The rising cost of Football

[Andy1874]

Doesn't anyone else find the results slightly embarrassing in reflect to our attendances ?

With prices like those and a fan base such as ours, we should easily be selling out VP more frequently (when was the last time we even sold out)

[silhillvilla]

Under McLeish we only got over 40k once (ManUre 40,055)
And just scraped over 30k twice (Stoke 30,100 and Wigan 30,744)

[SoccerHQ]

It's simple, we have a lot of floating fans. Our hardcore is probably around 30k who'll turn up even if we're poor and then the rest will come depending on opposition and league form.

[1874]

Considering we are the main team in the second biggest English city, we should be having a bigger 'hardcore' then 30k IMO.

[Dave Cooper please]

Why? No one can force the people of Brum to watch Villa.
I don't get embarrassed by our crowds, they are what they are, as long as you are going along to watch whenever you can or whenever you can afford to, or even whenever you can be arsed, what's the problem?

[dave.woodhall]

We have this argument regularly. Our crowds are what they are, never massive but rarely poor.

[1874]

Because any club that wants to progress should be filling out their stadium. Everyone seems to whinge that we don't spend enough nowadays little realising that even being a thousand short in attendance over a season is alot of revenue for the club.

[dave.woodhall]

Because any club that wants to progress should be filling out their stadium. Everyone seems to whinge that we don't spend enough nowadays little realising that even being a thousand short in attendance over a season is alot of revenue for the club.

Depends how big the ground is.

[1874]

Indeed. But what's the point of raising our capacity to 50k when we hardly ever top 40k?

[dave.woodhall]

Is something I've said all along.

[Dave Cooper please]

Because any club that wants to progress should be filling out their stadium. Everyone seems to whinge that we don't spend enough nowadays little realising that even being a thousand short in attendance over a season is alot of revenue for the club.

Yes, but what can we do? Frogmarch Brummies to Witton and nick their wallets?
Besides, glory in the Premier League will no longer come through how many fans we have but rather through the size of our respective owner's disposable income, get used to it.

[olaftab]

Doesn't anyone else find the results slightly embarrassing in reflect to our attendances ?

With prices like those and a fan base such as ours, we should easily be selling out VP more frequently (when was the last time we even sold out)

Considering we are the main team in the second biggest English city, we should be having a bigger 'hardcore' then 30k IMO.

Couldn't agree more with the the two comments and those who are saying that we need to win trophies and fans will follow look at Newcastle. Much smaller city than ours , been relegated recently, won nothing but much bigger crowds than us.

[dave.woodhall]

Newcastle are unique in that they have a massive catchment area and no real rivals.

[Ad@m]

Newcastle are unique in that they have a massive catchment area and no real rivals.

Newcastle are unique but that's not the reason why.

Talk to any Geordie, or walk around Newcastle and you quickly realise that it's more than football up there.  Following the Magpies is virtually a religion to them.  Brummies just seem to have more in their life than football which means that even when the going is good, as it was in the early years of MON, we still don't average that many more than we did in the not so good years.

If we want to justify expanding the ground there needs to be a cultural shift locally.  That won't happen over night and will need a combination of a number of things including a successful team over a period of time to achieve it.

[silhillvilla]

If anything we should reduce the capacity. Expanding makes no sense at all.