Villa Park Redevelopment

[Chico Hamilton III]

Depends which train you take. The one from Marylebone can take 2.5 hours, the Avanti trains from Euston an hour less but cost a lot more. 20 mins from our South East London paradise to Euston or Marylebone.

[PeterWithe]

The Milk Train was always a referral to the first train of the day. They used to send milk on them from the country to the big cities.

[Risso]

Good post Smithy. We're by the biggest club between London and the North West, and we should be hoovering up neutrals, as the only other clubs in the area are much smaller, provincial nobodies.

On the hoovering up fans in the surrounding area thing. When I was at Uni, I did a placement year, and wrote to Villa to see if they'd take me on for a year to work in their Marketing team.  This would have been early '96, so we had quite a good side back then. It was also the VERY early days of the Internet. In my application I pitched the idea of 30-second ads in provincial cinemas as a cheap way to reach new fans.  I'd worked in my own town's cinema during my GCSEs and A Levels, and I'd seen the crappy ads for local restaurants and the like, and how cheap it could be, so I knew if we could create a compelling 30-second video, it would definitely work and we could drive potential new fans to check out our new 'website'.  I never heard back from anyone...

So instead you started up a satirical website. Well nobody's laughing now! (With apologies to Bob Monkhouse)

[Bad English]

General Admission and General Admission plus, the later being short hand for the no man's land between proper corporate and normal tickets like Terrace View and Lower Grounds.

I see. Ta!

Is this your new Dan Bardell?

No, absolutely not. I had no idea.

Who is Dan Bardell?

[aev]

Depends which train you take. The one from Marylebone can take 2.5 hours, the Avanti trains from Euston an hour less but cost a lot more. 20 mins from our South East London paradise to Euston or Marylebone.

Sorry, I meant more the other end. Always seems a bit of a faff.

[Risso]

I think we did that crawler train down for the semi in 2000, took about 6 hours but was dirt cheap.

Used to be referred to as the "Milk Train", I can guess it was something to do with multiple deliveries or some such. By the time you get to Long Buckby, wherever the fuck that is, you need another shave.

Little village between Northampton and Daventry. Great place to get the train into London from, as it's very quiet but has a massive car park.

When I got the train from Kettering to London for the Derby play off, it was absolutely rammed with Villa fans, standing room only. Considering the train actually had Derby as a calling point, we outnumbered them about 5 to 1.

[Chico Hamilton III]

Depends which train you take. The one from Marylebone can take 2.5 hours, the Avanti trains from Euston an hour less but cost a lot more. 20 mins from our South East London paradise to Euston or Marylebone.

Sorry, I meant more the other end. Always seems a bit of a faff.

Back to SE London, you mean?

[Risso]

Depends which train you take. The one from Marylebone can take 2.5 hours, the Avanti trains from Euston an hour less but cost a lot more. 20 mins from our South East London paradise to Euston or Marylebone.

Crazy that, I can be in central London door-to-door in about an hour and 10 minutes.

[aev]

Depends which train you take. The one from Marylebone can take 2.5 hours, the Avanti trains from Euston an hour less but cost a lot more. 20 mins from our South East London paradise to Euston or Marylebone.

Sorry, I meant more the other end. Always seems a bit of a faff.

Back to SE London, you mean?

pm'd

[brontebilly]

Are we perhaps giving Heck et al a bit too much credit that they are freezing expansion and improvement plans to force a commitment from the local authorities to finally address traffic and infra issues around Villa Park?
If that is the case, local authorities in my experience don't particularly react well to being strong armed. They would love for Villa to spend the money first and no doubt take a whack load of levies at the same time.

[Chico Hamilton III]

Depends which train you take. The one from Marylebone can take 2.5 hours, the Avanti trains from Euston an hour less but cost a lot more. 20 mins from our South East London paradise to Euston or Marylebone.

Sorry, I meant more the other end. Always seems a bit of a faff.

Back to SE London, you mean?

pm'd

Replied - hope it makes sense?

[Chico Hamilton III]

Depends which train you take. The one from Marylebone can take 2.5 hours, the Avanti trains from Euston an hour less but cost a lot more. 20 mins from our South East London paradise to Euston or Marylebone.

Crazy that, I can be in central London door-to-door in about an hour and 10 minutes.

Depends which train you take. The one from Marylebone can take 2.5 hours, the Avanti trains from Euston an hour less but cost a lot more. 20 mins from our South East London paradise to Euston or Marylebone.

Crazy that, I can be in central London door-to-door in about an hour and 10 minutes.

11 minutes for me to London Bridge….

[Smithy]

Good post Smithy. We're by the biggest club between London and the North West, and we should be hoovering up neutrals, as the only other clubs in the area are much smaller, provincial nobodies.

On the hoovering up fans in the surrounding area thing. When I was at Uni, I did a placement year, and wrote to Villa to see if they'd take me on for a year to work in their Marketing team.  This would have been early '96, so we had quite a good side back then. It was also the VERY early days of the Internet. In my application I pitched the idea of 30-second ads in provincial cinemas as a cheap way to reach new fans.  I'd worked in my own town's cinema during my GCSEs and A Levels, and I'd seen the crappy ads for local restaurants and the like, and how cheap it could be, so I knew if we could create a compelling 30-second video, it would definitely work and we could drive potential new fans to check out our new 'website'.  I never heard back from anyone...

So instead you started up a satirical website. Well nobody's laughing now! (With apologies to Bob Monkhouse)

Oh, that came MUCH later :-)  First I joined an big IT company and worked as a gopher on a bid for a massive PFI IT project for the Post Office.  I wonder whatever became of that...

[olaftab]

There is one thought I've had.

While I've previously said you'd have to be barmy to think the club are moving, I happen to know there is a housing estate near to central Brum that the council, according to concerned locals, want to tear down and replace with posh appartments and the like.

Now, I don't know how well founded these fears are, but if the council now find themselves bankrupt then maybe they'd be open to an offer from a sporting institution for the land. Flattening the whole estate, which the last time I looked had a fair amount of greenery, would provide an area with a circular footprint with a radius of at least 190 metres (I checked on Google Earth, of course) which is comparable to Wembley stadium.

The location would be close to Five Ways station, close to Broad Street and about a ten minute walk from town.

And having written this, I really hope the club aren't planning to move there.

Chris, are you talking about the area in between St. Vincent Street/Gilby road/Browning street? If so it will take heaven and earth to move out the residents, and why should they? There are now living in prime land and if they did agree to move it will be expensive for the council or another body.

[dorsetvillian]

Back in the 80s we often travelled to northern games with the London Lions as we got group discounts. This meant a very early train from Bournemouth to meet up with them and connect for the journey North. We regularly got back too late for the last train from Waterloo to Bournemouth and had to wait and get the 'Milk Train' which was at about 4 AM. Those were the days!!