Heroes & Villains, the Aston Villa fanzine
Heroes & Villains => Heroes Discussion => Topic started by: Kent Villian on September 03, 2011, 09:04:50 AM
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Although England won, pissed off with the digs Alan Smith & Co made during last nights coverage. In particular regarding S.Downing "He has made a great start to the season with L'Pool" "Now that he is at a bigger club he looks more confident". Cutting through the media hype if you look at the facts on Downing this season it does beg the question why he was making his first start for England in 3 years: According to the Premier Fantasy League Downing is currently ranked 50th with only 7 points scored - no goals scored & no assists! So what are these so called experts basing their view that he has made a great start to the season? The conclusion I come up with, is once again players from Villa are viewed as fringe players making up the numbers etc, but as soon as they move to a so called 'big' club they automatically become established stars!
Also sad to see that there where 5 ex villa players playing for England - All of them where sold by Villa before they reached there peak, and only 1 current Villa player, blinkin Petrov who is definately well past his peak!
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We don't need Sky's help, we're perfectly good at it ourselves! It is hugely galling to see the England midfield of Young, Barry, Milner and Downing though. Ho hum.
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Yawn.
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Maybe i'm bitter, and I did only catch the second half to be fair, but Downing didn't seem to do a lot last night.
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Yawn.
Thousand apologies for my thoughts not meeting with your approval - will try much harder in the future! You could of course post a new topic yourself that in your opinion is not boring, but do try to use some words with more than 4 letters if you can!
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Yawn.
Thousand apologies for my thoughts not meeting with your approval - will try much harder in the future! You could of course post a new topic yourself that in your opinion is not boring, but do try to use some words with more than 4 letters if you can!
It's true - we're a stepping stone club and it's not a good feeling.
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It does amuse me that after 25 or 26 years into their development as athletes and footballers, Young and Downing have suddenly become world class in the past 6 weeks.
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Isint Alan Smith a Villa fan?
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When Cahill scored I shed a small tear, it's galling that he ended up at bloody Bolton. Young and Downing are doing the same stuff that they used to for us, it's just that Sky feel that they have to promote their product. This basically involves licking Man U, Pool, Chelsea arse.
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Cahill was a particularly stupid sale. As regards the rest, as I have been saying on many threads, the modern game just fucking stinks to high heaven. It is soulles and we are a club with a lot of soul.
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By not being ambitious enough to say to these stars we mean business and are going to add to your class with even more class, we have made ourselves a smaller club whether you like it or not. You cannot say you are a big club when Stoke have bypassed you in the close season.
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If you want to watch a Villa player/Villa players playing international football, the Scotland game kicks off at 3.
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Downing is a ******.
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Maybe i'm bitter, and I did only catch the second half to be fair, but Downing didn't seem to do a lot last night.
nice to see he hasn't changed then. Though Cahill looked excellent at both ends of the pitch.
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To be fair we got Young off Watford and Downing off Boro we benefit from the stepping stone nature of modern football as much as we're stitched up by it.
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Anyone see Pooneys comments before the game yesterday that Ashley Young and Phil Jones have emerged on the international scene this season? Has he completely ignored his time at Villa?
Also on talkshite some brain dead scouser came on the radio and said that Ashley Youngs only become good since he's been working with a good striker, does Darren Bent not count?
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Didn't hear all of the comment but thought Alan Smith made a good reference to Villa in relation to Cahill's goal against the Blues.
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If you want to watch a Villa player/Villa players playing international football, the Scotland game kicks off at 3.
Is Bannan anywhere near the first team? If he's playing I'll definitely have a watch.
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Hutton starts, Bannan's on the bench. He's unfortunate in that he plays in roughly the same position as crowd/media darling Charlie Adam.
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It is a shame we don't keep quality english players in Villa park as their head get turned. It is about time all the england players want to move to Villa Park instead to improve their England career. Instead of chasing money and champions league football.
