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Author Topic: Villa Park Changes & Commonwealth Games  (Read 32151 times)

Offline pauliewalnuts

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Re: Villa Park Changes & Commonwealth Games
« Reply #75 on: March 26, 2018, 07:58:10 PM »
We'd get bigger crowds if we showed more ambition.

One thing that always made me feel a bit sorry for Lerner was that when MON was spending huge amounts of money, he spunked it mostly on solid but uninspiring players in the 5-6m mark. What he didn't get for his money was a single bums-on-seats player.

Ashley Young was closest and even then, he wasn't much of a sells-tickets player.

Another unfortunate thing about the MON era was that even when we were finishing sixth, we were doing so by way of being brilliant to watch away from home when we got to counter attack and extremely uninspiring (by comparison) at home.

Yes, we were much better at home than in the last seven years or so, but other than our annual five goal drubbing of Bolton, we were hardly entertaining - take away that once a year five goal game and we averaged about a goal a game at home. Poor return and hardly a putter of bums on seats, but even then, we had 40k averages.

Offline PeterWithesShin

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Re: Villa Park Changes & Commonwealth Games
« Reply #76 on: March 26, 2018, 08:16:59 PM »
NRC was a bums on seat player for at least 1 person.

Offline wittonwarrior

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Re: Villa Park Changes & Commonwealth Games
« Reply #77 on: March 26, 2018, 09:08:36 PM »
All ifs and buts. I would consider a spruce up of the ground would be adequate. Please don’t try to make it into some sort of gold fish bowl

Offline villa `cross the mersey

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Re: Villa Park Changes & Commonwealth Games
« Reply #78 on: March 26, 2018, 09:47:40 PM »
Another factor I forgot to add was the number of people living in and around Brum who do not support local clubs - ie the amount of "plastic" Liverpool/Citeh/Man Utd/ fans there appears to be - I've not lived in Brum for over 20 years but when last working in the City I was astonished by the number of locals who claimed to support Man Utd or Liverpool- Likewise whenever I meet Brummies on holiday or through work I seem to get the same response to my question (when I realise they are are Brummie)- "Villa or Small Heath?"
"Neither I'm a Red"
I don't know why This is- I don't believe it's like this in Manchester, Liverpool or Newcastle where the locals support the local teams
We appear to have a large catchment of fans in the West Country though!
I appreciate that kids want to support a successful team but maybe if the club did more to recruit fans from schools across the City as well as in B6 we would see an upswell in support
But even so it's still a big leap of faith to start pulling in an extra 20k+
Finally we now have a generation who probably no longer  consider football (playing or watching) top of the list of favourite things to do -  it saddens me that even in a soccer mad city like Liverpool parks are empty on beautiful sunny days like today and its half term -  when I was a kid growing up in Hall Green I'd spend every minute I could playing football in the road or Trittiford/Shirley parks. Now there appears more bloody dogs in parks than kids !!!!! I know ........jumpers for goalposts etc
« Last Edit: March 26, 2018, 09:49:29 PM by villa `cross the mersey »

Offline paul_e

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Re: Villa Park Changes & Commonwealth Games
« Reply #79 on: March 26, 2018, 09:52:13 PM »
It needs more than that, if you compare villa park to genuine world class venue (Twickenham is the example that comes to mind for me because I've been there a few times but more locally the NIA works pretty well too) it looks shabby, cramped and cheap.  The DE upper in particular needs to be completely rethought, with a fair bit of rebuilding likely to be needed and obviously the north stand needs to be replaced entirely.  The holte and trinity can probably be handled with smaller changes but it's still a fair bit of work to bring the facilities up to a decent standard.

Online The Edge

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Re: Villa Park Changes & Commonwealth Games
« Reply #80 on: March 26, 2018, 10:44:44 PM »
Steve Wyness is talking about 60,000. The only way that will happen is by a horse shoe design and leaving the holte free standing. But it's all academic until we establish the club as a Premier league club top 6/8. Until then it would be financial suicide.

Offline olaftab

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Re: Villa Park Changes & Commonwealth Games
« Reply #81 on: March 26, 2018, 10:49:47 PM »
I would like us to build a new stand in place of the North Stand but I like many others don't want the corners filled in keep it as it is.
I want the corners to be taken properly.

Offline olaftab

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Re: Villa Park Changes & Commonwealth Games
« Reply #82 on: March 26, 2018, 10:51:45 PM »
If I built a football stand, I'd make sure anybody over 6 foot can sit down comfortably. Only sat in the North Stand once and I can only assume it was built with children and midgets in mind.
You can't build a football stadium to cater for freaks.  :)

Offline LeeB

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Re: Villa Park Changes & Commonwealth Games
« Reply #83 on: March 26, 2018, 10:52:32 PM »
Steve Wyness is talking about 60,000. The only way that will happen is by a horse shoe design and leaving the holte free standing. But it's all academic until we establish the club as a Premier league club top 6/8. Until then it would be financial suicide.

