Villa Park as an Olympics Venue

[olaftab]

Odds are we my kids won't get see likes of neymar very often down the villa..

No now that Heskey has left!

[Chico Hamilton III]

I was at the library in Lewisham this morning, lurking around while the kids were choosing books. There's a wall in the library dedicated to London 2012 - pictures of the London venues and info about the sports. There's also a section called "outside London" with aerial photos of the non London venues - St James's Park, Old Trafford, Hampden etc.

Anyway, there was a photo of the Ricoh Arena and underneath ( I swear on my kids' lives that this is true) was the caption "Villa Park, West Midlands".

I thought of Remy, for some reason

[Archbishop Herbert Cockthrottle]

I find that amazing; there's a library in Lewisham.

With books.

The tories aren't working hard enough.

[john e]

i dont care much for Olympic football, but i certainly wouldnt have a problem with them using Villa Park,

i find the whole 'whats in it for us' thing a bit ungracious,
 if we were able to offer VP and they wanted the use of it then thats fine by me, sometimes you can help out for the greater good without always having an ulterior motive,

maybe we wouldnt have got much kudos out of it, so what,
 isnt life about offering what you can for the benefit of others, without wondering if you will come out ahead.

i'm sure AVFC had good reasons for pulling out, and it doesnt bother me personaly that we are not involved,
 but posters saying they watched a bit of football from other stadiums and didnt think it good enough for us to be associated with is a bit purile to be honest

You do realise that the Olympics isn't a charity, right? It's possibly the most corporate event going.

i'm sure the host stadium doesnt end up out of pocket

[Ger Regan]

Well obviously it would have ended up out of pocket when you consider lost revenue from other activities, otherwise they wouldn't have reached the decision they did.

[Stu]

Well obviously it would have ended up out of pocket when you consider lost revenue from other activities, otherwise they wouldn't have reached the decision they did.

Indeed, which is exactly the reason Paul Faulkner gave. His statement concerning the matter was posted up on the first page of the thread I think.

[Handsworth Wood Villa]

I fully agree with Remy on this one.

The Olympics Games being held in your country is a once-in-a-lifetime event.

The 2012 Olympics has been hailed (in this country at least) as the greatest Games ever.

And yet Birmingham, the UK's Second City, was not involved because we turned down the opportunity 

Unbelievable.

We could have had Team GB Women playing at Villa Park - guaranteed sell-out.

The Community Shield was not sold out.

We could have attracted fans to Villa Park who haven't been to a live match before and who knows, they may have started taking an interest in Villa.

It was a chance for Aston Villa FC, Birmingham's biggest and #1 club, to bring an amazing event to the City of Birmingham and we missed it.

The club has let the City of Birmingham down.

[PeterWithe]

Topical.

[dave.woodhall]

To reiterate what was said at the last SCG meeting - taking into account everything the IOC wanted from Villa in terms of office space, inability to sell our own merchandise/commercial packages and general inconvenience, it wasn't worth it for the club to host the Olympics.

[Stu]

The club has let the City of Birmingham down.

Blues could have offered to host some games then.

Not Albion though, they live out in the Birmingham hinterlands - not quite Brummie, not quite yam-yam, but in a weird little pocket of space that no one gives a shit about. Plus the Hawthorns is a shit hole.

[pauliewalnuts]

I fully agree with Remy on this one.

The Olympics Games being held in your country is a once-in-a-lifetime event.

The 2012 Olympics has been hailed (in this country at least) as the greatest Games ever.

And yet Birmingham, the UK's Second City, was not involved because we turned down the opportunity 

Unbelievable.

We could have had Team GB Women playing at Villa Park - guaranteed sell-out.

The Community Shield was not sold out.

We could have attracted fans to Villa Park who haven't been to a live match before and who knows, they may have started taking an interest in Villa.

It was a chance for Aston Villa FC, Birmingham's biggest and #1 club, to bring an amazing event to the City of Birmingham and we missed it.

The club has let the City of Birmingham down.

And you wonder why people think you're a troll. Why on earth resurrect this nonsense now?

[Chico Hamilton III]

the UK's Second City, was not involved

Old Trafford hosted some Olympic football

[dave.woodhall]

the UK's Second City, was not involved

Old Trafford hosted some Olympic football

Trafford is not the second city.

[Dave Cooper please]

Yep, I feel really let down that Villa Park wasn't used for the one sport in the Olympics I cared less about than Greco-Roman wrestling.

[Chico Hamilton III]

HWV does have a point though - look at the cascade affect that hosting the Olympics has had on Coventry's attendances so far this season.

Isn't Coventry part of Greater Birmingham?