Don't Renew Until Lerner's Through (Conning You)

[Steve kirk]

My eldest son is going to renew but will switch from the Trinity to the Holte End, I go to 7/8 home games a season and try and get the seat next to him, I will go more in the championship as I feel its a time when the club will need me and I have always been drawn to the club even more when times are tough, one day we will be back and just like in 75 it will feel amazing.

[Nunkin1965]

Same here. Just what I do. I'll protest and everything else but while I'm able to I'll renew I'll be there.

Like all the other core of supporters at all of the other clubs up and down the country regardless of the pitiful condition of our club I'll renew.

That doesn't make me any puppet of anyone. If it's great or bad I'll be there. I follow the shirt. Regardless of who's wearing it. Regardless of who owns it. Blind faith? Probably. But nobody is going to change what's in my heart.

[amfy]

Whatever way I frame it it would come back to stopping supporting because we were relegated, so I will renew.

Funnily enough, when we were relegated last time I remember staying with it, although I wasn't a season ticket holder then, and going to as many games as before despite being pretty fed up with it all. Then, bizarrely, I drifted off sometime during that season we finished 2nd after promotion. I have a clear memory of being on the pitch at the end of our promotion season, and then us being in the title race and me just not being there, & not even feeling any part of it really.

For a few years I did one match a season with my Dad, then, getting to the end of one season, and realising I hadn't been at all, and then, weirdly, I started to drift back.

One Saturday, I realised I was at a loose end and had a bit of money in my pocket, and just found myself getting on a bus to The Villa, and when I got there, people were giving out £ signs to hold up. Strange that it should be that game, but I guess it added something to my return. (I also remember being astounded that a ticket was now £20!) A few weeks later I went again, and within a couple of seasons I realised I was back to going to all the home games, and I got a season ticket.

I can't exactly pinpoint the time I was away, because it was never a concious decision not to go, or to start going again, and it wasn't because we were bad, it was a drift. What I know is that I missed some interesting times. I missed lots of things that Villa fans still talk about, and I'll never get that back. I don't want to do that again.

[Nunkin1965]

Yeah I drifted as well. I got back into it during the Graham Turner days and for some reason it stuck with me. I'm not die hard in that I maybe do 4 or 5 always a season but VP is where I go and I'll be up to season 26 in August.

Just my opinion but I'm refusing to switch off and not go if we drop out of the league. I'm following Villa in all weathers. Not just when the sun shines.

[wittonwarrior]

I go to about 2/3rds of homes and roughly 1 in 3 of the aways.  It is actually cheaper to buy  on seatwave - see £15 seats regularly in the top of the Trinity.  Its not right I know but the maths rule the heart.  Taking into consideration cup finals (please don't laugh) I have sufficient credits for semis  and cup finals and for limited tickets away games use other peoples numbers.

[Jimbo]

For me the club is barely recognisable from the one I used to pay £1.50 to watch from the Holte End terrace when I was a kid in the '80s. Not only is the experience of attending matches so sterile and joyless, it's also depressingly predictable. The only game I've been to recently was Wycombe, because there was an outside chance that we might win, and because it was only a tenner.

The cost is something that really boils my piss. How can watching a bunch of millionaires fail to do their jobs properly ever be worth what we're asked to pay? No matter how it compares to other clubs, it is ridiculously, scandalously expensive.

I have the utmost respect for all those fans who'll attend matches regardless of price, or shitness. They have had their game stolen off them and sold back to them at a premium. Football is a money man's dream, because the 'customers' are like no other. They will keep on handing over money because of an unbreakable loyalty to their clubs.

When fans dare to question anything, to protest, to boo or whatever, they are then criticised by people who never have to pay a penny to watch a game. They're labelled 'fickle' - an accusation that would never, ever be levelled at consumers of any other product. But consumers we are. And as long as fans keep coughing up, football will only go in one direction.

I will probably go to a few more matches next season, but I increasingly find my attachment is to a club and a game that only exists in my memories. The club I see, I don't recognise.

[villasjf]

Good post Jimbo.

[Ad@m]

As much as it would be nice to watch football for £1.50 the reality is that football attendances have never been so good.  For all the talk of people being priced out of football more and more keep turning up.  And you referenced the 80s - crowds back then were horribly low and overwhelmingly white and male, such was the 'matchday experience'.

