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Does Villa Attract Asian Fans?


TRS-T

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I'm not really going to add anything that hasn't already been said but Asian's tend not to feel a connection to an area.  My missus is born to Indian parents, they moved over here in the mid sixties and settled in London for about fifteen years before moving up to Warwickshire. She has four brothers who were all born in St Barts hospital, which is about as much Cockney country as you can get. It is literally within the sound of bow bells and ten minutes away from West Ham. Who do they support?   Liverpool.   Two blokes I work with are born to Pakistani immigrants, both of them have lived their entire lives in Small Heath (well one has moved out to Olton these days but the point remains) and who do they support?  Liverpool.  

There is just no connection to an area if you have no family history there.  It's being accentuated these days because most people's introduction to football is via TV so it doesn't really matter how far you live from your team's home ground. All this means is that the more successful sides will get more fans which means they will make more money and be more successful and get more fans and so on and so on.  It's a cycle we are already well over a decade into and it shows no sign of changing.   I'm doing my bit though. My kids are mixed race but they look Asian.  They are going to be Aston Villa fans. The poor bastards. 

There are loads of white Manc fans all over the country, as well as white liverpool fans all over the country.

I think your point is wrong.

Basically, the people you talk about are glory hunting clearings in the woods, like very other glory hunting clearing in the woods, whatever their colour.

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I'm not really going to add anything that hasn't already been said but Asian's tend not to feel a connection to an area.  My missus is born to Indian parents, they moved over here in the mid sixties and settled in London for about fifteen years before moving up to Warwickshire. She has four brothers who were all born in St Barts hospital, which is about as much Cockney country as you can get. It is literally within the sound of bow bells and ten minutes away from West Ham. Who do they support?   Liverpool.   Two blokes I work with are born to Pakistani immigrants, both of them have lived their entire lives in Small Heath (well one has moved out to Olton these days but the point remains) and who do they support?  Liverpool.  

There is just no connection to an area if you have no family history there.  It's being accentuated these days because most people's introduction to football is via TV so it doesn't really matter how far you live from your team's home ground. All this means is that the more successful sides will get more fans which means they will make more money and be more successful and get more fans and so on and so on.  It's a cycle we are already well over a decade into and it shows no sign of changing.   I'm doing my bit though. My kids are mixed race but they look Asian.  They are going to be Aston Villa fans. The poor bastards.

There are loads of white Manc fans all over the country, as well as white liverpool fans all over the country.

I think your point is wrong.

Basically, the people you talk about are glory hunting ...whatever their colour.

I think you're both right. The point is that people, especially the young will be attracted to successful teams. If there's no family tie, then there's nothing to counter that. Football is more global than ever, due to TV coverage. That's changed from 20 or 30 years ago, so whereas before if people wanted to see a football game they had to pretty much go to a local ground, they can now subscribe to the Sky, or go to a friends house who has Sky and watch the TV games. Or they see Champions League on telly. And most of the games and coverage is focused on Utd. Chelsea etc. So kids with no family tie tend to "follow" those teams, even though they may never be able to get to their games.

If Club make efforts to counter the TV influence it can have success, but ultimately TV has bought the Clubs' compliance and subservience.

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I'm not really going to add anything that hasn't already been said but Asian's tend not to feel a connection to an area.  My missus is born to Indian parents, they moved over here in the mid sixties and settled in London for about fifteen years before moving up to Warwickshire. She has four brothers who were all born in St Barts hospital, which is about as much Cockney country as you can get. It is literally within the sound of bow bells and ten minutes away from West Ham. Who do they support?   Liverpool.   Two blokes I work with are born to Pakistani immigrants, both of them have lived their entire lives in Small Heath (well one has moved out to Olton these days but the point remains) and who do they support?  Liverpool.  

There is just no connection to an area if you have no family history there.  It's being accentuated these days because most people's introduction to football is via TV so it doesn't really matter how far you live from your team's home ground. All this means is that the more successful sides will get more fans which means they will make more money and be more successful and get more fans and so on and so on.  It's a cycle we are already well over a decade into and it shows no sign of changing.   I'm doing my bit though. My kids are mixed race but they look Asian.  They are going to be Aston Villa fans. The poor bastards. 

There are loads of white Manc fans all over the country, as well as white liverpool fans all over the country.

I think your point is wrong.

Basically, the people you talk about are glory hunting clearings in the woods, like very other glory hunting clearing in the woods, whatever their colour.

 

 

Actually you have completely missed it, but whatever.  

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My missus is a teacher at the second largest primary school in Brum, and its kids are 100% Muslim.

 

She has been in contact with AVFC and they have been brilliant...they send a guy in to the school for coaching sessions, they lay on transport back to Villa Park for the kids to have a ground tour and they also take them into the kitchens to learn healthy cooking and eating, and let them mess around in the radio studio.

 

And it's all absolutely free.

 

The other half has now demanded they ALL be Villa fans, which is only fair ;)

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My whole family are Villa fans, starting from my Dad who has supported them since he came to the UK/Birmingham when he was 9.  I now make sure that everyone in my family becomes a Villa fan. Very hard though when automatically they want to support Man U.  I think Chindie had it spot on in an earlier post, its a football problem.  Going to football games regularly isnt ingrained into society as it used to be.  Buying a sky subscription is.  And if you watch Sky, you are more likely to watch the so called bigger teams, and they are likely to win more games than not.  Hence these kids will follow them, 

 

Villa can help by doing work with schools, which they already do.  However, its very difficult to get new new fans in unless there is a family connection there already. What Villa really need is an asian player or two to break through. 

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Do other Brum(and surrounds) clubs not have balti pies given that Brum is the curry capital?

 

Try telling Bradford that Brum is the curry capital.

 

Balti capital, maybe.

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We live in Northern Ireland where the following is usually (apart from Celtic/Rangers) man u or Liverpool.  Chelsea have started appearing.  Seen a few Leeds and West Ham.

 

Taking my son to his first game next month.  He wants to be a Villa fan and wears his kit with pride at school.  When I was in a shop the other day and said some thing about Barca and he said he didnt want Barca he wanted Villa.

 

So Job Done.

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