First Press-ing

[Witton Warrior]

Their players were like their fans. They came to gawp at the stadium and take it all in. They didn't believe they could compete so they barely tried.

We need to keep the winning going at home so that more sides at this level look at the fixture list, see us at Villa Park as their next and think "bugger, who've we got the week after that lot?".

The lad and I trawled the Youtube "Awayday" videos from Rotheram fans yesterday and the best had a kid looking around VP and whispering "it's so big!!!" followed shortly afterwards by "this is better than Wembley". Bless 'em.

[robbo1874]

It will be interesting to see how we bounce back after a defeat as well, that for me will be the next test.

Good read as usual.

we just did Clampy- keep up mate 😉

[andyaston]

I thought we played better in the second half.

[flybo]

There's a lot to be said for trying to be the anti-Newcastle in all sorts of ways (though not in attendance, to be fair - 52,000 in the second tier is preposterous).

One team city we have small heath tesco-bags and dingles on our doorstep

[darren woolley]

Good read Dave.

[frank]

We could/should have scored 3 or 4 more in the 2nd half. The 3-0 score was obviously very pleasing after all that's gone before, but I think we have the basis of a team that could really destroy the opposition, and when did that last happen?

[not3bad]

I thought we played better in the second half.

There was a short passage of play 10 minutes from the end when Rotherham were pressing but apart from that the 2nd half was all Villa and, as has been pointed out elsewhere, we could have had 5 or 6 and it would have been a fair result.

[frankmosswasmyuncle]

We could/should have scored 3 or 4 more in the 2nd half. The 3-0 score was obviously very pleasing after all that's gone before, but I think we have the basis of a team that could really destroy the opposition, and when did that last happen?

Couldn't agree more frank - with a few more additions we can become a more confident and assured side that will challenge any other team in it...including Only Newcastle! ;-)

Great read as always, Dave; we've been gracious in defeat for long enough, let's be gracious in victory too.
We're The Villa - we have class!

[Ad@m]

There's a lot to be said for trying to be the anti-Newcastle in all sorts of ways (though not in attendance, to be fair - 52,000 in the second tier is preposterous).

One team city we have small heath tesco-bags and dingles on our doorstep

I'm sorry flybo, this isn't a dig at you as such but it doesn't half wind me up when people try to make excuses to explain why Newcastle get more fans than us.

They might be a one club city but that city has a population of less than 300k.  Birmingham has a population of over 1.1m.  Despite what Noses might say, the other 800k people aren't all Blues fans.

The reality of it is that if you walk around Newcastle football is virtually a religion up there.  Whereas with us, even when it looked like we were going to crack the top 4 under MON we still rarely sold out VP (I think our best effort was when we sold out 4 times in one season).

My own personal view is that the cultural diversity of Birmingham means there are more people for whom football isn't that important, plus there is a more diverse entertainment offering, but credit where it's due, there aren't many clubs in the land who could pull in over 50k for a 2nd division match, no matter how many clubs there were in the city.

[dave.woodhall]

There's a lot to be said for trying to be the anti-Newcastle in all sorts of ways (though not in attendance, to be fair - 52,000 in the second tier is preposterous).

One team city we have small heath tesco-bags and dingles on our doorstep

I'm sorry flybo, this isn't a dig at you as such but it doesn't half wind me up when people try to make excuses to explain why Newcastle get more fans than us.

They might be a one club city but that city has a population of less than 300k.  Birmingham has a population of over 1.1m.  Despite what Noses might say, the other 800k people aren't all Blues fans.

The reality of it is that if you walk around Newcastle football is virtually a religion up there.  Whereas with us, even when it looked like we were going to crack the top 4 under MON we still rarely sold out VP (I think our best effort was when we sold out 4 times in one season).

My own personal view is that the cultural diversity of Birmingham means there are more people for whom football isn't that important, plus there is a more diverse entertainment offering, but credit where it's due, there aren't many clubs in the land who could pull in over 50k for a 2nd division match, no matter how many clubs there were in the city.

Newcastle have virtually no competition within a hundred miles.

[VILLA MOLE]

There's a lot to be said for trying to be the anti-Newcastle in all sorts of ways (though not in attendance, to be fair - 52,000 in the second tier is preposterous).

One team city we have small heath tesco-bags and dingles on our doorstep

I'm sorry flybo, this isn't a dig at you as such but it doesn't half wind me up when people try to make excuses to explain why Newcastle get more fans than us.

They might be a one club city but that city has a population of less than 300k.  Birmingham has a population of over 1.1m.  Despite what Noses might say, the other 800k people aren't all Blues fans.

The reality of it is that if you walk around Newcastle football is virtually a religion up there.  Whereas with us, even when it looked like we were going to crack the top 4 under MON we still rarely sold out VP (I think our best effort was when we sold out 4 times in one season).

My own personal view is that the cultural diversity of Birmingham means there are more people for whom football isn't that important, plus there is a more diverse entertainment offering, but credit where it's due, there aren't many clubs in the land who could pull in over 50k for a 2nd division match, no matter how many clubs there were in the city.

Newcastle have virtually no competition within a hundred miles.

Sunderland ?

[PeterWithesShin]

From York up there's Hartlepool, Scarborough, Boro, Sunderland, Newcastle and Carlisle. Only Carlisle is to the East of Newcastle, no matter how much people go on about the size of just Newcastle there's a massive amount of the country with little to no competition. Having said that, 50K is still very impressive.

[Ad@m]

There's a lot to be said for trying to be the anti-Newcastle in all sorts of ways (though not in attendance, to be fair - 52,000 in the second tier is preposterous).

One team city we have small heath tesco-bags and dingles on our doorstep

I'm sorry flybo, this isn't a dig at you as such but it doesn't half wind me up when people try to make excuses to explain why Newcastle get more fans than us.

They might be a one club city but that city has a population of less than 300k.  Birmingham has a population of over 1.1m.  Despite what Noses might say, the other 800k people aren't all Blues fans.

The reality of it is that if you walk around Newcastle football is virtually a religion up there.  Whereas with us, even when it looked like we were going to crack the top 4 under MON we still rarely sold out VP (I think our best effort was when we sold out 4 times in one season).

My own personal view is that the cultural diversity of Birmingham means there are more people for whom football isn't that important, plus there is a more diverse entertainment offering, but credit where it's due, there aren't many clubs in the land who could pull in over 50k for a 2nd division match, no matter how many clubs there were in the city.

Newcastle have virtually no competition within a hundred miles.

Sunderland ?

Exactly!  There's a club 12 miles away from them who've had a higher average attendance than us for 13 of the last 17 seasons (for 3 of the other 4 they were in the division below).  It's a complete fallacy.

[brian green]

Having worked in Newcastle I found them much more of a monoculture than the city of my birth.  Sport, merriment and alcohol has a universal appeal all over the industrial north east.  Town Moor is a pretty battered racecourse as racecourses go, but they always pull in a bigger crowd for the Northumberland Plate (Pitmens' Derby) a £50,000 handicap than Doncaster does for the £500,000 Group 1 St Leger.

[Matt Collins]

I was thinking exactly the same about Newcastle. The population of the entire north east is roughly the same as the West Midlands conurbation - but it's obviously a much bigger area with generally shit public transport links I imagine. Sunderland are the only other genuinely big club, but then we've only really got west brom and the shit and wolves. We've also got a lot more local towns in the region that draw supporters in on top (overall west mods population is double the north east) - even if it is contested. 

I think we just have to say that villa are bigger than Newcastle in almost every conceivable way - but not that. They do just get great attendances.

I think there's also probably less to do up there.