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What is the main reason you wouldn't buy a ST?


steaknchips

Why would/did you not buy a season ticket?  

150 members have voted

  1. 1. Why would/did you not buy a season ticket?

    • Other (please specify)
      33
    • General apathy towards football
      27
    • General apathy towards Villa
      17
    • The appointment of McLeish
      11
    • Lack of new signings
      19
    • The sale of Downing and Young
      1
    • Can't afford it
      42


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I was actually going to get one for the 1st time in years this season but then saw what was going on..or rather wasn't going on more like. I then saw the usual sale of our best to our closest rivals & then watched as all the teams we are supposedly trying to catch up with carried on spending vast amounts whilst we did the polar opposite.. Indeed some of the teams below us even obliterated us in the transfer window like Sunderland & Stoke albeit Stoke's was more upping the wage bill as opposed to big transfer fees. So i made a calculated decision to not proceed with the purchase of a ST very sadly as i simply could not see myself having many good days out in all honesty.

Very disappointing as i was actually getting rather excited at the prospect of becoming a season ticket holder once again when i looked at the possibilities a couple of seasons ago & could see that this season i would be in a position to get one due to a change in circumstances. Also we were finally starting to be slightly competetive again despite the unpretty playing style.

I also heard mention on the TV that we are now considered in with the like of Stoke, West Brom, Fulham etc so far as the banks are concerned? Well at least thats what the panel were saying?! Hence the sudden change in approach? Apparently we & others are being controlled by the banks who have bracketed us amongst the alsorans & therefore told us to reign it in? Odd how that doesn't count the same for certain other clubs?! :? Well that put the final nail in it for me so i guess a general apathy with football would be the answer. Man City & Chelsea have ruined it for me too..They have killed the dreams of football fans everywhere whilst creating a groundswell of glory hunting hangers on who do nothing but gloat & walk round in their token footy top having no attatchment to their club whatsoever yet have the gaul to have patronising digs at genuine fans of the local clubs.

Of course the worst affected are mainly Chelsea, Man U & Liverpool although the new wave of Man City top wearers is guaranteed to be just around the corner.

Then of course we have the FA & Media bias towards the usual teams ..which i most certainly don't need to name now do i? (which says it all really does it not)

I guess in a warped way it's kind of nice to see other teams challenge instead of the same old guard of Liverpool, Man U & occasionally Arsenal but at least there was always still an outside chance then as we showed in 80/81 as did Everton & Blackburn on the odd occasion but now it's a closed shop... A monopoly practically & it's gonna self destruct if something isn't done about it pretty soon.. I for one have never felt so disinterested in it.. It's just something to do now but the dreams & belief have all but gone & thats dangerous because it wont be long untill people turn their attentions elsewhere as it becomes more & more pointless.

I will still of course support Villa, it's in my blood. I have sweated, travelled to distant lands & indeed bled for my club but now its not a sport for me as to be a sport it has to be competetive surely? There has to be some chance of winning the prizes.. (& no i don't mean the Coca cola cup when many sides use it as a training competition for their reserves or game time for their "2nd string")

So what exactly do you call taking part in a competition you have no possibility of winning?... A scam? ... A Con? .. or i guess you could say a pastime or hobby?!

I would love to think that somehow we could overcome the odds & win the title but no.. If you got passed the Man U's, Chelsea's & Man City's you would hit the brick wall just behind them of biased officials so it really is no longer possible....

Shame on the powers that be for allowing this to happen.

What a depressingly good post.

(And see "Location" for my reason)

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I don't live in England, but if I did it would be probably because of the lack of ambition shown by the club, which is reflected in the sale of both our best players without proper replacements and the appointment of a mediocre manager.

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Anybody know what the ST numbers are currently?

The General said this about 3 weeks ago:

"Season Tickets: I have NEVER come on this site and stated EXACTLY what are numbers are. That would make no sense...whether they were high or low. What I will tell you is that our ST numbers are where we expected them to be....they are where they were at a comparable time last year. "

ST numbers are where we expected them to be - translate that to "we expected them to be crap and they are"

They are where they were at a comparable time last year - translate that to "that comparable time could have been day 1 after the end of the season"

Numbers have to be way down going by the numerous revelations on here and other boards. I wouldn't be surprised if we were at about 20,000.