Imagine a team
Hart, Walker, Cahill, Dunne/Collins Warnock, Downing, Milner, Jenas, Young, Gardner and Bent
Have the media always hate us I want to know about the before WWII, 50s, 60s, and 70s.
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I think the national media's coverage of football before World War Two was too limited for any pro/anti-Villa bias to creep in. Most Villa fans would probably have brought the Sports Argus for a Villa fix which would've been pro-Villa as that was best suited to its market.
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Any idea where the hatred for Villa started
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Anyone see Pooneys comments before the game yesterday that Ashley Young and Phil Jones have emerged on the international scene this season? Has he completely ignored his time at Villa?
Also on talkshite some brain dead scouser came on the radio and said that Ashley Youngs only become good since he's been working with a good striker, does Darren Bent not count?
The Rooney comments are true in respect of them emerging this season. They were bit part players at the very most last year.
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I think the national media's coverage of football before World War Two was too limited for any pro/anti-Villa bias to creep in. Most Villa fans would probably have brought the Sports Argus for a Villa fix which would've been pro-Villa as that was best suited to its market.
The Berlin Evening Mail in the thirties wasn't as biased as the local papers were towards the Villa before the war.
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Any idea where the hatred for Villa started
I would say it's less of a hatred of Villa, more a realisation from everyone outside B6 that we are now a 2nd tier Premier League club who will develop players but not keep them when they attract interest from 5 or 6 clubs in the top tier.
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Any idea where the hatred for Villa started
They don't hate us. They just don't care about us or another 85 clubs.
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I think the national media's coverage of football before World War Two was too limited for any pro/anti-Villa bias to creep in. Most Villa fans would probably have brought the Sports Argus for a Villa fix which would've been pro-Villa as that was best suited to its market.
The Berlin Evening Mail in the thirties wasn't as biased as the local papers were towards the Villa before the war.
It would have been much better under the Nazi's. For one I wouldn't have been around to "suffer" this pain!
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The media don't hate us. When we had 4 players in the team they commented on it; yesterday we had none, so they're not going to mention us.
As for Young and Downing and their new employers, it is rather too early to make any sweeping judgements. However, the former's career will in all likelihood kick on and I think we will just have to get used to him being lauded in the media. He's no longer the big fish and working for a manager who simultaneously encourages the sort of football that Ashley thrives on, whilst not allowing name players to rest on their laurels.
On the other hand, the jury's still out on Downing. As far as I can see, he's simply carrying on where he left off last season where, lest we forget, he was our most consistent attacking player. However, as we saw in his first season with us, he is a confidence player and if, for whatever reason, he loses that confidence, he can quite easily become a passenger.
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Roll on AH giving him (SD) a good dumping over the sideline and then perhaps his confidence will diminish
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I think the national media's coverage of football before World War Two was too limited for any pro/anti-Villa bias to creep in. Most Villa fans would probably have brought the Sports Argus for a Villa fix which would've been pro-Villa as that was best suited to its market.
The Berlin Evening Mail in the thirties wasn't as biased as the local papers were towards the Villa before the war.
It would have been much better under the Nazi's. For one I wouldn't have been around to "suffer" this pain!
It would all be about Shalke if Gerry had taken over.
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3 things:
1. Pundits said the same thing about Darren Bent earlier this year after his transfer to us. I think even Capello mentioned it. That is how it is I am afraid.
2. There is this kudos that hangs around if you are in the squad of a CL club. Ash Young for example can play crap for the next 5 years but he will always be first choice for England.
3. As it has been mentioned above we don't need Sky and the Press to do us down. Current Manager and the Board plus the fans who have failed to turn up this season are doing it very well.
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Roll on AH giving him (SD) a good dumping over the sideline and then perhaps his confidence will diminish
I would have loved to have seen him mess about in front of Mark Delaney...peeling him off the advertising boards a few seconds later!
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5 ex Villa play last night, was it?
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Did Stan not try and stamp on Downing's foot like the last time he played against him? Pity.
