StanBalaban Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 @Chewie @sexbelowsound Would it work if the banner used an image as the backdrop, instead of a claret pattern? Something like this (just for illustrative purposes) Nitpicking I know, so apologies gents and feel free to ignore. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
useless Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 Villa's demise. "Coming soon". 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dont_do_it_doug. Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 @Chewie @sexbelowsound Would it work if the banner used an image as the backdrop, instead of a claret pattern? Something like this (just for illustrative purposes) Nitpicking I know, so apologies gents and feel free to ignore. I love it as a stand alone. It also shows the "place". I have no issue with the amount of claret generally FYI. It's a beautiful colour, particularly when mixed with a certain shade of blue as a secondary 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 18 minutes ago, sexbelowsound said: Right, I've put together a brief timeline. Any suggestions, inaccuracies, updates or revisions? 2006 Ellis Sells - Cleveland Browns owner Randy Lerner buys the club and Martin O'Neill replaces David O'Leary as manager. 2007 A New Era - Under the banner of "Proud History, Bright Future" The Aston Villa logo is updated by the owner to further emphasise the start of a new era. 2009 Big Spenders – In the summer of 2009 the club were amongst the biggest spenders in Europe but once again narrowly missed out on a Champions League spot. 2010 Summer Sales - Following the sale of Gareth Barry in 2009, O'Neill was once again faced with selling one of his prize assets. This time James Milner left for Manchester City with Stephen Ireland coming in the other direction. 2010 O'Neill Departs - Following three back-to-back 6th place finishes O'Neill leaves 5 days before the start of the new season. Lerner states that the two "No longer share a common view as to how to move the club forward". Enter Gerard Houllier. 2011 Troubling Times - With the club battling against relegation and struggling to adapt to the backroom changes, Randy Lerner breaks the club transfer record by bringing in Darren Bent from Sunderland for close to £24 million. 2011 McLeish Arrives - Houllier leaves due to ill health and amidst protests from the fans Alex McLeish is appointed following a relegation season with Birmingham City. 2011 Cut Backs Start – During McLeish’s first transfer window the club were again selling its star assets. Cut backs had begun and McLeish was now tasked with cutting the wage bill and working to a tight budget. Despite these cut backs numerous players were purchased and placed on large contracts. 2012 Relegation Battle - After a 16th place finish and only 4 home wins Alex McLeish is replaced by Norwich manager Paul Lambert. Lambert is given the same remit as McLeish but pressed even further to drastically cut costs. 2014 - Up For Sale - After years of cost cutting owner Randy Lerner announce that he has put the club up for sale with a valuation _______ placed on the club. 2015 - Brighter Times? - Following 3 back-to-back relegation battles Paul Lambert is replaced by Tim Sherwood who guides the club to an FA Cup final. In spite of this Sherwood only lasts 8 months in the job. 2015 - Garde Arrives – With the club winless since the start of the season French manager Remi Garde takes over. I like this, but maybe it doesn't spell out our troubles enough . . . maybe there needs to a line along the lines of, 'over these last five years, the club has a net spend of just £__m pounds.' Or similar. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AVTuco Posted February 21, 2016 VT Supporter Share Posted February 21, 2016 1 hour ago, HanoiVillan said: I've taken the liberty of re-drafting the Mission Statement. In particular, I've taken on board the criticism by @Davkaus, @sexbelowsound and others that the initial statement didn't propose any actions the club could take. However, the naming of actions is controversial - everyone has a different opinion. Therefore, I have kept our 'demands' to general statements that I believe few real fans would actually disagree with. I have annotated the Statement, explaining certain decisions I made when drafting it: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mission Statement We are asking fans to consider walking out of the home games against Everton (March 1st) and Chelsea (March ?) on the 74th minute of the match. [1] We are asking the club, and especially the owner, Randy Lerner, to engage sincerely with the fans rather than acting as an absentee landlord. [2] He has shown, throughout the last five years, that he has lost interest in this football club. He has been content to finance the club with the ambition of finishing 17th in the Premier League, and in the process has run the organisation poorly. This protest is not about one season of relegation; this protest is the result of cumulative frustration about the misdirection of the club that his built up amongst the fans over the last five years. [3] We are asking the club to do the following: [4] Investigate without fear or favour the mismanagement of the last five years; Create a real