There’s no football this weekend, well no football that matters (England versus San Marino? Not exactly a thriller in the making, is it?). So, instead, I was going to take a different angle and look back on other things.
What things? My exciting time watching Netflix? Perhaps some photos of what I’ve been eating? No, I’m not going to bore you with that kind of thing – instead I’ll look specifically at Aston Villa Life.
You see, two years ago, this site many of us like to call home was started by yours truly. What it was then, and what it is now are incomparable.
You see, nowadays, we are hitting 30,000 readers a month which, to be honest, is frankly astonishing. None of this would be possible without everyone who is involved – and I mean everyone – as no individual ranks any higher than anyone else in this place. Some might call that borderline communism – mostly American Republicans – but you can blame my working class upbringing for the lack of pretence.
What I wanted to do was to take the time to thank everyone who has been a part of Aston Villa Life – whether as a reader, writer, or person who comments – for your role in the way the site has developed from strength to strength.
Looking Towards The Future
In order to plan what comes next, I am always on the lookout for what the community wants. Sure, I have implemented design changes and functionality additions in my own role of directing the angle of the site, but what the fans want matters, and therefore I have decided to address this with the following.
We are going to be looking at recruiting more writers to the team. In keeping with both private and public comments I have received, I will also be looking for those who write to be part of the community rather than just writers.
What do you mean? Well, it hasn’t gone unnoticed to see that the regulars on here want the people who write the articles to be part of the discussion. The absence of this interaction has, in my opinion, led to a view from some that certain writers aren’t as interested in the community as others. Again, I imagine a lot of this comes from the working class roots of myself and the readers – we have been brought up to know nobody is better than anyone else.
So, with that equality in mind, we may well be having a combination of new writers who want to adhere to the community voted policy, as well as a change in how existing writers are involved with the site (as far as they are able to given work commitments).
What I do want to hear about is your feedback as users. I’ve no doubt that by comment twenty, we’ll probably be discussing wingers anyway (here’s to you, Frem), but your input – the readers – is important to how Aston Villa Life develops.
I’d also like to punt out an idea to see what others think in addition to the change in writing policy.
Would You Prefer Aston Villa Life To Take A More Official Stance
With an increasing readership from all corners of the globe (if I recall, we had readers in over 60 countries last month), a query has come to the forefront of my thoughts regarding an Aston Villa Life “suppporters club”.
Primarily foreign readers have asked for a unified “supporters club” under the Aston Villa Life brand. With that in mind, I will look to register a supporters club for readers of the site who might want to be organised under our collective rather than needing to find a local supporters club in places where there may not be many supporters.
I’ll also look to register the group with the Football Supporters Federation so we have an officially acknowledged presence away from the club, but directly related to Aston Villa. Having such a setup will also allow Aston Villa Life to represent itself to the club as an entity, something I am happy to front for the site.
I’ve been considering making some kind of move to give a voice to fans that is organised behind a common goal rather than being disorganised. In times of trouble, and in a period where accountability is key, I want to ensure that the club know how fans feel on key issues, and that the fans get closer to what is, after all, the essence of Aston Villa that will always belong to the fans – the spirit rather than the bricks and mortar.
In addition to this if we do go ahead with the supporters club idea, there comes the idea of how I can work this collective to the benefit of the group. This is where your thoughts come in as readers.
Do we go for a subscription model where I find deals for those who are willing to contribute to the upkeep of Aston Villa Life? After all, given the site runs out of my back pocket, any way of helping offset that cost would be great. Beyond the cost of the servers, we can throw the remainder in to a pot and organise an end-of-season method of drinking the capital.
I would like to clear up that if we did go for an idea of a club with subscribers that this would, in no way, affect the site in terms of content – reading and commenting on articles will remain free – with the additional group conferring benefits that are currently not supplied by the site.
So, in short, what do you think? Is it a good idea? A bad idea?
Also, what are your ideas? What do you want Aston Villa Life to do for you? What functionality would you like? Is there anything we can do better?
Let me know and, in the meantime, I’d like to thank you for all of your support – it has been a fantastic honour to be able to serve the community as I do my utmost to do, and I will be forever indebted to all of you for putting the life in Aston Villa Life.
The Author
