Heroes & Villains, the Aston Villa fanzine
Heroes & Villains => Heroes Discussion => Topic started by: charlie659 on February 19, 2012, 07:24:27 AM
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Always interested in opposition views, found this recent article by a QPR fan about their recent game at VP - the 'Waste of a Club' bit really resonates with me (and no doubt a few others).
http://www.fansnetwork.co.uk/football/queensparkrangers/fb_news.php?storyid=16083 (http://www.fansnetwork.co.uk/football/queensparkrangers/fb_news.php?storyid=16083)
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The author actually seems to have a decent knowledge of Villa and can definitely see our potential. I think it is a fair article.
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The author actually seems to have a decent knowledge of Villa and can definitely see our potential. I think it is a fair article.
I thought so too.
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I particularly like the "clueless oaf" bit. Is Randy the only person in the world who can't see it?
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What a cracking summary of us at the moment. Christ if that guy can see the potential we have what the hell is Lerner doing letting us "drift".
It really makes your blood boil that our fantastic club is being sadistically mismanaged by him and a"clueless oaf" couldn't describe the custodian of the team better.
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“A waste of a club” is how I described Aston Villa in the pre-match rambles, and by God it’s that and so much more. Aston Villa are like that girl you see with the high IQ, cracking body and wicked sense of humour wasting away in the corner of a Wetherspoons in a baggy jumper while her Chelsea supporting boyfriend tells racist jokes that make his baseball-cap-wearing mates laugh into their pints of Carling and call him a “ledge.” You want to go over to that girl, pick her up by the shoulders and scream in her face: “What is wrong with you? You’re wasting your life you dizzy bint.”
But it’s not your fight to pick and, even if it was, the thought of being beaten into a bloody pulp by five Stone Island wearing chavs in the smoking area of a Wetherspoons doesn’t sound like my idea of a good time, even if the girl did subsequently look back on it as a turning point in her life. QPR have enough problems of their own without hunting down issues elsewhere in the country but for the love of God there’s a giant here waiting to be woken up by anybody with any imagination and ambition whatsoever.
As you walk down Witton Road from Aston train station it’s much like walking through any other inner-city slum in any other of Britain’s many shitholes. And then, as you emerge from the reinforced concrete underpass and the thin, toxic smoke floating out of the burger van drifts away into the night, there it is; Villa Park. You’re greeted first by the sight of The Holte, a beautiful old brick clubhouse that dates back to the nineteenth century and looks absolutely resplendent after a refit five years ago. History seeps from every orifice of Villa, founded 137 years ago, and The Holte is the perfect gateway into this famous old club. The Springbok it is not.
Once in the ground it’s hard to believe QPR are in the same league. There are more than 42,000 seats in the place, with the colossal Holte End towering over the field to the left of the away section which this season was located across two tiers of the side stand as opposed to behind the goal where we have been for recent cup meetings. Elsewhere in the city lurks a fine training ground and highly successful youth academy. On the pitch the manager picks Emile Heskey wide on the left.
Despite the fact that this is a club clearly being left to drift, with a team playing well within itself under the guidance of a manager who built his reputation in the park standard football north of the border and then somehow fell into this job despite two previous Premiership relegations when everybody else turned them down, 32,000 people came out on a freezing Wednesday night to watch the team play. And Tony Fernandes talks about potential at QPR.
“You are embarrassing,” the QPR fans sang when they led 2-0, and the Villa fans laughed and joined in. There’s a sense of humour here, these are the supporters who once prepared a banner for david O’Leary that read “We’re not fickle, we just don’t like you.” They are a little fickle though, these are also the supporters who weren’t too sorry to see the back of Martin O’Neill because they “only” finished sixth and he lacked the ability to take them further. O’Neill is now the success story of the year at Sunderland while Villa languish seven places lower in fifteenth.
Fickle or not, even when their team hauled it back to 2-2 you sensed the fans knew it meant little. In fact in the long run it will probably keep McLeish employed longer, allowing a mistaken belief that the players are fighting for him and showing spirit to fester in the minds of the club’s decision makers. They might, in the long run, have been better losing 2-0.
This is a club with the infrastructure, history and support to be a top six side in the Premiership. Everything that has been achieved at Spurs could easily have been achieved here with the same ownership and managerial appointments. Norwich, Stoke, Swansea, West Brom and Fulham are all higher in the league at the moment. Oh for somebody with the balls to pick this dizzy bint up by the shoulders and turn her life around.
He obviously doesn't know about the amount of tickets we had to give away for that one. And it's disappointing that he seems content enough to parrot the 'lucky to have O'Neill' mantra. The problem was never about the league placings- for most people, anyroad.
But the bit in bold is spot on.
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It's just a shame our owner and CEO have absolutely no idea about football.
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He's certainly got the MON bit very wrong.
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He lost me when he described Aston Villa as a girl. He appears to be calling me a poof. Or possibly a lesbian.
It's funny how we will swallow any judgement of our club so long as it is coated in compliments.
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You obviously aren't used to getting compliments, you big fat lesbian.
Just go with it.
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yes, he is wrong about MON, but the rest of the article is very, very good.
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His defence of MON appears to be based around the fact we finished 6th under him, which to a QPR fan would be an achievement beyond achievements.
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Some fair comments there and yes he's correct about our potential. But until the club rediscovers it's purpose and drive that's all it will be. Potential. I might be in the minority here but the way that the club is being run at the moment makes me look back on the Ellis years with a certain sense of fondness. At least he attended all the games, and although he made some bad managerial appointments ala Turner, McNeil and Venglos he would never have been dumb enough to appoint the current clown from S.H.A. Anyway reading further down the article he then goes on to slate our fine city. Now I've been to London many times but the cockneys seam to think it's some kind of oasis in a sea of shit. Yes the central area is interesting but by god there's some areas that are literally no go zones. I currently now live in Greater Manchester and yes the city centre is nice but the rest of the place is pretty dire to be honest, and the same applies to Liverpool. So why is it only Brum seems to get slated?
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The man you are calling a big fat lesbian got it spot on in the QPR appreciation stakes when he and his sister scored a number of what golfers would called Bean Shots with the Cadburys creme eggs they were given to "distribute" to the home fans at Loftus Road many years ago. The game when we chanted Off Off Off at the ex Small Heath player who was ordered back two yards to take a throw. Happy days of long ago.
If they are not the Villa I hate 'em whoever they are whatever they say or do.
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Sorry Mr Green snr. Neck well and truly wound in.
FWIW I quite like lemons. And limes. And Cadbury's creme eggs.
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Some fair comments there and yes he's correct about our potential. But until the club rediscovers it's purpose and drive that's all it will be. Potential. I might be in the minority here but the way that the club is being run at the moment makes me look back on the Ellis years with a certain sense of fondness. At least he attended all the games, and although he made some bad managerial appointments ala Turner, McNeil and Venglos he would never have been dumb enough to appoint the current clown from S.H.A. Anyway reading further down the article he then goes on to slate our fine city. Now I've been to London many times but the cockneys seam to think it's some kind of oasis in a sea of shit. Yes the central area is interesting but by god there's some areas that are literally no go zones. I currently now live in Greater Manchester and yes the city centre is nice but the rest of the place is pretty dire to be honest, and the same applies to Liverpool. So why is it only Brum seems to get slated?
But he doesn't single Aston out (he's talking about the walk from Witton Station) - he says like any number of other shitholes.
We once had a visitor fro Oz who I took to VP and, walking from the Broadway down to Witton Island) he continually slated the area as a shithole until I pointed out it was 'our' shithole and he could fuck off back to sunny Oz if he didn't like it.
As for the comments by the QPR fan - not a bad summation from an "outsider" - this is how we are percieved. That is often more potent than the truth.
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Half of me is happy that an outsider sees what a big club we are.
The other half is sad that he is so right about our under achievment.
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Despite what Green & Green say, the author has given a description of our club that resonates with us; not because it parrots the fickle negativity of some on here but because it provides a glimpse of what many less-involved footie fans see could have been at VP.
I'm gratfiied that the author did not simply adopt the easy-option approach of many when they claim Villa has simply become irrelevant but has attempted to empathise with us.
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He's phrased the bit about O'Neill badly but he's not completely wrong.
The majority of people weren't glad to see the back of him because of the sixth placed finished but because of the manner of his departure.
But that doesn't change the fact that there WAS a sizeable amount of people who wanted him to leave long before he actually did citing underachievement.
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good read, thanks for posting Charlie,
my pick - 'Elswhere in the city lurks a fine training ground and highly successful youth academy. on the pitch the manager picks Emile Heskey wide on the left'
everyone has a view on MON but i dont see much wrong there either-
'Villa fans weren't sorry to see the back of him'
'lacked ability to take us further'
'O'neil big success at Sunderland'
'a lot higher than Villa in the league'
it about sums up the way i feel, the only thing i could possibly disagree on is the 'only' finishing 6th bit, but then we were pushing for top 4 at times so he's not alltogether wrong there either.
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There are certain clubs which thrive off the hatred and bile from the fans of other clubs (especially if they are successful), we seem to thrive off sympathy at the moment.
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Super article.
This is the paragraph that, for me, hits the nail on the head:
"This is a club with the infrastructure, history and support to be a top six side in the Premiership. Everything that has been achieved at Spurs could easily have been achieved here with the same ownership and managerial appointments."
Let's hope that this season was just to balance the books and with a few summer signings next season we start to climb again.
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It's funny how we will swallow any judgement of our club so long as it is coated in compliments.
I agree, but the author does make some decent points as well.
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I'm quite glad he talks about not being able to believe QPR being in the same league. When I read the thread title I thought it was going to be a fan of a nouveau-rich club giving it the big'un.
I wish the MON thing would go away now though. I had a massive row with a 'knowledgable' United fan last night who was banging on about him being "pure class". When I pointed out some of the man's shortcomings, I was advised we all sound like jilted lovers and should let it go. Christ, I can't wait until Taggart retires and that lot plummet.
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Good read and excellent analogy with the stunning bird in a baggy jumper bit. Actually made me smile in these depressing McCleish days
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Super article.
This is the paragraph that, for me, hits the nail on the head:
"This is a club with the infrastructure, history and support to be a top six side in the Premiership. Everything that has been achieved at Spurs could easily have been achieved here with the same ownership and managerial appointments."
Let's hope that this season was just to balance the books and with a few summer signings next season we start to climb again.
That'll be the same Spurs who sacked Martin Jol while he was managing a game, hired Juande Ramos and didn't get a point until October, hired Christian Gross and Jacques Santini to general incredulity and spent most of the last decade dribbling hopelessly while trying to hang onto the coattails of their more illustrious rivals. I would argue even the hiring of Redknapp was a lucky strike - it wasn't as if he was hugely successful at West Ham or Southampton, and Portsmouth didn't have the capital to sustain the man's approach to the transfer market. I think that like every club, Spurs have found it's all come together at the right time, and once their purple patch is over they'll be back with the also-rans like us.
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Read the whole article. The same wise sage says:
I mean when have you ever heard anybody anywhere say “Oh I can’t wait to get to Birmingham me, if only there were a quicker way”? You need the two hours it currently takes on the normal horse drawn train just to prepare yourself for the horror of the place. Maybe the quick trains will only run one way, enabling people to escape at speed but approach the ‘second city’ with the same caution and reluctance they do now.
