'Waste of a Club'

[dave.woodhall]

Thirded.

[andyaston]

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.

[Billy Walker]

"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. 

[Billy Walker]

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!

[dave.woodhall]

"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. 

[paulcomben]

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.

[paulcomben]

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.

[dave.woodhall]

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.

[TimTheVillain]

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.

[paulcomben]

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.

[dave.woodhall]

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.

[Billy Walker]

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. 

[TheSandman]

He pities us. I hate us being pitied. We seem to be getting a lot of that this season.

[dave.woodhall]

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.

[Monty]

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.