The Continuing Demise of Aston Villa Fc - Defeat at Doncaster

I feel compelled to write something regarding a football club which I have supported, albeit mainly from a distance, since I was a boy. The last disgraceful episode in the history of Aston Villa Fc was the 3-0 defeat at Doncaster in the league cup. I can take nothing away from Doncaster, who played like lions on the night. They were full of running and pressurised us from the word go. However the point here is that a team of Aston Villa's obvious size, standing and sometimes glorious past should have been far too much for even the bravest of lower division teams. This was not a one off; sadly it was indicative of the general malaise which seems to have set in at the club over the last two years.

Here is a good example. Our 9million pound club record signing, Juan Pablo Angel strolled round the park (when he did actually move) looking like he did not want to be there. For the most part he loped towards the opposition penalty area when we got forward and then stood around waiting for something to happen. I am no expert in the art of striking, but from many hours watching some of the best strikers in the world even I can tell that a good striker will make something happen, not wait for it to fall into his lap. The fact that he has only managed to score this season against lowly Wickham Wanderers, in an earlier round of the cup, I think says it all.

Liam Ridgewell had a nightmare against Doncaster, giving away a penalty and being lucky not to concede another only a few minutes earlier, however, the fact that he was so noticeably bad at least confirmed some effort on his part. Thomas Sorenson played well throughout and the 3-0 score line will look badly on his record, but was mainly down to shambolic defending. Gareth Barry also had a good game, frequently getting down the left on Doncasters wide pitch. However whenever he did so the moves were broken up by the fact that no one was making the runs into the centre for him and our static strikers were being easily marked by defenders they should have been running rings round.

Perhaps the only other player I cannot fault for effort was Milan Barros, who unfortunately looked like he did not relish the cold and his touch on the ball was often well short of what we know he is capable of. I think the game perhaps turned on the penalty claim which TV replays show was an abject penalty when Milan Barros was chopped down in the box. Villa seemed to give up after the penalty was turned down. That aside Doncaster should have had another one when Liam Ridgewell very deliberately shoulder barged one of their players off the ball.

Considering that the league cup was our only realistic chance of success this season, you would have thought that we could have expected a little bit more from the players. It seems to me that the hunger has gone from the side and we have accepted the mid-table mediocrity that is so often the result of a long hard season. And indeed, the league position suggests that they think that even that will be handed to them on a plate. Quite simply it is not good enough. These players are earning - a very loose definition of the word - thousands of pounds per week, and much of that comes out of the ordinary supporters pockets.

I know for a fact that Aston Villa have some of the most fiercely loyal supporters in the land, which perhaps explains why they continue to spend money on substandard products rather than shop elsewhere. However you cannot help thinking that in years to come, unless things change radically, this will not be the case. In todays society where more and more people are moving away from their towns of birth for employment and social reasons, clubs cannot rely on regional association to maintain their fan base and success, however infrequent, is the only thing which will keep the fans returning.

Aston Villa has always been considered the bigger of the two Birmingham clubs and indeed Birmingham is the second largest city in England. To not have a football team in the top half of the table challenging for honours is unacceptable, or at the very least, surreal.

I have been reading recently that Doug Ellis has finally decided to relinquish control of the club. Doug has done very well for Aston Villa over the years (I am not one of those who blames him for our demise) and has managed to keep the business in a very strong position financially when so many other clubs are in deep financial trouble. Unfortunately the world of football has moved on from when Doug started and it is time for a fresh injection of cash and some new faces to try and revive the club. I sincerely believe it is time for a wholesale change in personnel at the club, players and manager alike.

Irish property developers the Comer Brothers and Michael Neville who are looking to purchase Villa for around 64million will certainly inject some cash to be spent on players, but my cynical side tells me giving it to a manager who fails to inspire his team will merely lead to a squandering of a golden opportunity. Dont get me wrong, I have nothing against David O'Leary as a manager and I think in the right circumstances he is very capable. I am suggesting, however, that he has become associated with the failures of Villa over the past couple of years and retaining him for much longer will keep that link to the bad days, when the club needs much more positive input. Likewise Juan Pablo Angel. He is simply another in the long line of expensive strikers who have moved to Villa and failed to live up to their potential. He is a very talented individual and I think perhaps he would benefit from a change of clubs. It is time to cut our losses.

For the Villa fans, we can only hope that the new year brings a new attitude at the club and that things will improve - lets face it, they cant get much worse after a 3-0 defeat at Doncaster!

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Some Thoughts on the Super Bowl

I am a genetically mapped New York Giant football fan which pretty much makes me just like millions of other DNA doomed dummies who for some unexplainable reason innately pledge their allegiance to a set of colors, numbers and helmet symbols for eternity. Like Canadian geese, we partner with a team for life, through thick and thin, good times and bad, seasons ending in playoffs and seasons ending with top five choices. It is the football gene and if you have it, you understand. Alas, if only marriage could work the same.

