Aston Villa’s home form for months now has resulted in the attendees of Villa Park being subjected to low levels of football entertainment, an environment that would make a doctor’s waiting room seem more appealing. Sections of the claret and blue legions have described the atmosphere to be akin to a graveyard, and whilst there is no doubt supporters are expected to make noise in order to encourage the team, it makes sense that the footballers who are paid good money should be entertain – it may well be a chicken and egg situation, but something’s gotta give.

Unfortunately, at the moment the Villa side don’t seem capable of providing much entertainment or points return on home turf, thus in order to increase the decibel levels inside Villa Park the club may have to think outside of the box. Last weekend, in Serie A, Juventus played host to Udinese in Juventus Stadium, in what was a fairly drab affair.

The game ended 1-0 to the home side with Fernando Llorente grabbing the winner in injury time. Despite the obvious lack of entertainment (and goals) during the game, the noise levels & atmosphere were incredibly loud to say the least. Anyone watching the game must have been wondering if there was a streaker on the pitch off camera, presumably rising the voices and pulses of the spectators. Why? The game on the pitch did not warrant the homage it was receiving from the vocal cords of the home faithful.

What also made the game unique was the fact the kick off was moved to an unusually earlier 6:30pm local time. Why, you may ask? Well to accommodate the bedtime of 12,500 of the home crowd, of course that’s why. Juventus, in the weeks leading up to the match, were punished by the Italian FA for Territorial Discrimination.

What this meant is that sections of the stadium were subjected to certain sanctions. However, what Juventus did was turn a bad situation into a very positive, and loud, one. They constructed a proposal to the Italian FA asking if they could give the opportunity of cheering on the Bianconeri to 6,400 youngsters aged between 6 and 13 from behind the goals instead of sections of the stadium just being closed, and the Italian FA accepted the idea.

Leading up to the game Juventus had to amend the number of tickets, due to the phenomenal demand from schools in the Piedmont area, and the original number of 6,400 youngsters rose to 12,500. The noise that the youthful crowd generated was amazing – even watching the game via the medium of television, one could sense and certainly hear the exuberance and excitement.

Against Sunderland, Villa’s attendance was 33,036, even though at times the atmosphere might have made one think they were there on their own.

Nowadays, there are plenty of plastic seats going spare round Villa Park for almost every home game. Perhaps the club could give a large chunk of free tickets to the school kids in the surrounding areas? When one evaluates the benefits, in the short term the atmosphere and noise inside the stadium would greatly increase, but maybe the biggest reward for the club would be the longer term benefits.

Could such a move result in Villa gaining the loyalty of an entire generation of upcoming football lovers? Perhaps one of the youngsters might even see the team and want to play for Villa? One thing for sure, is it would be a nice cheap treat for the kids at a time when most families are struggling to afford luxuries worldwide.

They often say charity begins at home – maybe it could be the right time for Villa to make the first step.

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