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Author Topic: Villa Park Changes & Commonwealth Games  (Read 32127 times)

Offline Ad@m

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Re: Villa Park Changes & Commonwealth Games
« Reply #90 on: March 27, 2018, 12:08:38 PM »
It's so long ago I can't remember if I heard this or made it up!

But if we had no intention of doing anything that side of the road I'm not sure I understand why they'd have flattened all the houses over there just to build a park.

Similarly, I'm not sure how we'd have got a compulsory purchase order for them if we didn't have permission to build a massive stand!

Essentially I have no idea what I'm on about!  Does anyone else know?!

Online Nev

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Re: Villa Park Changes & Commonwealth Games
« Reply #91 on: March 27, 2018, 12:27:05 PM »
The land was bought to realign Witton Lane to make room for the new stand. It was cranked slightly towards where the houses stood.

Offline Ads

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Re: Villa Park Changes & Commonwealth Games
« Reply #92 on: March 27, 2018, 01:00:45 PM »
Idea scenario you'd buy the land behind the Witton, flatten that and the North, wrap the Trinity round in a giant horseshoe, make the Holte a single tier behemoth and sit back to look at the best ground... in the world.

Offline itbrvilla

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Re: Villa Park Changes & Commonwealth Games
« Reply #93 on: March 27, 2018, 01:08:07 PM »
Just show us these plans FFS!

Offline Des Little

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Re: Villa Park Changes & Commonwealth Games
« Reply #94 on: March 27, 2018, 01:30:15 PM »
I've seen the plans.  Doug's done Tone a deal on that brown & red corrugated cladding from the old Holte.  We're going retro!

Offline Smirker

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Re: Villa Park Changes & Commonwealth Games
« Reply #95 on: March 27, 2018, 01:52:37 PM »

Online paul_e

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Re: Villa Park Changes & Commonwealth Games
« Reply #96 on: March 27, 2018, 02:31:04 PM »
Idea scenario you'd buy the land behind the Witton, flatten that and the North, wrap the Trinity round in a giant horseshoe, make the Holte a single tier behemoth and sit back to look at the best ground... in the world.

I agree, I suspect part of the reason they're talking investing heavily in the whole area is to allow for that sort of development.

Offline Ads

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Re: Villa Park Changes & Commonwealth Games
« Reply #97 on: March 27, 2018, 03:13:44 PM »
Idea scenario you'd buy the land behind the Witton, flatten that and the North, wrap the Trinity round in a giant horseshoe, make the Holte a single tier behemoth and sit back to look at the best ground... in the world.

I agree, I suspect part of the reason they're talking investing heavily in the whole area is to allow for that sort of development.

Having worked in a Legal Services Department of a Local Authority [albeit a piddly one, nothing like the size of BCC] it always struck me in planning that the objective seemed to be how many s.106 agreements could be squeezed out of Developers as development conditions.

If the objective is, as seems to have been hinted, that Xia has big plans for the area, then I think we'd be far more likely to get what we wanted if millions of private equity is being spent to effectively gentrify a suburb. Any sort of plan, be it mixed use retail and business parks or a bigger Villa Park is going to see an increase in footfall and traffic, so some re-working of local roads may well fall into it.

It may well be that we receive permission to develop over the Witton Lane for example, as there are a number of stands I can think of [Trinity Road, Leazes Stand, SAF Stand etc etc] where you have this style of build.

It may well be possible to re-develop the Holte into a single tier without having to start from scratch. I would love that - a big 13500 bank belting out noise that's captured in the horseshoe.
« Last Edit: March 27, 2018, 03:15:51 PM by Ads »

Offline FatSam

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Re: Villa Park Changes & Commonwealth Games
« Reply #98 on: March 27, 2018, 03:48:45 PM »
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.


I'm very firmly of the view that any redevelopment of Villa Park should maintain the current configuration of four individual stands. One reason is that it has always been the configuration of the ground, even when the cycle track existed. Another reason is that it is unrealistic to try to create a perfect bowl stadium given the current configuration, and the inherent constraints of the site. Any move towards the kind of stadia that Arsenal, Man City and West Ham have, and Spurs are about to have, would end in disappointing compromise as far as I can see - much better to build on what we've got. I think what Liverpool are in the process of doing is a strategy that we could adopt. Villa Park is a Victorian ground that has evolved, whereas even historic 20th Century grounds like Old Trafford and Maine Road were always more like purpose-built bowls.

