Am I not a fan?

[Junxs]

I am extremely brassed off to not allowing to have a vote on my clubs future decisions

Feel this deserves a thread on its own, not about the crest, but just on how the club thought it would be a good idea to isolate a section of the fanbase by not allowing them to vote on the crest -  Aston Villa, please explain yourselves

I can understand they dont want random people jeoprodising the voting, but surely thats where the fan ID comes into play. My ID will show how many tickets I've bought over the years, that I was at Wembley for the losing play off final, hundreds of league and cup games over the years. Spent god knows how many thousands of pounds following my club since 1987. I'm even on the season ticket waiting list but they don't care about my opinion on such matters. 

I swear if football clubs didnt involve such emtional attachments I would have given up on Villa years ago

Just when I thought the club was becoming supporter friendly again they pull a stunt like this to make a huge part of their fanbase feel unwanted and worthless. 

Anyone else annoyed by this? Or am I over reacting?

[leemond2008]

100% over reacting

You will probably find that the admin of letting every single person with a fan ID vote would be a logistical nightmare for something a trivial as the design of the badge.

To say that they have "pulled a stunt like this" seems very dramatic to me, I couldn't vote, and I couldn't care less, if I'm being honest, I haven't really even looked at the badges, my mate sent me a picture of them, and I glanced at them for a few seconds and thought "the round one would be nice" and haven't thought about it since.

[jackbauer24]

I don't think it's overreacting as such.

I do think that only allowing a select demographic of people who have expendable cash for season tickets to vote is a bit of a narrow set of people to poll and could produce a skewed result; are most eligible voters white, male, over 30 with fairly well paid jobs? 

It very much plays in to the whole 'I'm a better fan than you because I have cash' which is clearly unfair.

However, they also couldn't open it to everyone and I imagine there are literally thousands of Fan IDs that aren't actually fans of Villa but just had ID for other games etc.

I'm not sure I know the solution but I can understand your annoyance at something you clearly feel passionate about and it is equally your club.

For the record I am eligible and am fortunate to be so. That doesn't make me a better fan than you.

[Aston_Villan4]

Very much overreacting.
 

Frankly, they never should’ve had the fans involved. Too many opinions and emotions as we see in the crest thread.

[GarethRDR]

A: You are Devo.

[GarethRDR]

53 minutes ago, jackbauer24 said:

It very much plays in to the whole 'I'm a better fan than you because I have cash' which is clearly unfair.

There is only one true untermensch vs. ubermensch Villa fan grouping; those who were there for the Susan Coffey discussion, and those who were not.

[messi11]

1 hour ago, Junxs said:

I am extremely brassed off to not allowing to have a vote on my clubs future decisions

Feel this deserves a thread on its own, not about the crest, but just on how the club thought it would be a good idea to isolate a section of the fanbase by not allowing them to vote on the crest -  Aston Villa, please explain yourselves

I can understand they dont want random people jeoprodising the voting, but surely thats where the fan ID comes into play. My ID will show how many tickets I've bought over the years, that I was at Wembley for the losing play off final, hundreds of league and cup games over the years. Spent god knows how many thousands of pounds following my club since 1987. I'm even on the season ticket waiting list but they don't care about my opinion on such matters. 

I swear if football clubs didnt involve such emtional attachments I would have given up on Villa years ago

Just when I thought the club was becoming supporter friendly again they pull a stunt like this to make a huge part of their fanbase feel unwanted and worthless. 

Anyone else annoyed by this? Or am I over reacting?

If you want to vote you can. Just buy the club membership.

[Adam2003]

I am eligible to vote and didn’t bother, so I think there will always just be a question of where they draw the line. A season ticket or membership doesn’t make someone a better fan than you, your past record doesn’t make you a better fan than a 15-year-old who has never been able to afford to go to a game… we are all Villa fans but they have to draw the line somewhere on things like this.

[WallisFrizz]

4 hours ago, Junxs said:

I am extremely brassed off to not allowing to have a vote on my clubs future decisions

Feel this deserves a thread on its own, not about the crest, but just on how the club thought it would be a good idea to isolate a section of the fanbase by not allowing them to vote on the crest -  Aston Villa, please explain yourselves

I can understand they dont want random people jeoprodising the voting, but surely thats where the fan ID comes into play. My ID will show how many tickets I've bought over the years, that I was at Wembley for the losing play off final, hundreds of league and cup games over the years. Spent god knows how many thousands of pounds following my club since 1987. I'm even on the season ticket waiting list but they don't care about my opinion on such matters. 

I swear if football clubs didnt involve such emtional attachments I would have given up on Villa years ago

Just when I thought the club was becoming supporter friendly again they pull a stunt like this to make a huge part of their fanbase feel unwanted and worthless. 

Anyone else annoyed by this? Or am I over reacting?

Probably over reacting. They don’t really need to know every single long term fans opinion they just need a large number of genuine fans to cast a vote. STH and members are far more diverse group than suggested above, you can see that from matchdays. Spans different ages, genders, class, race etc  

It will be largely reflective of the fan base as a whole and that’s what they need.  The STH and members are also the group most likely to be buying the merch with the new logo plastered all over so they need to make sure they are largely happy.

Im eligible and I voted gas lamp but round does seem to be coming out on top of opinions I’ve seen on Twitter. If you happened to prefer the round you probably wouldn’t be so bothered.
 

 

[WallisFrizz]

2 hours ago, Adam2003 said:

I am eligible to vote and didn’t bother, so I think there will always just be a question of where they draw the line. A season ticket or membership doesn’t make someone a better fan than you, your past record doesn’t make you a better fan than a 15-year-old who has never been able to afford to go to a game… we are all Villa fans but they have to draw the line somewhere on things like this.

Can you vote gaslamp for Junx!

