Villa Park Redevelopment

[The Edge]

That block is for the away team's friends/family and club staff.  It's a UEFA rule.

Thanks Des. Makes sense now.

[AV82EC]

That block is for the away team's friends/family and club staff.  It's a UEFA rule.

Thanks Des. Makes sense now.

Thanks Des for the clarity. They were joining in with all the Bruges chants so thought it must have been something to do with them.

[Mister E]

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2025/mar/15/manchester-uniteds-new-field-of-dreams-at-risk-of-repeating-the-tottenham-trap
A different take on redevelopment?

[PeterWithe]

If any plans go ahead for increased capacity, it seems that the extra seats will be for GA+ rather than the hoi-polloi, fair enough if you re utterly focussed on getting to your £400m target. But all those new faces paying £200 a ticket had to, at first, fall in love with the Villa and attend before they had the wealth to afford those kind of tickets. How do they do it these days? Are the club just writing off trying to attract younger poorer fans, or do they expect to attract fans who fell in love with other clubs in their earlier days?

[dave.woodhall]

If any plans go ahead for increased capacity, it seems that the extra seats will be for GA+ rather than the hoi-polloi, fair enough if you re utterly focussed on getting to your £400m target. But all those new faces paying £200 a ticket had to, at first, fall in love with the Villa and attend before they had the wealth to afford those kind of tickets. How do they do it these days? Are the club just writing off trying to attract younger poorer fans, or do they expect to attract fans who fell in love with other clubs in their earlier days?

Do you really think that the sort of customer being targeted now is a snotty-nosed urchin who supported the Villa from birth,  got on and moved to the shires? Or is it more likely a comfortably well-off family with no interest in football pre-Sky?

[The Edge]

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2025/mar/15/manchester-uniteds-new-field-of-dreams-at-risk-of-repeating-the-tottenham-trap
A different take on redevelopment?

A cautionary tale and one which I hope Yanited ignore. May they saddle themselves with huge debts that will prevent them from rebuilding their creaking squad for years to come. Hopefully I'll be sitting on a cloud playing a harp before I ever have to witness their obnoxious gloating fans lording it over everyone in the PL. They will get taxpayers money over my dead body.

[PeterWithe]

If any plans go ahead for increased capacity, it seems that the extra seats will be for GA+ rather than the hoi-polloi, fair enough if you re utterly focussed on getting to your £400m target. But all those new faces paying £200 a ticket had to, at first, fall in love with the Villa and attend before they had the wealth to afford those kind of tickets. How do they do it these days? Are the club just writing off trying to attract younger poorer fans, or do they expect to attract fans who fell in love with other clubs in their earlier days?

Do you really think that the sort of customer being targeted now is a snotty-nosed urchin who supported the Villa from birth,  got on and moved to the shires? Or is it more likely a comfortably well-off family with no interest in football pre-Sky?

Isn't it sensible to target both? And keep putting people into the pipeline downstream that can one day afford to buy the tickets they now want to sell.

I no longer sit all around the ground but it has been noticable to me that we are an aging crowd, there are few lads in their 20s. I suppose thats just the make up of the TR mind and its completely different in the Holte and NS?

[Max Villan]

If any plans go ahead for increased capacity, it seems that the extra seats will be for GA+ rather than the hoi-polloi, fair enough if you re utterly focussed on getting to your £400m target. But all those new faces paying £200 a ticket had to, at first, fall in love with the Villa and attend before they had the wealth to afford those kind of tickets. How do they do it these days? Are the club just writing off trying to attract younger poorer fans, or do they expect to attract fans who fell in love with other clubs in their earlier days?

Do you really think that the sort of customer being targeted now is a snotty-nosed urchin who supported the Villa from birth,  got on and moved to the shires? Or is it more likely a comfortably well-off family with no interest in football pre-Sky?

Isn't it sensible to target both? And keep putting people into the pipeline downstream that can one day afford to buy the tickets they now want to sell.

I no longer sit all around the ground but it has been noticable to me that we are an aging crowd, there are few lads in their 20s. I suppose thats just the make up of the TR mind and its completely different in the Holte and NS?

This is where I think the direction to move away from season tickets is wrong. 20 year olds will find something else to do, without a season ticket providing that regularity.

It's much easier to fall into the habit of attending with a season ticket is what I mean. There's a fair number of members who do a lot of games now and fair play to them, but I don't think I could be arsed with a different seat each week. Knowing the people who sit around you is part of the enjoyment of attending.