Indeed, the financial pressure has forced us to merge Steve Round and Keith Wyness :)

Offline cdbearsfan

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Re: Villa Park Changes & Commonwealth Games
« Reply #84 on: March 27, 2018, 08:03:18 AM »
That's one seat saved. We only need a capacity of 59,999 now.

Offline aldridgeboy

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Re: Villa Park Changes & Commonwealth Games
« Reply #85 on: March 27, 2018, 09:11:25 AM »
We'd get bigger crowds if we showed more ambition.

One thing that always made me feel a bit sorry for Lerner was that when MON was spending huge amounts of money, he spunked it mostly on solid but uninspiring players in the 5-6m mark. What he didn't get for his money was a single bums-on-seats player.

Ashley Young was closest and even then, he wasn't much of a sells-tickets player.

Another unfortunate thing about the MON era was that even when we were finishing sixth, we were doing so by way of being brilliant to watch away from home when we got to counter attack and extremely uninspiring (by comparison) at home.

Yes, we were much better at home than in the last seven years or so, but other than our annual five goal drubbing of Bolton, we were hardly entertaining - take away that once a year five goal game and we averaged about a goal a game at home. Poor return and hardly a putter of bums on seats, but even then, we had 40k averages.

Totally agree. I had a season ticket back then, and it MON’s last season I decided not to renew for the following season. We were so predictable and boring most home games as I recall. I just didn’t bother going to some games that season as I knew they’d come for a draw and get it.
I guess I’m one of those fickle fans O’Leary talked about lol.

Online The Edge

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Re: Villa Park Changes & Commonwealth Games
« Reply #86 on: March 27, 2018, 10:36:13 AM »
Steve Wyness is talking about 60,000. The only way that will happen is by a horse shoe design and leaving the holte free standing. But it's all academic until we establish the club as a Premier league club top 6/8. Until then it would be financial suicide.

Indeed, the financial pressure has forced us to merge Steve Round and Keith Wyness :)
Doh 😕

Offline Ads

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Re: Villa Park Changes & Commonwealth Games
« Reply #87 on: March 27, 2018, 11:08:22 AM »
I think internal re-design of the older parts in the Witton and perhaps areas of the lower Holte etc is the more straight forward aspect to accomplish.

The design for a new North stand is where the difficulty lies as whatever comes has to blend what people almost universally love about Villa Park, that it is the finest "football" stadium in the country, with modernity. There is absolutely acres of space to work with, which helps and it would likely lead to an improvement in the Witton as you could focus an area around where block R is now for concourse space for the upper and lower Witton that would dramatically improve it.

I would like to see a horseshoe myself. I think it would be the best way to utilise the space available and lead to improvements in the Trinity and Witton as a result too. You could have a large two tier that wraps around from the Trinity [sort of like St Jame's Park] and then you'd likely need to take out Q3/2 and P11/10 of the Witton for a smoother joining of the stands.

End result is you have a large North stand, with all the improvements that brings. You've got additional concourse space in the Trinity corner and Witton corner to alleviate issues that may exist there. I think atmosphere would improve as the noise would be retained in the U of the design of the ground and the lower North would have far more depth to it. You're not going to be able to dramatically do anything about the Witton Lane without purchasing the open space behind the Witton Lane and likely the houses, shifting the road- which just isn't worth it for another 4-5000 seats there.

As an aside, I'd like the Pavilions between the Holte and Trinity to go.

Offline Ad@m

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Re: Villa Park Changes & Commonwealth Games
« Reply #88 on: March 27, 2018, 12:02:15 PM »
You're not going to be able to dramatically do anything about the Witton Lane without purchasing the open space behind the Witton Lane and likely the houses, shifting the road- which just isn't worth it for another 4-5000 seats there.

I may have made this up, but when the Witton Lane stand was rebuilt, didn't we buy all the houses opposite and flatten them with this very intention only to have planning permission refused?  This is why there's now a park over there.

Offline Ads

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Re: Villa Park Changes & Commonwealth Games
« Reply #89 on: March 27, 2018, 12:04:33 PM »
You're not going to be able to dramatically do anything about the Witton Lane without purchasing the open space behind the Witton Lane and likely the houses, shifting the road- which just isn't worth it for another 4-5000 seats there.

I may have made this up, but when the Witton Lane stand was rebuilt, didn't we buy all the houses opposite and flatten them with this very intention only to have planning permission refused?  This is why there's now a park over there.

I have always assumed the park was part of a s.106 agreement we've likely had to meet when permission to develop was obtained. I don't think we own it, but could well be wrong.

 


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