The fact is it isnt like marriage. It is not that we are in love with our teams and our teams in love with us. If that were true, it would be like a relationship, requiring everyones needs to be met, resulting in fans dropping the souring attraction of one team for the empty promises of another. Nope, love is not involved. Its a pathetic, sad, lonely one way street that is determined at birth. You are what you are: a Steeler, a Charger, a Seahawk, a Bengal, a Buccaneer. Some of us taste sweet victories frequently, while others wallow in self pity perpetually. It is no different from some people being tall and some people being short. It is my hope that someday stem cell research will produce a treatment to help some of my suffering brothers; for example, change a Cardinal fan into a Cowboy fan, giving them some hope of enjoying a winning season before they die.

It is our game. We dont particularly delight in watching our teams flounder amidst a room full of fence sitters, people without the gene. Youre either with us or against us. And when it is late October and all we can think about is replacing coaches, players and team ownership, our shoulders slump as we prepare to endure the inescapable long November and December weekends in silent lonesome agony.

It is a terrible, terrible existence; worse than that experienced by other sport fans because there is so much time for so few games. This imbalance gives the true football fan plenty of time to trick ones mind to think with a few breaks here and a few calls there that a 1-7 start can miraculously turn into a 9-7 wild card berth, only to be soundly crushed eventually by the shear weight of the challenge.

But no matter how bad the season, we can all unite for that final game, the Super Bowl. We can all find a reason to like one team over another. Usually it is the result of some convoluted thinking that somehow our team is vindicated if the right team wins. For example, I was really pulling for the Seattle Seahawks in this last Super Bowl. Why? Because the NY Giants should have beaten the Seahawks. Everyone knows that. So if the Seahawks beat the Steelers, I could rest easier knowing we could have been there too. We could have been somebody.

Unfortunately, the Super Bowl has become tedious to watch for the genetically mapped fan. It seems as if the game is diced up and wedged into a five hour colossal commercial to the world of American self indulgence. The game is sixty minutes of play that normally takes two and a half to three hours to get through. The Super Bowl somehow shoehorns in two more hours from start to finish, thirty minutes right off the bat for scatting through what I think is the National Anthem, and then an additional ten minutes to flip the coin.

Every year it gets a bit more dramatic, a bit more long, a bit more embarrassing and a bit more intolerable. Just play the game! The players have worked so hard for this single game and the NFL pulls it out from under them with all the self serving promotion. For instance, this year they introduced a series of ten second clips throughout the game of despicable Super Bowl Trophy fondling, where key players from each team pose individually with the trophycaressing it, kissing it, and worse. You cant do that! Why its its its the epitome of putting on the whammy. They might just as well get the evil eye. Some of those guys are going to lose and when they do, they will have to live with the idea that they cursed the team with their ill-advised trophy antics. Theyd have to hold a gun to my head for me to do that. If the Giants ever get to Super Sunday again, to a player they better never ever touch that trophy, let alone even set eyes on it, before it is duly earned. The whole thing made me sick! I couldnt even eat another wing dripping in blue cheese sauce.

And what is going on with the half time extravaganza? Can we calm that thing down? Can we see more xs and os and less screaming clueless teenagers making a grown man cry. The game has become the opening act for a concert, rather than the other way around. There seems to be more concern about costume malfunctions than referee malfunctions, which there were plenty of. I suppose I could put the extra time to good use, like paint the house, but I dont want to. I want to stay involved in the moment of the battle. But these Vegas shows are killing my patience. And as bad as it is for the fan, it must be brutal keeping players focused in the locker rooms.

Having said all that, we know that most of the added time is due to the commercials. Ah, the commercials. It is all about the commercials. How can they extend the game to make a few more bucks on commercials? Why dont they give each coach ten time outs? Why dont they have two minute warnings every minute? Pretty soon, theyll have to start the game noon Saturday and have it end midnight Sunday. And the commercials arent even that entertaining anymore. Its killing me. The madness has to stop.

So here are some ideas to get the game that the real fans support so tirelessly back on track. First, eliminate the extra week prior to the game and shift the season so that the Super Bowl is played on Presidents Day weekend. Second, fix the refereeing by employing full time referee teams. Third, use the half time to honor the latest Hall of Fame inductees, or our troops, or Super Bowl MVPs of years pastmake it about the game or something noble, not about pop icons. If you want to have concerts, have them before the game starts. Finally, rein in the commercials.

What the NFL executives have allowed the Super Bowl to become is what is so unappealing about America to people who have no other lens. Everything is bigger than life. Everything is glitzy. Everything is so self important. Its a bad, media contrived face to the world. Please bring our simple, humble game back. Please let the players play the game they earned to play. Please stop the insanity.

Im beggin ya please!

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