Villa Park Redevelopment

[Meanwood Villa]

Among the new features is a stunning statue to help celebrate Aston Villa’s 150th anniversary. The club have had a lion crafted from brick and engraved with the names of every player to captain the club, with the statue set to be permanently on display in the new Villa Store.

Disappointing Micah Richards has been memorialised

[Lsvilla]

Among the new features is a stunning statue to help celebrate Aston Villa’s 150th anniversary. The club have had a lion crafted from brick and engraved with the names of every player to captain the club, with the statue set to be permanently on display in the new Villa Store.

Disappointing Micah Richards has been memorialised

Somewhere to stick your chewing gum.

[Goldenballs]

Would look better if they put a thick layer of yellow paint all over it.

[Villafirst]

My seats in the lower holte have been moved a block over - from L4 to L5. Must be a worse view?

I assumed it was to generate extra capacity, if not - what the hell have they moved us for?

The Lower grounds seats have been moved from Block A in the Trinity to the Lower Holte. I've been sent Hospitality options from the club by email.

[chrisw1]

Not sure if it's been mentioned: Lower Grounds seats have been moved from Block A (Trinity Road) to the Holte End Lower?

I've just checked and the available seats are A1, A2, A3 and P2 - so Trinity and DE Upper as per last season.

[AV82EC]

Not sure if it's been mentioned: Lower Grounds seats have been moved from Block A (Trinity Road) to the Holte End Lower?

I've just checked and the available seats are A1, A2, A3 and P2 - so Trinity and DE Upper as per last season.

This is true as I’ve been moved from my seat this summer in A2

[VILLA MOLE]

Would look better if they put a thick layer of yellow paint all over it.

would it not be a bit legoland then ?

[Dogtanian]

Has anyone seen anything about new LEDs?

I noticed that the press release for the new gambling sponsor said;

“NOVA88’s brand will also appear on the club’s state of the art LED boards at Villa Park throughout the 2024/25 season.”

Which again made me think they’re putting more advertising displays around the ground, probably on the upper tiers like Spurs have.

[Chip Butty 111]

An extra 8-10k makes piss all difference to match receipts and merchandising. I’ll concede it makes some difference but in the grand scheme of the race to £400m turnover there’s easier ways to do it.

 I disagree, a big full ground makes us more attractive to sponsors and to the overseas Tv market.

After watching the euro's  in Germany on TV, and then going to Dortmund for pre season showed how much we have taken our eye off the ball stadium wise over the years. I remember going to Anfield in the early eighties and the capacity was 33,000...now it's 61,000, standing behind the goal at Old Trafford when Withe notched the winner, capacity then 58,000..now 76,000..new stadium on the way....while we have gone from 55,000 + crowds in the seventies to a capacity of 42,000 now.
I've always been in the redevelop Villa Park camp, but I fear there may be too many obstacles to overcome with the present site to achieve what many of us want..60,000 seats and a pint at half time. My lad summed it up as we were leaving the stadium in Dortmund..."they need to get cracking with our stadium, we're miles off it"

[Percy McCarthy]

^^ Yep. The first article I had published (early nineties) in H&V was calling for a new North Stand to bring capacity up to 60k, and met the response that we’d never need that again.

The title was Dreams Can Come True.

[Villan82]

An extra 8-10k makes piss all difference to match receipts and merchandising. I’ll concede it makes some difference but in the grand scheme of the race to £400m turnover there’s easier ways to do it.

 I disagree, a big full ground makes us more attractive to sponsors and to the overseas Tv market.

After watching the euro's  in Germany on TV, and then going to Dortmund for pre season showed how much we have taken our eye off the ball stadium wise over the years. I remember going to Anfield in the early eighties and the capacity was 33,000...now it's 61,000, standing behind the goal at Old Trafford when Withe notched the winner, capacity then 58,000..now 76,000..new stadium on the way....while we have gone from 55,000 + crowds in the seventies to a capacity of 42,000 now.
I've always been in the redevelop Villa Park camp, but I fear there may be too many obstacles to overcome with the present site to achieve what many of us want..60,000 seats and a pint at half time. My lad summed it up as we were leaving the stadium in Dortmund..."they need to get cracking with our stadium, we're miles off it"

110% this. The North Stand, you could argue, is about 30 years past its sell by date considering the lower tier was left as it was because it was built in the era of standing on terraces. Bar ourselves and Chelsea the big clubs all play in 50,000 plus stadia. Everton will join them next season and Chelsea would if they could. We are the only club who think expanding capacity is a 'bad idea'.