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I enjoyed watching Young, I have all season, playing like the top player he can be.
Downing has been anonymous for Livershite, anonymous for England and looks like he will take time to settle. That is the issue with Downing, if it takes him as long as it did us for him to turn it on, he will be dropped for England and benched at the bindippers before he realises.
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Rooney and Ashley have been fantastic together this season, for Club and country.
Wish we'd have kept him, if we'd have got top 4 in 2008/09 things might have been so different.
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Any idea where the hatred for Villa started
I don't think it's hatred, I think it's indifference. When Villa aren't shaping up or pulling up trees they certainly forget about us pretty quickly. When we are doing well and making progress it takes them an age to talk us up or take us seriously. They are just indifferent to certain clubs and regions, in my view.
When did it start? I would have a stab at the 1960's when the media started to get into football in a tabloid and televisual sense. Leeds, West Ham, Chelsea, Arsenal, Man Utd, Tottenham, Liverpool, those are the clubs that seem to have been given an extra sheen by the media. Maybe we were unlucky with that particular era (the 1960's) coinciding with the most catastrophic period in our history? I don't know. The main media focal points of England being London and the North West doesn't help our cause either.
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Good post, BW. Indifference is the word.
There are certainly clubs that are favoured in their coverage, either because of the knowledge that their large supporter base will shift paper sales/TV subscription (Liverpool. Man Utd), London-based journalists own supporting habits (Spurs, West Ham) and the perpetuation of the myth that certain clubs have a history and mystique superior to others (all of the above, Arsenal, Newcastle). There is another, transitory category, namely when a media-friendly, good for a quote manager is running your club. 'Arry and Venables are examples. We had it when both Ron Atkinson and MON were in charge.
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If we were doing well and had just made the kind of signings that the top clubs have made, the media would be all over us just as they were when we were lying 3rd and 4th during MON's 2nd season.
Mediocrity does not make good TV or interesting reading.
As for the pundits, some are good, most are ignorant of anything else going on outside of the 'big' clubs. Case in point was a caller on Talksport the other day, making Micky Quinn sound a complete prat because he couldn't get any facts right and knew nothing about the matter they were discussing which was teams in the lower leagues. Quinn just nervously went "eeeerm, eeeerm anyway about Li'pool, allight our kid, la" as usual. Pundits should know what they're on about, but invariably land jobs because they know somebody who knows somebody.
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If you operate as a small club you deserve to be (and therefore will be) treated like one. We sell our best players to clubs we'd like to think are our rivals but in reality they aren't, they are streets ahead. What do we expect the media to say about us when the board have decided to make us a feeder club?
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You cannot say you are a big club when Stoke have bypassed you in the close season.
Do you really think so? Really?!
We'll see I guess, but don't think what they've done in the close season suggests they've overtaken us. They've added a few medium-level players to cope with the extra games they hope to play in the E League.
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There is a lot of sh1te spoken by and from these so called experts, most of which can't see the wood for the tree's, they live in this incubated world and truly truly believe that only football people can know about football, said this many times there are a million man managers out there working in normal life, experiencing all the hazards that normal life throws at you that given a 3 month crash course to get there UEFA badges would do twice the job than even the best football managers out there, would have a better analytical judgement than the best pundits out there, prove my point, anybody see how Paulo d'canio dealt with that player the other night and then bad mouthed him afterwards, that's a twat for you.
I rate these pundits judgements and comments on football about as realistic as someone commenting on the fact they ave just played Football Manager, and the team they picked won everything going so therefore would do the same in real life.
Stewart Downing, once the impact of his move wears of so will he and then Dalgliesh will stick him on the bench until he heads back to B'oro
Ashley Young will have a great 1st season at Man Utd and just as he did as Villa............fade......
