For the first time in a long many years, I’ve actually been happy to have a weekend off from football. Somebody pinch me. Surely I must be having a bad dream to be turning down watching the beautiful game.
Seriously though, in an era where Aston Villa’s troubles have been numerous and well-publicised, the club is slowly killing my passion for the boys in claret and blue. Don’t get me wrong, I’m Villa through and through, and given my writing commitments, I’ll be watching them next season regardless, but there’s a malaise spreading far and wide in the fan base.
I’ve no doubt that many supporters of other clubs see Villa fans as miserable and over-expectant – in fact I have more than enough evidence to know they do – but, given the circumstances, I know few people who would be elated.
In terms of the club, Villa are both blessed and cursed with a history of success. Sadly for those of us who aren’t one of the oldest people in the world, most of us haven’t seen much of it. In fact, even the world’s oldest person at the time of writing, Besse Cooper, a woman who, at 115 years and a bit, has seen massive change in society, has only seen Villa win the top league five times. If, of course, I even believed she was watching.
So, even if you’re an unknown and unheard of older person than Besse, in which case I congratulate you for finding this article, I can’t exactly say that you’d be able to argue a massive case for a club that has taken 115 years to win what Manchester United have won in a decade.
Perhaps recent optimism, well up until the start of the season before this one at least, was due to the perceived largesse of Randy Lerner. Here was a man who seemed absolutely delighted (sorry Martin for stealing your post-match catchphrase) in shelling out for players who the manager needed, and when you pay out £10m for Curtis Davies, I really have to equate that as “more money than sense”.
Yet, for all of this sensibility, it seems that some fans expect more. When all is told, I expect better than 15th, yes, as does anyone who supports a perennial Premier League club. However, given the fact that, in my 32 and soon-to-be 33 years of life, I’ve only seen two league cups won (I was alive for the league and European Cup wins but can’t remember them first hand), I really struggle to understand where this belief comes from.
Nobody is saying that fans shouldn’t want success – in fact it is imperative that we do strive for more – but expectation should be roughly consonant with what your past illustrates. In the latter years of Martin O’Neill’s tenure, some Villa fans bemoaned the sixth place finishes as “failing to progress”, as though there should be some kind of obvious progression for Villa, despite the fact that every other club is also trying to improve.
That isn’t to say that Villa shouldn’t try to progress, just that expecting them to is a little different. We can all want what is best for the club we support, but we can’t just stand there, hand outstretched, demanding to be entertained. Yes, we pay money to see these games, but it’s a free choice and, in the case of Villa, we have some of the cheapest tickets in the league. So, in the grand scheme of things, whilst I’d love to pay thruppence for a ticket, things are how they are.
Perhaps if it was indeed thruppence for entry to Villa Park this year, I’d have imagined things to be great value. When I saw about two minutes of 90 entertain me in our last home encounter, the value may not have been quite as low as 3p, but it did comprise about 50p worth of a ticket in the sense of pro-rata time.
If you talk about value for money, there’s little to be had at Villa Park at present, what with ground out 0-0 draws being the main aim this year, so I wouldn’t exactly recommend attendance as having a good time. Even those protesting, and it is their prerogative to do so, surely can’t be enjoying it, even if they think they are going to change something. After all, who likes anger?
All that said, it would seem that some do actively like the anger, or the complaining, or both. That, no matter what is said or done, it won’t be enough. That isn’t to suggest by any stretch that all fans are like it, but there are people who are never happy. They weren’t happy with sixth under O’Neill, so they sure as hell won’t be happy with 15th under McLeish.
Whilst I can’t sit here and claim 15th is anything to shout about either, I actually thought sixth was pretty good for us. It’s just a shame we spent far too much on garbage players to get there, and thus half the reason why we are where we are. We spent too much money, overachieved, now we’re spending not enough money, and underachieving. It’s almost, what’s that word, obvious.
Which is ultimately what it is, and always will be. If you spend more money, you (generally) do better. If you spend less money, you generally do worse. It’s not a totally flawless plan, but it does work. Well unless you’re Kenny Dalglish.
So this season was a mess, and I hope it is over sooner rather than later, ideally with us finishing in the right league, because, whilst I’m sad to say it, I’m sick of turning up and watching what we are being served at present.
I just hope we avoid the final ignominy of having our “beloved” friends from the other side of the city singing “They’re going up, they’re going down” at our expense come the final day of the season.
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