Villa Park Redevelopment

[Villan82]

Reading through this am surprised many of you want to move from VP. Would be mortified if villa moved from fortress trinity road

It would be the end for me . Villa Park is Aston Villa !
Anywhere else just will not look , feel, smell the same & just will not pull at the heart strings the way VP does . Its so much more than just a fortnightly visit.

Same. In fact I don't quite know which I loved first, Villa Park or Aston Villa. I am so bitterly disappointed in them for having such big plans for the stadium and ditching them so abruptly. I have been a total happy clapper since 2018, reluctant to see any negativity and then they did this and I actually haven't been the same since and I can't help but think the timing of the announcement and the slight wobble we had over Christmas are linked- it is a funny old game and momentum is so important on and off the pitch

[pauliewalnuts]

When I go to matches, I find myself thinking that I am staring at the exact same rectangle of grass that generation after generation of my family stared at (coincidentally, the same grass that my gt gt grandfather worked at while it was still the Lower Grounds, and there was no football ground there).

That's one reason I love Villa Park, another is that, when it is at it, the atmosphere is second to none. I also think that Lerner, to his credit, did a great job of adding more gravitas to the ground with the ersatz Victorian style entrance to the Holte End.

Then, there's the fact the other supporters of other clubs love it, and still find it traditional.

That said, the oldest part of it is 45 years or so old, the newest part almost 25, the facilities range from excellent (corporates) to barely acceptable, to absolutely unacceptable in certain parts of the ground. If you're on the concourse in the Witton, or in the North Stand, or even the Trinity for that matter, it does not feel like you're in one of the best grounds in the country in the 21st century.

The ground, like the club, has a sort of institutional quality to it, a grandeur that, in both cases, doesn't really match what we have been for the last several decades.

I just think pretty soon we're going to be presented with a very difficult choice, and going to have to be faced with some realistic decisions about what the club has to do.

[IFWaters]

Perhaps there is a compromise to be had. A site that is big enough for a football ground of enormous size and a design that is a combination of our history and our future. As MON said, Aston Villa is a Rolls Royce of a football club. Only the best will do.

[Brazilian Villain]

When I go to matches, I find myself thinking that I am staring at the exact same rectangle of grass that generation after generation of my family stared at (coincidentally, the same grass that my gt gt grandfather worked at while it was still the Lower Grounds, and there was no football ground there).

Cue someone telling you that, because grass grows and is mown, it''s not the same rectangle of grass your ancestors looked at.

[KevinGage]

Felt that expansion of the ground should have been done in the early Lerner era - even when we weren't selling out every game. We'd have got enough in most games to ensure the average attendance shot up - as it has with every upgrade since 1994.

That said, 50-55k feels our natural limit and we can do that in the current location - with the same stand configuration. There's also something about matches at VP in the autumn/winter sun that has a magical quality.  Despite Ellis's best bodge job efforts. Start pissing about with stand layouts and we prob lose that.

I don't envy Spurzzz's new ground at all. Looks like an American football stadium. With the same wanky corporate atmosphere to match. So I'd be in no rush to replicate that.

[Ads]

Some of it isn't even grass. The conspiracy deepens.

[Brazilian Villain]

I don't envy Spurzzz's new ground at all. Looks like an American football stadium. With the same wanky corporate atmosphere to match. So I'd be in no rush to replicate that.

Agree with that. Along with Liverpool we've one of the most historic, storied grounds in England so I have zero desire to move from B6.

[VillaTim]

if they are pushing seats closer together at Villa Park as the compromise i'd say be careful what you wish for

[pauliewalnuts]

if they are pushing seats closer together at Villa Park as the compromise i'd say be careful what you wish for

Stop and think here.

Do you - even you, taking into account your seemingly endless penchant for the absurd - really think that'd logically and physically possible, let alone financially so in terms of cost (were it not an impossibility)?

Really?

Do you honestly think that, Cooper's Injury SilhillVilla Tim?

[VillaTim]

It has been mentioned by others in the thread as being an option possibly on the table

[Brazilian Villain]

if they are pushing seats closer together at Villa Park as the compromise i'd say be careful what you wish for

I'm slim, stay out of the Lower Grounds and I'll be fine.

[pauliewalnuts]

It has been mentioned by others in the thread as being an option possibly on the table

"I've seen other people say the earth is flat, so I'll mention it as a genuine possibility"

Were you banned under either of your former usernames, out of interest?

[dave.woodhall]

It has been mentioned by others in the thread as being an option possibly on the table

You do realise that ground capacity is dependent on things such as exits and load bearing so you can't just stick an extra thousand seats in a stand that has a safety certificate for ten thousand?

[pauliewalnuts]

It has been mentioned by others in the thread as being an option possibly on the table

You do realise that ground capacity is dependent on things such as exits and load bearing so you can't just stick an extra thousand seats in a stand that has a safety certificate for ten thousand?

Of course he doesnt. Because, well, why would he?

[pauliewalnuts]

Or, more pertinently, how would he?