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By being a team from the suburbs?

[LeeB]

Paulie is right about Newcastle. Brilliant city and there is a ton of land north of the ground. You could fit three St James' in Leazes Park alone. And about two-and-a-half on Hunters Moor the other side of the BBC. But they definitely shouldn't move far. Best located ground in the country.

They had plans to move to Leazes Park in the 90's.

[jon collett]

By being a team from the suburbs?

Team of the midlands based in Aston not Birmingham!

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I'm unsure how being based 2 miles further south would change what we are.

[Nev]

Birmingham is ace and Manchester is full of divs.
'sall you need to know.

[HolteL4]

Let's face it if we move it won't be anywhere near the city centre and I echo what others have said I'm glad about that because we've never been an inner city club. Birmingham is not a small city and the centre is big but it's also very built up, there is no space to build a stadium the size that we'd need as it'd have to be 60k plus because if any less the it'd be more practical and cost effective to just upgrade Villa Park.

[walsall villain]

Paulie is right about Newcastle. Brilliant city and there is a ton of land north of the ground. You could fit three St James' in Leazes Park alone. And about two-and-a-half on Hunters Moor the other side of the BBC. But they definitely shouldn't move far. Best located ground in the country.

I was told a very familiar tale when I was up there in the summer. Apparently they have a season ticket waiting list of approx 30000, expanding the ground is very problematic due to listed buildings on one side and there is a real issue in selling the idea of any sort of move away.
It was my first visit to Newcastle and I was very impressed, great city.

[FatSam]

We’ve never been an inner city Club and I wouldn’t like to see us become one. Hope we stay true to our identity and history!

I don’t understand this sentiment. Aston is unrecognisable from 50 years ago, let alone WW2, when Villa Park opened, or when we played early games at the Lower Grounds. We play where we do because that’s where the open space was in the Victorian era, rather than because we aren’t an inner-city club. Before the Express Way and Middle Way were carved through this side of the city, there was pretty dense development between the city centre and Aston Park, with residential and industrial buildings cheek by jowl. That was inner-city, and as much our territory as Erdington or Perry Barr. We are definitely a North Birmingham club, but we are the biggest club in the second city, and I don’t think we should be apologetic about claiming the city centre as ours. The fact that Aston was not part of the city of Birmingham until 1911 is an administrative anomaly, and more to do with the rapid growth of the city in the 19th century - it was all the same conurbation.

[Dogtanian]

The bloody Midlands is ours, let alone Birmingham.

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I'm not sure what is meant by inner city football club. The only one that immediately springs to mind of size, that is in its city centre, is Newcastle and I've never heard them described as that or ever thought of them as that either. They're the club of their city and the immediate environs.

Sheffield United is pretty close to their city centre, as is Wolves and Leicester. A few in the Championship and beyond but they don't really bear thinking about.

Is it some weird paranoia about Small Heath? As nobody thinks of them (beyond perhaps the author of the phrase) as an inner city club. They're a bunch of nobodies from deadbeat suburb, with slivers of support oozing around the A45 and the edges of Solihull, Yardley, Acocks Green etc. Suburb boys.

[jon collett]

Let's face it if we move it won't be anywhere near the city centre and I echo what others have said I'm glad about that because we've never been an inner city club. Birmingham is not a small city and the centre is big but it's also very built up, there is no space to build a stadium the size that we'd need as it'd have to be 60k plus because if any less the it'd be more practical and cost effective to just upgrade Villa Park.

Exactly and for almost identical reasons nobody with a brain would ever advocate Manchester United moving from Old Trafford.

Villa’s status and appeal didn’t derive from being a Birmingham Club. Indeed most trophies were won when it wasn’t one. It’s a unique Club in a unique setting and has a huge catchment area right across the midlands. It’s neither an inner city club nor a suburban Club. It has a distinct identity and history. Change that at your peril!

[pauliewalnuts]

Aston is about as inner city as it gets.

[Percy McCarthy]

Aston is about as inner city as it gets.

Innit.

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The only person who doesn't associate us with Birmingham, is this little Hull City fan I overheard asking his dad on the way to the ground in the game after Hamburg, if we were from London. To everybody else we're the biggest club in our city and from all parts north of Arsenal to south of Old Trafford.

[algy]

Let's face it if we move it won't be anywhere near the city centre and I echo what others have said I'm glad about that because we've never been an inner city club. Birmingham is not a small city and the centre is big but it's also very built up, there is no space to build a stadium the size that we'd need as it'd have to be 60k plus because if any less the it'd be more practical and cost effective to just upgrade Villa Park.

Exactly and for almost identical reasons nobody with a brain would ever advocate Manchester United moving from Old Trafford.

Villa’s status and appeal didn’t derive from being a Birmingham Club. Indeed most trophies were won when it wasn’t one. It’s a unique Club in a unique setting and has a huge catchment area right across the midlands. It’s neither an inner city club nor a suburban Club. It has a distinct identity and history. Change that at your peril!

This bit got me interested, I’d assumed Aston would’ve been subsumed by Birmingham at that point, but apparently not:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aston

Aston, as Aston Manor, was governed by a Local Board from 1869 and was created as an Urban District Council in 1903 before being absorbed in the expansion of the County Borough of Birmingham in 1911, and a further part, Saltley was added in 1911.

In 1911 the civil parish had a population of 219,082. On 1 April 1912 the parish was abolished and merged with Birmingham