Reading the article by Dutchman earlier on it got me thinking about the days of when Kia Joorabchian was found out as not having the readies to buy the club and the Icelandic consortium was ready to pounce after being granted permission to look at the books.
The run of results we were on was horrendous and moral was low (plus rumours were abound of a particular manager’s activities that I don’t want to get sued for mentioning). Brown was still hated and things were on a downward spiral. The front of the Icelanders, Eggert Magnusson (easy to pronounce name, willing to give a sound byte or two) was the face of the owners and was having to put out a lot of fires until we managed to stay up.That period from December 2006 to May 2007 was not really the time to be implementing different fan friendly policies that you should look to at a more stable time and one in which you can go over things with a finer toothcomb. Summer 2007 onwards is when I judge the owners from with regards to how the club is being run off the field; it's been a year now and what’s happened in that year?
We achieved what was asked (mid-table after survival, Europe the next season), had some decent players bought in and sent them straight to the physio room! Something I want to touch on is the kicking to touch of Eggert. It’s becoming clearer by the day why he was shown the door, the amount of money being splashed about with no financial safeguards in place. The termination of Ljungberg’s contract is an indication of a correcting the 'mistakes' of previous contract negotiatons, which was Eggert's responsibility.
Also now that Eggy has gone, there is not that instantly recognisable face to the club, the one that people from outside can point out as 'that guy who’s the chairman of West Ham'. The high profile comes with more scrutiny but also it comes with being more open to the press and supporters. As I said before, you seem to get more of an indication of what’s going on with the sound bytes.
There have also been a number of other things which have attracted negative feedback like the incompetence of the megastore with regards to not actually ordering enough shirts to meet demand. So how do the club bridge this gap that’s emerged in letting the fans know while also maintaining control in the boardroom and starting to right some wrongs? To me the answer is 'simple'.
It’s not for the fans to stump up the money/wish for a new takeover and a new regime that will listen more, it’s for the current establishment and owners to open up more and learn from what’s going on at Aston Villa. At Villa Park fan participation on matters regarding the future of the club when it comes to ticketing, stewarding etc is encouraged and sought. Meetings with fan representatives are conducted and matters acted on. It also helps that representatives of the board and those who have Learner's ear go into the pubs and ask people what they want to see.
I am not suggesting BG turns up at the Boleyn and gets involved in a round of 'let's go f***ing mental' (which thinking about it would be pretty funny) but for the owners to actually listen to the fans in the way Villa have. It's one thing to take over a club and start putting money into it, it’s another entirely to actually engage the fans and win them over. BG has invested a lot of money to stabilise the club and leave it on a sound footing. I’d much rather that then splashing the cash and getting caught out (like Man City might be on the verge of doing). That’s what I think is behind the drive to cut the wage bill.
BG saw what was happening and did not like it as it does not fit with the vision of making the club viable financially and obviously the wages fall under that. Rising ticket prices is always the way after a takeover (I’d be surprised if a club ever got taken over and the prices stayed the same or even decreased slightly!) I am not saying making a few concessions here and there is the way to make people happy about swallowing these price hikes but it does go some way towards calming relations and creating a better dialogue in which the good of the fans and the club is at the heart of things.
It might seem pie in the sky but I still hold out hope that someone in the hierarchy actually pipes up and says that the board need to be more understanding towards fan issues and to also engage - because if they do not, the ill feeling will carry on unabated.
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