Phucking Rooney, jez the man is a caricature of himself, a complete joke, they actually bothered to get his opinion after the game when just 12 months ago he walked of the pitch gobbing and abusing the England fans actually to the camera because the man simply has no brain, because when it comes to the crunch and England gets raped in the next big tournament, we'll all have to go through the same old tread mill of why England players don't perform and how they get paid to much and why does Rooney go missing in the big games and the same old we don't develop the youth and all the other crap rather than looking at the actual facts and that is players like Rooney allegedly our best are 2nd rate when it comes to it
We beat a pub team 3-0 ffs, actually that's being defamatory of pub teams because I've definitely seen better pub teams players playing on a Sunday morning then did put that Bulgaria kit on the other night being the so called professionals.
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Didn't Heskey get dropped like a stone from the England squad when he left Liverpool, and Phil Neville when he left Manure. There is an assumption that once a player moves up the ladder, their international prowess improves, and vice versa.
Also, there is an over trumpeting of players from 'top teams' playing for England, simply because certain pundits only see these players play on a weekly basis. So they know their games inside out. For example, pundits would now know Young's attributes as he is now playing at a stadium they spend most of their time in.
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I wouldn't stress about it. There is a rag of a newspaper over here called "The Sunday World", its aimed at the dumber elements of Irish society with 4/5 pages of "Soccer " coverage. It's all Man U & Liverpool because it's catering for the masses( 90 % of footie fans over here follow one of those)
It doesn't bother me, I just don't but the rag.
I don't expect us to get favourable coverage on Sky either, why should we ? It's not like we are challenging to win anything. Like it or not we are down there with Everton, Newcastle and other such pretty non entities at the moment with no European football and bobbing around trying to stay mid table and out of trouble. Last season was hairy enough for me,I'll take mid table obscurity and no worries of relegation for this season after all the upheaval and asset stripping of the last few months.
We are Aston Villa...not Barcelona and thankfully not Birmingham City.
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Step 1 : Remove dish
Step 2 : Throw dish in bin
Step 3 : Live happily ever after
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its amazing that people cant see what is going on. So MOTD have a special pre match feature about what is going on in the provinces, ie any Club that is not considered big time, WBA, Wigan, Wolves, Stoke etc and sadly now includes us. The condecending approach (lets pretend to find out what the fans of teams that are completely irrelevant do on match day) we are the BBC we are completely impartial and PC.
And every pundit spouting out the same bollocks and then the after match shows spouting the same bollocks.Football in this country has become a game played, watched and commented on by people that are thick, based on the media coverage.
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Personally, I'm fine with being underestimated and undercovered. Every supporter knows, whether your a fan of Stoke or United, that SKY pundits are a complete joke. The media will always be the downfall of football but given their complete and utter nonsense of late, who cares..? More media coverage just means a bigger target on our backs, I'd rather the bigger clubs and even the smaller ones for that matter, come to VP thinking the game will be easy.
We shouldn't let what's out of our hands bother us, especially obstacles outside the club. We're a proud club.
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Was watching Sky News at the gym (had forgotten England were evening playing).
Via subtitles I could see that they introduced a Daily Express football columnist to comment. He said..... England played well, especially the chap in midfield. I've forgotten his name, i think he is an Aston Villa player. Yes he played Jolly well.
This bloke needs shooting first. Forgotten his name and no idea who he even played for. Football columnist. Oh dear. Any columnist worth his salt knows our midfield is bobbins!
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ALL Sky care about is the money you spend as a club and the players that gets to improve their own offering both here and around the world. Man City were not even on their radar of "darling" clubs until they got taken over and started playing panini sticker book of transfer dealings.
If Randy suddenly decided to get rid of a load of money before his soon to be ex wife gets it - and he spent £150m on players we would have Sky fawning all over us.
One thing I do know is that even in sleepy Warwickshire I am starting to see kids walking around in Man City shirts.
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Th is article from the ever reliable Sunday Mirror is typical of the way they fawn over anything top 4 related. I hate Downing I truly do and he would do well to keep his mouth shut. But at the same time where in this article is the headline 'he feels like an England player' borne out?
Downing thrilled with his form for Liverpool and England
Published 22:56 03/09/11 By Simon Mullock
(4)Recommend (4)
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Stewart Downing believes his move to Liverpool has made him feel like an England player.
Downing has been in sensational form for the Merseysiders so far, following his £20milion arrival from Aston Villa.
And after continuing to impress in England’s 3-0 win over Bulgaria, he said: “I feel that I am an England player and my aim always must be to start games at this level.
“I have joined a terrific club. I am really enjoying myself at Liverpool and playing under a great manager like Kenny Dalglish can only help me get even better.
Read more: http://www.mirrorfootball.co.uk/news/Liverpool-midfielder-Stewart-Downing-says-he-feels-like-an-England-player-after-move-from-Aston-Villa-article794847.html#ixzz1WysiwEJn
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downing is a c*nt of the highest order...
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its always been the same for as long as i can remember, even before sky came along, back then if we got a good result against Liverpool then Liverpool played crap, we weren't good, jump forward to when sky invented football, we get a good result against their favourites, then they played crap, we weren't good, different commentators, different companies, same old shite.
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Was ever such Man Utd beat sucha team, Arsenal beat such a team, Liverpool beat another team and yetanother team lost to Aston Villa
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its always been the same for as long as i can remember, even before sky came along, back then if we got a good result against Liverpool then Liverpool played crap, we weren't good, jump forward to when sky invented football, we get a good result against their favourites, then they played crap, we weren't good, different commentators, different companies, same old shite.
That's not specific to us or anyone else.
If we lose to Wolves, Stoke, Bolton or Everton then on here it's always because we were rubbish and it's fairly incidental how the other team played.
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I get frustrated when these "experts" trash the club and get even more frustrated when our custodians lie back and accept such things tamely (that's not a pop at Randy specifically, it goes for Doug Ellis, too). When Fergie talked his nonsense about Man Utd producing more England internationals than anyone else it would have been brilliant if Villa had released a bullish bit of PR to counter it - something to remind the world that we are still here, up for the fight. I do have a hard time with the media and their lack of time for us, but I also think we are incredibly poor with our own PR.
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There was a period (late 80's until about 1994) when we weren't seen as an irrelevance. Rather than being patronised and patted on the head for exceeding expectations, both our title challenges were seen as a big club finally getting it's act together again.
And our best players weren't being linked with all and sundry either. To quote Ron Burgundy, we were kind of a big deal.
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It's not just Villa who are slighted by this, and it certainly goes back before Sky invented football. In the early 1980's Bryan Robson was putting in top performances for West Brom, without much national media credit. As soon as he joins Man Utd, it's as though they have found the best English player since Duncan Edwards.
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We're getting the press we deserve. When MON had us challenging for the top 4 and we had the likes of Gabby, Ash, Milner, Barry all firing we were media darlings for quite a while. In the end we couldn't capitalise on what was in truth a very short purple patch for us. We are what are and until we win some things or simply compete at the top end these are the types of articles and observations we may as well get used to.
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exactly right. We have no divine right to column inches, when we're doing well we get talked about, when we're not we don't. Simples.
I can even remember some pundits saying we might be an outside chance for the title and certainly 2nd/3rd in that (distant memory) fantastic season, in fact I'm sure it was Venables, when talking about potential top 4, who said that Arsenal were well out of it and he couldn't see Chelsea finishing above us!
Think some of us have shot memories....I'm not really sure what we expect people to be saying about us right now!?
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I learnt a long time ago to turn a blind eye to what is said in the media about Villa. Unless the clubs whole approach to media is changed, then even if we are doing well it will be because one of the "Sky" clubs are underperforming, and our best players wont be classed as talented Internationals until they are playing for one of them. The media are after sensationalist stories and theres been a great lack of that coming out of the club on and off the pitch...albeit we actually became slightly more media friendly for a while whilst MON was here though.