But as for it being a money man's dream, far from it.  Relatively, I would suggest it's much harder for a Chairman to make money out of a football club now than it was back in the day.  For all the billions that have flowed in to football even more of it is going in to the pockets of players and agents.  And while people keep queueing up to throw more money at them they'll keep upping their own personal prices.

[leylandalbion]

I bought my and my 3 STs after Lamberks 1st season.  I'm not going to commit to the 200 mile trip next year every game - too much with the midweek games and knackered kids the next morning.  I will still go to VP most weekend games but in a better position to pick and choose.  Could be fair few away games local for me (at least nearer than VP) - Preston, Blackburn, Wigan, Bolton, Burnley?, Leeds, Huddersfield, Sheffield, so I plan to make aways more prevailant (provided I can get tickets not being an ST)

[brian green]

You have almost touched there Jimbo on the ultimate rip off of being sold shares in the club you love at a massive premium only to be compelled to sell them by company law at a thumping loss to a man who has subsequently lost interest in the club.

I can't speak for other people but I was immensly proud to be a Villa shareholder, as were my two sons, my daughter, my brother and my nephew.  I never wanted to sell my shares and have never cashed the cheque I got in payment for them.

If I was still a shareholder I would be able to demand to know what tomfoolery is going on in the boardroom but I am only another customer and have to make do with leaks placed in the Torygraph.

[frankmosswasmyuncle]

Aston Villa FC is simply a massive part of my life and has been for as long as I can remember...my brother first took me down about 1960 when I was about 5 or 6 years of age.
I've drifted a few times - when we moved to Tamworth when I was 8 and simply too young to make the journey on my own...started again when I was 11 and away games on my own when I was about 13...college years when I played on Saturday afternoons...birth of my boy and being a doting dad...his playing rugby at a good level for a few seasons - but I always got down whenever I could...only missed one game in the 80/81 season...for my wedding.
Haven't missed a home game for about the last 10 years and go to most away games...never missed one last season...missing today because of long-standing commitment to a group of dear friends and it feels a bit surreal not being surrounded by Villa things when The Villa will be kicking off in a few hours!
I will renew...as Brian says, it's Aston Villa, it's Villa Park, claret and blue, makes me so, so happy and so sad.
I know so many of you lot feel exactly the same. I will continue to be part of The Villa for as long as I can.

[Jimbo]

Football has rarely been so well attended, but it's never been so hyped. I've been listening to the build up to the north London derby on 5Live, and it's as if Zeus and Allah are about to have a scrap. People are easily manipulated, especially in this country, it seems. In Brazil they riot when they put up bus fares. Here we just shrug our shoulders, pay up and get on with it. The longer we go on justifying the price of football, the more it'll increase.

[Ad@m]

It's not just football though is it?

I went to one day of the Ashes test at Edgbaston last year and the ticket cost £70 or £80.  I'm going to the Davis Cup tomorrow where there's a real chance I'll only see one match - £80.  I know people who've been to the British Grand Prix - £150.

As bizarre as it may seem, if you want a working class sport these days Rugby Union is the place to go - I've got tickets for my third European Cup match of the season at Wasps and I'm yet to pay more than £20 for a ticket!  (Although you do have to go to Coventry for it!)

[saunders_heroes]

It's not just football though is it?

I went to one day of the Ashes test at Edgbaston last year and the ticket cost £70 or £80.  I'm going to the Davis Cup tomorrow where there's a real chance I'll only see one match - £80.  I know people who've been to the British Grand Prix - £150.

As bizarre as it may seem, if you want a working class sport these days Rugby Union is the place to go - I've got tickets for my third European Cup match of the season at Wasps and I'm yet to pay more than £20 for a ticket!  (Although you do have to go to Coventry for it!)

You don't go to the Davis Cup or Ashes cricket and pay those prices every other week though.

[PeterWithesShin]

I haven't had a ST for a couple of years now but still go to most of the home games, and will the do the same next year. I love Aston Villa more than I dislike Lerner, the players etc. As money is generally tight I manage to find ways to get in that don't cost too much. I've missed 3 or 4 home games, all in the league, and have only paid more than about £15 once, which was the sha game which was £20 iirc.