With the unexpected break from football that we have had – Get well soon Fabrice – and with many heated arguments raging across every Aston Villa based site on t’interweb, I thought I would ask a different type of question to those currently posed. My own answer will follow, but I’m interested to hear what everyone else’s views are because no one view is “right” or “wrong” – they are just opinions – and I’m interested in hearing other viewpoints.
Support – The Literal Meanings
Oxford English Dictionary defines “support” as a verb in the following manners:
In the eyes of some, the way I define support might be called blind faith by some, some might even call it stupidity, but I call it my way of offering my support. Whatever is happening at our club, rightly or wrongly, I support whatever decisions the club makes even if I don’t agree with it.
Take Alex McLeish for example – I wouldn’t have choose him for my club, but he is here, and because he is here, and because he is therefore in charge of my club, I will support him. It haven’t taken my stance because I like him or dislike him personally, it is because I think internal issues between fans and the club causes more damage than good in the long run. Let me be clear and say I’m not accepting decisions for decisions’ sake, I am doing it because it is what I think is the best way to support the team, and therefore the club as a whole.
The reason this is my way of doing things is simple – I don’t own the club. It probably sounds rather obvious, but I think many fans think they have more power over the club than they really do. The reality is the club can do what they want, and all we can do is attend games or not attend games. Beyond that, there’s little that we can do now that Aston Villa is a privately owned company.
Whatever happens at B6, it is all part of my journey of being a Villa fan. Sometimes things go right, and sometimes things go MON-umentally wrong (see what I did there) but whatever happens I try to make the most of it. It is a choice to look at things in a positive light, and that is what works for me, and it actually makes it easier. The other option is to be continually angry about the situation, but I refuse to let the actions of someone I have no influence over make my life a misery.
Describing why I treat the club the way I do is difficult. For me, it is akin to being in love. When you’re in love, you just follow your feelings and what makes you happy so, in the same manner, I love my club, and I support it through thick and thin, good times and bad. I’ve loved it since I was a lad, so it’s in my blood, and regardless of how the club does each game or each season, I always wear my colours with pride, and consider myself proud to be a Villan.
For Every Door That Closes, Another One Opens
I understand that things aren’t rosy at the club all the time, just like life isn’t always brilliant, but I look for positives to focus on rather than negatives. Yes, it is harder to find positives, especially in bad situations, but when you have been in a bad situation you realise what you can and can’t do, and how you should be happy because who knows when your time may be up.
I don’t suggest for a second that I am infallible, or that my support is always easy to maintain, especially when situations create bad feelings and bad feelings create situations. For the most part I use my Thursday slot to try and rally the troops, to be positive, and to do what I think is best to protect the club and the fans as a whole. Nobody wants to see fighting amongst us fans, so I want us to stick together – better that we have each other’s back than looking like a group in mutiny to the outside world.
Underlying all these ideas is one simple concept – “positivity is key”. Positivity has huge power, and it breed confidence, and we all know confidence can mean improved performances and thus more points secured. If the players have that confidence, the team rallies and they improve. Just look at Steve Kean – here was a guy who was a dead cert to be sacked this year, and yet has outlasted Andre Villas-Boas, Steve Bruce, Neil Warnock, and Mick McCarthy to name a few. Instead, he’s managed to make changes, albeit small ones, but it means he is the outsider for relegation nowadays rather than the dead cert he appeared to be a while back.
Contrast that with the faith, or rather the lack of, that Wolverhampton Wanderers had with their manager. McCarthy has been sacked, and Wolves seem more likely to go down. Maybe if they had kept their faith in Mick despite his poor run, he might have changed things. As it stands, I don’t personally think Terry Connor has the ability to keep them up now.
Please don’t think I don’t understand the details of what is going on at the club, or the damage that things can do to our beloved Villa – I understand that totally. I am just like you – I see things happening, and I feel things happening but I don’t focus on it or let it ruin my life or my enjoyment of football. Our long term future relies on us as fans, and being able to take the good times as well as the bad, as there will always be fluctuations. No team, not even the biggest teams in the world, continually have good times, so a supporter should realise that and support accordingly.
Without sounding overly dramatic, it actually hurts when I go on to web sites or Twitter and see our fans at each others’ throats over internal issues, whether it is the supposed fault of the club, the players, the manager, the owner, or anyone else connected to the club. I have to take a break as otherwise seeing that kind of situation gets me down – I don’t want to get dragged into it as otherwise I’d be forever in an argument with one person or another.
An example of this is I have made comments and ended up in an argument when I just stated an opinion – I didn’t suggest I was right or wrong. Anyway, regardless of who is the manager, who plays for us, or who owns us, Villa will forever be my club. I will always be faithful to the club, loyal, and will continue to support the club in my own way. It may not suit everyone, but it works for me.
Brummie by birth, Villan by the grace of God – Villa Till I Die.
The Author