We need more than just a new north stand full of GA+ seats. It's not going to happen though.

[tony scott]

It looks like I’m going to have to fork out for G A + tickets when I visit from Aus soon I don’t like it but it will be my only option, having visited 2 years ago and ending up ticketless.  First game as a 9 year old v Cardiff City in the old 2nd division 1959 I know I’m lucky I can afford it but I’ve long history following the Villa.

[eamonn]

Sitting on a cloud, playing a harp! Great observation of all the lads at
the pearly gates - St Pete, the angels and nymphs. Mind if I steal it for occasional usage in quotidian life ?

[algy]

If any plans go ahead for increased capacity, it seems that the extra seats will be for GA+ rather than the hoi-polloi, fair enough if you re utterly focussed on getting to your £400m target. But all those new faces paying £200 a ticket had to, at first, fall in love with the Villa and attend before they had the wealth to afford those kind of tickets. How do they do it these days? Are the club just writing off trying to attract younger poorer fans, or do they expect to attract fans who fell in love with other clubs in their earlier days?

Do you really think that the sort of customer being targeted now is a snotty-nosed urchin who supported the Villa from birth,  got on and moved to the shires? Or is it more likely a comfortably well-off family with no interest in football pre-Sky?

Isn't it sensible to target both? And keep putting people into the pipeline downstream that can one day afford to buy the tickets they now want to sell.

I no longer sit all around the ground but it has been noticable to me that we are an aging crowd, there are few lads in their 20s. I suppose thats just the make up of the TR mind and its completely different in the Holte and NS?

This is where I think the direction to move away from season tickets is wrong. 20 year olds will find something else to do, without a season ticket providing that regularity.

It's much easier to fall into the habit of attending with a season ticket is what I mean. There's a fair number of members who do a lot of games now and fair play to them, but I don't think I could be arsed with a different seat each week. Knowing the people who sit around you is part of the enjoyment of attending.

We need more than just a new north stand full of GA+ seats. It's not going to happen though.

We gave up our season tickets at the end of the 1998/99 season as a combination of my dad’s working times changing and the increasing number of games that weren’t Saturday 3pm meant we couldn’t get to enough games to justify one. Had said we’d go to every game we could, but in reality before even the end of the 1999/00 season we’d pretty much stopped going, and didn’t again until maybe 2006/07 season.

It’s just really easy to fall out of the habit and other things take priority. Whereas with a season ticket we’d just go to games even if they were a bit inconvenient because we’d paid for the season ticket … remember twice cycling to/from Villa Park on Boxing Day cos there wasn’t any trains running from Lichfield for example. Or racing back from a holiday in Italy so that we could see Villa vs QPR, flight was delayed so we ended up only getting in a couple of minutes before half time. You just find a way to go with a season ticket, whereas without I’d not have even considered getting tickets to those games.

[The Edge]

Sitting on a cloud, playing a harp! Great observation of all the lads at
the pearly gates - St Pete, the angels and nymphs. Mind if I steal it for occasional usage in quotidian life ?

Be my guest lol.

[SaddVillan]

I posted this on the Chris Heck page. Just realised it belongs here.

If and when we decide to rebuild the North Stand that will reduce the capacity by c 7,000 to roughly 36,000.

Doesn't leave much room for  Heck's big earning hospitality seats - assuming season ticket holders in the North Stand "rehomed" in the Holte, Trinity and Witton Lane.

That will surely have a significant impact on revenue, which might have a negative knock-on effect with regard to our PSR numbers?

Bit of a Catch-22.

[pauliewalnuts]

I posted this on the Chris Heck page. Just realised it belongs here.

If and when we decide to rebuild the North Stand that will reduce the capacity by c 7,000 to roughly 36,000.

Doesn't leave much room for  Heck's big earning hospitality seats - assuming season ticket holders in the North Stand "rehomed" in the Holte, Trinity and Witton Lane.

That will surely have a significant impact on revenue, which might have a negative knock-on effect with regard to our PSR numbers?

Bit of a Catch-22.

You might want to look at the previous few pages, which - if true - seem to be a way around pretty much all the concerns you've listed.

Or at least, I think the intention is to avoid what you've described, anyway.

[paul_e]

Additionally we can claim the lost revenue against PSR. 1 theory of delaying things is that increasing matchday revenue before we start let's us offset more of the cost.