A couple of weeks ago I was told by someone who I'd expect to know that we had sold just under 17000 season tickets which was around 25% down on last year and around 30% down when half season tickets were taken in to account.

I'd be surprised if we have now sold anymore than around 18k season tickets. I have asked the General though to confirm numbers and how they compare to previous seasons although I have a feeling there is more chance of me seeing Shergar trot past my window than getting a straight answer.

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I have bought a ST for the first time this year, came into some money in may (put a £30 fre ebet on us to beat arsenal at 9/1 and said to myself if I won I would buy a ST). Were it not for this I would not be able to afford one.

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The ST itself isn't expensive at all comparing to the rest / average price paid for a Premier team ST, and would definitely buy for myself and the family if I live in Brum. However being in Surrey means travelling to Brum on a matchday would be:40 quid on petrol (return), possibly 30quid on food and drinks, and another 30quid on other source of entertainment (just probably more drinks). And also 70% likely that i wont be able to attend matches during midweek due to work.

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Other - My son is now playing Saturday football across the Midlands and further afield so can't justify getting one as would miss a lot of games, was going to get one for myself and my son in the Brigada section beforehand.

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This is a rum sort of poll.

Can't really work out who it's aimed at, what it's trying to establish, and why the particular options have been chosen.

If it's asking everyone who is a Villa fan why they don't buy a season ticket - as I assume the great majority don't - presumably the most common answer would be about not having the time/capacity to get to enough matches to make it worthwhile. Yet this doesn't appear as an option except as an entry in the "Other" category.

If it's asking FORMER season ticket holders why they no longer want to buy one for this season (a more focused and interesting question) then it should specify this much more clearly so we can be sure only that group are responding.

To give a rounded picture of season ticket buying, shouldn't it also try to capture the reasons why people ARE buying season tickets as well?

Just saying - realise this could be seen as a bit boring and technical.

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I've renewed mine. I would only stop renewing if I couldn't afford if, if I got bored of football in general or if, like wiggy, I had a kid and wanted to spend more time with him/her in the early years.

No amount of poor results, managers, transfers or players would stop me going.

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7. The only reason I've not got a season ticket anymore is that I live in County Durham, and work during the week, so can't make midweek or Monday games. If I still lived in or near Birmingham, it wouldn't matter if we were in the Blue Square Prem, I'd have a season ticket.

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Well I have renewed and counting back its my 7th successive year.

Personally I was in the football wilderness for many years with Uni, professional exams, marriage and then kids. I never lost my interest in football or Villa but it was just a combination of time and money as many posters have mentioned.

What brought me back was when my son was about 6 or 7 he started getting interested in football and expressed some interest in Man U! Well he had a Villa shirt and was sitting in the family stand at VP before he knew what had hit him. That was in DOL's second season I think and we bought season tickets the folowing year.

I'm lucky in that I can afford the tickets, probably because I'm maybe a little older than a lot of the posters on this thread, having just reached the big 50.

I buy two adult tickets as my son does not now want to go to every game and I got fed up with upgrading for mates so I've paid £1,050 for my seats in the DE stand. I don't go to away games and I normally miss around three home league games a season through holidays but I do get to most cup games at VP.

Overall its a fairly expensive addiction but I'm lucky as live in Sutton Coldfield so I'm close to the ground and one of my mates and his son have the seats next to us so we share the driving. Given all that its not too much of a time commitment despite what my other half says.

This season I did think quite hard about whether to renew, the add ons the club offered made no difference to me. In the end I just decided I would miss it too much. Of course the counter argument is you pick and choose your games but I've always found that many of the best games are the ones you would not pick.

The fact that the ST sales may have declined would not surprise me at all. The real test for me will be seeing who is filling or not filling the seats around us. Personally I think the decline, if there is one, will be a combination of tough economic times which may posters have overlooked coupled with disillusionment with football in general an Villa in particular.

The crazy money clubs like Man City are now throwing around will kill the PL eventually and that has spoilt it for me far more that the woes of our club. Long gone are the heady days of football where many clubs were in with a shout.

As for Villa the feel good factor under MON is long gone. I don't blame Randy for acting the way he is now doing. As far as I can see the finances of the club were out of control and are still a long way from being sorted. OK he has to shoulder much of the blame for allowing MON such a free hand. Much as many dislike Paul Faulkner he has tried to reign back the clear excesses. At the end of the day we are beholden to Randy as basically he finances the club and its his or his family's money (in trust or otherwise) that backs the club.

Where I do have a gripe is I don't feel the club has been honest with fans. Clearly plans have changed but why not be honest about what the plans now are? We get little clues periodically but I think fans would have more respect if they honestly knew. After all that would give them a much clearer view of whether they wanted to renew or not. I do think they take fans a little too much for granted. Maybe this season will be a wake up call on that score.

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Sky.

I can make Saturday afternoons 15:00. I've no interest in paying to watch 19 games when we move our games to please the Skum TV empire.

Last season do you know how many games we played at home at the traditional Saturday 15:00 time? 7 out of 19.

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That's my main reason too, Davkus. I've had 21 season tickets, but not this season, largely because so many games get moved, and I then can't get to them from up North. Makes it bad value for money, and that's before they put the prices up, while making the side worse.

Though I have to say I've become a lot less interested in football generally than I once was - it's lost touch with me/me with it.

Some of the best moments of my life have been had, watching Villa home and away, but it's got to the point where the cost and effort is becoming, just, prohibitive, really - it's not value for money 90% of the time.

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Agree with sentiments above. I and four mates had seaon tickets on the North Stand for donkey's years. They slowly dropped out and last season it was just me.

like a lot of others I think the "competition" has been warped by the likes of the Sky 5. Football revolves around them.I'm sick of seeing double page spreads on M.U. Man City, Liverpool and Chelsea in the papers. After finding the pathetic couple of lines about us and the other also rans I turn to the cricket. I'm sick of watching T.V. panelists and listening to radio talk shows speculating which of the favoured few are going to win the league. Who cares, it won't be us.

I'm fed up with having matches re-scheduled to suit Sky. I don't want to go to the match on Sunday afternoon, Monday night or 5.30 on a Saturday. I'm a dinosaur. I like 3.00pm. kickoffs on Saturday but because football's prostituted itself on the altar of t.v. commercialism that's a rarity.

They tell me football's much better now because of the Premier League. I prefered it when it was crap and teams like us, Notts Forest and Everton could come from nowhere and have ago at winning the league.

Sorry, grumpy old man syndrome in overdrive. I'll probably come down once or twice on a Saturday.

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(1) Can't afford it... buying a house atm so all ££ is being sucked up by bricks & mortar :D

If I had money to spare I would think hard about it due to the state we are in but ultimately 'invest' in one.

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I did renew, but I tell you what I have started doing.

I paid 480 for mine, and 210 for my two kids - total 900 quid (shit - why !!!!)

I have started a spreadsheet on the computer totting up how much each game would cost if we bought them seperately.

This week - offer 4 for £40 - so 40 for the three of us and my kids could bring a mate.

Lets see which one is the cheapest at the end of the season.

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Ditto, I've renewed in the Lower Holte for me and my two kids at a cost of £900. Nicky Keye assured me towards the end of last season that even taking into account all the offers throughout the season' a season ticket still works out less expensive. I suspect this season may be different though if as seems likely attendances are well down. Out of the 20 season ticket holders i know, less than half of these have renewed and they represent a fair cross section of your average fan. I do feel now that season ticket holders loyalty has been taken for granted but suspect the board have had a massive wake up call.

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I would buy a season ticket every year if I lived close enough regardless of how bad we were or what division we were in. However, for me to go to VP it costs £50 in petrol and 2 and a half hours there and 2 and a half hours back.

That said I still go 8 or 9 times a season, and can't wait for the opener on Saturday.

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