line of dialogue with supporters; Prepare and share a real, actionable plan to return to the heights this club should be achieving, and share that plan with supporters; Invest in the playing squad and the infrastructure to a level appropriate for a top-half Premier League team. [5] Aston Villa Football Club is 142 years old. The supporters of this fine club have stayed with her through thick and thin, and we will be there in the future. We have created this protest to demonstrate the strength of our feelings about the misdirection of the club under our absentee landlord. [6] The fans should be taken for granted no longer. We respectfully ask fans to consider supporting our protest by vacating their seats on the 74th minute of the Everton and Chelsea home games. [7] Villa till we die! / Up The Villa [8] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] Firstly, it's important to say - without bloviating - exactly what the protest is. This is contained in a separate paragraph for clarity. Many people won't actually read much further than this; it is vital to get straight to the point in this kind of writing. [2] Many people on here dislike Tom Fox, Steve Hollis, Remi Garde and others. But I think it's important not to mention them by name. Firstly because many fans won't have heard of them* (it's easy to forget that we on here are 'high-information supporters') and secondly because some people do seem to think they're doing good jobs. The good thing about Randy Lerner is firstly, everyone knows who he is, and secondly, everyone thinks he sucks. [3] One of the criticisms likely to be leveled at this protest is that it's a petulant response to being relegated. It's important to head that off at the pass by reminding readers that we've been terrible for years, and this isn't a spoiled over-reaction. [4] I think an itemised, bullet-pointed list of general actions that everyone can agree on is beneficial. [5] Asking for more money may be controversial - I think it's obvious we want more money, and so we might as well admit it upfront, but some people find asking for money to be crass. A judgment call is required here. [6] It's good to repeat key phrases so that they stay with the reader. In this case I chose to repeat 'misdirection of the club' (surely nobody disagrees with that) and 'absentee landlord' (nobody likes them). [7] Repeat what we want people to do, in case anyone has forgotten while reading. [8] Choose only one, obviously. *not Garde, obvs. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Obviously I understand if people don't want to use this Mission Statement. However, if you intend to adapt the mission statement on the previous page, some general style recommendations: AVOID too much flowery language - it was noticeable that one early reaction was it was 'wordy' - we're not writing poetry (I'm thinking of phrases like 'end of our tether' and 'bubbling over') AVOID mentioning redundancies. While they suck, this is about more than people losing their jobs, and in any case redundancies are arguably sound financial planning in the case of relegation. AVOID the phrase 'false narratives'. This phrase was first introduced by Tom Fox. It's important to avoid repeating your opponent's key points. We don't need to get into an argument about 'whose narrative is false'. Instead, we simply make our case - don't acknowledge any others. AVOID mentioning Liverpool. We don't want anyone to confuse our protest with theirs, which was about something else. And we're going to be criticised for copying them; too bad. We have to accept that criticism when it comes. But there's no need to give naysayers a talking point. I think this is very good HanoiVillan, excellent job like all you others have done aswell. If I may offer a couple comments, here they are: 1. Do we want to use the word "landlord"? 2. ...to finishing 17th... => merely to stay in the Premier League 3. A bullet point list is great, and four items are not too many. However, I'm not sure if we should start with the investigation, is that the main issue? I would swap that as last bullet point. Opening up a dialogue could be the first one, it's very realistic for them to do. Also, third bullet point has "and share" twice, the first one could be deleted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sexbelowsound Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 2 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said: I like this, but maybe it doesn't spell out our troubles enough . . . maybe there needs to a line along the lines of, 'over these last five years, the club has a net spend of just £__m pounds.' Or similar. Agree completely. @Chewie wanted an infographic and this might need to be just one element of it. The issue is do we have or know anyone who honestly knows the clear facts and figures? There are many elements to infographics that can be done, I just need the correct info because without it the whole concept falls down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeMcKenna Posted February 21, 2016 Author VT Supporter Share Posted February 21, 2016 3 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said: I like this, but maybe it doesn't spell out our troubles enough . . . maybe there needs to a line along the lines of, 'over these last five years, the club has a net spend of just £__m pounds.' Or similar. Are we/should we be ending with? 2016 Currently facing relegation for first time ever from Premier League 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sexbelowsound Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 22 minutes ago, StanBalaban said: @Chewie @sexbelowsound Would it work if the banner used an image as the backdrop, instead of a claret pattern? Something like this (just for illustrative purposes) Nitpicking I know, so apologies gents and feel free to ignore. I'm happy to try that for the website. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 2 minutes ago, AVTuco said: I think this is very good HanoiVillan, excellent job like all you others have done aswell. If I may offer a couple comments, here they are: 1. Do we want to use the word "landlord"? 2. ...to finishing 17th... => merely to stay in the Premier League 3. A bullet point list is great, and four items are not too many. However, I'm not sure if we should start with the investigation, is that the main issue? I would swap that as last bullet point. Opening up a dialogue could be the first one, it's very realistic for them to do. Also, third bullet point has "and share" twice, the first one could be deleted. Good points: 1] I see your point. We could use 'absentee owner' instead. 2] I think 'finishing 17th' has a stronger rhetorical impact. Whether it's exactly true is beside the point. They have certainly been satisfied with 17th anyway. I want to get the idea of 'minimum possible' across. 3] I agree, maybe investigation could be last and opening a dialogue first. And I agree about 'and share' too. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeMcKenna Posted February 21, 2016 Author VT Supporter Share Posted February 21, 2016 6 minutes ago, sexbelowsound said: I'm happy to try that for the website. Really like this - would it be an idea to have claret lion in top left and top right with text 1874 below crest? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StanBalaban Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 4 minutes ago, MikeMcKenna said: Really like this - would it be an idea to have claret lion in top left and top right with text 1874 below crest? Here's the image in it's original format FYI Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sexbelowsound Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 Just now, MikeMcKenna said: Really like this - would it be an idea to have claret lion in top left and top right with text 1874 below crest? I think the issue is its going to start to get very messy. Claret on top of that photo is going to be barely visible. If i'm honest I don't really like it that much, text on top of photos requires a good quality photograph and the one used above is very low in resolution. I'm happy to try and find one that could work but the reason I went with the claret background is because I couldn't find an image that fit the criteria. Anyone got any good photos of Villa Park that fits the message? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 1 hour ago, Chewie said: @HanoiVillan I think your changes to the Mission Statement have merit, but I also think that the original version wants to double up as an open letter as sorts. We plan to have an abridged video statement to go on the main page, hopefully at some point tomorrow. @DK82 is going to work on the press release version, and I am sure that he'd be happy to take on board your suggestions to input into that. Whilst I have you, when you are happy enough that you have enough content for the FAQ, could you PM or @ me please, as i will be going to sleep relatively soon and might miss the post.@StanBalaban Fair point, complete agree. Problem is we haven't got a great deal of time to tweak everything to make it look super awesome. The maintenance mode blur comes is from the Wordpress default theme which isn't great for the actual layout of the main site. @sexbelowsound Would you mind changing the claret to blue on the OutTheDoorOn74 website banner image and then i'll switch it up and see if that helps alleviate the claret overload Also feel free to send a favicon over with the other images too. Even if you don't use my Mission Statement, I think you need to re-order the paragraphs in the current Statement. It shouldn't take until the 3rd paragraph to explain what's actually going to happen. That should be made much, much clearer on the homepage. Evidence suggests more than 50% of people stop reading long columns of text after one or two sentences. Currently the first sentence begins with the qualifier 'Whilst' and an apology which states what the protest isn't: 'abuse of the owner, directors, manager or players'. People need to know what it is, not what it isn't. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chewie Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 (edited) @HanoiVillan I'm happy to put up whatever comes across as best. @dont_do_it_doug. is taking the lead on the statement so it's ultimately his call to decide which version should be live. I uploaded the image that was posted above, but it just didn't look right. Myself and @sexbelowsound have made an executive decision to keep things as is despite the welcomed feedback on the claret colouring. Edited February 21, 2016 by Chewie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stevo985 Posted February 21, 2016 VT Supporter Share Posted February 21, 2016 Been off the net the past couple of days but happy to see there's a mission statement and a message now. The key for me is there needs to be an outcome. If people ask "So what if Lerner and co sit up and listen now. What would you want them to do?" For Liverpool it was lower the ticket prices. And they got it. We need a similar answer. I think the mission statement addresses that. Well done lads. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeMcKenna Posted February 21, 2016 Author VT Supporter Share Posted February 21, 2016 (edited) 35 minutes ago, sexbelowsound said: I think the issue is its going to start to get very messy. Claret on top of that photo is going to be barely visible. If i'm honest I don't really like it that much, text on top of photos requires a good quality photograph and the one used above is very low in resolution. I'm happy to try and find one that could work but the reason I went with the claret background is because I couldn't find an image that fit the criteria. Anyone got any good photos of Villa Park that fits the message? Ok sorry to be a pain, you and others know much more about this than me, it was just an idea. Maybe a white lion? Edited February 21, 2016 by MikeMcKenna Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StanBalaban Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 Just as an alternative image, if we're going for the historical route... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 I think the homepage looks much better with the picture than with the claret. @Chewie - the complete list of FAQ's: FAQ's 1) Who are we? We are ordinary fans of Aston Villa Football Club. We have supported the club through thick and thin and are frustrated by the failures of the leadership of our club. Our public face is businessman Mike McKenna, a Trinity Road season-ticket holder who has supported the club since 1959. You might have heard him on [name of radio show here]. Between us we have attended thousands of Villa games and we want to express our frustration with the misdirection of the club under Randy Lerner. 2) Why a walk-out? In the Premier League era, fans have fewer channels of communication than ever with the club. Aston Villa fans feel that we have been ignored, and that the club has taken our support for granted for too long. In addition, we feel that the ongoing crisis at the club (which has been present for much longer than the current season) has been under-reported and poorly covered by local and national media. A walk-out is designed to get the attention of both club and media, and to push both to take the concerns of Villa fans seriously. 3) Why the 74th minute in 'Out the Door on '74'? When Randy Lerner bought Aston Villa he made a show of respecting the history and tradition of the club. His slogan was 'Proud History, Bright Future.' Aston Villa is one of the oldest and proudest clubs in English football, and was founded in 1874. The protest aims to show Randy Lerner that despite his fine words, his actions since 2010 have damaged the history and tradition of this football club. 4) How can I help? Firstly and most importantly, if you are attending the Everton home game on March 1st, we respectfully ask you to consider standing up and leaving the stadium on the 74th minute of the match. If you are not attending the game itself, you may still be able to help by spreading word to Villa fans who are attending and may not be aware of the protest. Please consider one of the following options: list of options 5) Why should I join in? Obviously, it is the choice of the individual ticket-holder whether to participate in the protest or not. However, it is only through collective action that our voices – the voices of the fans of this football club – can be heard. Apathy will not persuade the club to take the fans’ concerns seriously. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob182 Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 I share the concerns of others that the message from this walk out is not clear enough. I've seen people say this is a 'call to arms', but I don't think a planned mass walkout for all to see, should be a call to arms. I still think you need a clear and concise message of 'this is what has happened, everyone knows where we are now because of it, and THIS is what we would like to happen'. Clear messages that people agree with, like 'bottom of the league, still not mathematically relegated, and we didn't invest'. Etc etc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 1 hour ago, Chewie said: @HanoiVillan I think your changes to the Mission Statement have merit, but I also think that the original version wants to double up as an open letter as sorts. We plan to have an abridged video statement to go on the main page, hopefully at some point tomorrow. @DK82 is going to work on the press release version, and I am sure that he'd be happy to take on board your suggestions to input into that. I didn't say earlier, but I'd be happy to help @DK82 if he wants it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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