What happens if PSR/FFP gets ditched and the rules get changed with more emphasis on clubs with bigger earning capacity on a a match day? The cancelled redevelopment has never sat well with me and has always had the look of a decision that will bite us on the arse at some point. We'd be 50,000  in two year's time if we'd only stuck with what we said we'd do.

We spend months here speculating that the cancellation must mean a new stadium is on the way but Heck has ruled that out in his 'lifetime'!! I fear we are stuck at 43,000 for the next decade.

[The Edge]

An extra 8-10k makes piss all difference to match receipts and merchandising. I’ll concede it makes some difference but in the grand scheme of the race to £400m turnover there’s easier ways to do it.

 I disagree, a big full ground makes us more attractive to sponsors and to the overseas Tv market.

After watching the euro's  in Germany on TV, and then going to Dortmund for pre season showed how much we have taken our eye off the ball stadium wise over the years. I remember going to Anfield in the early eighties and the capacity was 33,000...now it's 61,000, standing behind the goal at Old Trafford when Withe notched the winner, capacity then 58,000..now 76,000..new stadium on the way....while we have gone from 55,000 + crowds in the seventies to a capacity of 42,000 now.
I've always been in the redevelop Villa Park camp, but I fear there may be too many obstacles to overcome with the present site to achieve what many of us want..60,000 seats and a pint at half time. My lad summed it up as we were leaving the stadium in Dortmund..."they need to get cracking with our stadium, we're miles off it"

110% this. The North Stand, you could argue, is about 30 years past its sell by date considering the lower tier was left as it was because it was built in the era of standing on terraces. Bar ourselves and Chelsea the big clubs all play in 50,000 plus stadia. Everton will join them next season and Chelsea would if they could. We are the only club who think expanding capacity is a 'bad idea'.

What happens if PSR/FFP gets ditched and the rules get changed with more emphasis on clubs with bigger earning capacity on a a match day? The cancelled redevelopment has never sat well with me and has always had the look of a decision that will bite us on the arse at some point. We'd be 50,000  in two year's time if we'd only stuck with what we said we'd do.

We spend months here speculating that the cancellation must mean a new stadium is on the way but Heck has ruled that out in his 'lifetime'!! I fear we are stuck at 43,000 for the next decade.

Totally this ^^^^

[eamonn]

^^ Yep. The first article I had published (early nineties) in H&V was calling for a new North Stand to bring capacity up to 60k, and met the response that we’d never need that again.

The title was Dreams Can Come True.

Is the H&V fanzine archive ever going to be digitalised? I really enjoy reading the old When Saturday Comes editions.

[Brazilian Villain]

The title was Dreams Can Come True.

Which coincidentally was what SE said to Ed Sheeran just before he went on stage in Norwich.

[Charlie8182]

An extra 8-10k makes piss all difference to match receipts and merchandising. I’ll concede it makes some difference but in the grand scheme of the race to £400m turnover there’s easier ways to do it.

 I disagree, a big full ground makes us more attractive to sponsors and to the overseas Tv market.

After watching the euro's  in Germany on TV, and then going to Dortmund for pre season showed how much we have taken our eye off the ball stadium wise over the years. I remember going to Anfield in the early eighties and the capacity was 33,000...now it's 61,000, standing behind the goal at Old Trafford when Withe notched the winner, capacity then 58,000..now 76,000..new stadium on the way....while we have gone from 55,000 + crowds in the seventies to a capacity of 42,000 now.
I've always been in the redevelop Villa Park camp, but I fear there may be too many obstacles to overcome with the present site to achieve what many of us want..60,000 seats and a pint at half time. My lad summed it up as we were leaving the stadium in Dortmund..."they need to get cracking with our stadium, we're miles off it"

110% this. The North Stand, you could argue, is about 30 years past its sell by date considering the lower tier was left as it was because it was built in the era of standing on terraces. Bar ourselves and Chelsea the big clubs all play in 50,000 plus stadia. Everton will join them next season and Chelsea would if they could. We are the only club who think expanding capacity is a 'bad idea'.

What happens if PSR/FFP gets ditched and the rules get changed with more emphasis on clubs with bigger earning capacity on a a match day? The cancelled redevelopment has never sat well with me and has always had the look of a decision that will bite us on the arse at some point. We'd be 50,000  in two year's time if we'd only stuck with what we said we'd do.

We spend months here speculating that the cancellation must mean a new stadium is on the way but Heck has ruled that out in his 'lifetime'!! I fear we are stuck at 43,000 for the next decade.

I never thought I would ever think this growing up, but Villa Park is too small and continues to be overtaken yearly by other clubs capacity wise, when there only used to be 3 or 4 bigger stadiums.  I think its now a below averaged sized stadium in the Premier League with no sign of any change to take place.