Shillzz Posted November 13, 2011 Share Posted November 13, 2011 Randy, like 9 out of 10 premiership club owners, would love to sell. Unfortunately it probably won't happen. There doesn't appear to be the fan base to support / justify a vanity project akin to that of (say) Malaga or Man City. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barry'sboots Posted November 13, 2011 Share Posted November 13, 2011 Randy, like 9 out of 10 premiership club owners, would love to sell. Unfortunately it probably won't happen. There doesn't appear to be the fan base to support / justify a vanity project akin to that of (say) Malaga or Man City. I agree that there is unlikely to be a buyer waiting in the wings. I don't agree that we have a fan base less than Citeh or Mallaga?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shillzz Posted November 13, 2011 Share Posted November 13, 2011 Fan base / potential fan base... Even when we were doing relatively well under Oneill, with low ticket prices, we struggled to top 40k attendance. I'd love to be proved wrong, but I think it would take a monumental effort to pack the stadium every week. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John_Lerwill Posted November 13, 2011 Share Posted November 13, 2011 It could be achieved, but only if Villa started to win a trophy or two. There is a very large catchment area in which Villa have little opposition, but their interest has to be stimulated for the potential visitors to want to visit Villa Park. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Denis_B Posted November 13, 2011 Share Posted November 13, 2011 A Man Citee stye takeover would do it, but we aren't in the frame really Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sne Posted November 13, 2011 Share Posted November 13, 2011 Loads of sites reporting on possible Qatari takeover bids of Blackburn and Everton today. Nothing about Villa thou... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markavfc40 Posted November 13, 2011 Share Posted November 13, 2011 Fan base / potential fan base... Even when we were doing relatively well under Oneill, with low ticket prices, we struggled to top 40k attendance. I'd love to be proved wrong, but I think it would take a monumental effort to pack the stadium every week. Its certainly achievable in my opinion. As you say we only did relatively well under O'Neill but bottom line was we flirted with 4th a couple of seasons and finished 6th 3 times on the spin. Decent but hardly spectacular and not enough to put say 10k on to an average gate. As it was attendances were pretty decent though - 07/08 over 40k average, 08/09 just under 40k and 09/10 just under 39k and this was with the expense of a load of cup games given our runs in the League Cup and FA Cup. It should also be remembered that during that period under O'Neill we were not spending anything like the money that Man City have on individual players. The 10 -12 mill on Downing and Milner were our big signings. Compare that to the massive money spent on big names by city on the likes of Robinho, Tevez, De Jong, Adebayor, Ballotelli, Silva, Aguero, Dzeko. The list is endless. A few big names alone will put a few thousand on to attendances but we have never been financially in the game to sign them. With Man City level spending and the attraction of big names we've easily got the dormant fan base that will start coming and could sell out every game and likely justify an extension to the ground taking it up to 50k plus. Its a pipe dream though really and I don't expect to see it in my lifetime and I'm 37! Having said that I'm sure Man City never dreamed 5 years ago they would be where they are now or Chelsea 15 years ago. Money talks now its as simple as that. Liverpool are a huge club second only to Man Utd in terms of world wide fan base ( English Clubs ) but due to not having the financial muscle over the last 2-3 years they fell behind the likes of Man City, Chelsea and Utd. Whether people like it or not the way things stand with in the game then the only way we are going to achieve real success (trophies/Champions League football) is to be taken over by someone mega rich willing to invest silly money on players. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brommy Posted November 13, 2011 Share Posted November 13, 2011 Loads of sites reporting on possible Qatari takeover bids of Blackburn and Everton today. Nothing about Villa thou... If Randy was as interested in selling as some people claim, wouldn't there be more media speculation regarding the seller and any potential buyer(s)? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sne Posted November 13, 2011 Share Posted November 13, 2011 Loads of sites reporting on possible Qatari takeover bids of Blackburn and Everton today. Nothing about Villa thou... If Randy was as interested in selling as some people claim, wouldn't there be more media speculation regarding the seller and any potential buyer(s)? Yeah, one would think so. Sadly I don't see anything changing in the foreseeable future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CI Posted November 13, 2011 Author Share Posted November 13, 2011 I can see Everton being a fairly attractive investment opportunity but Blackburn ?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thetrees Posted November 13, 2011 Share Posted November 13, 2011 Fan base / potential fan base... Even when we were doing relatively well under Oneill, with low ticket prices, we struggled to top 40k attendance. I'd love to be proved wrong, but I think it would take a monumental effort to pack the stadium every week. Believe it or not, there were a lot of stayaways in the O'Neill era, largely because the football was pretty crap. If we had serious investment (once again, like 2006-2008), and a manager with the football nous and panache of Ron Atkinson (a more modern version), then you would be talking about expanding the capacity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CI Posted November 13, 2011 Author Share Posted November 13, 2011 Without doubt, I know it's a while ago and times have changed but villa park used to regularly get over 70,000 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brommy Posted November 13, 2011 Share Posted November 13, 2011 Without doubt, I know it's a while ago and times have changed but villa park used to regularly get over 70,000 Was that before world war II? :? The fact that our average