Still think he's right?
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Ýou can read it as complimentary, so much so it could have been written by a Villa fan, but you could also say it's just someone who can see the wood from the trees and doesn't let inter-club rivalry get in the way of admitting it. Either way I'd say the article is 95% spot on. I''d disagree with a couple of bits - for fickle, read ambitious. We're no more fickle than other fans, we're more ambitious than many, because, as he admits himself, we do have the potential to have done what Spurs have done. And one of the reasons we didn't is O'Neill wasn't quite good enough. And as Kevin Gage pointed out, there was more to it than league position, the poor quality of the football was a major factor.
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I thought it was a fair enough article. When you have a QPR fan telling us how far backwards we've gone in the last 18 months, then it's slightly worrying.
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The fact we have ended up paying the wages of an injured Spurs player for a season speaks volumes about the running of our club compared to them
I've never heard that happen at any other club
Soft touch on the pitch. Soft touch off the pitch
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"This is a club with the infrastructure, history and support to be a top six side in the Premiership."
We have the history, support and infrastructure to be a top one side.
I've come to the conclusion that we have just been rather unlucky over the years with our owners. For whatever reason, we seem to attract undynamic, financially limited, mid ranking business people to our boardroom - and this seems to have been our lot since the end of WWII. Why is that? Where are the genuine, blue chip winners who want to restore Aston Villa to the highest seat in the land?
The thing is, we're such a great club that when these mid-level business folk somehow get control of the club they genuinely can't believe how lucky they are. It's like the dweeb who pulls the babe at the formal. Once they "have" Villa they can't contemplate letting it go. They've lucked out big time and this football club is a trophy and a half to have. It's a pattern of events that always ends with much pain and frustration all round, alas. The fact that we have no real major media presence in Brum to heap pressure on such owners and their lack of credentials and ambitions does not help us either.
A good read, that article.
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"This is a club with the infrastructure, history and support to be a top six side in the Premiership."
We have the history, support and infrastructure to be a top one side.
One league title in 99 years. One FA Cup in 92. One European trophy ever. Oh yes, the support. How often in that time have we been in the top six best-supported teams in the country? That's the reality.
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Fair comment Dave but there are people who think Small heath or Leeds are 'top' clubs. The reality is-any of the current contenders could change places with the fading clubs with the same kind of mismanagement and poor ownership.
Manure's rise really began with Martin Edwards and not the loads-a money of a rich benefactor.
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Fair comment Dave but there are people who think Small heath or Leeds are 'top' clubs. The reality is-any of the current contenders could change places with the fading clubs with the same kind of mismanagement and poor ownership.
Manure's rise really began with Martin Edwards and not the loads-a money of a rich benefactor.
Rupert Murdoch.
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"This is a club with the infrastructure, history and support to be a top six side in the Premiership."
We have the history, support and infrastructure to be a top one side.
One league title in 99 years. One FA Cup in 92. One European trophy ever. Oh yes, the support. How often in that time have we been in the top six best-supported teams in the country? That's the reality.
True, but I'd argue winning a trophy pretty much every decade of our existence, finishing in the top two seventeen times, winning every domestic trophy in the land multiple times, winning the biggest club trophy in world football and residing in a city about the same size as a Munich or Milan suggests we have the pedigree, potential and everything else to be challenging for the top, top prizes. And, of course, we gave league football to the world - we are wrapped up in the fabric of the game like no other modern club.
The reality is that compared to clubs that have won more FA Cups and leagues this past century, we have had absolute duffers in the Chairman's chair. Well meaning and likeable, for sure, but duffers nonetheless. There has been no bank-rolling of trophies, no record transfer fees shelled out, no statements of ambition or intent. Our Chairmen simply haven't been up to the job.
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"This is a club with the infrastructure, history and support to be a top six side in the Premiership."
We have the history, support and infrastructure to be a top one side.
One league title in 99 years. One FA Cup in 92. One European trophy ever. Oh yes, the support. How often in that time have we been in the top six best-supported teams in the country? That's the reality.
Against that:
-Most successful club in English football up until the 1970's
-Record FA Cup wins up until 1991
-Provided more England internationals than any other club
-Still the 4th most successful club in English football
And as far as gates are concerned, we had the highest gate in the country over a season as recently as 1994 and 1995. We also managed 40,000+ in the old Third division and 48000 v Liverpool in the FA Cup in 1988 - as a Second Division side.
With a bit of forward momentum (and no trophies) we averaged 40,000 as recently as 07/08.
Probably no other 'big' club sees numbers fluctuate as much as we do, I'd readily concede that. But we can get the numbers. It's keeping them that's the issue.
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"This is a club with the infrastructure, history and support to be a top six side in the Premiership."
We have the history, support and infrastructure to be a top one side.
One league title in 99 years. One FA Cup in 92. One European trophy ever. Oh yes, the support. How often in that time have we been in the top six best-supported teams in the country? That's the reality.
Against that:
-Most successful club in English football up until the 1970's
-Record FA Cup wins up until 1991
-Provided more England internationals than any other club
-Still the 4th most successful club in English football
And as far as gates are concerned, we had the highest gate in the country over a season as recently as 1994 and 1995. We also managed 40,000+ in the old Third division and 48000 v Liverpool in the FA Cup in 1988 - as a Second Division side.
With a bit of forward momentum (and no trophies) we averaged 40,000 as recently as 07/08.
Probably no other 'big' club sees numbers fluctuate as much as we do, I'd readily concede that. But we can get the numbers. It's keeping them that's the issue.
Good viewpoint Mr Gage.
Also, apart from Everton had highest number of seasons in the top level of English football.
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Some fair comments there and yes he's correct about our potential. But until the club rediscovers it's purpose and drive that's all it will be. Potential. I might be in the minority here but the way that the club is being run at the moment makes me look back on the Ellis years with a certain sense of fondness. At least he attended all the games, and although he made some bad managerial appointments ala Turner, McNeil and Venglos he would never have been dumb enough to appoint the current clown from S.H.A. Anyway reading further down the article he then goes on to slate our fine city. Now I've been to London many times but the cockneys seam to think it's some kind of oasis in a sea of shit. Yes the central area is interesting but by god there's some areas that are literally no go zones. I currently now live in Greater Manchester and yes the city centre is nice but the rest of the place is pretty dire to be honest, and the same applies to Liverpool. So why is it only Brum seems to get slated?
True doug made some bad mistakes during his reign , but at least he had the balls to admit to his mistakes and fire the manager he had appointed if need be, i doubt lerner will do the same and fear we will stumble from crisis to crisis under his and faulkners so called leadership.
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"This is a club with the infrastructure, history and support to be a top six side in the Premiership."
We have the history, support and infrastructure to be a top one side.
One league title in 99 years. One FA Cup in 92. One European trophy ever. Oh yes, the support. How often in that time have we been in the top six best-supported teams in the country? That's the reality.
And yet there are some on here who still think MO'N underachieved.
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Some fair comments there and yes he's correct about our potential. But until the club rediscovers it's purpose and drive that's all it will be. Potential. I might be in the minority here but the way that the club is being run at the moment makes me look back on the Ellis years with a certain sense of fondness. At least he attended all the games, and although he made some bad managerial appointments ala Turner, McNeil and Venglos he would never have been dumb enough to appoint the current clown from S.H.A. Anyway reading further down the article he then goes on to slate our fine city. Now I've been to London many times but the cockneys seam to think it's some kind of oasis in a sea of shit. Yes the central area is interesting but by god there's some areas that are literally no go zones. I currently now live in Greater Manchester and yes the city centre is nice but the rest of the place is pretty dire to be honest, and the same applies to Liverpool. So why is it only Brum seems to get slated?
True doug made some bad mistakes during his reign , but at least he had the balls to admit to his mistakes and fire the manager he had appointed if need be, i doubt lerner will do the same and fear we will stumble from crisis to crisis under his and faulkners so called leadership.
Doug admit his mistakes - when was that then, I think I missed it.
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"This is a club with the infrastructure, history and support to be a top six side in the Premiership."
We have the history, support and infrastructure to be a top one side.
One league title in 99 years. One FA Cup in 92. One European trophy ever. Oh yes, the support. How often in that time have we been in the top six best-supported teams in the country? That's the reality.
I was browsing through your 'Champions' book this morning to re-read the chapter on Eamonn Deacy and in your preface you called us ''the richest story in football history''.
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"This is a club with the infrastructure, history and support to be a top six side in the Premiership."
We have the history, support and infrastructure to be a top one side.
One league title in 99 years. One FA Cup in 92. One European trophy ever. Oh yes, the support. How often in that time have we been in the top six best-supported teams in the country? That's the reality.
True, but I'd argue winning a trophy pretty much every decade of our existence, finishing in the top two seventeen times, winning every domestic trophy in the land multiple times, winning the biggest club trophy in world football and residing in a city about the same size as a Munich or Milan suggests we have the pedigree, potential and everything else to be challenging for the top, top prizes. And, of course, we gave league football to the world - we are wrapped up in the fabric of the game like no other modern club.
The reality is that compared to clubs that have won more FA Cups and leagues this past century, we have had absolute duffers in the Chairman's chair. Well meaning and likeable, for sure, but duffers nonetheless. There has been no bank-rolling of trophies, no record transfer fees shelled out, no statements of ambition or intent. Our Chairmen simply haven't been up to the job.
All these things might mean a lot to us but to everyone else they mean as much as the Wanderers' FA Cup wins in the 1870s. Birmingham's as big as Milan? So what? By that token the best team in Mexico City should be in the World Club Championship every year. We're a midranking club who some seasons do better than in others. There are many clubs who can say the same.
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"This is a club with the infrastructure, history and support to be a top six side in the Premiership."
We have the history, support and infrastructure to be a top one side.
One league title in 99 years. One FA Cup in 92. One European trophy ever. Oh yes, the support. How often in that time have we been in the top six best-supported teams in the country? That's the reality.
I was browsing through your 'Champions' book this morning to re-read the chapter on Eamonn Deacy and in your preface you called us ''the richest story in football history''.
History being the word.
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I have always been very pro Lerner and to a very large degree I still am. However, I think Villa's drift and Randy Lerner's drift further and further into the background are the same thing.
The one thing Lerner has not done which was very much in his power to do is give us a board with football balls. The recent landscape of the club is dominated by bad board decisions.
If I had it in my power to change just one thing which has happened at Villa Park since O'Neill walked out it would be to have the board stand up to O'Neill and tell the club's side of the story.
It makes me curl up with anger, with disgust, with shame, and with embarassment on days like yesterday when Martin O'Neill is able to strut the stage of British football as a superhero endowed with divine talents somewhere between a latter day Joan of Arc and Galahad whose heart was pure.
I accept that a defeat at a tribunal may well have been on the cards but some fights you have to fight regardless of the odds. You have to tell it how it is, not shuffle off down Spin Alley.
The sun went behind a cloud over Villa Park not the day that O'Neill walked or the day that Stoke equalized or the day Houllier's heart missed a beat or the day Randy Lerner flew to Corsica. It was the day we decided that O'Neill's claims for wrongful dismissal should not be contested. From that day onwards the legend that without Messiah Martin we are nothing has spread like a malignant fungus.
Any chance of a rebirth for the club was stillborn with the appointment of a manager who preferred to be linked with Liverpool followed by a manager who came with more baggage than Ryanair.
I hope that the the rediscovery of ourselves is not in the Championship but I cannot see any other wake up call being loud enough to wake the sleepwalker.
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I have always been very pro Lerner and to a very large degree I still am. However, I think Villa's drift and Randy Lerner's drift further and further into the background are the same thing.
The one thing Lerner has not done which was very much in his power to do is give us a board with football balls. The recent landscape of the club is dominated by bad board decisions.
If I had it in my power to change just one thing which has happened at Villa Park since O'Neill walked out it would be to have the board stand up to O'Neill and tell the club's side of the story.
It makes me curl up with anger, with disgust, with shame, and with embarassment on days like yesterday when Martin O'Neill is able to strut the stage of British football as a superhero endowed with divine talents somewhere between a latter day Joan of Arc and Galahad whose heart was pure.
I accept that a defeat at a tribunal may well have been on the cards but some fights you have to fight regardless of the odds. You have to tell it how it is, not shuffle off down Spin Alley.
The sun went behind a cloud over Villa Park not the day that O'Neill walked or the day that Stoke equalized or the day Houllier's heart missed a beat or the day Randy Lerner flew to Corsica. It was the day we decided that O'Neill's claims for wrongful dismissal should not be contested. From that day onwards the legend that without Messiah Martin we are nothing has spread like a malignant fungus.
Any chance of a rebirth for the club was stillborn with the appointment of a manager who preferred to be linked with Liverpool followed by a manager who came with more baggage than Ryanair.
I hope that the the rediscovery of ourselves is not in the Championship but I cannot see any other wake up call being loud enough to wake the sleepwalker.
This. Well said Brian.
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Thirded.
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I hate it when people knock our city having only seen it briefly from the inside of a pub or getting in and out of a train station. I know New Steet and Snow Hill are hardly inspiring places when compared to St Pancreas or Marylebone but, they are basically judging a book by its cover.
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"This is a club with the infrastructure, history and support to be a top six side in the Premiership."
We have the history, support and infrastructure to be a top one side.
One league title in 99 years. One FA Cup in 92. One European trophy ever. Oh yes, the support. How often in that time have we been in the top six best-supported teams in the country? That's the reality.
True, but I'd argue winning a trophy pretty much every decade of our existence, finishing in the top two seventeen times, winning every domestic trophy in the land multiple times, winning the biggest club trophy in world football and residing in a city about the same size as a Munich or Milan suggests we have the pedigree, potential and everything else to be challenging for the top, top prizes. And, of course, we gave league football to the world - we are wrapped up in the fabric of the game like no other modern club.
The reality is that compared to clubs that have won more FA Cups and leagues this past century, we have had absolute duffers in the Chairman's chair. Well meaning and likeable, for sure, but duffers nonetheless. There has been no bank-rolling of trophies, no record transfer fees shelled out, no statements of ambition or intent. Our Chairmen simply haven't been up to the job.
All these things might mean a lot to us but to everyone else they mean as much as the Wanderers' FA Cup wins in the 1870s. Birmingham's as big as Milan? So what? By that token the best team in Mexico City should be in the World Club Championship every year. We're a midranking club who some seasons do better than in others. There are many clubs who can say the same.
Ah! But did The Wanderers then go on and have the influence and success of Villa?
I think the size of city is relevant. Forgetting Mexico, China, the USA and so on for now, let us focus on the context of European football. I mean, we have Milan (population 1.3 million) as the home to two clubs considered to be European giants. Like Brum, an industrial city, too. How on earth did that city produce two clubs capable of competing at the highest level these past thirty-forty years? (Let's forget that prior to this period these clubs were nothing special.) Milan's catchment area and social infrastructure surely can't be vastly different to Birmingham?
Let's look at Munich (population 1.3 million): Home to three football clubs - one of which would be regarded as a giant of the modern European game too. How can this be? Why has this happened? What has Munich got that Birmingham hasn't? What are the magic ingredients that have allowed two Milan clubs and a Munich club to do so well these past forty years? I would argue that it is simply down to the money, drive and ambition of the respective clubs' leaderships. Apart from this they have no natural advantages over Aston Villa - and they certainly don't have our pre-War influence or history either.
It's the people in charge who make the difference. Our club is not a mediocre club as our history and honours underline. Despite our historic lack of sugar daddies and media backing we are still around,still slugging it out - though, admittedly, like a forty year old Ali these days. There's no way we are a mediocre club, our problem has been that we have had too many mediocre people running our club for far too long. Maybe that's down to plain bad luck? Whatever, as the original QPR post points out, it all leads to the absolute waste of a football club that has absolutely everything in its locker to take on and beat all comers. We have the city, the fan base and everything else.
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I have always been very pro Lerner and to a very large degree I still am. However, I think Villa's drift and Randy Lerner's drift further and further into the background are the same thing.
The one thing Lerner has not done which was very much in his power to do is give us a board with football balls. The recent landscape of the club is dominated by bad board decisions.
If I had it in my power to change just one thing which has happened at Villa Park since O'Neill walked out it would be to have the board stand up to O'Neill and tell the club's side of the story.
It makes me curl up with anger, with disgust, with shame, and with embarassment on days like yesterday when Martin O'Neill is able to strut the stage of British football as a superhero endowed with divine talents somewhere between a latter day Joan of Arc and Galahad whose heart was pure.
I accept that a defeat at a tribunal may well have been on the cards but some fights you have to fight regardless of the odds. You have to tell it how it is, not shuffle off down Spin Alley.
The sun went behind a cloud over Villa Park not the day that O'Neill walked or the day that Stoke equalized or the day Houllier's heart missed a beat or the day Randy Lerner flew to Corsica. It was the day we decided that O'Neill's claims for wrongful dismissal should not be contested. From that day onwards the legend that without Messiah Martin we are nothing has spread like a malignant fungus.
Any chance of a rebirth for the club was stillborn with the appointment of a manager who preferred to be linked with Liverpool followed by a manager who came with more baggage than Ryanair.
I hope that the the rediscovery of ourselves is not in the Championship but I cannot see any other wake up call being loud enough to wake the sleepwalker.
This. Well said Brian.
A "weak" boardroom. Brian you've put it far better than me. We have just been poorly led for so long. It's not even a matter of purely having money at our disposal, it's having the personalities and people running the club to get us where we need to be. Leaders and people who totally understand the club, have pride in the club and will fight tooth and nail to make the club number one. And if anyone wrongs the club - woe betide them!
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"This is a club with the infrastructure, history and support to be a top six side in the Premiership."
We have the history, support and infrastructure to be a top one side.
One league title in 99 years. One FA Cup in 92. One European trophy ever. Oh yes, the support. How often in that time have we been in the top six best-supported teams in the country? That's the reality.
True, but I'd argue winning a trophy pretty much every decade of our existence, finishing in the top two seventeen times, winning every domestic trophy in the land multiple times, winning the biggest club trophy in world football and residing in a city about the same size as a Munich or Milan suggests we have the pedigree, potential and everything else to be challenging for the top, top prizes. And, of course, we gave league football to the world - we are wrapped up in the fabric of the game like no other modern club.
The reality is that compared to clubs that have won more FA Cups and leagues this past century, we have had absolute duffers in the Chairman's chair. Well meaning and likeable, for sure, but duffers nonetheless. There has been no bank-rolling of trophies, no record transfer fees shelled out, no statements of ambition or intent. Our Chairmen simply haven't been up to the job.
All these things might mean a lot to us but to everyone else they mean as much as the Wanderers' FA Cup wins in the 1870s. Birmingham's as big as Milan? So what? By that token the best team in Mexico City should be in the World Club Championship every year. We're a midranking club who some seasons do better than in others. There are many clubs who can say the same.
Ah! But did The Wanderers then go on and have the influence and success of Villa?
I think the size of city is relevant. Forgetting Mexico, China, the USA and so on for now, let us focus on the context of European football. I mean, we have Milan (population 1.3 million) as the home to two clubs considered to be European giants. Like Brum, an industrial city, too. How on earth did that city produce two clubs capable of competing at the highest level these past thirty-forty years? (Let's forget that prior to this period these clubs were nothing special.) Milan's catchment area and social infrastructure surely can't be vastly different to Birmingham?
Let's look at Munich (population 1.3 million): Home to three football clubs - one of which would be regarded as a giant of the modern European game too. How can this be? Why has this happened? What has Munich got that Birmingham hasn't? What are the magic ingredients that have allowed two Milan clubs and a Munich club to do so well these past forty years? I would argue that it is simply down to the money, drive and ambition of the respective clubs' leaderships. Apart from this they have no natural advantages over Aston Villa - and they certainly don't have our pre-War influence or history either.
It's the people in charge who make the difference. Our club is not a mediocre club as our history and honours underline. Despite our historic lack of sugar daddies and media backing we are still around,still slugging it out - though, admittedly, like a forty year old Ali these days. There's no way we are a mediocre club, our problem has been that we have had too many mediocre people running our club for far too long. Maybe that's down to plain bad luck? Whatever, as the original QPR post points out, it all leads to the absolute waste of a football club that has absolutely everything in its locker to take on and beat all comers. We have the city, the fan base and everything else.
Wanderers were a lot more successful and influential at the time than we were, and as other clubs have been before and after. What they were, and what we were, is irrelevant. City size is also irrelevant - Berlin is bigger than Birmingham, as are Paris, Vienna, Lyon and a load of others I've just looked up (incidentally, Milan & Inter had both won the European Cup twice plus numerous Serie A & other honours before the forty years ago you mentioned so they were hardly 'nothing special'). South London has a much bigger population than Birmingham so by your reckoning Crystal Palace & Millwall should be up there with us. As for gates, since the war we've been in the top four highest averages attendances four times - 1976 & '77 when we'd just been promoted, 1981 and 1993, when widescale ground redevelopments made such tables pretty much redundant. During this century, even at the height of the Randy-inspired optimism, we've usually been seventh or eighth. To therefore say that we're some sort of great recent underachievers or equally that the current situation will be permanent is wrong. We are what we are - sometimes good, sometimes bad.
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That visiting QPR fan has summed it up better than me or any of you or any journalist or any staff member at the club for decades.
Is it a Brummy malaise? The city that has manufactured the original and best engineering products the world has ever seen, only to have them mimicked or stolen, has a population so humble that they always settle for being inferior.
Victorian Mancs only made nice fabrics and yet they endlessly strut around like multiple mini Beau Brummels.
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I hate it when people knock our city having only seen it briefly from the inside of a pub or getting in and out of a train station. I know New Steet and Snow Hill are hardly inspiring places when compared to St Pancreas or Marylebone but, they are basically judging a book by its cover.
It seems that you have not read what he wrote. He did not slag off Brum, but the opposite. He was in awe of Villa, the stadium and the club's potential. There could be nothing more respectful nor insightful.
Maybe you have put your finger on it. Brummies are so busy feeling defensive and inferior that they are incapable of realising how much they have given and could give the world.
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It seems that you have not read what he wrote. He did not slag off Brum, but the opposite. He was in awe of Villa, the stadium and the club's potential. There could be nothing more respectful nor insightful.
I mean when have you ever heard anybody anywhere say “Oh I can’t wait to get to Birmingham me, if only there were a quicker way”? You need the two hours it currently takes on the normal horse drawn train just to prepare yourself for the horror of the place. Maybe the quick trains will only run one way, enabling people to escape at speed but approach the ‘second city’ with the same caution and reluctance they do now.
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This bit made me laugh.
Heading back to Aston station we found it locked, full and a throng of people queuing up outside loudly moaning in Brummie: “Whoi didn’t we soign Seesaiy?”
It kind of brought it to life.
At least the guy knows a class act being wasted when he sees one.
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It seems that you have not read what he wrote. He did not slag off Brum, but the opposite. He was in awe of Villa, the stadium and the club's potential. There could be nothing more respectful nor insightful.
I mean when have you ever heard anybody anywhere say “Oh I can’t wait to get to Birmingham me, if only there were a quicker way”? You need the two hours it currently takes on the normal horse drawn train just to prepare yourself for the horror of the place. Maybe the quick trains will only run one way, enabling people to escape at speed but approach the ‘second city’ with the same caution and reluctance they do now.
Maybe you have put your finger on it. Brummies are so busy feeling defensive and inferior that they are incapable of realising how much they have given and could give the world.
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It seems that you have not read what he wrote. He did not slag off Brum, but the opposite. He was in awe of Villa, the stadium and the club's potential. There could be nothing more respectful nor insightful.
I mean when have you ever heard anybody anywhere say “Oh I can’t wait to get to Birmingham me, if only there were a quicker way”? You need the two hours it currently takes on the normal horse drawn train just to prepare yourself for the horror of the place. Maybe the quick trains will only run one way, enabling people to escape at speed but approach the ‘second city’ with the same caution and reluctance they do now.
Maybe you have put your finger on it. Brummies are so busy feeling defensive and inferior that they are incapable of realising how much they have given and could give the world.
That's what he says. If you read the whole article you'll see he slags Villa, Birmingham, Brummies and Villa supporters.
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In reply to Dave W:
You're right about the European Cups prior to forty years ago - in my head I still seem to think of the sixties as being forty years ago, and of course time is shifting on and the sixties are, unbelievably, fifty years ago. I'm stuck in a time warp. (I was watching an episode of "The Cosby Show" the other day and I thought to myself, "Good, this is one of the newer episodes." When the credits rolled by at the end I couldn't believe it when I saw it had been recorded twenty-four years ago...I'm getting old!)
Maybe the question I should be asking is what is the magic ingredient that makes a club successful? I reckon city size is important because it tells you just what can be achieved within certain constraints. There are larger cities than Birmingham, of course, but then how many other football clubs do those cities support? When cities of a similar size to Birmingham can achieve so much I think we have to ask ourselves why? After all, Birmingham, like Milan, is home to only two (maybe three) football clubs. Maybe we even have a duty to ask that question as sport is a competitive business, and asking questions and challenging ourselves is surely what it is all about?
Clubs like Man Utd, Arsenal, Liverpool and so on have all had plenty of periods of mediocrity that they've somehow risen above. Average league placings are not set in stone and how good they look depends on whereabouts you are standing on the timeline. If we were having this debate at the end of the final season of the old First Division our average league finishes would be better than Man Utd's - as would our trophy count. What were Liverpool's average league finishes prior to Shankly? How could a fairly average club like them all of a sudden go on a great spurt of success? How could a city the size of Liverpool support and sustain such a run of success?
Attendances are interesting. The first season after WWII ourselves and Man Utd had the same average attendance. Why did theirs continue to improve and ours dwindle? Success on the pitch, leadership, dynamic appointments, ambition...Supporters aren't mugs and they know when their club is making a go of it.
Average attendances don't necessarily paint the whole picture, though, after all Juventus are Italy's most popular club but their attendances don't reflect this. We are still a club, historically that has pulled in crowds in the sixties and seventies of thousands.
Going back to the point Brian made, I think our main problem has been weak leadership, poor decision making and poor appointments being made. Poor leadership led to the club's post War slump; poor leadership led to the club losing sight of the changes to the game and to the growing influence of the media and money from the sixties onwards. Doug's leadership speaks for itself, as does, unfortunately, the leadership of Randy.
Villa are hugely underachieving, and I'd point to the performances of clubs from cities similar (and smaller) to our own, to highlight this.
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He pities us. I hate us being pitied. We seem to be getting a lot of that this season.
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Try promoting in Birmingham and you'll soon realise that the hardest thing in the world is getting a Brummie to go out and do something; whether it's football, music or any other entertainment we/they don't seem all that interested. Of the other citys/clubs, Manchester United post-World War II had two things going for them - one of the greatest managers of all time and Munich. The first put them on a pedestal and the second kept them there even through the lean years, as did the memory of Bobby Charlton & George Best. Liverpool's pre-Shankly success is also overlooked; they'd won the league the previous decade and had always done reasonably well. They took off because Shankly made them national news. You could also ask why a city like that has contributed so much to the world's musical heritage. Maybe it's because over the past fifty years they've had nothing else to be proud of.
Bayern are the club of a massive area; Bavaria is over half the size of England with a population of around 13 million. Imagine what crowds Arsenal could get if Chelsea, Spurs & West Ham didn't exist? Italy's another matter entirely, a country which is football-obsessed and I would also guess the Italian diaspora contributes to their clubs' size.
Our crowds are, historically, good but not great. I'd argue that people (not necessarily supporters) will come to Villa Park for event games rather than routine ones and Randy found this out. I think with hindsight that Doug's better years were almost as good as we could hope for, as were Randy's early ones. We could do better but without massive money it will take everything going right for us to get there.
And don't worry about modern life moving too fast - I've heard of a great new band called Oasis.
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In terms of success, Dave, you're absolutely right. We need a change in mentality in the city as much as anything to get us to that level, and that would lead to a change in perception about the city and the club. Our problem as a club is apathy, defeatism, a proneness to self-loathing and even our self-deprecating humour (one trait of the club I've always been proud of) could be said to be symptomatic of our problem as a fanbase.
So much for success. But my main problem is that the club isn't just aiming for survival - it's aiming for bland coasting. There's no entertainment, no joy in the football, just playing to the worst aspects of our club stereotype: non-descript, defeatist football, no effort to even make a splash in the entertainment stakes. If we're not going to win a trophy, let's at least have some fun, I say - but while we have the manager we do, I don't think that will be the case.
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And don't worry about modern life moving too fast - I've heard of a great new band called Oasis.
I'll look out for them!
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I might be in the minority here but the way that the club is being run at the moment makes me look back on the Ellis years with a certain sense of fondness. At least he attended all the games, and although he made some bad managerial appointments ala Turner, McNeil and Venglos he would never have been dumb enough to appoint the current clown from S.H.A.
Christ Rico, do you REALLY think appointing McLeish as manager was a worse decision than Ellis snapping up the Graham Turner, the Shrewsbury Town manager as the ideal candidate for the reigning European Super Cup holders?
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I might be in the minority here but the way that the club is being run at the moment makes me look back on the Ellis years with a certain sense of fondness. At least he attended all the games, and although he made some bad managerial appointments ala Turner, McNeil and Venglos he would never have been dumb enough to appoint the current clown from S.H.A.
Christ Rico, do you REALLY think appointing McLeish as manager was a worse decision than Ellis snapping up the Graham Turner, the Shrewsbury Town manager as the ideal candidate for the reigning European Super Cup holders?
its a tricky one...
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I have always been very pro Lerner and to a very large degree I still am. However, I think Villa's drift and Randy Lerner's drift further and further into the background are the same thing.
The one thing Lerner has not done which was very much in his power to do is give us a board with football balls. The recent landscape of the club is dominated by bad board decisions.
If I had it in my power to change just one thing which has happened at Villa Park since O'Neill walked out it would be to have the board stand up to O'Neill and tell the club's side of the story.
It makes me curl up with anger, with disgust, with shame, and with embarassment on days like yesterday when Martin O'Neill is able to strut the stage of British football as a superhero endowed with divine talents somewhere between a latter day Joan of Arc and Galahad whose heart was pure.
I accept that a defeat at a tribunal may well have been on the cards but some fights you have to fight regardless of the odds. You have to tell it how it is, not shuffle off down Spin Alley.
The sun went behind a cloud over Villa Park not the day that O'Neill walked or the day that Stoke equalized or the day Houllier's heart missed a beat or the day Randy Lerner flew to Corsica. It was the day we decided that O'Neill's claims for wrongful dismissal should not be contested. From that day onwards the legend that without Messiah Martin we are nothing has spread like a malignant fungus.
Any chance of a rebirth for the club was stillborn with the appointment of a manager who preferred to be linked with Liverpool followed by a manager who came with more baggage than Ryanair.
I hope that the the rediscovery of ourselves is not in the Championship but I cannot see any other wake up call being loud enough to wake the sleepwalker.
In total agreement with you here Brian.
Great post.
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I actually don't have a problem with people like our QPR fan having a dig at Birmingham - most people do have a pop because they do not bother to find out what the City is really like. I put that down - in this case - to the normal Londoner snobbery of all things provincial.
I did however detect at least an effort to understand where Villa have come from and where they reside now. And, MON issues aside, I think he caught the mood pretty well.
As Brian Green has already eloquently said, we blew the MON argument for good when the board failed to articulate effectively their side of the story.
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Hey BDE you know me better than to call me an Ellis sympathiser, however, I really do not think he would have been crass enough to employ Mcleish. The route of the problem at VP is our absent owner. Mcleish is just the fall guy!
UTV.
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I think Dave is right in his way, pointing out where we are. I also think Billy is right in terms of where we could be. Let's assume that quite a few clubs could get to the top given a certain level of investment and competent leadership, ie picking the right manager and, following on from that, the right players. My view is that Villa, with our existing facilities, location and fan-base, could stay there and be more viable in terms of continued losses/investment. Our big advantage would be if we got to a stage in our development when we needed extra capacity. What would cost Liverpoolan Everton and Spurs hundreds of millions would cost us a fraction of that.
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Hey BDE you know me better than to call me an Ellis sympathiser, however, I really do not think he would have been crass enough to employ Mcleish. The route of the problem at VP is our absent owner. Mcleish is just the fall guy!
UTV.
Given the club was set on balancing the books and had no money to spend last summer, in addition to selling its two most creative players, and had several experienced players (Warnock, Dunne, Collins and Ireland) at loggerheads with the club, what manager worth his salt would you realistically have expected to want the Villa job?
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I accept that a defeat at a tribunal may well have been on the cards but some fights you have to fight regardless of the odds. You have to tell it how it is, not shuffle off down Spin Alley.
It was the day we decided that O'Neill's claims for wrongful dismissal should not be contested. From that day onwards the legend that without Messiah Martin we are nothing has spread like a malignant fungus.
Maybe we did not contest it was because the evidence would have been more damaging to lerner than to MON, isnt that why they paid him off?
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Hey BDE you know me better than to call me an Ellis sympathiser, however, I really do not think he would have been crass enough to employ Mcleish. The route of the problem at VP is our absent owner. Mcleish is just the fall guy!
UTV.
Given the club was set on balancing the books and had no money to spend last summer, in addition to selling its two most creative players, and had several experienced players (Warnock, Dunne, Collins and Ireland) at loggerheads with the club, what manager worth his salt would you realistically have expected to want the Villa job?
Chris Houghton for starters.
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Hey BDE you know me better than to call me an Ellis sympathiser, however, I really do not think he would have been crass enough to employ Mcleish. The route of the problem at VP is our absent owner. Mcleish is just the fall guy!
UTV.
Given the club was set on balancing the books and had no money to spend last summer, in addition to selling its two most creative players, and had several experienced players (Warnock, Dunne, Collins and Ireland) at loggerheads with the club, what manager worth his salt would you realistically have expected to want the Villa job?
Chris Houghton for starters.
Hindsight is a fantastic thing mate. I'd imagine you'd have been in a pretty small minority who'd have been pleased with Hughton getting the Villa job.
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Hey BDE you know me better than to call me an Ellis sympathiser, however, I really do not think he would have been crass enough to employ Mcleish. The route of the problem at VP is our absent owner. Mcleish is just the fall guy!
UTV.
Given the club was set on balancing the books and had no money to spend last summer, in addition to selling its two most creative players, and had several experienced players (Warnock, Dunne, Collins and Ireland) at loggerheads with the club, what manager worth his salt would you realistically have expected to want the Villa job?
Not one who had just got their team relegated from the Premiership, walked out of the club and then to cap it all pay compensation for him.... utter madness!
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Hey BDE you know me better than to call me an Ellis sympathiser, however, I really do not think he would have been crass enough to employ Mcleish. The route of the problem at VP is our absent owner. Mcleish is just the fall guy!
UTV.
Given the club was set on balancing the books and had no money to spend last summer, in addition to selling its two most creative players, and had several experienced players (Warnock, Dunne, Collins and Ireland) at loggerheads with the club, what manager worth his salt would you realistically have expected to want the Villa job?
Not one who had just got their team relegated from the Premiership, walked out of the club and then to cap it all pay compensation for him.... utter madness!
And won that club their first major trophy in living memory.
Give me a name though. Realistically..
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Hey BDE you know me better than to call me an Ellis sympathiser, however, I really do not think he would have been crass enough to employ Mcleish. The route of the problem at VP is our absent owner. Mcleish is just the fall guy!
UTV.
Given the club was set on balancing the books and had no money to spend last summer, in addition to selling its two most creative players, and had several experienced players (Warnock, Dunne, Collins and Ireland) at loggerheads with the club, what manager worth his salt would you realistically have expected to want the Villa job?
Not one who had just got their team relegated from the Premiership, walked out of the club and then to cap it all pay compensation for him.... utter madness!
And won that club their first major trophy in living memory.
Give me a name though. Realistically..
Martin Jol!
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It's arguable Martin Jol would have been a better appointment than McLeish. The league table suggests Fulham and Villa are having similarly mediocre seasons.
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It's all irrelevant now regarding who we would have preferred in the summer, but never in a million years did I think we would go and poach our calamitous neighbours boss. Maybe I am looking back on the Ellis years with Rose tinted glasses, but in reality apart from a few glorious years in the late 70s and early 80s I'm very much a child of the Ellis years, and again maybe it was because I was younger and fresh from the heady hights of winning the league cup, league championship, European cup and European Super Cup, but I can't recall such a sense despondency back then as I do now. And my god we were bad then, but I really can't recall us playing the anti football that we churn out on a regular basis now. So yes, it's a waste of a club, but we've been saying it for years. Until we get an owner with the funds and desire to make us challenge again then it's mid to lower table for us. That might be unpalitable to some, but it's the reality. The top six takes cash! And plenty of it! I just don't think Randy is willing to splash enough of it on a regular basis to push on.
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I remember when I dropped one on the floor. It was a mint flavoured one as well. What a waste.
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Hey BDE you know me better than to call me an Ellis sympathiser, however, I really do not think he would have been crass enough to employ Mcleish. The route of the problem at VP is our absent owner. Mcleish is just the fall guy!
UTV.
Given the club was set on balancing the books and had no money to spend last summer, in addition to selling its two most creative players, and had several experienced players (Warnock, Dunne, Collins and Ireland) at loggerheads with the club, what manager worth his salt would you realistically have expected to want the Villa job?
Not one who had just got their team relegated from the Premiership, walked out of the club and then to cap it all pay compensation for him.... utter madness!
And won that club their first major trophy in living memory.
Give me a name though. Realistically..
Lambert, Coyle, Rodgers, Robinson, Hodgson, Poyet, Curbs, Keegan, Saunders, Keane, Clough, Southgate.
i'm not saying i would want all of them or that all of them would come, but you only asked for a realistic name, so theres a dozen names of the top of the head for starters, and i would prefer most of them to what we got,
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I'm not going to revise the Herbert years as the good ol' days, but it never ceased to amaze me the calibre of manager we could attract, despite the handicap of having him as Chairman.
Now - the first time we have to balance the books a wee bit on Lerner's watch (we still spent £18 million last summer, so we aren't operating on the shoestring some make out) and the best we could get was McLeish? Really?
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Lambert: Only if Lee Butler comes back.
Robinson: Not sure how the Blackburn keeper will help us.
Saunders: Much as I loved Ron I think he may be past it now.
Keane: Robbie as player manager?
Clough: Do we dig him up or use a medium for team talks?
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Lambert: Only if Lee Butler comes back.
Robinson: Not sure how the Blackburn keeper will help us.
Saunders: Much as I loved Ron I think he may be past it now.
Keane: Robbie as player manager?
Clough: Do we dig him up or use a medium for team talks?
i can see what you did there !
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I'm not going to revise the Herbert years as the good ol' days, but it never ceased to amaze me the calibre of manager we could attract, despite the handicap of having him as Chairman.
Now - the first time we have to balance the books a wee bit on Lerner's watch (we still spent £18 million last summer, so we aren't operating on the shoestring some make out) and the best we could get was McLeish? Really?
The managers of Norwich, Leicester, Shrewsbury, Wycombe, relegation candidates Man City?
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That's true. For all the crap managers, we still managed to poach Little from Leicester, Taylor from Watford and Big Fat Ron from Sheff Wed. We also managed to bring O'Neil out of retirement. Perhaps Lerner should sack Faulkner and employ Deadly as chief exec? Or better still employ someone who actually knows something about football.
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That's true. For all the crap managers, we still managed to poach Little from Leicester, Taylor from Watford and Big Fat Ron from Sheff Wed. We also managed to bring O'Neil out of retirement. Perhaps Lerner should sack Faulkner and employ Deadly as chief exec? Or better still employ someone who actually knows something about football.
Two out of those three would have walked here to get the job and the third was the luckiest example of right place, right time we have ever known.
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It seems that you have not read what he wrote. He did not slag off Brum, but the opposite. He was in awe of Villa, the stadium and the club's potential. There could be nothing more respectful nor insightful.
I mean when have you ever heard anybody anywhere say “Oh I can’t wait to get to Birmingham me, if only there were a quicker way”? You need the two hours it currently takes on the normal horse drawn train just to prepare yourself for the horror of the place. Maybe the quick trains will only run one way, enabling people to escape at speed but approach the ‘second city’ with the same caution and reluctance they do now.
Thank you Dave I thought i'd read it right.
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Hey BDE you know me better than to call me an Ellis sympathiser, however, I really do not think he would have been crass enough to employ Mcleish. The route of the problem at VP is our absent owner. Mcleish is just the fall guy!
UTV.
Given the club was set on balancing the books and had no money to spend last summer, in addition to selling its two most creative players, and had several experienced players (Warnock, Dunne, Collins and Ireland) at loggerheads with the club, what manager worth his salt would you realistically have expected to want the Villa job?
Chris Houghton for starters.
Hindsight is a fantastic thing mate. I'd imagine you'd have been in a pretty small minority who'd have been pleased with Hughton getting the Villa job.
I didn't have hindsight... but I liked what he did at the Barcodes, thought he was extremely harshly treated there, and am on record of supporting him at the time. I thought he could have done a job for us. There were others too, on this site even.
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Yep I suggested Houghton, and he would have been a far better bet than who we have ended up with.
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Hughton was on my wish list too.
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mcleish, got blosers promoted, relegated, won their first silverwear in their history. Hughton, got blose to the last 16 and pushing for play offs?? which one is preferential??
lambert and rodgers file under phil brown, paul jewell and steve coppell! they have achieved the maximum they will with either club.saunders, robinson and the rest named from the lower leagues need to do more,
as for our ginger,,, well i blame MON for spending every penny we frigging well had and then fuckng off as soon as the gravy train ended!
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The good news is that you all seem ready to agree that HS2 is one massive waste of £40 billion +++. It is due to go right past my house, so would appreciate that.
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mcleish, got blosers promoted, relegated, won their first silverwear in their history. Hughton, got blose to the last 16 and pushing for play offs?? which one is preferential??
lambert and rodgers file under phil brown, paul jewell and steve coppell! they have achieved the maximum they will with either club.saunders, robinson and the rest named from the lower leagues need to do more,
as for our ginger,,, well i blame MON for spending every penny we frigging well had and then fuckng off as soon as the gravy train ended!
Houghton took The Toon up at first ask. What he is doing at The Bloose is even more miraculous. He showed an aptitude for working with little money at The Barcodes, and is doing it again under even more difficult circumstances. . He also took The Barcodes to a very respectable place in the PL with practically the same squad, then was sacked for his trouble by an idiot owner. Taking this into account... he'd have been ideal for our situation.
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I have always been very pro Lerner and to a very large degree I still am. However, I think Villa's drift and Randy Lerner's drift further and further into the background are the same thing.
The one thing Lerner has not done which was very much in his power to do is give us a board with football balls. The recent landscape of the club is dominated by bad board decisions.
If I had it in my power to change just one thing which has happened at Villa Park since O'Neill walked out it would be to have the board stand up to O'Neill and tell the club's side of the story.
It makes me curl up with anger, with disgust, with shame, and with embarassment on days like yesterday when Martin O'Neill is able to strut the stage of British football as a superhero endowed with divine talents somewhere between a latter day Joan of Arc and Galahad whose heart was pure.
I accept that a defeat at a tribunal may well have been on the cards but some fights you have to fight regardless of the odds. You have to tell it how it is, not shuffle off down Spin Alley.
The sun went behind a cloud over Villa Park not the day that O'Neill walked or the day that Stoke equalized or the day Houllier's heart missed a beat or the day Randy Lerner flew to Corsica. It was the day we decided that O'Neill's claims for wrongful dismissal should not be contested. From that day onwards the legend that without Messiah Martin we are nothing has spread like a malignant fungus.
Any chance of a rebirth for the club was stillborn with the appointment of a manager who preferred to be linked with Liverpool followed by a manager who came with more baggage than Ryanair.
