Will we ever be that happy again?

[VillaSpen]

It's getting so bad that I'm considering allowing my 2 year old to just fucking pick whoever he wants to support when gets to be old enough. There's very little chance that he'll be going to more than a handful of Villa games in the next decade or two so I don't think it will ever really be within him to accept that he just HAS to support them because that's who I chose for him. Without the connection that he'll make by actually going and seeing, hearing and smelling Villa Park twenty times a year throughout his youth I honestly don't think he'd be able to make the decision like I did in 1987 as a very sad 8 year old after my first season of going. It was dreadful but as I was so encapsulated by the whole event I can look back now and, despite how bleak things appear, rest assured that I alone made that choice to keep going for the following 20 years. The rewards came in winning the League Cups and seeing us play some exhilirating stuff with the teams of 89/90, 92/93 and 95/96. As long as there's even a remote chance that we'll see something akin to those styles again then I'll keep believing that we can indeed be happy again.

Of course, living out here, the choices my boy will have are between playing Rugby or supporting one of the teams that every other kid over here does - United, Chelsea, Arsenal, Barcelona, Real Madrid and for some bloody reason Liverpool. Which should a father really be hoping for out of those options?!

[PaulTheVillan]

I don't think so.

[N'ZMAV]

We are very broken, in many ways, from the very top down, right through. And there's more money and debt in the game now than ever before.

[Ads]

I don't think things will get any worse. I am sure there will be a time in the next couple of seasons when we knock on the door of something special. I also can see a time when we get melodramatic again, such as threads like this.

[Risso]

I don't think things will get any worse. I am sure there will be a time in the next couple of seasons when we knock on the door of something special. I also can see a time when we get melodramatic again, such as threads like this.

I'd say we've a one in three chance of staying up, and if we do go down, we'll be probably knackered.

[Ads]

One in three? A 66% chance that we will be relegated?

[olaftab]

It's getting so bad that I'm considering allowing my 2 year old to just fucking pick whoever he wants to support when gets to be old enough. There's very little chance that he'll be going to more than a handful of Villa games in the next decade or two so I don't think it will ever really be within him to accept that he just HAS to support them because that's who I chose for him.

Clearly it's difficult for you out there to make him Villa when in the coming years his school mates will be be all following Champion's League teams. I am having difficulty here in Birmingham however there is nothing like taking a youngster to Villa Park. Turn up a bit early walk around the outside. Pop into the shop watch the fans walk up past Aston Parish Church look up to the Holte. Another walk that does make it a wonderful setting is through the park. Ones the kids have done that once or twice they are hooked. So let him go free now but I am sure when you guys come over and he goes to VP he will be hooked. Just keep reminding him now and than.
On the team itself I am much happier now than I have for a few years as I see that there is a sustainable method emerging. Lets survive this year and than I believe we will rise again.

[olaftab]

I don't think things will get any worse. I am sure there will be a time in the next couple of seasons when we knock on the door of something special. I also can see a time when we get melodramatic again, such as threads like this.

I'd say we've a one in three chance of staying up, and if we do go down, we'll be probably knackered.

Lets not make this another miserable thread. Keep it positive.

[Risso]

One in three? A 66% chance that we will be relegated?

Sounds about right.  8/11 with most bookies, so around that.

[Risso]

I don't think things will get any worse. I am sure there will be a time in the next couple of seasons when we knock on the door of something special. I also can see a time when we get melodramatic again, such as threads like this.

I'd say we've a one in three chance of staying up, and if we do go down, we'll be probably knackered.

Lets not make this another miserable thread. Keep it positive.

Did you even read the opening post?

[Legion]

If we stay up this season I will be overjoyed.

[saunders_heroes]

If we stay up this season I will be overjoyed.

So will I. Like the weight of the world lifted off my shoulders. It's been a horrible season.

[ktvillan]

Sadly the short answer to the OP is no - unless a middle east consortium or Warren Buffet take us over.  Because of the way modern football is, that's the only way we'll ever be competitive again. And I suspect even that would feel hollow.

[Villadroid]

People don't want to hear it but the fact is that there is no good news. The Villa fans who witnessed Villa's glories in the latter decades of the 20th Century will be the last generation who will know what it was like to be the best or even be contenders.

Football has collided with the neoliberal nightmare and football lost - that nightmare being a dystopia where those with the most money get to wield their block votes.

As is generally understood big capital has throughout history sought monopoly and has done its best to avoid competition and we are seeing the exact same process taking place in football as the industry moves towards a de facto franchise system to protect the big clubs from competition and exclude new arrivals into the sector.

All promoted by a lie which is the exact opposite of the truth - that it is to protect smaller clubs.

But happiness will still be possible because once the Villa have learned to accept their new Uriah Heep status, expectations will be lowered and a brave performance in the cup against one of the mega-clubs will be seen as some kind of achievement.

Villa are in the process of becoming the Ronnie Barker of football clubs, from the famous, "I look up to him and down on him" sketch, with Cleese and Corbett.

[Pete3206]

Jeez, what a depressing read