attendance has never been above 48000 for the last 65 years doesn't really support the way that CI has represented his 'fact'. It would appear that our season average attendance since the last world war has been around 30,000. A combination of the numerous league clubs in our area (as poor as they usually are), the general apathy towards football in the midlands (compared to the north west and north east) and lack of fan cash (compared to London), ensures that whilst we'll always be big, we'll never be massive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markavfc40 Posted November 13, 2011 Share Posted November 13, 2011 Without doubt, I know it's a while ago and times have changed but villa park used to regularly get over 70,000 Your going back pre World War 2 at least. In the last 60 years ( since 1951 ) we have averaged over 40k once - in 2007/08. Our next highest of the last 60 years was the following season - 08/09. As I said in my previous post I believe with Man City like investment we would sell out week in week out and be looking at expanding the ground to 50k+. People see the O'Neill era as a time of major investment but really in comparative terms to the money Chelsea, Man City, Man Utd invest over a sustained period it was chicken feed. Our big money signings were Milner and Downing at 10 -12 mill a pop. Not even in the same ball park as signing the likes of Tevez, Robinho, Adebeyor, Dzeko, De Jong, Aguero, Ballotelli etc. To get anything like success the way football is now you need a mega rich owner and silly/astronomical amounts to spend on players. Its no secret how Man City have come from being a mid table Prem team at best to now being serious contenders for the Prem title and Champs League. They have simply out spent every body else. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John_Lerwill Posted November 13, 2011 Share Posted November 13, 2011 Without doubt, I know it's a while ago and times have changed but villa park used to regularly get over 70,000 Was that before world war II? :? The fact that our average attendance has never been above 48000 for the last 65 years doesn't really support the way that CI has represented his 'fact'. CI raised this chestnut earlier in the thread. The answer is that just after WW2 there were some very high gates indeed - between 1946 and 1949. This was due to men coming back into civvy life after years involved in the War. However, the gates were never regularly 70,000. There was that famous 76,000+ record gate in 1946, but the high gates were between 50,0000 and 60,000 in that 3-year period. Typically, gates were less than that, however. By 1950, the attendances were dropping - mainly in accord with the lack of Villa's success at that time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John_Lerwill Posted November 13, 2011 Share Posted November 13, 2011 Without doubt, I know it's a while ago and times have changed but villa park used to regularly get over 70,000 Your going back pre World War 2 at least. There *never* were regular gates of 70k. I'm afraid that's a myth. Even in the 1930s I find only some 3 or 4 occasions when the attendance reached 70,000 or more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CI Posted November 13, 2011 Author Share Posted November 13, 2011 Appreciate all that but even more recent times have seen big gates down the villa : 71/72 - Bournemouth feb 12 - 48,110 Then there was barca in 78 - over 50k The great spurs lockout in the 90s If we were challenging near the top we'd av 55k IMO The record us from 1946, 76,588 v derby fa cup 6th round Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brommy Posted November 13, 2011 Share Posted November 13, 2011 Without doubt, I know it's a while ago and times have changed but villa park used to regularly get over 70,000 Was that before world war II? :? The fact that our average attendance has never been above 48000 for the last 65 years doesn't really support the way that CI has represented his 'fact'. CI raised this chestnut earlier in the thread. The answer is that just after WW2 there were some very high gates indeed - between 1946 and 1949. This was due to men coming back into civvy life after years involved in the War. However, the gates were never regularly 70,000. There was that famous 76,000+ record gate in 1946, but generally the gates were between 50,0000 and 60,000 in that 3-year period. By 1950, the attendances were dropping - mainly in accord with the lack of Villa's success at that time. I'm not sure how accurate this is as it's from wiki :oops: , but it would appear that attendances just after the war were generally between 40k and 50k. Looking at the 30k line, it also appears that there are almost as many years below it as above it. Given the current general apathy towards football, our manager and owner, it's a miracle that we will average over 30k this season. I'm not saying that we aren't a big club with the potential to average 40k+ again, just that we never have been a '60k to 70k every game' club. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John_Lerwill Posted November 13, 2011 Share Posted November 13, 2011 Appreciate all that but even more recent times have seen big gates down the villa : 71/72 - Bournemouth feb 12 - 48,110 Then there was barca in 78 - over 50k The great spurs lockout in the 90s If we were challenging near the top we'd av 55k IMO The record us from 1946, 76,588 v derby fa cup 6th round The story goes that that 76,5888 figure was one that someone just pulled that figure out of the air!! They apparently did not have a proper control on how many entered. They say the real gate was more like 80,000. Yes, you're right with the above figures, but the general mean since WW2 is somewhere around 28,000 to 30,000. As I've said before, there were times when the attendances were way below 20,000. With proper investment - and trophies - Villa could definitely get 50k. No more, though, as there's no room at VP for a bigger ground than that. Unless stand-up viewing were introduced in parts of the ground. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John_Lerwill Posted November 13, 2011 Share Posted November 13, 2011 I'm not saying that we aren't a big club with the potential to average 40k+ again, just that we never have been a '60k to 70k every game' club. You're right with your stats, Brommy. I've corrected my previous post on this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts