woeful attendance

[Andy_Lochhead_in_the_air]

Hi all first post

I was one of the ones who chose not to renew after eight years of being a season ticket holder. It wasn`t down to one single reason but a combination of reasons. Appointing McLeish and he`s style of play was the final straw. I`ve only know football in the sky era.  For me it`s now more than ever a business first and a sport second. Us fans are now customers and it appears many fans are acting like customers.
If your favroite restaurant takes their best dishes off the menu month after month, replaces the chief with one from KFC and the owners ignored what the customers want, Yet tell you please come next week, it won`t be any better but it will cost you 5% more would u go back?
If that makes me less of a fan or fickle then many be I am. After all I along with many expressed my anger at Wycombe!
For those who say the club will be better off without the fans that chose not to attend do the sums. For a club like ours trying to balance the books it’s not small change we`re talking about.

Welcome to the site. I think you make some good points.

KFC ? When I started (1966 ) it was a chef from Berni Inn, but they changed him for a spotty kid from Wimpey, and when they couldnt afford him we got a bowl of gruel (if we were lucky !) But we stuck with it at 5 bob standing and 8 shilling in the seats or whatever it might have been. Having said that the crowds didnt drop to 30k, it was 13k.

[hilts_coolerking]

I would agree...as long as the fans realize the owner may do the exact same thing. The crowds arent coming out and buying tickets, to run the team responsibly the amount spent on players and other areas has to be cut back accordingly. Of course most fans will argue the owner should do no such thing...but if you look at this thread you will see complaints about the ticket prices and complaints about the lack of spending.

Which was my original point: it's the height of irony that it should be painted as somehow being the fans' fault that our billionaire owner hasn't got enough money.

[CBAV06]

I would agree...as long as the fans realize the owner may do the exact same thing. The crowds arent coming out and buying tickets, to run the team responsibly the amount spent on players and other areas has to be cut back accordingly. Of course most fans will argue the owner should do no such thing...but if you look at this thread you will see complaints about the ticket prices and complaints about the lack of spending.

Which was my original point: it's the height of irony that it should be painted as somehow being the fans' fault that our billionaire owner hasn't got enough money.

If our owner has enough money, perhaps it is the club that doesn't. It goes along with that 'running the club responsibly'.

[cdward]

For better or worse i am on favour of the financial sort out, i personally would rather watch Herd, Bannan, Clarke, Albrighton etc than more experienced players that cost fortunes and do no more than what we've got already,

When the wage bill is bought under control then we can invest hopefully to build and complement what we already have

Untill then I'm quite happy to watch this crop of younger players many of which we've bought through the academy develop and compete at premier league level,

...at which point we sell them for profit, to a club with ambition and better levels of pay.

[Rigadon]

Awful lot of better-than-you's on here lately.... 

Recession, no chance of actually competing in the competition you're playing in?  Then, when you buy a ticket the club charge you two fucking quid for half a cup of weak tea.  Hollywood prices for an art(less) house spectacle.  It's like paying to see Tony Bennett at the Royal Albert Hall and then being shown into a back room to see Will Young.  Smoke and Mirrors don't work when people are skint.

I watched a bit of the Man Utd Arse game and it was painfully clear that we really are only there as cannon fodder for 3 teams now.  It HAS to change or clubs like Villa will completely cease to matter in a few years. 

[Rigadon]

And as for the "it's all AM's fault"..... The manager has had 3 games.  THREE.

[hilts_coolerking]

If our owner has enough money, perhaps it is the club that doesn't. It goes along with that 'running the club responsibly'.

Randy is far better equipped to deal with any lack of funds than all of our supporters put together.

[CBAV06]

If our owner has enough money, perhaps it is the club that doesn't. It goes along with that 'running the club responsibly'.

Randy is far better equipped to deal with any lack of funds than all of our supporters put together.

Of course he is, our 'supporters' are a quickly shrinking number. Seventh in the table and they can't be bothered to support the Villa? I guess I have it easy buy a kit and wake up before the sun to find a stream to watch from across the pond. Maybe that is why I don't feel entitled to tell Randy to spend more money to buy 'a winning team' or I wont bother. Maybe it is the years of supporting teams that weren't as good as they used to be...hell, anybody can be loyal to a winning team. Just my 2 quid.

[SamTheMouse]

My two penneth: you can't class fans in terms of how 'good' they are. You either are a fan, or you're not. Some have - or make - the means to go to every game, some can't, some choose not to and people in that latter category will always have valid reasons.

Me, I've been a Villa fan since I was a kid, but back in the day we were as poor as church mice and there was no way I was going to be able to get go to the footy regularly.
When I finally got a job and a modest amount of cash, sod's law meant I found it abroad - and the missus too. If I was still living in the UK, within a few hours' drive of Brum, I would definitely be a ST holder. I would bloody love that. If I was a millionaire who could hop on an Easyjet flight every other weekend, I would be a ST holder even now. But as it is, I'm reduced to watching Villa play on the net, and my only active contribution to the club's success is buying a load of stuff from the club shop online every so often.

If that makes me a low quality fan, then fine. But not all of us have a choice about how we support the club.

[NeilH]

Every football fan needs some kind of realistic ambition coming into a season, its what gives us the buzz to go, be it a AFC Wimbledon fan who’s ambition is to ensure they stay up and build for the future OR a Villa fan. And that’s where I ask myself what are our ambitions and goals are? We clearly can’t compete at the top and we aren’t aiming to just survive which leaves us with an ambition that reads ‘just happy to dine at the table.’ During the good times that was enough, but we ain’t in the good times at all and percentage of our fanbase has correctly determined that if the clubs ambition is to just stay still then with tightening budgets their money can be put to better use elsewhere.
Of course the irony of this, is that it is a self-fulfilling prophecy, the lowers the attendances, the lower the income. The lower the income, the lower the ambition of the club. Short of a splurge of cash in January or a cup run, we are going to have to get used to rows of empty seats at Villa and those that still go berated the stay away supporters as ‘not real fans.’’

 

[hilts_coolerking]

Of course he is, our 'supporters' are a quickly shrinking number. Seventh in the table and they can't be bothered to support the Villa? I guess I have it easy buy a kit and wake up before the sun to find a stream to watch from across the pond. Maybe that is why I don't feel entitled to tell Randy to spend more money to buy 'a winning team' or I wont bother. Maybe it is the years of supporting teams that weren't as good as they used to be...hell, anybody can be loyal to a winning team. Just my 2 quid.

I don't understand why there are some on here who are so quick to criticise fans rather than those in charge who are more responsible than any fan for the situation the club currently finds itself in.

[dave.woodhall]

Of course he is, our 'supporters' are a quickly shrinking number. Seventh in the table and they can't be bothered to support the Villa? I guess I have it easy buy a kit and wake up before the sun to find a stream to watch from across the pond. Maybe that is why I don't feel entitled to tell Randy to spend more money to buy 'a winning team' or I wont bother. Maybe it is the years of supporting teams that weren't as good as they used to be...hell, anybody can be loyal to a winning team. Just my 2 quid.

I don't understand why there are some on here who are so quick to criticise fans rather than those in charge who are more responsible than any fan for the situation the club currently finds itself in.

I cant understand why there are some on here who criticise everything the club does, can't be bothered to go to the match on the back of one disappointing summer (but they're not part-timers or gloryhunters, oh no), throw abuse at Randy, then get upset when their commitment is questioned.

[Chris Smith]

Awful lot of better-than-you's on here lately.... 

Recession, no chance of actually competing in the competition you're playing in?  Then, when you buy a ticket the club charge you two fucking quid for half a cup of weak tea.  Hollywood prices for an art(less) house spectacle.  It's like paying to see Tony Bennett at the Royal Albert Hall and then being shown into a back room to see Will Young.  Smoke and Mirrors don't work when people are skint.

I watched a bit of the Man Utd Arse game and it was painfully clear that we really are only there as cannon fodder for 3 teams now.  It HAS to change or clubs like Villa will completely cease to matter in a few years. 

 Sport is about ups and downs, if you want guaranteed success people have backed the wrong horse with the Villa. I'm not claiming to be better, I'm explaining my attitude and it is one shared by a lot of people of who started going in my era.

I'm not talking about it from a financial perspective, if people have to worry about if they can afford it or not then they are better off spending their money on something important.  Football is too expensive, absolutely, but that's a different argument.

I was replying to the post about us being customers who will withdraw our support if we're not winning games. I don't agree with that attitude, it's called glory hunting when it's a Man u fan. I acknowledged that it is probably a generational thing but I'm not going to apologise for having a different approach.

[KevinGage]

These arguments sound very similar the tail end of Herbert's reign, when he had no intention of spending money to keep us competitive and the gates plummeted.  The stay-away fans got blamed then, too.

Does any other industry blame the paying spectator/consumer?  Or is it a uniquely football thing. Perhaps it's only unique to us.

To clarify: I don't think we're necessarily at the tail end of the Lerner era.  I think/ hope he's merely taking stock, clearing the boards and looking to go again soon.  It has been intimated that there is money available to spend - but wages (more specifically getting them down) has been the main focus recently.  You can agree or disagree with that strategy. But when -to all intents and purposes- we look set on a downscaling exercise, it will obviously impact on the enthusiasm supporters have.   Lower gates is a natural consequence of that. 

Recently Villa fans have had to contend with our best players being sold for the third year in a row, our rivals (as was) eclipsing us and an unpopular managerial appointment in the form of McLeish. Yet the prices at the gate haven't been downsized across the board to fit in with these lower expectations. Quite the opposite, Villa fans are expected to pay more  for the privilege.

I touched on the latter end of the Herbert years earlier, and I must say it does increasingly feel like where we were in 2005/06 - looking to acquire a promising loan or two to boost numbers - or players either well past their peak or damaged goods in some way. In direct contrast to the first few years under Lerner when -despite the lack of truly big name purchases- most fans were happy that we were prepared to pay decent money for promising up and coming players.  Optimist that I am, I hope we return to that approach pretty soon.

[CBAV06]

Of course he is, our 'supporters' are a quickly shrinking number. Seventh in the table and they can't be bothered to support the Villa? I guess I have it easy buy a kit and wake up before the sun to find a stream to watch from across the pond. Maybe that is why I don't feel entitled to tell Randy to spend more money to buy 'a winning team' or I wont bother. Maybe it is the years of supporting teams that weren't as good as they used to be...hell, anybody can be loyal to a winning team. Just my 2 quid.

I don't understand why there are some on here who are so quick to criticise fans rather than those in charge who are more responsible than any fan for the situation the club currently finds itself in.

My opinion is based on the fact that I support a team that 'is not good' and have for many years. I go to games when I can, and watch every game when I can't travel. Because I am a fan of the team. Anyone can root for them when they are winning, we tend to call those people 'bandwagon fans' here in the States. I don't like the term 'real fan' either because that sounds like a person is not a fan.

I prefer "good" and "bad". Bad fans have all the answers, but always after the fact. (Oh, he was a crap signing 3 years ago!) Bad fans have silly expectations. (Just hire a coach that is going to win!) Bad fans don't support their club, or root against them. (If we lose this week we will get a better draft pick!)

Comments like 'We need a better X and should try and get Y' make sense to me, comments like 'We shouldn't have hired X, we should've gotten someone better' do not. If the owner made a mistake by not hiring a better coach...who was that coach? Who was all lined up to come coach Villa that Randy ignored? If you can't answer that then there isn't somebody better.

We are 7th in the league right now. We can fall a lot farther down the table than we can move up. It isn't that bad of a start.