markavfc40 Posted April 5, 2016 Share Posted April 5, 2016 (edited) 12 hours ago, Rob182 said: Again, tin hat mode here, but the comments about not spending our way out of 'it' were in relation to the relegation battle, weren't they? If so, I kind of see the logic that you can't just throw money at it like QPR did with Samba etc, which might have been what those comments were insinuating. We spent zero pounds in January, but Garde wasn't given no money. He was given money but went for a goalkeeper who couldn't get a permit. He also went for a couple of other (cheap) players too, even if those broke down for mysterious reasons (rumours of Reilly not actually contacting the players that Garde wanted?) If part of the protest is to encourage Randy to put his hands in his pockets, then I'm on board with this, 100%. I have seen other comments about trying to make Randy commit to selling the club. This, I'm really uneasy with. Simply passing the ownership to someone else will not resolve all our problems. We could get a MUCH worse owner than Lerner, with worse intentions. We could get an owner who doesn't want to put in any of his own money to cover the ongoing debt we seem to have. Where will that leave us? There's all the talk of 'even if there's a 1% chance we'll make a difference'. Well, if Randy does sell, what is the chance, percentage wise, that we'll get an owner who puts in more money than Randy does. Going on the history of good and bad new owners for a club in our position... I'd guess... 30%? 20%? Maybe an even lower percentage if Randy is pushed to sell quicker, and results in selling us to a 'lesser' owner than he'd ideally like to. /tin hat I can appreciate a lot of what you say here and you raise some valid points. In terms of spending in January I agree we did go for a couple of players but didn’t get them. Certainly in terms of the work permit you can’t blame the club for that although perhaps you could say they should have had a definite plan B knowing there is always a chance a work permit will be refused. This is only opinion now, but it is a wide spread one, that Garde didn’t feel as though he was backed in January and that contributed to the rapid demise in the clubs fortunes, after picking up some relative form, and that Garde quickly became disillusioned post January. I don’t think the club did as much as what they perhaps could have done in January to assist the manager in bringing in players. It is good to hear that you are on board with the protest group pushing the owner to commit further investment going forward. This is key to any chance we have of coming back up. We are now getting some expertise on to the board, expertise that should help ensure we employ the right manager. However any decent manager is going to want assurances that he will be backed, certainly if we are hoping for a manager of the calibre of David Moyes, as without that backing they will struggle to make any kind of impact regardless of who is sitting on the board. With regard to the group trying to make Randy sell the club we aren’t doing that. We are asking him for a statement to confirm that he is now motivated to sell the club. The club as far as we know is still up for sale. The last statement we heard specifically around that came from Tom Fox over 12 months ago. The person who made that statement has now departed, the club is now pretty much in another division, so I think it is fair to ask the owner to make a statement confirming if he is now a more motivated seller and if so to ask him to price the club at a level that it will sell. We have also stipulated that he must ensure it goes to someone with the means and vision to take it forward. We certainly don’t want it to go to any Tom, Dick or Randy. We would have to be going some in fairness to find a much worse owner though. We have been an ever present in the Premier League since it began. That has bought a huge amount of money into the club and advantage over other clubs. The club has been that poorly mismanaged though that we now have a team on the pitch that cannot compete and is going down with a whimper. I think this week’s game says it all about how poorly the club has been run. We play Bournemouth. A tiny club in comparison to us in their first season in the top flight. They will stay up comfortably. We will be relegated in early April. We don’t expect miracles to come from these protests. We aren’t asking for them. We have three very simple requests we want actioned in the open letter we sent to Randy Lerner. In addition to that this is a crucial time now in terms of bringing in the manager and we feel we must leave those responsible in no doubt that they must seek out and appoint a suitably qualified manger with the relevant level of experience required to help lift the club. By continuing these protests we feel we can maintain focus on Lerner and hopefully ensure the club is aware that we will no longer stand for failure. We have to maintain the pressure now, the need for action now, to ensure that we don’t have to protest at the start of next season as the club will hopefully have put itself in a much better position to push forward. We are done on the pitch and have been for some time. As supporters there is no better time to focus our attention off the pitch and I’d ask every supporter to