I hope that the the rediscovery of ourselves is not in the Championship but I cannot see any other wake up call being loud enough to wake the sleepwalker.
Brilliant, Brian.
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As I said before and have raised many times withut response. Isnt it a fact that RL lost, and paid MON off because of the damage it would have done to the clubs / his reputation. We have not had any explanation about MON walking.
Based on the way they have managed the club since the MON departure i am begining to believe that RL was probably more at fault than MON.
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blimey, hard to disagree with that. Yes, and very well put Mr Green.
We've been a great club waiting to happen again for 30 years. That article could have been written about us at various stages since we won the European Cup. We threaten to do something and then all too often fall back to a position of underachievement. It's like we are really comfortable there despite publicly proclaiming how much we hate it.
I do often wonder whether the spell might have been broken had Sir Graham not gone to England.
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Yep I suggested Houghton, and he would have been a far better bet than who we have ended up with.
He was a good midfielder for us in his day but he's never managed in his life before.
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Great thread, and lets face it the guys is bang on, love the bit about the girl in the corner, a gorgeous beauty wrapped in a sack with a dead head boyfriend taking no notice, basically a complete waste.
Villa are top 4 potential, no question, we just don't have the right components to do it, even the Chairman now seems dodgy, looking at O'Neill at Sunderland and yet again some of the comments by the pundits on yesterdays game saying he's one of the very best managers in the UK, so where did it all go wrong, yes he wasted a few quid on dead weight, but he also got in quality, and lets face it what manager doesn't end up with players that don't pan out, and look where we are now.
I think its time for Lerner to wake up, have a firm idea as to where we should be going, realize we are not going to get there in our present state and take steps to change things.
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I think its important to remember that MON is still in the honeymoon phase, and I it's inevitable that one day he will fcuk them over as he has done everyone else. If he does good work up there he'll get a big 4 job, if he fails he'll take his toys with him as he did with us. It may take 5 years but it will happen. I pity Sunderland. they aren't a bad lot up there.
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So far he's done nothing more for them than John Gregory did for us, and the similarity doesn't end there.
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I have always been very pro Lerner and to a very large degree I still am. However, I think Villa's drift and Randy Lerner's drift further and further into the background are the same thing.
The one thing Lerner has not done which was very much in his power to do is give us a board with football balls. The recent landscape of the club is dominated by bad board decisions.
If I had it in my power to change just one thing which has happened at Villa Park since O'Neill walked out it would be to have the board stand up to O'Neill and tell the club's side of the story.
It makes me curl up with anger, with disgust, with shame, and with embarassment on days like yesterday when Martin O'Neill is able to strut the stage of British football as a superhero endowed with divine talents somewhere between a latter day Joan of Arc and Galahad whose heart was pure.
I accept that a defeat at a tribunal may well have been on the cards but some fights you have to fight regardless of the odds. You have to tell it how it is, not shuffle off down Spin Alley.
The sun went behind a cloud over Villa Park not the day that O'Neill walked or the day that Stoke equalized or the day Houllier's heart missed a beat or the day Randy Lerner flew to Corsica. It was the day we decided that O'Neill's claims for wrongful dismissal should not be contested. From that day onwards the legend that without Messiah Martin we are nothing has spread like a malignant fungus.
Any chance of a rebirth for the club was stillborn with the appointment of a manager who preferred to be linked with Liverpool followed by a manager who came with more baggage than Ryanair.
I hope that the the rediscovery of ourselves is not in the Championship but I cannot see any other wake up call being loud enough to wake the sleepwalker.
Brilliant, Brian.
REALLY BRILLIANT, Brian.
Says it all for me.
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So far he's done nothing more for them than John Gregory did for us, and the similarity doesn't end there.
Care to expand?
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So far he's done nothing more for them than John Gregory did for us, and the similarity doesn't end there.
Care to expand?
They both had plenty of money available, both had a transfer record best described as mixed, both played crap football, left in circumstances that suited them rather than the club and had a hold over some of our supporters that I couldn't understand then and still can't.
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I think its important to remember that MON is still in the honeymoon phase, and I it's inevitable that one day he will fcuk them over as he has done everyone else.
Who else did he 'fuck over'?
At Leicester he turned Leeds down mid-season. At Celtic he left to look after his very ill wife. At Norwich he was lied to by their crooked chairman and so walked when he realised this.
Contrary to what's said on here, Celtic fans don't hate him - many of them still call him 'St. Martin'.
Dave, what did Gregory ever do with any other club?
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I think its important to remember that MON is still in the honeymoon phase, and I it's inevitable that one day he will fcuk them over as he has done everyone else.
Who else did he 'fuck over'?
At Leicester he turned Leeds down mid-season. At Celtic he left to look after his very ill wife. At Norwich he was lied to by their crooked chairman and so walked when he realised this.
Contrary to what's said on here, Celtic fans don't hate him - many of them still call him 'St. Martin'.
Dave, what did Gregory ever do with any other club?
Don't know, don't care.
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I think its important to remember that MON is still in the honeymoon phase, and I it's inevitable that one day he will fcuk them over as he has done everyone else.
Who else did he 'fuck over'?
At Leicester he turned Leeds down mid-season. At Celtic he left to look after his very ill wife. At Norwich he was lied to by their crooked chairman and so walked when he realised this.
Contrary to what's said on here, Celtic fans don't hate him - many of them still call him 'St. Martin'.
Dave, what did Gregory ever do with any other club?
Don't know, don't care.
Fair enough, I did anticipate that. My fault for conflating two separate arguments.
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I liked MOn in his first few years I must admit I was proud he was our manager. However, the football was primative which at first got us results and I was happy with that, hoping that in time he would bring in players with the money he had to evolve our style.
Mon's last year in charge showed his qualities as we got as far as we could, sixth, a semi final and a final but, we were miles away from the top four in quality even, with the money he spent. Rednapp spent far less and his team play great football. MON's teams couldn't hold on to the ball and got found out against teams with a better style of play.
So, when he asked for more money to waste on average players on high wages and Lerner didn't give into him he left us on the eve of the season and we've been shagged since.
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Houghton took The Toon up at first ask. What he is doing at The Bloose is even more miraculous. He showed an aptitude for working with little money at The Barcodes, and is doing it again under even more difficult circumstances. . He also took The Barcodes to a very respectable place in the PL with practically the same squad, then was sacked for his trouble by an idiot owner. Taking this into account... he'd have been ideal for our situation.
Houghton took Newcastle up with largely the same squad they went down with, who had underachieved in the PL the previous year. All bought for PL money and on PL wages. So although he didn't have any money to spend, he did have far greater resources as his disposal than any other club in the Championship that season.
As it goes, I do think he's a good manager and is proving it at Blues right now.
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That's true. For all the crap managers, we still managed to poach Little from Leicester, Taylor from Watford and Big Fat Ron from Sheff Wed. We also managed to bring O'Neil out of retirement. Perhaps Lerner should sack Faulkner and employ Deadly as chief exec? Or better still employ someone who actually knows something about football.
Two out of those three would have walked here to get the job and the third was the luckiest example of right place, right time we have ever known.
Lucky?!?
Lucky would have been Guus Hiddink looking to relocate to the English midlands just as Lerner took over, not Scroty McBoogerballs.
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Houghton took The Toon up at first ask. What he is doing at The Bloose is even more miraculous. He showed an aptitude for working with little money at The Barcodes, and is doing it again under even more difficult circumstances. . He also took The Barcodes to a very respectable place in the PL with practically the same squad, then was sacked for his trouble by an idiot owner. Taking this into account... he'd have been ideal for our situation.
Houghton took Newcastle up with largely the same squad they went down with, who had underachieved in the PL the previous year. All bought for PL money and on PL wages. So although he didn't have any money to spend, he did have far greater resources as his disposal than any other club in the Championship that season.
As it goes, I do think he's a good manager and is proving it at Blues right now.
For all their problems, they've still got the financial clout to outbid almost all of their competitors in that division. The way some are going on you'd think he'd fashioned a team from an assortment of one-legged, blind war veterans.
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Just going back to a discussion earlier about Villa and the club's attendances, I saw these stats on a Newcastle site showing the amount of times various clubs have ended a season with the highest average attendances:
Man Utd 34;
Everton 13;
Arsenal 12;
Newcastle/Chelsea 10;
Aston Villa/Liverpool 7;
Spurs 6;
Man City 3.
What does this tell us? I'm not too sure. Certainly Man Utd's stats would reflect their successes of the latter part of the twentieth century whereas ours would highlight our successes in the earlier part of that century, but that's by the by. I think every club on that list, with the right investment and so on, could dominate English football.
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I'm just amazed that anyone thinks The Old Joint Stock represents 'good value'.
Didn't we have the 'Bhams a shit hole who's inhabitants talk all funny' spiel last week?
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I have always been very pro Lerner and to a very large degree I still am. However, I think Villa's drift and Randy Lerner's drift further and further into the background are the same thing.
The one thing Lerner has not done which was very much in his power to do is give us a board with football balls. The recent landscape of the club is dominated by bad board decisions.
If I had it in my power to change just one thing which has happened at Villa Park since O'Neill walked out it would be to have the board stand up to O'Neill and tell the club's side of the story.
It makes me curl up with anger, with disgust, with shame, and with embarassment on days like yesterday when Martin O'Neill is able to strut the stage of British football as a superhero endowed with divine talents somewhere between a latter day Joan of Arc and Galahad whose heart was pure.
I accept that a defeat at a tribunal may well have been on the cards but some fights you have to fight regardless of the odds. You have to tell it how it is, not shuffle off down Spin Alley.
The sun went behind a cloud over Villa Park not the day that O'Neill walked or the day that Stoke equalized or the day Houllier's heart missed a beat or the day Randy Lerner flew to Corsica. It was the day we decided that O'Neill's claims for wrongful dismissal should not be contested. From that day onwards the legend that without Messiah Martin we are nothing has spread like a malignant fungus.
Any chance of a rebirth for the club was stillborn with the appointment of a manager who preferred to be linked with Liverpool followed by a manager who came with more baggage than Ryanair.
I hope that the the rediscovery of ourselves is not in the Championship but I cannot see any other wake up call being loud enough to wake the sleepwalker.
Top post!
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That's true. For all the crap managers, we still managed to poach Little from Leicester, Taylor from Watford and Big Fat Ron from Sheff Wed. We also managed to bring O'Neil out of retirement. Perhaps Lerner should sack Faulkner and employ Deadly as chief exec? Or better still employ someone who actually knows something about football.
Two out of those three would have walked here to get the job and the third was the luckiest example of right place, right time we have ever known.
Lucky?!?
Lucky would have been Guus Hiddink looking to relocate to the English midlands just as Lerner took over, not Scroty McBoogerballs.
Lucky was the best English manager of the time wanting to leave his club to take on a bigger one when we had a vacancy and one of his closest friends worked in Witton Road.
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That's true. For all the crap managers, we still managed to poach Little from Leicester, Taylor from Watford and Big Fat Ron from Sheff Wed. We also managed to bring O'Neil out of retirement. Perhaps Lerner should sack Faulkner and employ Deadly as chief exec? Or better still employ someone who actually knows something about football.
Two out of those three would have walked here to get the job and the third was the luckiest example of right place, right time we have ever known.
Lucky?!?
Lucky would have been Guus Hiddink looking to relocate to the English midlands just as Lerner took over, not Scroty McBoogerballs.
Lucky was the best English manager of the time wanting to leave his club to take on a bigger one when we had a vacancy and one of his closest friends worked in Witton Road.
Assumption is the mother of all fuck ups.
Yes, that indeed was very lucky, and thank the lord it was.
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Assumption is the mother of all fuck ups.
Yes, that indeed was very lucky, and thank the lord it was.
And just about the last bit of good luck we had.
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HUGHTON.
The man's name is HUGHTON.
That's better.
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I think its important to remember that MON is still in the honeymoon phase, and I it's inevitable that one day he will fcuk them over as he has done everyone else.
Who else did he 'fuck over'?
At Leicester he turned Leeds down mid-season. At Celtic he left to look after his very ill wife. At Norwich he was lied to by their crooked chairman and so walked when he realised this.
Contrary to what's said on here, Celtic fans don't hate him - many of them still call him 'St. Martin'.
Dave, what did Gregory ever do with any other club?
MON didn't turn Leeds down. In fact, he was very vocal about wanting to talk to Leeds. The Leicester chairman denied him permission to talk to them and that was that. Later on, he nearly joined Leeds from Celtic, but it fell through
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This MON thing annoys me. I hate the stupid idea that every shit game/season we have discredits the people who said we needed a change before he left. When he fucked off we could have gone one of two ways - beyond where MON could get us or back a step. Simultaneously pulling the funding, selling the best players and hiring two unsuitable managers in quick succession all but guaranteed it weould be the latter. Doesn't mean people were wrong to want shot of MON, although hindsight's a wonderful thing.
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This MON thing annoys me. I hate the stupid idea that every shit game/season we have discredits the people who said we needed a change before he left. When he fucked off we could have gone one of two ways - beyond where MON could get us or back a step. Simultaneously pulling the funding, selling the best players and hiring two unsuitable managers in quick succession all but guaranteed it weould be the latter. Doesn't mean people were wrong to want shot of MON, although hindsight's a wonderful thing.
I gte what you mean, but by another token people can't keep blaming MON for what has happened since he left, as some do.
He was our manager. He isn't anymore. Let's move on.
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I think its important to remember that MON is still in the honeymoon phase, and I it's inevitable that one day he will fcuk them over as he has done everyone else.
Who else did he 'fuck over'?
At Leicester he turned Leeds down mid-season. At Celtic he left to look after his very ill wife. At Norwich he was lied to by their crooked chairman and so walked when he realised this.
Contrary to what's said on here, Celtic fans don't hate him - many of them still call him 'St. Martin'.
Dave, what did Gregory ever do with any other club?
MON didn't turn Leeds down. In fact, he was very vocal about wanting to talk to Leeds. The Leicester chairman denied him permission to talk to them and that was that. Later on, he nearly joined Leeds from Celtic, but it fell through
Even if that's true (it's contrary to my memory, but that doesn't mean much), how did he 'fuck them over'?
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Well said Billy Walker earlier in the thread. For those pointing out that we've actually achieved very little in the last 90 odd years, doesn't that actually reinforce BW's point? We've had some diabolical owners who have categorically failed to exploit even a fraction of the massive potential of the club and the area. If Shankly, Revie or a young Clough had been offered to Normansell and Co. they'd no doubt have passed them over for some ropey ex-villa player on the cheap. Indeed they dumped Joe Mercer who went on to win the league and cup with Man City just a few years later. Bendall and Co. owned the club at the time of it's greatest achievements, yet still managed to saw off the branch on which the club was sitting in the process. And then, the return of Doug with his new found control-freakism and miserly ways, who managed to take the dawn of a new era and turn it into relegation, followed by two decades of almost but not quite committing to building success.
We've had glimpses of how massive the gates could be, but we've never maintained them because we've never managed to sustain any periods of success. If only we could have built on the amazing upward trajectory of the late 60s to the early 80s. Again the owners must take the blame for that failure. The massive potential is still there, where it's been for the last 90 years, but it isn't going to be realised by yet another dimwit owner who barely goes to the club and whose idea of a Villa manager is Alex McLeish.
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The MON obsession is obviously fuelled by his immediate success at Sunderland and given sharper contrast by our problems. It's oxygen for the mystique that the media encases him with. However, for us, we are in danger of making MON the new Moscow. We really need to get on with trying to back the new bloke however hard he makes it for us sometimes.
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It's surprising how many people are obsessed by him, a friend who i drink with pre-match worships the ground he walks on.
Gandalf who sits in front of me (So called as he will not allow anybody to pass whilst he's having his half time coffee) said to me
'As far as i'm concerned, the sun rose and set with Martin O'Neill'
When i've pointed out the shit signings he made and money wasted, he's always come back with the same thing
'But what about Ashley Young?'
The big problem with the MON-obsessives is that they're giving plenty of fuel for their fire, due to the unremitting shitness of our current Manager.
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Great post kt, and you're right - our lack of success in the last 90-odd years absolutely reinforces Billy Walker's points.
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The massive potential is still there, where it's been for the last 90 years, but it isn't going to be realised by yet another dimwit owner who barely goes to the club and whose idea of a Villa manager is Alex McLeish.
Well said.
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The massive potential is still there, where it's been for the last 90 years, but it isn't going to be realised by yet another dimwit owner who barely goes to the club and whose idea of a Villa manager is Alex McLeish.
Well said.
I can't see how you can run two resource depleting organisations [Brown's and Villa] and make both a sucess
The evidence from both clearly shows that you can't.
I think our owner will at some point soon need to decide which one will take the majority of time, money and attention in order to make it a sucess. Or we will both continue on a downward trajectory
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The articles reminds me of an away match at Leeds the season before ther were relegated. Big ground, 40,000 gate, loud intimidating music, croud noisy and cocky ...... The world was their oyster. Not been back since ... Long may they languish. I think that might be our story soon though.
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If bedwetting were an Olympic sport I reckon you could pick the British team from this thread. And guarantee gold in the individual, team, freestyle and rhythmic events.
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HUGHTON.
The man's name is HUGHTON.
That's better.
Oh yeah... thanks for that.
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The massive potential is still there, where it's been for the last 90 years, but it isn't going to be realised by yet another dimwit owner who barely goes to the club and whose idea of a Villa manager is Alex McLeish.
Well said.
I can't see how you can run two resource depleting organisations [Brown's and Villa] and make both a sucess
The evidence from both clearly shows that you can't.
I think our owner will at some point soon need to decide which one will take the majority of time, money and attention in order to make it a sucess. Or we will both continue on a downward trajectory
That would be a fair point except my understanding is that Browns were rubbish under RL even before he took over Villa. He just doesn't seem to be very good at running sporting enterprsises.
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The massive potential is still there, where it's been for the last 90 years, but it isn't going to be realised by yet another dimwit owner who barely goes to the club and whose idea of a Villa manager is Alex McLeish.
Well said.
I can't see how you can run two resource depleting organisations [Brown's and Villa] and make both a sucess
He just doesn't seem to be very good at running sporting enterprsises.
then maybe Randy should surround himself with "football people" ie: someone like Steve Stride ? and then Randy would be just the money-man and the clubs figurehead.
UTV
The Doc
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I think its important to remember that MON is still in the honeymoon phase, and I it's inevitable that one day he will fcuk them over as he has done everyone else.
Who else did he 'fuck over'?
At Leicester he turned Leeds down mid-season. At Celtic he left to look after his very ill wife. At Norwich he was lied to by their crooked chairman and so walked when he realised this.
Contrary to what's said on here, Celtic fans don't hate him - many of them still call him 'St. Martin'.
Dave, what did Gregory ever do with any other club?
MON didn't turn Leeds down. In fact, he was very vocal about wanting to talk to Leeds. The Leicester chairman denied him permission to talk to them and that was that. Later on, he nearly joined Leeds from Celtic, but it fell through
Even if that's true (it's contrary to my memory, but that doesn't mean much), how did he 'fuck them over'?
I didn't say he did. That was the other fella.
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people can't keep blaming MON for what has happened since he left, as some do.
He was our manager. He isn't anymore. Let's move on.
While he's still working 'miracles' at Sunderland that will be impossible because we'll be constantly reminded.
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It's interesting to read people's perspectives on the size of Villa, the potential of the club and our "place" in football.
As someone who has no connections to the Birmingham area and started watching Villa in the late 90's, from my point of view Villa were always a mid-table club, with the odd spell in Europe and the odd flirt with the drop. Some great results in the league, but more embarrassing exits in the cups. We've had some decent players over the years and some good teams, but apart from the MON years, I've never really had genuine expectations or ambitions about seeing Villa compete at the top of the league or win trophies. Not knowing anyone else who supports Villa, I guess I've formed my own views on where we are and while I'm very aware and very proud of the club's heritage, the reality on the field is that generally speaking we've been mediocre at best.
With regards to the fanbase, while Villa are very well supported in the midlands I think it's fair to say that clubs like Newcastle and Leeds have a much bigger fanbase across the nation, whereas Villa's support is mainly local. To be honest, I've never understood where Newcastle's nationwide appeal comes from, but with Leeds (as with Liverpool and Man Utd) their fanbase seems to come from their sustained glory days. Villa have never really had that in modern times, despite 81 and 82, it wasn't a sustained period of success or dominance. I guess this is another reason that Villa aren't seen as a fashionable club in other areas of the country, a bit like Man City, but I'm sure their nationwide fanbase will grow as time goes by.
I think it's fair to say that under MON we had our best chance of ever breaking into football's elite and with the money that would have come with CL qualification, we could have pushed on and had a period of relative success. I think the most soul destroying thing for fans of Villa, as well as Everton and other clubs that aspire to be in the top four, is that Man City needed to spend £500m to get where they are. Who on earth can compete with that? As much as I find our transfer activity frustrating, the reality is that we simply can't compete with clubs like United, City, Chelsea or Liverpool in terms of finances. Even Stoke City do better than us in the transfer market for fuck sake.
It's frustrating and we all dream of this club being amongst England and Europe's elite, but unless we get a ridiculously good manager in or someone with hundreds of millions to throw about, I can't see it happening any time soon.
Having said that, I'm in full agreement with people who say we couldn't have done much worse than hiring McLeish. I remember my mate texting me saying that there were rumours of him coming to us, I told him to stop winding me up and how it'd simply never happen. No one wanted him from the start, he was never going to get any time and frankly, he had to do something extraordinary to get people on side. By extraordinary I'm talking top four, or an FA Cup win. Even if he finished 8th, I'm sure I wouldn't be the only one thinking that's nothing particularly special.
I haven't been to a game since the WBA home defeat. Frankly, I can't be arsed to travel 250 miles, spend 6 hours on a train by myself and spend £80+ to watch his shite, negative, boring football. I don't mind us losing games, it's always happened and always will, but when the lads don't even have a go, I can't put up with that. I'll probably be back before the end of the season, because I love my club. I just hope that people don't get the idea that we're too good/big to go down - Because we're not.
