Villa Park - Atmosphere [merged]

[Beastmix]

The sooner we realise booing, jeering, and having a moan is counter-productive to players upping their game, the better. It makes them more prone to errors which, ultimately, can cost us games.

We also need to stop having these reactions to back and side passes. This seems to happen quite a lot. Sometimes you need to pass back to pass forward.

[MarkLillis]

33 minutes ago, Beastmix said:

The sooner we realise booing, jeering, and having a moan is counter-productive to players upping their game, the better. It makes them more prone to errors which, ultimately, can cost us games.

We also need to stop having these reactions to back and side passes. This seems to happen quite a lot. Sometimes you need to pass back to pass forward.

All of this is pretty impossible to stop.Fans are individuals and will react according to how a certain situation makes them feel.Some fans will follow their lead but generally you can’t make people think or behave differently they will do what they want.

The only way to stop negativity in the crowd is positivity on the pitch.

Ive said it before and I will say it again.

All supporters behave this way.

it’s isn’t a problem and it doesn’t need fixing…it is what it is!

Edited March 2, 2023 by MarkLillis

[Beastmix]

11 minutes ago, MarkLillis said:

The only way to stop negativity in the crowd is positivity on the pitch.

The only way to stop negativity on the pitch is positivity in the crowd.

Mentality should never be underestimated, especially at the top where the margins between success and failure are so fine.

[ender4]

Instead of ball-boys we should have boo-boys.  They go round telling people off in the crowd when someone boos. 

 

*Also, ball-girls and boo-girls.

[S-Platt]

1 hour ago, Beastmix said:

The sooner we realise booing, jeering, and having a moan is counter-productive to players upping their game, the better. It makes them more prone to errors which, ultimately, can cost us games.

We also need to stop having these reactions to back and side passes. This seems to happen quite a lot. Sometimes you need to pass back to pass forward.

Keeping the ball is key to any decent team.  As you say it's pointless making a pass forward to no one or if they are marked.  It's all about ball retention moving the opposition about to open up a gap for that killer pass.

Ideally we need a Jack type player who receives a pass can turn, run and take people on this will open the up the opposition as the marker from someone else has to engage.

Emery knows this though but some fans seem clueless to what we are striving to do.

The playing out for the back is to draw players in to create the space.  Yes we make mistakes sometimes but it's a work in progress.

Now we are relatively safe hopefully the anxiety in the crowd dies down and we can grow into the system.

 

[FLVillan]

I was a season ticket holder at Villa Park as a young kid in the 70's all the way up to emigrating in the 90's.  The booing and moaning isn't some type of new phenomenon.  I can remember the season under Dr Jo in 89-90 when the atmosphere was toxic and particularly remember a run of two or three games where Kevin Gage was booed whenever he touched the ball.  This was a player who had been one of our top performers in the previous season as a holding midfielder and was now being played out of position at left-back.  He was doing his best, but you could see the poor bloke was struggling.  Being booed on every touch surely didn't help and he had left the club within twelve months.  Genuinely felt sorry for the lad as he had been an important part of the team that kept us up just two seasons earlier. 

This is obviously an isolated example, but certainly not the only one where the atmosphere at Villa Park, to me, was truly unfair to one of our own players. There have been several players down the years that have really struggled at Villa for similar reasons, Alan Thompson being the most obvious example.  You do have to have a thick-skin as a professional footballer, and perhaps a bit thicker when it comes to playing in B6.  I've stood (and sat) next to some fans who are simply determined to have a go at our own players no matter what they do.  Even during the glory days of the early 80's they would moan and abuse our own players no matter what the circumstances or result.  Some people just aren't content if they're not having a moan. 

