Are we a big club?

Even the dogshit sports reporting of the Daily Mail seem to think so!



http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-3011776/Are-Manchester-United-Liverpool-Arsenal-Chelsea-biggest-club-Sportsmail-s-study-finally-settles-football-s-great-debate.html

We're big but we're living on our past reputation. Problem is we live in a "I want it now" society, and we don't have it at the moment .... So historically big .... currently small time due to small minded ownership.

If you look at those categories used, we fall down on crowds, Players, and income. The crowds are directly related to the players, and the income too - our downfall is the owners. Can't argue with that. We need taking over.

This is what is so so so so so SO fucking frustrating. All it takes is new owners with big time ambition, who will treat us as such, and we can be right up there. RIGHT up there.

I read an article from a Baggies fan recently about them closing the gap on us, and how we're equals now.

Well guess what? Over the past 3/4 years West Bromwich Albion have been - by some considerable way - the best version of West Bromwich Albion that there has been in my lifetime as a football fan.

By the same token, in the same period, Aston Villa have been by far the worst version of Aston Villa.

THAT is how far they have to climb and how far we have to fall just for them to be anywhere near us.

Yet Albion can't do much better than their current existence without doing something exceptional, and Southampton are currently occupying a spot of punching far and above beyond their weight (admittedly made slightly easier by us and Everton currently underachieving) and some would say Swansea are too.

They also have Pullis as manager. He never finished in the top half in his entire time at Stoke. Hughes managed it in one season.

We on the other hand, just need to get our fucking act together and we'll be flying back up there. Maybe Sherwood is the man, maybe he isn't, but with a takeover his face might not fit anyway, so who knows. But we need taking over and we need someone who truly, genuinely, 'gets' the potential of Aston Villa; EVERYTHING is in place, and while it will take some hard work and plenty of know-how, we're primed for bigger and better things. Getting rid of Paul Faulkner was massively important, as was getting rid of Paul Lambert. But until Randy Lerner goes, it feels like we'll continue to be our own worst enemy.

Randy Lerner is a clueless football club owner who also happens to be a decent guy. It makes it just a bit harder to hate his single handed demolition of AVFC because we know that he had no idea what the outcome of his woeful mismanagement would be. He should have listened to the thousands of life long Villa fans who tried to tell him on numerous occasions, rather than listening to non football people like Faulkner, Russell, Krulak et al.

Tom Fox initially refused to listen to thousands of fans and held onto Lambert for much to long, while rather arrogantly (misguidedly?) calling us misguided. Fortunately he was bright enough to do a complete 180 degree turn on that and sack PL. Whether it was just in time remains to be seen.

Lerner may have good intentions, but he will never have the mindset that we need in a Villa owner. Hopefully he will pull off a redeeming sale to a really astute new owner this summer, who can put the "BIG" straight back into Aston Villa.

If we survive I look forward to an interesting and possibly exciting summer. I do not want to even contemplate the alternative scenario.

this list seems fairly accurate to me , i have always seen us as "best of the rest" , on a par with Spurs & Everton !
Spurs have obviously moved away from us at the moment & Martinez is doing his level best to bring Everton back down to us !
Chelsea & City are obviously "new money" so with proper investment & management there would be no reason why we couldn't reach their heights !
What always remind me we are not a truly big club is the fact Utd & liverpool fans have to wait for someone to die to get the chance of a season ticket, that would never be the case at Villa !
if relegated , I don't think our paying support would stay as much as the fans turning up when Man City went down either !

I think if we had twenty years of top four finishes, League titles and Champion's League success, you would probably have to kill to get a Villa season ticket! I'll probably be dead by then so you can have mine.

Isn't it still the case with Liverplop though & they haven't won the league in 25 years ?
do we ever sell out ?

There is a waiting list for Liverpool, but as much as they haven't won the league in a generation they have still won things, played CL footy etc. We're just about avoid championSHIP football let alone league!

That Man City point is a bit of a dubious one as well Bill. I mean they can't sell out now and they're in the best shape of their entire history.

The thing is we haven't won anything. Even under MoN. Best crowd I remember was Ajax.

Fans love clubs winning trophies. You only get big crowds for underperforming teams in 1 club cities - Newcastle

We are still a big club in the Midlands, a fairly big club in England and Britain but after that, European and World stage, we are shrinking.
The way to rectify this is by continued success by wining leagues, cups european honours, buying and developing the worlds best talent and retaining them.
But how would it be if every time you watched the Villa you expected them to win and you were priced out of your season ticket by glory hunting, prawn sandwich eating Tarquin's, clogging up the Express Way with their Range Rovers, clapping politely when we score?

Here is my take on it

Is Aston Villa a big club?

Aston Villa up to lets say when the 2 World wars kicked in was the super club of World football, like a Barcelona or Man Utd of the modern era World football. That was a period from 1874 to about 1930, a period of about 50 or 60 years when Villa was HUGE!

