Are we, as supporters, doing enough???

[wozwebs]

Might get some flak for this but should we be looking at ourselves (and I include myself in this) as playing a part in the current malaise / coma the whole club is in? Took my wife to the game against Palace as our little one was a mascot. He had a lovely day and was well looked after. She has no real interest in Football and hasn't been since the late 90's and during the 1st half, sat in the Trinity Road by the tunnel, she said to me "What's happened to the famous Holte End, they're not singing at all?" I said "Because they don't give us anything to sing about" and she replied "So you only bother to sing when you're winning, why don't you get behind them, the encouragement might help them score?"

Has she got a point (never thought I'd say that lol)?

I'm a season ticket holder in K5 Holte End Upper Tier and the atmosphere has been awful for a few years now as you all know. You can hardly hear the Holte from other parts of the ground and I know the current regime is currently sapping all of our enthusiasm as the football we are watching is abysmal but shouldn't we be doing our part too?

I was debating about going tomorrow but thought I'll go and get behind them so bought tickets while in town earlier. When we go away we are always great, goes without saying, but I think we, as supporters can do more too at home. If you hate Lambert, Lerner, some or all of the players it's still Aston Villa we love and they will all come and go but it's still OUR club to get behind and as supporters it's our job to support. Not having a go at anyone, just trying to add a home of positivity in current dour times.

Come on you Lions!!

[FrankyH]

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,

not if you are wearing a half and half  scarf besides.

[dave.woodhall]

Modern football, innit?

[myf]

Lots of Holte enders have sacked it off. I'm one and can think of many others who can't be arsed going / haven't renewed.

Lerner and Lambert are eroding the support. There's no entertainment or hope for the future

[andyh]

I think it's a dangerous game when you start questioning the supporters who pay their money and turn up in their thousands, despite everything.

[silhillvilla]

I thought this thread was going to be about some organised action / protest ?
"Are we doing enough"?? Indeed

[N'ZMAV]

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

I'll find a stream online to watch it - Like I do every week

[pauliewalnuts]

The days of unconditional support - in the sense of money forked out - ended a while ago, probably roughly the same time that going to a football match became an expensive pursuit rather than one for which you paid a couple of quid.

In the Sky era there has been a gradual move, in practical terms, from "supporters" to "customers", in many senses.

The fans weren't the ones who started this, the clubs were, and this ultimately leads to a situation where, you're treating people like customers - with the cold hearted profit based mindset that this implies, where it is all about the money they can get you to part with - rather than like fans, ie people who, instead of being consumers of a service who make rational purchasing decisions, are emotionally and psychologically attached to the club, a relationship which works both ways, the fans love "you" and this is the main driving force in the club-supporters relationship.

When you then start charging 40 or 50 quid or more to attend a match, and you also rake in the huge amounts of money on offer to allow your matches to be shown on television, then you really change the relationship which has been at the heart of football for over 100 years.

You (and by "you" I mean clubs) can not in one breath expect - random example - a family of mom dad and a few kids to fork out up to 200 quid to attend a football match and expect there to be no change in the relationship between you and the people sat there in the Holte End. It just doesn't work that way.

Take our current season, there's a big, big difference between playing 20 league games and only scoring 11 goals when you've got people paying the equivalent of the price of a few pints and doing the same when people are paying the equivalent of their supermarket food bill for the week.

The flip side of charging people enormous amounts of money to come and watch you is that you change the dynamic between you and the people in question. It isn't just a "keep increasing the cost, and don't worry about the quality" situation, you've got to give them reasons to keep coming back. You can't do that and then expect the fans to be the ones who give the club a lift, it just doesn't work that way anymore.

This current mess is a mess of the club's making. The falls in attendances have been pretty noticeable, but I honestly hope the club are shitting themselves about it, because they really need to be.

I can't talk for anyone else, but I have gone, in the course of a decade or a bit more, from season ticket and lots of away matches a season, to picking and choosing games and going to quite a few, to picking and choosing and deciding not to go to any (this season).