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Even Stoke City do better than us in the transfer market for fuck sake.
?
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They sign world beaters like Cameron Jerome.
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It's interesting to read people's perspectives on the size of Villa ... that people don't get the idea that we're too good/big to go down - Because we're not.
Thought-provoking, Rob.
Question: why did you start following the Villa?
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Even Stoke City do better than us in the transfer market for fuck sake.
?
I'd have Palacios and Crouch at Villa...
It's interesting to read people's perspectives on the size of Villa ... that people don't get the idea that we're too good/big to go down - Because we're not.
Thought-provoking, Rob.
Question: why did you start following the Villa?
Well... When I was 5 (1996/97 season) I noticed my Dad and brother both talking about/watching football quite a lot and I wanted to get involved, so my Dad bought me a Merlins sticker book, which is where most of my football knowledge first came from. They both support Man Utd, so at that time I followed them and took an interest in United. At the end of that season, I needed Simon Grayson to complete my book and was obsessed about getting his sticker and I finally got it. Because of this, I always remembered his name and the next season when the new book came out, the first sticker in the first packet I opened was Simon Grayson again! But this time he played for Villa and for some reason, I decided that they were now my team. My Dad took me to a pre-season friendly at Wycombe in the summer of 98 (we won 3-0) and he took me to Villa Park for the first time that season for the game against Forest (we won 2-0, they got relegated) and I was hooked.
It's a ridiculous story and not really worth all the heartache, but there were go!
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The thing is we're so stuck in the middle. Although we worry about relegation no one else in the league would think we have anything to worry about. It's like the odd week when Everton are 15th, then they win a couple and are 9th or 8th. And they moan about it as much as we do. Fulham are the same except in their case it's alternated home games to away games and they seem to just like being in the Premier League, don't tackle anyone and qualify for Europe that way. Stoke are this generations Wimbledon and will eventually go away, although I like the 'all in it together' spirit that they have up there. We will draw our way to 40 odd points boring the pants off any neutral and even though Sunderland have the managerial Messi in charge we will still finish above them this season. All of us winning nothing, playing results focussed drab footy and getting nowhere near qualifying for Europe.
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I think we lost the potential to be a Big Club some time ago, I remember the Serpentine being filled with coaches from every county in the Midlands, the 70s despite being in the 3rd division proved that we were a big club because of the support we attracted from far and wide, now all the sons of those guys that used to travel to support the Villa are wondering around in Manure Chelsea Citeh shirts.
The club have continued to fail to recognise that Aston Villa is not just about Birmingham.
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I think we lost the potential to be a Big Club some time ago, I remember the Serpentine being filled with coaches from every county in the Midlands, the 70s despite being in the 3rd division proved that we were a big club because of the support we attracted from far and wide, now all the sons of those guys that used to travel to support the Villa are wondering around in Manure Chelsea Citeh shirts.
The club have continued to fail to recognise that Aston Villa is not just about Birmingham.
I think they realise it. I just don't think they know how to do it.
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I think we lost the potential to be a Big Club some time ago, I remember the Serpentine being filled with coaches from every county in the Midlands, the 70s despite being in the 3rd division proved that we were a big club because of the support we attracted from far and wide, now all the sons of those guys that used to travel to support the Villa are wondering around in Manure Chelsea Citeh shirts.
The club have continued to fail to recognise that Aston Villa is not just about Birmingham.
I think they realise it. I just don't think they know how to do it.
If you think about it, it is not that difficult
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Even Stoke City do better than us in the transfer market for fuck sake.
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I'd have Palacios and Crouch at Villa...
It's interesting to read people's perspectives on the size of Villa ... that people don't get the idea that we're too good/big to go down - Because we're not.
Thought-provoking, Rob.
Question: why did you start following the Villa?
Well... When I was 5 (1996/97 season) I noticed my Dad and brother both talking about/watching football quite a lot and I wanted to get involved, so my Dad bought me a Merlins sticker book, which is where most of my football knowledge first came from. They both support Man Utd, so at that time I followed them and took an interest in United. At the end of that season, I needed Simon Grayson to complete my book and was obsessed about getting his sticker and I finally got it. Because of this, I always remembered his name and the next season when the new book came out, the first sticker in the first packet I opened was Simon Grayson again! But this time he played for Villa and for some reason, I decided that they were now my team. My Dad took me to a pre-season friendly at Wycombe in the summer of 98 (we won 3-0) and he took me to Villa Park for the first time that season for the game against Forest (we won 2-0, they got relegated) and I was hooked.
It's a ridiculous story and not really worth all the heartache, but there were go!
i read your previous long winded post rob and did want to start picking it apart, but i cant be arsed!
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So far he's done nothing more for them than John Gregory did for us, and the similarity doesn't end there.
Care to expand?
They both had plenty of money available, both had a transfer record best described as mixed, both played crap football, left in circumstances that suited them rather than the club and had a hold over some of our supporters that I couldn't understand then and still can't.
John Gregory had a hold over some of our supporters? Really? I don't ever remember that, even when we were top of the league. Everyone I have ever spoken to has never held Gregory in high regard - it was clear we were never actually that good under him (when we were flying high, the team was just playing on confidence (if only they could now!!!)).
To compare Gregory and MON is ridiculous. One flourished with a half-decent team handed to him and then it went downhill quickly, whilst playing shocking football and went because we were shit. The other was consistently good when handed a fairly crap team, whilst playing, at times poor football, but at other times entertaining, if not "total", football and left because he did not want to sell our (possible) best player, Milner (and did not want Ireland (and we've all seen why)).
Under one manager I expected nothing, under the other I went into every match believing we could win. Since I've been going (1995), I've never experienced that under any other manager. It's something I thoroughly enjoyed, even though it may not have turned out how we would've liked it to in the end.
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... and left because he did not want to sell our (possible) best player, Milner (and did not want Ireland (and we've all seen why)).
Did he??? Everything I've heard suggests exactly the opposite,
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So MON has come out and said that has he? I thought he was quiet on the subject.
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I thought that theory had bit the dust when MON didn't proceed with his claim against the club.
MON was the first one to officially flag that Milner wanted out and -according to one of our ITK's here- he'd fallen out with Milner as far back as the Chelsea mauling.
Stephen Ireland was also quite philosophical about his treatment under GH just prior to his loan move to Newcastle. "I don't blame him. He didn't sign me, it was the last manager who wanted me." I assume he didn't mean Kevin Mac who was caretaker manager when the deal was completed, I can't see a temporary manager having that much say. Particularly when Ireland and cash to us in exchange was mooted way before MON's departure. The hold up was SI's reluctance to move from his boyhood club initially and then waiting on his payoff. Not any reluctance on MON's part to do the deal.
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That deal was long sorted before pubehead chucked his toys out of the pram. And this nonsense about him being desperate to keep Milner won't go away will it.
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A motivated Steven Ireland, plus Robbie Keane and money in exchange for Milner could have been a great deal for us.
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Super article.
This is the paragraph that, for me, hits the nail on the head:
"This is a club with the infrastructure, history and support to be a top six side in the Premiership. Everything that has been achieved at Spurs could easily have been achieved here with the same ownership and managerial appointments."
Let's hope that this season was just to balance the books and with a few summer signings next season we start to climb again.
That'll be the same Spurs who sacked Martin Jol while he was managing a game, hired Juande Ramos and didn't get a point until October, hired Christian Gross and Jacques Santini to general incredulity and spent most of the last decade dribbling hopelessly while trying to hang onto the coattails of their more illustrious rivals. I would argue even the hiring of Redknapp was a lucky strike - it wasn't as if he was hugely successful at West Ham or Southampton, and Portsmouth didn't have the capital to sustain the man's approach to the transfer market. I think that like every club, Spurs have found it's all come together at the right time, and once their purple patch is over they'll be back with the also-rans like us.
That's not quite what I was getting at, Curious.
We'd finished 6th three seasons on the trot and could, should, have kicked on from that. Thus we'd have been playing Champions League and been part of this elite top 6, as it is now.
You could also probably go back to when Doug failed to back John Gregory's bid for a young Robbie Keane, too, as a time when we failed to kick on from a promising position.
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In terms of missing the opportunity to kick on, that kind of sums up Villa for me on and off the pitch. Everytime we have had a great chance to get right to the top or very close to it, we find a way of missing it.
I've supported the Villa as long as I can remember. I'm now 37 and I just accept that making it difficult for ourselves is the Villa way!!
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So far he's done nothing more for them than John Gregory did for us, and the similarity doesn't end there.
Care to expand?
They both had plenty of money available, both had a transfer record best described as mixed, both played crap football, left in circumstances that suited them rather than the club and had a hold over some of our supporters that I couldn't understand then and still can't.
John Gregory had a hold over some of our supporters? Really? I don't ever remember that, even when we were top of the league. Everyone I have ever spoken to has never held Gregory in high regard - it was clear we were never actually that good under him (when we were flying high, the team was just playing on confidence (if only they could now!!!)).
To compare Gregory and MON is ridiculous. One flourished with a half-decent team handed to him and then it went downhill quickly, whilst playing shocking football and went because we were shit. The other was consistently good when handed a fairly crap team, whilst playing, at times poor football, but at other times entertaining, if not "total", football and left because he did not want to sell our (possible) best player, Milner (and did not want Ireland (and we've all seen why)).
Under one manager I expected nothing, under the other I went into every match believing we could win. Since I've been going (1995), I've never experienced that under any other manager. It's something I thoroughly enjoyed, even though it may not have turned out how we would've liked it to in the end.
There was enough protest when he left, and for years supporters would defend him, usually based around the 'top at Christmas' line so yes, Gregory did have a hold over some. I would also from memory guess that he had as good a record against the top four as the Blessed Martin and their league records weren't too different despite the much worse conditions Gregory had to work under. Your stated reason why O'Neill left doesn't stack up with the facts either, although you may know something none of us do.
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The most recent totally unsubstantiated rumour why O'Neill flounced came to me from my son who got it from a London taxi driver who said he had a very big name tabloid football journalist in his cab at flounce time and he said it was because O'Neill had agreed terms for Scott Parker and Randy would not divvy up the money for him until the dead wood was shifted.
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I actually think that's at the very least partly correct. The poison dwarf wanted someone but Mr. Lerner, Sir would not part with the funds until the wage bill for the deadwood was reduced.
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now all the sons of those guys that used to travel to support the Villa are wondering around in Manure Chelsea Citeh shirts.
I don't know any that are. If only we could give all those sons a taste of those great days.
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I think the reason for the O'Neill / Lerner split is that the money ran out.
Lerner said 'I cant afford it'
and like the faithful partner he is MON left him. Its not something you'd generally be happy about if your wife did it.
and now Lerner is casting about with a couple of short unsuccessful relationships with mingers, but deep down he knows it will never be the same again, and he cant really be bothered.
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I actually think that's at the very least partly correct. The poison dwarf wanted someone but Mr. Lerner, Sir would not part with the funds until the wage bill for the deadwood was reduced.
Rightfully so.
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now all the sons of those guys that used to travel to support the Villa are wondering around in Manure Chelsea Citeh shirts.
I don't know any that are. If only we could give all those sons a taste of those great days.
Mine isn't