How many of you have lost the love like me?

[Leighton]

My brother was the first to take me to the Villa, in the mid eighties. He would go everywhere with them, home and away. I enjoyed ten years of his company on the Holte End, getting my terrace education and watching a game that was not yet swamped with player power and agents. My brother is a lot older than I am and during his mid thirties, just as things were looking up under Big Ron, and I was in my late teens, he just stopped going. It did not make sense; I used to tease him saying that he is not a real fan, that no way would I ever stop going to watch the Villa. I remember quite clearly he told me that one day it may happen to me, and once I stop going- as he did- it becomes an easy habit to get into. I did not believe him, he was talking nonsense!

So forward twenty and a bit years…I am the one now in my mid thirties and the old fart is the wrong side of fifty.  He came out of Villa retirement when Mon arrived and it was as if he had never been away. Nevertheless, during the last few seasons under Mon, I began to get increasingly more bored and fed-up of match days and even more questionable of the Premier League and all of the over the top hype that surrounds it. Granted, I was not Mon’s biggest fan during his last few seasons and thought that it may well have been for that reason why my enjoyment was diminishing. I made my mind up before the end of his last season not to renew my season ticket.

True to my word, last season under Houllier I did not have a season ticket though I did attend a decent amount of games, many of them at the tail end of the season. Yet with each game I was attending, I was finding myself becoming even more bored and my mind was wandering off during the match. Not even the pre match banter felt the same. The same old routine was becoming a chore. It just got in the way. It was just too much hassle.

My mind was set, I was packing up. Nothing would tempt me back, not even the promise of a big name manager or big new signings. Obviously neither of these two things happened anyway! Though again, I have been true to my word. This season I have been to exactly ZERO games. What’s more, I have not felt at any time that I am missing anything. This has absolutely nothing to do with the current state of the club, or who our manager is, the type of football that we play etc...

I’m not really that sure if I want anything to reignite my interest to the levels it used to be, because I’m quite enjoying life without having to worry about the Villa (saying that out loud still feels all very peculiar and alien to me, yet at the same time I say it with genuine honesty).

I am not sure whether it is just a phase. Maybe I will get a sudden urge one day to get back down there, just as my brother did after over a decade and a half away. What it will take only time will tell, if it happens at all that is. Football is a game that I love but one that I am beginning to loathe.  Aston Villa is the club that I still love, but no longer really care for as much as I would like to.

It is a shame, I was a good fan.

[sidcowans10]

I don't think I ve ever read a post on here that I agree with so much and sums up perfectly my thought process over the last few seasons. I had a season ticket in Mon's last season but decided the poor stuff I was watching at vp ( we drew lots then too) meant I wouldn't renew.
Went to a few games last season but had lost the love a little. This season, I wouldn't go if I had a free ticket. Does make me a bad fan ? Yes, probably it does to my shame. But I don't miss going and have more important things in my life. Even my girlfriend is now more important than Villa !! That is a first !!! Although she doesn't seem as honoured by that as I thought she might be

[Percy McCarthy]

Fucking girlfriends more important than the Villa - I've heard it all now. Haven't you had many?

I wouldn't mind all this incessant whingeing if it didn't come across like a campaign to get us all to join them traipsing round the shops with a bird or whatever the fuck it is they do that's so much more exciting than being with their mates cheering the Villa.

They'll be back again when we don't need them.

[PeterWithe]

Sounds like you just want someone to convince you that everything will be hunky-dory as we're just on the cusp of greatness, well it won't, its Villa, average is what we do best.

[Rip Van We Go Again]

Lost my love for it a few seasons ago, just been drifting ever since.

[ozzjim]

Lost my love for it a few seasons ago, just been drifting ever since.

Mine is certainly on the downward slope, and I have not been to a game this season. 2 small children to entertain at weekends are much better.

[Legion]

I simply have a feeling of apathy towards it at the moment.

[amfy]

I drifted off from football completely in about 1990 for getting on for 10 years. I was out of work for about 18 months, and then when I did get a job it was shifts. I was actually at work on Trinity Road on the last day of the old Holte End, watching everyone go by. To be fair though, my work situation wasn't the central reason, it just gave me the excuse I was looking for. I'd got fed up with knowing that every favourite player would inevitably leave and I would have to then begin the task again of investing my hero worship in another one.
I actually reached the point of not even knowing who we were playing most of the time, let alone how we'd got on. If I turned on the telly during anything football related, I would cringe at the whole "Giggsy/Scholesy" blokey mateyness of it all and wonder why I'd ever been interested. However, I did get to at least one match with my Dad in all but one of my missing seasons - and I think it might have been the shock of getting to the end of one particular season and realising that I hadn't been at all that started to pull me back.

I don't know when I started to listen out for our scores again, and then start to have a match commentary on, but I do remember one Saturday morning looking in my purse and thinking I had enough money to go, and just setting off for Villa Park. We played Spurs I think - it was the day of the £ protest, and it was the beginning of a journey back that led to me ending up with a season ticket again from 2002.

I'd like to say that those who are disenchanted now will also drift back in again at some point, but football has changed a lot, only the turnover of favourite players remains the same as ever! It can only now be a game of who's got the most money, and I don't even want to win like that. So, if I drifted off again, football would have to implode before I'd be back.

[rutski]

Fucking girlfriends more important than the Villa - I've heard it all now. Haven't you had many?

I wouldn't mind all this incessant whingeing if it didn't come across like a campaign to get us all to join them traipsing round the shops with a bird or whatever the fuck it is they do that's so much more exciting than being with their mates cheering the Villa.

They'll be back again when we don't need them.

im bored of the moaning too!

[Rip Van We Go Again]

Fucking girlfriends more important than the Villa

Couldn't agree more.

[Percy McCarthy]

Nah Fletch, I'd have to have some kind of erectile dysfunction that meant I could only get wood while the Villa were playing. Even then I'd just take one with me and do it at half-time.

[Slaphead]

I have lost my love for Villa at the moment, had for a few seasons but I still go, it just means I turn up later and more drunk than I used to.

[Phil from the upper holte]

Been fed up for a while, I still go but I think that is more due to misguided loyalty, I prefer away games, I went to Wigan & Blackburn, My mate tried to get me to go to Fulham but I said 3 weeks in a row is too much, Plus I really hate home games I aint been to Villa Park since Bolton in the cup

[supertommykN'iba]

Can't stand the home games anymore really, but it may be because I can't have a pint before and after the game like I'd like too. That may make the whole experience a little more bareable.

Away games however are completely the opposite, I'm actually gutted that there's still over two weeks to go until Arsenal. I expect all that more hovers around the 'away day' rather than actually going to watch Villa play though.

[PaulWinch again]

I simply have a feeling of apathy towards it at the moment.

Yeah same here, I wasn't remotely surprised or angry when Blackburn equalised at the weekend. There was a time when I'd have been in a rage all evening.