[Thug]

4 hours ago, jackbauer24 said:

However, they also couldn't open it to everyone and I imagine there are literally thousands of Fan IDs that aren't actually fans of Villa but just had ID for other games etc.

To be fair, the choice is between 2 crests, both of which the club would be happy with, so sabotage is not exactly a possibility.

I’m not eligible to vote, but even if I was I wouldn’t have bothered as either is fine in my opinion.

I do find it very strange that they would alienate those that feel passionate about this, when the whole point is to make people feel involved.

I can’t imagine a bluenose going through the effort of getting a villa ID, just to vote on the shape of the crest?

Very odd choice, unless the logistics involved made it difficult.  At the end of the day, all the want is cross section of fans opinion.

But Yh, totally over-reacting in my opinion. Out of interest, what would you have voted for? @Junxs

[Don_Simon]

6 hours ago, Junxs said:

I am extremely brassed off to not allowing to have a vote on my clubs future decisions

Feel this deserves a thread on its own, not about the crest, but just on how the club thought it would be a good idea to isolate a section of the fanbase by not allowing them to vote on the crest -  Aston Villa, please explain yourselves

I can understand they dont want random people jeoprodising the voting, but surely thats where the fan ID comes into play. My ID will show how many tickets I've bought over the years, that I was at Wembley for the losing play off final, hundreds of league and cup games over the years. Spent god knows how many thousands of pounds following my club since 1987. I'm even on the season ticket waiting list but they don't care about my opinion on such matters. 

I swear if football clubs didnt involve such emtional attachments I would have given up on Villa years ago

Just when I thought the club was becoming supporter friendly again they pull a stunt like this to make a huge part of their fanbase feel unwanted and worthless. 

Anyone else annoyed by this? Or am I over reacting?

You can have my vote. I'm a Claret Club Member and haven't voted yet.

I'm not remotely bothered about the crest, so let me know which you prefer and I'll vote for you today. @Junxs.

Edited November 6, 2022 by Don_Simon

[DevonIsAPlaceOnEarth]

I would rather it restricted to stop Wolves/Blues fans picking the wrong outcome.

[villarule123]

I like them both almost equally, you can have my vote if you like? What should I go for @Junxs? 

[Tomaszk]

6 hours ago, Aston_Villan4 said:

Frankly, they never should’ve had the fans involved. Too many opinions and emotions as we see in the crest thread.

Agree with first post, but also this.

[Woody1000]

I don’t think you’re overreacting @Junxs, you clearly feel passionate about it. I think that the club have got themselves into a bit of a sticky situation - the reason for the change is that on the whole the fans don’t like the current crest that was chosen by the club (under different leadership granted) so they want to get fan’s opinion/votes, but then you look at where to draw the line? The line is clearly not correct if fans like yourself are not eligible to vote, there must be how many hundreds/thousands of fans with similar history with the club as yourself that are also not eligible.

I just hope that one crest is a clear winner, as hopefully that would reflect the general opinions of the 2 crest. A 51% winner would leave the situation open to disgruntlement of the criteria to vote imo.

Edited November 6, 2022 by Woody1000

[nick76]

It’s hard for the club in this aspect though, how do they distinguish between Villa fans who are hardcore Villa fans and those that aren’t Villa fans.  

It’s tough for the people who regularly go and maybe they could’ve included some kind of way of including a proof system of having gone like 15 times last season or 25 times over the last 2 seasons.  

The club need to make sure it’s only Villa fans and hardcore Villa fans that make such a decision.  

I don’t know a way how they can determine that for overseas fans so that kind of eliminates them but domestic fans they probably thought 30,000 Villa fans who are season ticket holders are a fair and reasonable reflection of the hardcore fan base.  

I do feel sorry for those who attend large number of home games but don’t have season tickets but by sheer numbers of season tickets vs ground capacity that’s obviously at best a small percentage.  

Yes we have a season ticket waiting list but deference to those who had season tickets in darker times isn’t unreasonable to those who only want a season ticket now.  

It’s far from a perfect system but the club have included fans in this decision which is a good thing I think you’d agree because many clubs wouldn’t and they done their best to use a fair representative of hardcore fans who put their money where their mouth is every year for years.  

It’s hard to have a go at the club for that.

This isn’t a comment about ‘better fan’ because I think many fans that can’t go to the ground are as good and even better fans than some at the ground but how do the club determine that without knowing each individual fan.  Only by interaction with the club in some regular way can they do that so using Season Tickets holders is not unreasonable and shouldn’t be seen as anything more than that.  So I wouldn’t take that as the club calling you not a proper fan just they were trying to make sure they got some fans included rather than not at all and administrative wise this was simple to get a large number of Villa fans involved.

[Mic09]

I'm in a similar situation. 17 years of ticket history, probably 5-7 games each a season with Wembley trips on top of it. 

I would not have been annoyed, but I got a chance to vote in the original survey. 

If the aim is to restrict non fans or other team supporters from having a vote (understandable) why was I given a chance to vote in the original survey?

If my say is important in the survey, it should have been important enough for the final decision. 

[Tayls]

You had a massive say on how the badge should look. If you are a fan which has chosen: 

 - a round badge, however open to different designs, 

- The lion must be retained along with the star

- the colours must remain claret, blue and yellow, however more favourable to the claret and a less over bearing yellow to be used.

- The lion needs to face right as a nod to our original badge. 

Then you have won. That’s what the majority has chosen. I think narrowing down the final vote to those who are season ticket holders is fine. They commit their time and money per season A LOT more than I do. 

[S-Platt]

When I voted it only asked for a fan ID nothing else other than age group.  This in theory only allows adults to vote as it starts at 18 to something.

So if you have a fan ID you can vote but not if you are under 18 it seems.