I wouldn't expect the club to give too much of a shit about me, but they should be more than a bit worried about the fact that there are a lot of people in a similar situation, people who have sensed the total lack of ambition and decided that they're not going to play along with it any more.

I wonder how many other people on here there are who have gone from season ticket or attending lots of games to just not bothering in a short amount of time? Quite a few, I reckon.

Until the club give people like that a reason to come back and keep coming back, things will not start to get better.

Think about the last couple of fixtures. If there were people at the Sunderland and Palace games who maybe had never been before, or hadn't been in a while, how likely do we think they are to want to go back after having seen the almost total lack of clue in evidence on the pitch?

The chairman himself has admitted he's lost interest. How can he possibly expect other people to feel differently?

[cdward]

I was reading something on line today, where a genuine (not just a post Abramovich supporter) Chelsea supporter was bemoaning the cost of attending matches, and that the traditional supporters were being priced out of attending games.
If Chelsea supporters are not happy with modern football then something really is wrong, or modern football is changing and we just get on with it.

[silhillvilla]

I read about a couple of expat villains from oz who are over for Sunderland / palace and Blackpool .
Jesus I hope tomorrow is better for them

[ez]

Indeed, i think the days of passing off boring games as being part and parcel of being a football fan have gone.

[Stu]

For me it is the cost. I'm earning more money these days than ever before, however I really don't feel like parting with £30+ for a ticket to watch the Villa. I just don't feel that the entertainment is a good enough return on money spent. There's loads of people that go for the social aspect and because going down the Villa is a hobby, which is flipping awesome frankly. They're better fans than I am, and I mean that.

[Dante Lavelli]

There must be a tipping point where the gate receipts become a small enough proportion of total income that it would be better for ticket prices to return to something reasonable resulting in less prawn sandwiches and more youngsters who are up for it.  The free newspapers/timeout are the model I'd compare it to - commercially it is better for them to be free and boast of a greater circulation (= advertising revenue etc) than to charge a nominal amount.  The reduced ticket price could be counter balanced by an increase in income and importantly better entertainment before the game - I dunno better bars / street food / craft beers / early kick off matches etc.

The problem is Villa tickets are pretty cheap anyway yet the product on show is so dire that I've not been this year.

[Stu]

There must be a tipping point where the gate receipts become a small enough proportion of total income that it would be better for ticket prices to return to something reasonable resulting in less prawn sandwiches and more youngsters who are up for it.  The free newspapers/timeout are the model I'd compare it to - commercially it is better for them to be free and boast of a greater circulation (= advertising revenue etc) than to charge a nominal amount.  The reduced ticket price could be counter balanced by an increase in income and importantly better entertainment before the game - I dunno better bars / street food / craft beers / early kick off matches etc.

The problem is Villa tickets are pretty cheap anyway yet the product on show is so dire that I've not been this year.

To an extent I agree with lower ticket prices being (more or less) subsidised by tv and advertising money, but where does that leave smaller clubs that rely on gate money?

[Dante Lavelli]

There must be a tipping point where the gate receipts become a small enough proportion of total income that it would be better for ticket prices to return to something reasonable resulting in less prawn sandwiches and more youngsters who are up for it.  The free newspapers/timeout are the model I'd compare it to - commercially it is better for them to be free and boast of a greater circulation (= advertising revenue etc) than to charge a nominal amount.  The reduced ticket price could be counter balanced by an increase in income and importantly better entertainment before the game - I dunno better bars / street food / craft beers / early kick off matches etc.

The problem is Villa tickets are pretty cheap anyway yet the product on show is so dire that I've not been this year.

To an extent I agree with lower ticket prices being (more or less) subsidised by tv and advertising money, but where does that leave smaller clubs that rely on gate money?

You'd hope their wages and costs are geared to suit their income.  I heard a random comment on 5live today during their build up to the 3rd round and they suggested that most amateur clubs/lower divisions are run much better now and are cutting their cloth accordingly.  I'm not sure how true that is, but the suggestion was that sustainability is possible even with out TV money.