I think that any redevelopment should identify and accentuate the distinctiveness that already exists - enhancing the good aspects. The main characteristic of Villa Park that I think makes it unique is the way that Trinity Road cuts into the corner of the ground and reveals a view of Aston Park. This led to the distinctive design of the old Trinity Road Stand upper tier and gable walls particularly, and is still the case to a certain extent with the new stand - although the boxes in the corner do detract from it.

Maintaining the current configuration doesn't mean though that the stands need to be completely disconnected from one another, it just means that they should appear largely independent with gaps in-between. I think that the lower tiers could connect, and I would like to see a lot most consistency in terms of the rake and size of the tiers for example. I would also like to see the Holte End returned to being a single tier with safe-standing in the long term. The main thing is to have a long-term strategy rather than the piecemeal approach of the Doug years. I think its more important to have top quality stadium architects on board (like Populous or similar), than construction manage the project in-house, like Doug used to do - the wrong priorities as far as I'm concerned.

The North Stand is the obvious place to start, but I'd like land acquisition to be going on in preparation for later work to the Doug Ellis Stand. It is the next oldest stand after the North, and wasn't a total re-build at the time - rather a new tier behind the original stand. Moving roads is obviously expensive, and might not be worth doing based on current attendances just to gain 4-5000 seats. However, the cost benefit analysis would have been very different at the time that the Doug Ellis Stand was built to now. Also, as part of the wider masterplan for the area that definitely is necessary, and to improve the facilities for the 10000 seats, and boxes that do exist, it probably would be justifiable.

Offline Damo70

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Re: Villa Park Changes & Commonwealth Games
« Reply #99 on: March 27, 2018, 04:01:28 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.


The only time we have bought bums on seats players that other top sides would have coveted was under BFR.

Offline Damo70

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Re: Villa Park Changes & Commonwealth Games
« Reply #100 on: March 27, 2018, 04:04:31 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


Ah, memories of playing football in Shirley park in the eighties. Plus the bowling green was ideal for smaller sided games.

Offline Ads

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Re: Villa Park Changes & Commonwealth Games
« Reply #101 on: March 27, 2018, 04:26:54 PM »
I still think the ground can retain a traditional feel and escape the blandness of uniformity. I agree about consistent heights, but as somebody who sits Upper Holte, I think looking out onto a large horseshoe Trinity/North/Witton would be very impressive. The areas of Aston and beyond you can see to the sides of the North are a bit meh. Equally, away fans in the Witton corner would be dwarfed by the North and you'd get a good atmosphere.

A single banked Holte end, 13,500 strong, the largest in the country, would be magnificent.

I think given the the way the ground could look from the outside, blended with how impressive it would be inside would help us retain tradition and give visiting fans that bollock tightening feeling that they're somewhere sacred and perhaps for the first time, intimidating.

Offline KevinGage

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Re: Villa Park Changes & Commonwealth Games
« Reply #102 on: March 27, 2018, 04:28:27 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.


The only time we have bought bums on seats players that other top sides would have coveted was under BFR.

"When the best players in the land become available, Aston Villa should be signing them."  - BFR, 1992. 

Admittedly he said that after the signing of Earl Barrett, but so what.

Offline Ad@m

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Re: Villa Park Changes & Commonwealth Games
« Reply #103 on: March 27, 2018, 04:34:12 PM »
We don't need the best architects to build a proper North Stand - just copy this one:


Offline Damo70

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Re: Villa Park Changes & Commonwealth Games
« Reply #104 on: March 27, 2018, 04:36:49 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.


The only time we have bought bums on seats players that other top sides would have coveted was under BFR.

"When the best players in the land become available, Aston Villa should be signing them."  - BFR, 1992. 

Admittedly he said that after the signing of Earl Barrett, but so what.


To be fair he had just broken into the England squad and we beat the reigning champions Arsenal to his signature.

 


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