s hands and help him advertise our availability by doing the marketing for him.

By the way, I don’t seriously expect holding up for sale signs to actually result in finding a buyer, it is simply my way of finding a positive way of telling Randy to bugger off.  It’s not focused on the players, it is very hard to misinterpret (although I’m sure the press can manage it) and it is not us as fans telling a man who already wants out to leave.

[Woodytom]

19 hours ago, VillaChris said:

The message currently is Lerner wants to sell at 150m.

Need to try stuff that makes him want to sell as quickly as possible and at a lower price.

Not sure paying 35 quid into his pocket and holding up a banner is the way forward.

[Woodytom]

I think any protest that takes place in the grounds of villa park, on match day tells the world that those protesting aren't really that bothered about it.

What was that we did before. Not go and sit down for the first 9 minutes?