Having said all that, Villa Park CAN be a superb place to watch football and when the fans get behind the team can be a really difficult place for the opposition.  Now if we could start singing more pro-Villa stuff and quit the small-time "we hate Small Heath" songs we could really have a great influence. Maybe the new North Stand can have wood panels installed below the seats so we can get it rocking like the old Trinity...:)

[Keyblade]

6 hours ago, villa4europe said:

Nor me, it at least I'm looking at it from a different angle

Despite how the media portray it the atmosphere in most away grounds I've been to is exactly the same, nowhere is rocking

Sky play their part, when I had my ST there were usually at least 4 or 5 games per year that I didn't want to be there, can remember playing man utd at 5.30pm on a Saturday and it being absolutely **** freezing, sure we drew 1-1 but still I wanted to be anywhere but there, Sunday 4pm games are a write off for atmosphere

Do agree that we've gone back to our old selves though, look at the comments of Brentford and Brighton, it's more than simply casting an envious eye it can get close to resentment at times, a stick to beat villa with because we should be above those teams

At the very least other grounds seem to be a hostile environment for the opposition if nothing else. Look at Everton at the weekend, you wouldn't call that atmosphere bouncing or anything but there was a lot of angst and aggression directed towards the Villa players and the ref and not so much their own players which you see all too often at VP. Same thing at grounds like Elland Road.

At VP unless we're a goal or 2 up very early, it's too often silence interspersed with moaning once we're passing the ball around the back too much. Then also moaning when we hit it long. I swear our players must feel more anxious playing at VP than our opposition most weeks.

[OutByEaster?]

I think the atmosphere has been fairly good this season.

Of course it can be better and we have a tendency to fade in and out of games with periods of quiet, but I don't think that's unique amongst Premier League grounds and I think when we're on it, we're a match for anyone - at our last couple of home games (both defeats) there have been periods where we've been as loud as I've heard us.

 

[Wainy316]

27 minutes ago, Keyblade said:

At the very least other grounds seem to be a hostile environment for the opposition if nothing else. Look at Everton at the weekend, you wouldn't call that atmosphere bouncing or anything but there was a lot of angst and aggression directed towards the Villa players and the ref and not so much their own players which you see all too often at VP. Same thing at grounds like Elland Road.

At VP unless we're a goal or 2 up very early, it's too often silence interspersed with moaning once we're passing the ball around the back too much. Then also moaning when we hit it long. I swear our players must feel more anxious playing at VP than our opposition most weeks.

Interestingly we've gone a goal up in the first 10 minutes of 5 of the last 7 home games.

[TRO]

4 hours ago, MarkLillis said:

All of this is pretty impossible to stop.Fans are individuals and will react according to how a certain situation makes them feel.Some fans will follow their lead but generally you can’t make people think or behave differently they will do what they want.

The only way to stop negativity in the crowd is positivity on the pitch.

Ive said it before and I will say it again.

All supporters behave this way.

it’s isn’t a problem and it doesn’t need fixing…it is what it is!

Thats the essence of it imo.

you can't be shipping 4 goals at home and expect, a partisan crowd, in response.....I agree it would be nice, but its fanciful.

 

[TRO]

Arsenal and Man U....Have had some proper adverse, until their recent up turns in form....now their stadiums are rocking.

Scoring goals, is one way to win fans over, but a more basic way, is winning the ball back, winning duels and staying on the ball, more than not.....surrendering possesion too easily and lacking fight for the ball, is a sure way of turning the crowd off.

Those 2 clubs, have found their resolute style, and its giving them confidence to play a more expansive game, once they have won the initiative in a game.

We try to play too soon, when we haven't earned the right to.....that opens us up.

We need to be more robust at home, and the crowd will respond to that....its doesn't have to be scoring loads of goals, its more about fighting for the ball and not just standing off, passively.

 

Edited March 2, 2023 by TRO

[MakemineVanilla]

Football is something between a pantomime and a Greek tragedy, and the groundlings respond according to how the plot is going, and ever was it so.

Brummies have long been known for their moaning, insults and general lugubriousness - there is a monument in town to celebrate the most famous example.

We don't have the same sense of the collective as clubs associated with the docks or coal-mining, we have a long history of individualism and free-thinking.

The club might have its name indelibly written on the history of the gobal game but the club's been relegated rather a lot for a so-called big club.

The Villa fans have had a lot to put up with over the years, and I date the decline back to when Arsenal moved to Highbury, which suddenly gave them the resources for Chapman to displace Villa as the biggest club in the land.

The highs have been few for Villa since 1913, and the club just missed the boat when the Premier League changed everything about England's top-tier.

The club has always been promising something but never quite delivered, or at least when they did they never followed through.

