Would it be more fun if we went down?

[darren woolley]

Fans because we are the lifeblood of the club.

[hilts_coolerking]

Somewhere in a parallel universe a TV news report is ending like this:

"And it was an unsettling night for the giants in the Fourth Round of the FA Cup this evening when it took an injury time goal from West Ham's Carlton Cole to knock out a resilient Aston Villa.   The Championship side were on course to take the Premier League club back to Villa Park for a hard-earned replay when the former Chelsea striker tapped in a scrambled clearance to spare the Hammers' blushes..."

*Shudder*

Insert "plucky" for "resilient" and that's horrifyingly possible.  Like when Christopher Walken shakes Martin Sheen's hand in The Dead Zone.

[simon ward 50]

What a depressing thread!

[Billy Walker]

Somewhere in a parallel universe a TV news report is ending like this:

"And it was an unsettling night for the giants in the Fourth Round of the FA Cup this evening when it took an injury time goal from West Ham's Carlton Cole to knock out a resilient Aston Villa.   The Championship side were on course to take the Premier League club back to Villa Park for a hard-earned replay when the former Chelsea striker tapped in a scrambled clearance to spare the Hammers' blushes..."

*Shudder*

Insert "plucky" for "resilient" and that's horrifyingly possible.  Like when Christopher Walken shakes Martin Sheen's hand in The Dead Zone.

It is possible and it's the kind of thing I remember from our year down back in the eighties.  The football media aren't sentimental in general when it comes to Aston Villa and I remember markedly how our whole identity and image shifted overnight.  It felt like ages, even when back in the top flight, before people started talking about us as anything but small-fry and underdogs...and this despite us being Champions of Europe not even a decade previously.

As an aside, one of my memories of that time of relegation was getting a book for Christmas called "Soccer The World Game" (Published by Marks and Spencer, Foreward by Terry Venables).  In it was a write up of all the "big" clubs from around Europe.  In the English clubs section they had chapters on  Everton, Liverpool, Spurs, Nottingham Forest, Man Utd, Arsenal etc., but no mention at all of Aston Villa - this despite us being, at the time, the second most successful club side in England.   (To my then teenage mind this was intolerable and I think, from that time, I developed a real lack of respect for El Tel and the opinions of any football-connected Cockney.  That lack of respect continues to this day and I apply it unrelentingly to all of the London football media.) It was as though we had disappeared off the map! 

That, for me, is what relegation does, you lose an indefinable sense of status and the longer you are down the more unbearable and frustrating it must be.  I can think of no worse fate for Villa than losing our top flight status and then having to yearly attempt to claw our way back up to the top flight of the competition we invented. 


 It's hard to explain to younger fans who didn't go through it, but my experience of the whole process of relegation was that it was simply shit on every level, you'd be amazed how it makes an impact on your life.  Thank heavens SGT came along and sorted it all out in double quick time.  Of course, there is no guarantee this double-quick return would happen again if we were reckless enough to allow such a thing as relegation to strike once more.   Pull your finger out Randy!

[MONCABA]

In answer  to the thread title, no it wouldn't be fun. I recall our last rrelegation.  We were fortunate  to bounce right back. That wouldn't happen  this time.

[silhillvilla]

In a sense I see tomorrow night as a glimpse of what championship life might be like. Midweek trips to the arse end of nowhere to watch jaw droppingly bad football

[dave shelley]

As I've said before, try a mid-week trip to places like Halifax, Rochdale  and others of that ilk when it's pissing rain with no shelter.  That is certainly not my idea of fun.

In our one hundred and forty one year history, we've played in the top flight in all but twelve of them.  In my experience I've witnessed relegation in 1959, 1967, 1970 and 1987, I don't want to see it happen again.

[Andy_Lochhead_in_the_air]

The likely scenario would be winning slightly more games than we lose. Regular comments on here such as `Win these next two games and we will only be a point or two off the play offs.`

[RossLeach]

The likely scenario would be winning slightly more games than we lose. Regular comments on here such as `Win these next two games and we will only be a point or two off the play offs.`

Or:

'It's time to let Nigel Clough go. We should bring in someone with a record of promotion. Neil Warnock or Mick McCarthy please'

[Ad@m]

But given the perennial struggle against relegation, losing half our games, winning 1 in every 4 home games, scoring less than a goal a game, losing 8-0, losing to Bradford, Leyton Orient & Millwall, and more importantly than all of that, seeing an ownership structure that seems quite happy to see this shambles forced upon us, is it any wonder people want something, anything different?

[Risso]

But given the perennial struggle against relegation, losing half our games, winning 1 in every 4 home games, scoring less than a goal a game, losing 8-0, losing to Bradford, Leyton Orient & Millwall, and more importantly than all of that, seeing an ownership structure that seems quite happy to see this shambles forced upon us, is it any wonder people want something, anything different?

I don't think it would be different for very long.....

[Ad@m]

But given the perennial struggle against relegation, losing half our games, winning 1 in every 4 home games, scoring less than a goal a game, losing 8-0, losing to Bradford, Leyton Orient & Millwall, and more importantly than all of that, seeing an ownership structure that seems quite happy to see this shambles forced upon us, is it any wonder people want something, anything different?

I don't think it would be different for very long.....

I'm pretty sure we wouldn't spend 5 consecutive years battling relegation from the 2nd division.

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely don't want to see us get relegated, but fuck me, having a season ticket these days isn't half dull. I go to every single match expecting us to lose and in the main being proved right. And on the few occasions in wrong, more often than not it's a shitty nil nil draw.

I just want some drama, some entertainment for my 500-odd quid rather than the same monotonous shite week in week out.

[Hillbilly]

If we get sucked down into the deadmen, that's pretty much the Midlands fucked as a football area, similar to how the loss of L**ds has basically turned Yorkshire into an irrelevant backwater. There'll be some clubs hanging around to make up the numbers but none with the potential or capacity to get back up among the chosen few. The EPL/media cabal might as well get it over and done with and rename the whole shebang 'The London-Lancs League'.

[RussellC]

The piss-taking form all quarters would be horrendous. Look at how we laughed at the Geordies when it happened to them, and they're not even a close rival really. No thanks.

[silhillvilla]

The Geordies are desperate to see us go after we relegated them and laughed.