That is a very long period and indeed longer than almost any clubs period of dominance even to this day.

Then the club kind of went off the boil somewhat between 1930 and about the mid 1970's when we won a few League cups and then of course reached the ultimate height of the European cup & League title in 1980/81.

Now this for me is where & why it gets confusing as to the size of this club... You have the very deep roots from the original decades of football of probably the greatest club in World football, those original Villa boys have now in the main departed this World in body of course but the memories and passion has been passed down the generations to us by our fathers and forefathers, We therefore have that history in our genes to a point and i know that this club has been great once and could do it again....It may be decades away of course but with the right owner/leader who can see the hidden potential it just could happen.

Now imagine this.

You are a fan, you have watched your team win cup after cup peaking with a huge European cup win but then your owner decides he's had enough, falls out with your manager and sells up to a man called Dougy Rellis... the fans are expectant as you have recently won the Prem title and European cup with your manager Don Saundersbury.. But the new owner, as it soon becomes clear, is merely happy to watch the team stay loosely competitive so long as he doesn't have to break the bank... He is also a little bitter that he missed the European cup winning years likely because he knows expectations are higher than he'd like as he has no intention of funding such success in his tenure so as a result within a few years the buzz of winning the cups has waned and the team are to everybody's surprise relegated.

They come quickly back up but this frustrating second rate football is a real let down to fans who a few years previously had watched the amazing side lift Europe's ultimate prize playing quality, exciting and exhilarating football

The team now flatter to deceive going from flitting with the top boys briefly one year then going down again as the owner just won't match the proven potential of the club with his own.

This goes on for 30 years!! with just the odd League cup win to appease the now massively disillusioned fan base

Then finally due to old age the owner sells up to some big talking American and his sidekick... Again after things pick up a little and a few 6th place finishes are achieved the owner decides he can't cope and laden with a divorce back home in the USA he loses interest and yet again the poor fans have their hopes lifted only to yet again be massively let down for the 34th & 35th year in a succession!

To rub salt in the latest manager breaks every embarrassing record going almost single handedly in one season and yet the passionate fans still turn up week after week in their droves and despite all this torture for three & a half decades the true size of the club is recognised in a newspaper article which despite everything still shows the club to be amongst the top 8 in the country!!.. Wow!! this must be some big club right???

THAT my friends is to me proof of the potential size of this club

Tell me how many clubs would go through 35 years of underachievement, lack of ambition, poor football and let down after let down and STILL attract gates of 35,000 to 40,000 and STILL be regarded as one of the top 8 clubs in the Premier League?!!

That is surely testament to the size of this great club... It is a big club, it's a massive club, most of us know it...it's in our genes but we need an owner, a great leader of a man who can lead this club back to where it should be!

Ask yourself this too.... How many fans would Chelsea or Man City have if their club went through what this club has been through since 1982? Something tells me they would be somewhat lower than the 8th biggest rated team!

No, the fact we are still being shown as the 8th biggest club despite 35 years of under performing is all the proof i need to know how big this club can be.

Put it this way, how big would this club be if it was run right for 10 years? The team became competitive and won a few cups maybe getting a top 4 and Champs League! What would the attendances be then i ask? Especially if as it appears the new TV money is going to lower admission prices!

I think a ground expansion would be on the cards, the area could be redeveloped Man City style even and some huge sponsorship packages would surely follow?....So where would we be then? ..It just needs someone to have the vision, financial clout and Leadership to do it.....Anyone!....Please? :shock:

The first thing that struck me was the crowd figure.
Liverpool and Villa lower (FAR lower) than Chelsea. Clearly this table is based on all-time rather than post-1982, so quite how the fuck Chelsea ranked 3rd when StamfordBridge was barely half full before the shifty Russian moved in, I don't know.

I wonder if the same applies to Man City. How are they getting a 2 for crowds?

Newcastle above West Ham for global franchise? Bullshit!

But, as has been stated, we're living on past glories. in my lifetime we had won more FA Cups than any other team. Not any more. How long until our proud status of providing more players to the England squad than any other team gets brushed aside?

Until we get some real business brains combined with football brains on the board and have the ambition that once made us pioneers (and as good as Tom Fox may be, there will always be a bottle-neck I the shape of Randy Lerner), we will continue to see down that list.

Utterer....great post!

Trotters wrote:Utterer....great post!

Make that two Utterer! We were huge, we hit the ultimate height, and then we've flattered to deceive until five years ago when we totally cocked everything up!

The last five years haven't made us a small club. They've just been a huge embarrassment to our tens of thousands of fans who have grown up with a clear idea of the magnitude of Aston Villa. Unfortunately for us the Villa image has recently been distorted by a man hidden away in Amagansett, Long Island NY.

We remain a big club that is currently held back by a small time owner.

Top stuff indeed Utterer.

Trotters wrote:Utterer....great post!

Agree great read good post

Thanks guys for kind words.