The economic decline of Birmingham has not helped.

Old delusions hang around the club's neck, and expectations are often unrealistic.

Fans need to have their moan, and no one should blame them for that.

[Zatman]

16 hours ago, FLVillan said:

I was a season ticket holder at Villa Park as a young kid in the 70's all the way up to emigrating in the 90's.  The booing and moaning isn't some type of new phenomenon.  I can remember the season under Dr Jo in 89-90 when the atmosphere was toxic and particularly remember a run of two or three games where Kevin Gage was booed whenever he touched the ball.  This was a player who had been one of our top performers in the previous season as a holding midfielder and was now being played out of position at left-back.  He was doing his best, but you could see the poor bloke was struggling.  Being booed on every touch surely didn't help and he had left the club within twelve months.  Genuinely felt sorry for the lad as he had been an important part of the team that kept us up just two seasons earlier. 

This is obviously an isolated example, but certainly not the only one where the atmosphere at Villa Park, to me, was truly unfair to one of our own players. There have been several players down the years that have really struggled at Villa for similar reasons, Alan Thompson being the most obvious example.  You do have to have a thick-skin as a professional footballer, and perhaps a bit thicker when it comes to playing in B6.  I've stood (and sat) next to some fans who are simply determined to have a go at our own players no matter what they do.  Even during the glory days of the early 80's they would moan and abuse our own players no matter what the circumstances or result.  Some people just aren't content if they're not having a moan. 

Having said all that, Villa Park CAN be a superb place to watch football and when the fans get behind the team can be a really difficult place for the opposition.  Now if we could start singing more pro-Villa stuff and quit the small-time "we hate Small Heath" songs we could really have a great influence. Maybe the new North Stand can have wood panels installed below the seats so we can get it rocking like the old Trinity...:)

Last time I went was in the Championship, I think was Bruce 2nd or 3rd home game and the old guy next to me just shouted abuse at Hutton all game.

He would then demand our players pass to the right flank then when they did it he would shout abuse again as he wanted it to anybody but Hutton.

It was bizarre

[Vive_La_Villa]

I couldn’t make it yesterday but sounded like the crowd were a little more forgiving of the playing from the back or passing backwards when needing too. Are they getting used to it?

[SuperTed]

42 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

I couldn’t make it yesterday but sounded like the crowd were a little more forgiving of the playing from the back or passing backwards when needing too. Are they getting used to it?

I was sat in the Trinity and there was a lot of moaning. Reminded me why I don’t go anymore

[nick76]

43 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

I couldn’t make it yesterday but sounded like the crowd were a little more forgiving of the playing from the back or passing backwards when needing too. Are they getting used to it?

Yes, and there was more singing.  I thought it was quite good yesterday.

[Tomaszk]

3 minutes ago, SuperTed said:

I was sat in the Trinity and there was a lot of moaning. Reminded me why I don’t go anymore

Shame to hear, but I can't blame them. It was far from comfortable possession.

Thought of us doing it without Kamara really worries me.

[Pongo's Socks]

Still the odd moans and groans when we passed it backwards/sideways. One lad a couple of rows in front of me couldn't understand how we managed to go from the edge of the Palace box back to Mings a couple of times, and was very vocal in his frustrations. 'FORWARD, THEYRE DOWN TO TEN MEN!' And 'HIT IT LONG!'

Surely people must realise that ball retention is Unais plan? 

I bit and countered him with a very loud 'NICE VILLA, NIIICCEEE! KEEP THE BALL!' every time we did it. But I'm sad like that

[Pongo's Socks]

1 hour ago, Tomaszk said:

Shame to hear, but I can't blame them. It was far from comfortable possession.

Thought of us doing it without Kamara really worries me.

I don't think I'll ever fully relax with us playing this way, but it looks like it's here to stay. And I think the anxious noises from the ground can't help the lads on the pitch.

Agreed about Kamara, we might see a slight tweak as up until now he's been the main outlet

[Ponky]

I was in the Trinity yesterday and based on zero prior experience i thought the atmosphere was pretty good but there was not as much singing as I expected there would be.

Just out of curiosity, what's the name of song they play at the final whistle? Seemed the only time the whole crowd joined in together and gave me a nice tingly feeling