BOF Posted November 28, 2006 Moderator Share Posted November 28, 2006 I'd say probably none Steve. Can't wait til January Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
juantastic9 Posted November 28, 2006 Share Posted November 28, 2006 impressive stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gizmo Posted November 28, 2006 Share Posted November 28, 2006 General... have you learnt the Villa songs yet? Do you wander round all day whistling the Gabby Ag-Bon-La-Hor tune like I do? (Some light hearted questions for a change) Must just be me then... Oh well... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianrobo1 Posted November 28, 2006 Share Posted November 28, 2006 General, no doubt you will be aware it is the 50th anniversary of the last time we won the FA cup and this competition is dear to our hearts. If we get an home draw this weekend would it possible just before the KO or at half time to get as many of the survivors as possible to come and parade round the pitch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OldFart Posted November 28, 2006 Share Posted November 28, 2006 But keep Peter McParland well away from the pitch once the match begins in case he decides to race on and show our front men how it should be done, that is to say like this: click here and see Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thecraft Posted November 28, 2006 Share Posted November 28, 2006 Belated post on this topic, though I have been reading it fanatically! Cheers General you're showing your class! I was wondering how doing the job for the time you've been here has compared to what you thought it would be like, once you knew the deal was a possibility. Have there been any surprises? It's amazing to see such genuine interest and enthusiasm from the board, coupled with the level of experience and calibre of the staff being built! Couldn't happen to a better club Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkE Posted November 28, 2006 Share Posted November 28, 2006 General Krulak here: Again, I know that anything mentioned on the web is strictly "top secret" and would never get out but...discretion is the better part of valor. Semper Fidelis, General Krulak I'm another late comer to this thread, but I want to add not only Hi, Thanks and WOW but also to point out that you are, Sir, one of the few Americans who seems to have a wonderfully ironic sense of humour - no wonder you're fitting in so well round here. Prepared and Always Faithful, Mark E Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nepal_villan Posted November 28, 2006 Share Posted November 28, 2006 I notice today that Chelsea have set up an official site in Chinese. Now I know we have a very small section of ours in Spanish sometimes but having dedicated sites in other languages (Chinese and Spanish being the main two) would surely be a great way to promote the club. I'm not so stupid as to think someone at the club hasn't though of this already, but thought I'd mention it. I was going to post something about that here too... However, I believe there are restrictions on Chinese websites (I know for example that the New England Patriots have someone *in* China operating their website due to their government restrictions) Would certainly be worth looking into... Premier League football is on the rise in China (much moreso than NFL) and a market of 1.3 billion people shouldn't be overlooked. Don't forget India, over 1billion people that as yet know bugger all about football but have in the last few years have been getting all the Premier League games on ESPN. Most Indians who are Internet savvy can read English (probably a lot better than many Brits :-) But before looking for international markets, Villa needs to figure out a way of getting ethnic minorities in Birmingham into the stadium. Especially seeing that Birmingham has a very high number of them. If the Ethnic community was tapped the 7-8,000 average empty seats at Villa Park would easily be filled. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PauloBarnesi Posted November 29, 2006 Share Posted November 29, 2006 General I would love to subscribe to Villa TV, but it is rather sporadic for Mac users. Though we are a minority, we are a rather significant one. Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Condimentalist Posted November 29, 2006 Share Posted November 29, 2006 General, I would like to reiterate the need to explore the possibility of replacing the official club commentator. I'm not going to go into his faults now (there are too many to list - but primarily he fails to actually commentate). Whilst this is obviously a minor issue in comparison to playing/marketing/ticketing issues I still would hope it does not go unnoticed. Regards, Patrick. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jez Posted November 29, 2006 Share Posted November 29, 2006 General, Can you sack Jack Woodward please, the bloke is terrible and celebrates when the opposition scores on regular occasions! Infact the whole commentary team needs an overhaul, the chavs at half time are rubbish as well. Many thanks Jeremy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villab0y Posted November 29, 2006 Share Posted November 29, 2006 Hi General, just a small comment i'd like to make, I have a ST in the North stand and my seat is right next to the sponsors seats, now I know that people in these seats are likely to support the away teams sometimes but on many occasions there has been trouble, now I'm not sure what can be done about this but I think something should be said. Sometimes they can be quite abusive, for instance against West ham last year a West Ham 'fan' was so vocal and abusive it caused a Villa fan to get into an argument. and it was the Villa fan that got kicked out. Like I say, I'm not sure what if anything can be done, but I just wanted to voice my concern as next season I'll be attending with my 4yr old ( we met you and Randy before the Spurs game not long back) and I don't think its the best thing for kids to see/hear. Cheers. Happened again tonight, no-one got kicked out but the away fans wasnt very...say sympathetic to who they were sat by. Its not good when kids are about to hear fans swearing and shouting abuse at us sat less than a metre away. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ender4 Posted November 29, 2006 Share Posted November 29, 2006 But before looking for international markets, Villa needs to figure out a way of getting ethnic minorities in Birmingham into the stadium. Especially seeing that Birmingham has a very high number of them. If the Ethnic community was tapped the 7-8,000 average empty seats at Villa Park would easily be filled. I was refering to India as a market, untapped other than a small amount of followers in a way similar to the USA I would suppose. The best way to get Asians into the stadium is through further integration in the game as whole. People need their heroes and maybe Michael Chopra will be the man who can change things on that score. I remember an Indian referee who never got promoted to the Premier League a few years ago despite his performance ratings but Paul Durkin who had a lower rating was promoted. Things like that stick in the mind I would suggest. That is definitely something to look into - How to market Villa to the local ethnic community. Being an indian Brummie, i know that a lot of asian Brummies love football, but they would never go to watch a match live. I'm not sure why. (Maybe a hangover from stories of violence/racism in football during the 70's/80's?!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LukeMoore Posted November 29, 2006 Share Posted November 29, 2006 General please tell randy that i don't care what the badge looks like, i don't care what the kit looks like, i don't care if the stadium lights are left on, i don't care what food is served, the only thing i care about is the players i have to watch on the pitch and i hope he will provide the funds to improve that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LancsVillan Posted November 29, 2006 Moderator Share Posted November 29, 2006 Comments about our Villaworld commentator have been deleted, there are other threads around his performance tonight and overall ability that The General and club will no doubt be aware of. With so much media and marketing experience on the board these days I trust them to find the faults themselves Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnCresswell Posted November 30, 2006 Share Posted November 30, 2006 Hello everyone, Just before I go to bed I thought I'd drop in a post about today's meeting with General Krulak, and the fellow Aston Villa Supporters Groups. First of all, I just want to re-emphasise what a great man we seem to have at the club. General Krulak is honest, straight forward, has a very good sense of humour, and more importantly, he seems to know exactly what is needed. A big thankyou to Lee Preece at Villa to, and Russell, both put themselves across brilliantly. Anyway, the meeting: Anyway, we are all given the agenda, and The General introduces himself, and talks a bit about Randy and the future ahead. Boy, what a motivator! Spoke very clearly, and precisely, and managed to really get accross that point that unity was needed. This meeting was to talk about the future of club - fan communication - It is not sensible for the General to keep having to log onto the internat and talk to people on Villa websites - he has he own life! It is also unfair to the non-web based Villans. So, after the amazing introduction speech by The General, which finished him with saying "Let me tell you this, Randy is here to win the European Cup. He wants to see those Villa players lift that beautiful silver up above their heads", we were introduced to their idea, of creating a Supporters Consultation Group (SCG), which the purposes are: * Find out what questions the fans want to ask * Explain, where possible, their plans to supporters * Encourage Supporters for feedback * Identify things we can do together. It was emphasised that obviously, nothing like this has been at the club, so this is why they decided rather than create some new fan group, by inviting the many supporter groups there are, you already have a structure there. The challenges they see with this, are: * They do not have the resources to engage with every fan individually * When feedback is recieved, they need to establish if it reflects the majority * There is a limit to the number of questions they can answer at one time * They cannot consult on every decision made * There will be times when they disagree, and some supporters won't like it! The SCG will meet up quarterly with the club. It will be made up of 15 participants, and once it has been stablised, different people will attend each meeting. However, there is consistency in who is invited. Each SCG will be made up of the following: * 5 Season Ticket holders/supporters without affliation to a group * 5 Supporter Group chairmen * 1 representative of AViDS * 1 representative of H&V * 1 representative of Villa Talk * 1 representative of the Villa Trust * 1 representative of Vital Football The basis of these meetings is not to represent individual need. It is being established for the benefit of AVFC. People going to the SCG will need to arrive with questions/point ready - three each was mentioned - and everybody would ask their question in turn. These key questions are for the benefit of all.This would be then written down, and you will say which is the priority concern, least important concern, and the middle one. These meetings will not be where we get answers, it is to establish what are the concerns of the Villa fans from the community that you represent. The club will then publish the questions and answers for everybody, on the Official website, and where possible, through other communications. Anything where they wish to ask fans their opinion - on things such as badges, shirts, music players run out to, will be dealt with by suggestions in the SCG meetings, and then voted for by ALL Villa fans on the Voice in the Crowd intiative, at www.avfc.eglobalplanet.com . A link to this will be on fansites. Talk about using fansites and organisations to spread the good word on Villa whereever possible - many things happen and we need to stop relying on the press to send out messages. It was all really, really positive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
100%-Villan Posted November 30, 2006 Share Posted November 30, 2006 Never mind all that John, who we gonna sign in January?? :winkold: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pablopicasso Posted November 30, 2006 Share Posted November 30, 2006 sounds good john... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianrobo1 Posted November 30, 2006 Share Posted November 30, 2006 excellent JC, it is waht we always wanted, communication and dialogue with teh club and plans of actions !!! Glad to see it was so constructive and we are moving forward and the website politics kept out of it. General, thanks for being there and facilitating the meeting sounds like you impressed everyone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lombardo Posted November 30, 2006 Share Posted November 30, 2006 That sounds quality John... Good to see such a good base for our opinions is being set up!!!! It shows that even after what happened tonight that we are going forward at a great pace!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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