join us in doing that. Edited April 5, 2016 by markavfc40 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted April 5, 2016 Share Posted April 5, 2016 56 minutes ago, Stevo985 said: To be fair, I'm sure they usually stop serving food and turn the TVs off anyway don't they when the game kicks off? To encourage people to go out and not stay in the concourses. I don't think that part was unique to that protest. not in my experience, ive missed KO several times due to not necking and at the same time refusing to bin a god awful pint ive over paid for they usually have the game on the TVs with jack commentating 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dont_do_it_doug. Posted April 5, 2016 Share Posted April 5, 2016 (edited) To @Rob182 in essence, "better the devil you know" is not a good enough reason to give him a remit to continue unabated in my opinion. I almost feel like some are saying "give him another chance". My personal opinion on that? No. Sorry, no. Also, we are not asking him to give the club away. We are asking him to be sensible, reasonable and price the club at a level it will sell. Still, a year on, the last communication we had regarding this was that he's not motivated to sell. That's very, very important to note. Edited April 5, 2016 by dont_do_it_doug. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dont_do_it_doug. Posted April 5, 2016 Share Posted April 5, 2016 ICYMI our open letter is still on the website. We spent a lot of time consulting with fans and clarifying the objectives. http://astonvillaprotestgroup.co.uk/open-letter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stevo985 Posted April 5, 2016 VT Supporter Share Posted April 5, 2016 23 minutes ago, dont_do_it_doug. said: No to the TVs thing. At least not that I've ever known in the Lower Holte End. Fair enough. I remember being in an area of the ground, I forget where, and there's a window from the concourse out to the pitch. They put the shutters down at kick off to encourage people to go out to their seats (fair enough really) so I thought the TV thing would be like that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dont_do_it_doug. Posted April 5, 2016 Share Posted April 5, 2016 Just now, Stevo985 said: Fair enough. I remember being in an area of the ground, I forget where, and there's a window from the concourse out to the pitch. They put the shutters down at kick off to encourage people to go out to their seats (fair enough really) so I thought the TV thing would be like that. Yeah, I've noticed that in the Trinity before, I think. That's understandable. Stops people from watching the actual game as though they're in a box! I'll ask this as delicately as I can, was the last late arrival protest around the time of any Hillsborough news? That might have had an effect on policing. Because as long as no laws are being broken, the police won't care where you stand. The stewards might, but that's their problem. If the club want to be heavy handed without provocation again, we will report the shit out of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dont_do_it_doug. Posted April 5, 2016 Share Posted April 5, 2016 Can I just add - any police I've come into contact with at the two protests and in my research have been absolutely amazing. Stewards too, to be fair, on a personal note. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Supervillan78 Posted April 6, 2016 Share Posted April 6, 2016 I assume the protest is still going ahead? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markavfc40 Posted April 7, 2016 Share Posted April 7, 2016 6 hours ago, Supervillan78 said: I assume the protest is still going ahead? Yes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sne Posted April 7, 2016 Share Posted April 7, 2016 Can I just ask if the new badge will be incorporated in the protests? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markavfc40 Posted April 7, 2016 Share Posted April 7, 2016 28 minutes ago, sne said: Can I just ask if the new badge will be incorporated in the protests? No I wouldn't have thought so. Some people like it some don’t and in the grand scheme of things it is a minor issue. I think as a group we don’t want to get bogged down being petty and whining over everything the club does and beating them up for the sake of it. I think as a fan base we need to keep the focus on the big issues and what really matters and not be side-tracked which then waters down the overall message and what we are trying to influence/achieve. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sne Posted April 7, 2016 Share Posted April 7, 2016 (edited) 5 minutes ago, markavfc40 said: No I wouldn't have thought so. Some people like it some don’t and in the grand scheme of things it is a minor issue. I think as a group we don’t want to get bogged down being petty and whining over everything the club does and beating them up for the sake of it. I think as a fan base we need to keep the focus on the big issues and what really matters and not be side-tracked which then waters down the overall message and what we are trying to influence/achieve. Yeah, good call. Focus on what is important, just like the club should do. Edited April 7, 2016 by sne 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Supervillan78 Posted April 7, 2016 Share Posted April 7, 2016 2 hours ago, markavfc40 said: Yes. Are we still getting the banners out this week? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markavfc40 Posted April 7, 2016 Share Posted April 7, 2016 1 hour ago, Supervillan78 said: Are we still getting the banners out this week? If you want to yes. We are actively encouraging it and they are on the website to download but due to time and resources we won’t be supplying thousands of banners again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kingman Posted April 7, 2016 Share Posted April 7, 2016 3 hours ago, markavfc40 said: If you want to yes. We are actively encouraging it and they are on the website to download but due to time and resources we won’t be supplying thousands of banners again. I Really hope you continue with #(insert)on74, Its what you've created and unique to AVFC protests. I Would even copyright out the door on 74, Have merchandise made T-Shirts/scarves ect with it on to finance the groups time and the next protest costings. #outthedooron74 #bannersouton74 #turnyourbackonlerneron74 #flyaplaneoveron74 #blowyourwhistleon74 #minuteslinenceon74... etc etc Good luck and thanks to all the guys and gals that are making this happen. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lapal_fan Posted April 7, 2016 Share Posted April 7, 2016 How about getting any kids at the game, and getting them to wear a different football clubs jersey? Could accentuate the point by having small banners saying something along the lines of "No future generations", or something. I imagine most kids these days have got more than one teams shirt, and if not, they can be picked up from sports direct for a few quid at this point in the season. I just think that would make quite a striking and poignant sight. It also shows the board the potential in losing the next stream of supporters. Couldn't be done for the next game, but what about Newcastle away or something? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markavfc40 Posted April 7, 2016 Share Posted April 7, 2016 (edited) 2 hours ago, lapal_fan said: How about getting any kids at the game, and getting them to wear a different football clubs jersey? Could accentuate the point by having small banners saying something along the lines of "No future generations", or something. I imagine most kids these days have got more than one teams shirt, and if not, they can be picked up from sports direct for a few quid at this point in the season. I just think that would make quite a striking and poignant sight. It also shows the board the potential in losing the next stream of supporters. Couldn't be done for the next game, but what about Newcastle away or something? That is a tough one to organise in fairness as we can't fund the football jerseys so you would be reliant on the parents doing it and personally speaking as a parent I would not put my child in another teams kit even to prove a point :-) In fairness mate, and this is me speaking personally not as part of the group, I wouldn't want be that doom and gloom just yet. These protests are about short sharp jolts in the arm for the club. Very visual, easily participated in mass protests that act as attention seekers and a means to put focus and pressure on the owner and to draw attention to the requests we have enclosed in the open letter to him. There is a quick way back for this club. No reason to have to contemplate losing generations of supporters. We need a number of things to happen. Expertise above the manager that should lead to a decent manager being appointed as long as he has assurances regarding investment and is therefore allowed the tools to assemble a squad capable of gaining promotion and re-establishing us in the Premier League. If this owner can't provide that then he needs to do all he can to sell to someone who can. It is that simple for me. Edited April 7, 2016 by markavfc40 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markavfc40 Posted April 8, 2016 Share Posted April 8, 2016 If anyone can help hand out flyers tomorrow please meet me and Dave by the Trinty Road gates adjacent the McGregor statue at 2:15pm. Drop us a PM or just let us know in this thread if you can help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
choffer Posted April 8, 2016 VT Supporter Share Posted April 8, 2016 Gents, as an infrequent visitor to VP (due more to location than desire) I was just checking to see what the protest plans were for Saturday. It didn't see it clearly on your website and I've had to go back a few pages in this thread to work it out too. I don't want to knock you guys as I think you're all doing a great job but I am a wee bit concerned that the message for tomorrow isn't loud or clear enough. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slowandlow Posted April 8, 2016 Share Posted April 8, 2016 (edited) i think it will be a bit of a non-event compared to previous protests, which undoubtedly benefited from the fact we were getting hammered in both games by the time the protest commenced i think its a lot easier to get people to kick off after 74 mins when we're getting smashed again than it is before a game has started Edited April 8, 2016 by slowandlow Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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