Something that hasnt been mentioned so far is that Premier League football is not only about money, but also IMAGE and BRAND. Lets face it, Aston Villa isnt a particularly fashionable brand and there are lots of things that could be done to improve the image and brand to make the club more attractive (the new club badge being a perfect example for this). At the end of the day though, if we're not doing it on the pitch in terms of results, performances and dont have any high profile media darling players at the club, then dont expect the media to be covetting us with much praise.
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The media don't hate us, they just need us slightly less than they used to. They need us to occasionally give 'the big boys' a game worth watching.
We are a team with a big ground and lots of fans (like Newcastle, Sunderland) and a rich history outside of the sky era (like Spurs and Everton) but have absolutely no chance of winning the league we play in. Somebody earlier rightly mentioned the late 80 ad and early 90's. We may as well talk about the 1880/90's. The game has changed and clubs like ours now have nowhere to go - midtable, slightly more attractive cannon fodder.
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The media never used to care about us enough to hate us. Since O'Neill left his acolytes in the press have ensured the most negative, biased reporting of Villa I can remember.
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It's easy to think of the 80's like it was last year and the memories of greatest hours seem so vivid. But it was 30 years ago. That's a long bloody time and so much has happened in and to the game since then. An entire generation has grown up not having the foggiest of the club we were. They just know what we are. The pundits all know we are big club, but when big clubs fall they are also easy targets. Look at how easy Arsenal are making it for everyone right now. In the grand scheme of things, outside of our immediate supporter base, we're quite irrelevant and until such time as we can get our act together again, we'll always be looked down upon by the pundits because they are paid talk about the popular and successful clubs as much as possible.
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It's easy to think of the 80's like it was last year and the memories of greatest hours seem so vivid. But it was 30 years ago. That's a long bloody time and so much has happened in and to the game since then. An entire generation has grown up not having the foggiest of the club we were. They just know what we are. The pundits all know we are big club, but when big clubs fall they are also easy targets. Look at how easy Arsenal are making it for everyone right now. In the grand scheme of things, outside of our immediate supporter base, we're quite irrelevant and until such time as we can get our act together again, we'll always be looked down upon by the pundits because they are paid talk about the popular and successful clubs as much as possible.
Talking to an old pensioner the other day and he was saying how fast times goes now, and yet he said people refer to the 80's and 90's as if it was last year, he said if you had gone back to the 80's or 90's and refereed to the 40's 50's and 60's people would have looked at you like you where daft and as if you where talking about a bygone age of Roman Britain or something, point he was making was you would have lost people in the conversation because 30 years ago was land that time forgot, and he said do you realise how many people have been born, lived and died in that time.
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I feel it started in early 80's - mainly when the media darlings of the era, the wonderful footballing side of Ipswich Town were robbed of the league by the workmanlike Villa. We then went on to beat Bayern and although we obviously got plaudits they would have much preferred a glamour club to have won it - especially as our run to the final was marred by Violence at Anderlecht.
It used to really wrangle with me but it just washes over me now as i am watching less and less sky every year - in fact i am struggling to justify having it TBH - i watch more golf than football
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Don't really give a toss about England.
I deliberately have watched or read anything football related over the weekend as I know it would be "England now ready to win Euros"
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Wait until tomorrow night when Clive Tyldesley sprays sticky white love piss over his microphone if Ashley Young scores against Wales.
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Sky have plenty of faults but their coverage is a million times better than listening to Clive fucking Tyldesley. Wonder if he will keep banging on about "That Magnificent Night in London" after Man U got stuffed by Barca last year. Somehow I doubt it.
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The only truley anti-Villa media out there is BBC WM.
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The only truley anti-Villa media out there is BBC WM.
I think Franks is fairly accurate of our "plight" so to speak
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The only truley anti-Villa media out there is BBC WM.
I think Franks is fairly accurate of our "plight" so to speak
He's a dj who says whatever is likely to get people to call in. He might be a nice bloke but I'd trust my nan before him about football and she's got Alzheimer's.