And Now, The End is Near

Or

We're on the Road to Nowhere

#AVFC

And you may find yourself

With a useless owner

And you may find yourself

With a helpless coach

And you may find yourself

With miserable support

And losing every game

And you may ask yourself

Well

How did I get here?

Randolph David Lerner will not go down as the best sports team owner of all time.

He will not go down as a good sports team owner.

But he will go down as a very bad one.

Ask the Aston Villa fans.  Or ask the Cleveland Browns fans.  His record at both clubs speaks for itself.

Villa have spent the last few years of circling the vortex of relegation, and it now appears that they have decided to engage full throttle and speed towards that black hole.

So what did go so terribly wrong?  What happened to the "Bright Future" we were promised?

Despite pundits and experts who might sometimes make it appear otherwise there are some very simple football rules that you should follow in order to avoid making a complete cluster fuck of everything you do.   The list featured in this blog is in NO WAY meant to be a comprehensive list of mistakes made by Randy Lerner and his assistants.  For they are Legion.

Rule 1
Don't sell your best players and bring in inferior replacements.  

No matter how much or how little you know about football, I would have thought that rule would be self evident.  But we can get back to this one later.

Of course there are other rules that are perhaps more nuanced.  Break any one of them and you might be in a bit of trouble.  Break them all and you'll probably find yourself speeding towards demotion more quickly than you can say 19 games without a win.

To me, the real decline began in June 2011.  Villa had briefly been in trouble the previous season, but had rallied and secured a top 10 position in the premier league with a strong finish.  And then manager Gerard Houllier succumbed to his notorious dicky ticker and the search for his replacement was on.  

But Who would this replacement be?  David Moyes?  Steve Mclaren?  The more ambitious among the Villa fans named "The Special One", Jose Mourinho!  

But Randy Lerner had someone different in mind, thanks to some great advice from rival Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson!

Rule 2
When you're choosing a new manager, hiring the manager who has just overseen the relegation of the neighbouring team is not the most obvious choice
Rule 2a
Especially when you have to pay that neighbouring team a high compensation fee for hiring this manager.

A short hop across the city

And so the Alex Mcleish crossed the short distance from arch rivals Birmingham City to join Aston Villa.  And until the end of our days, Aston Villa fans will look at the breaking of rule 2 (and 2a), scratch our heads, look at one another in bewilderment, and ask "why"?

At the time, some of us scrabbled around like desperate debt ridden prospectors scratching for gold in a barren country, looking for some hidden reason that we MUST have missed in this inexplicable decision.  Randy has a cunning plan, we thought frantically.  He knows something that we don't.  Yes, that's it!!!

But he didn't.

He really didn't.

He really really didn't.

The not quite so dark side of this utter shit storm was that in those heady days of 2012, the Aston Villa support had not yet been cowed into submission by relentlessly awful football and inevitable defeat following inevitable defeat.  And so as another disaster unfolded on the pitch before us one spring evening, the Villa Park stadium echoed to the chants of "we want our Villa back", and demands for Alex Mcleish to be sacked.  When you've lost the crowd like that there is only ever one outcome.

I have heard from many sources that Alex Mcleish is a decent guy and the kind of chap you could go for a beer with, so it is unfortunate things ended the way they did for him.  But to my mind he was put into an impossible position with an ending that was virtually inevitable.

So was Lerner a learner now?  Or did he now merely have the opportunity to make further mistakes?

Rule 3
You pay peanuts you get...

The next man appointed to the job of Aston Villa supremo was Paul Lambert, another dour Scotsman, but a far more popular appointment. 

A popular appointment

Paul's predecessors, Martin O'Neill and to some extent the aforementioned Alex Mcleish, had been critisized for signing players on long contracts with big wages and little sell on value.  So someone in the Lerner regime had the bright idea of doing the opposite - buying young, untried players from lower leagues in England and abroad for cheap fees, then converting them into stars and selling them on at massive profits.  The "Moneyball" philosophy.  Many of the current playing staff, now surplus to requirements, were unceremoniously banished to train with the reserves and the youth players, where they christened themselves "The Bomb Squad".  And they continued to pick up their high wages.  

The more cautious among the support raised alarm bells.

Shouldn't these young untried players have some experienced heads to lean upon?

If we're going to try and sell on the high earners, shouldn't they get the chance of some game time to "put themselves in the shop window" so to speak?

If you buy from the lower divisions, isn't there a chance that that's where you will end up?

These cries were unheeded.

Paul Lambert's reign as manager was not a complete disaster.  Christian Benteke, his most expensive signing, is a great player.  Fabian Delph, who had previously struggled with injuries and confidence, blossomed into the midfield general we all hoped he could be.  

But it was mostly a disaster.  The football style that Lambert bought in started off boldly, and was almost naive in its attacking intent.  Gradually it became more guarded, and less organised.  Eventually it was clueless and hopeless.  Lambert's assistant coaches were sacked for bullying.  The cheap "young and hungry players" began to succumb to failure (if you ever arrive to watch a football match and find out Aleksandar Tonev is playing, wear protective clothing.  The safest place in the ground when he takes a shot is the goal).

And as Villa edged ever closer to the trapdoor, even Randy Lerner began to feel "like the Shunammite" (I'm not kidding, he said that).  Yes, the time had come for Randy to sell up and move on.

Rule 4
When you are trying to get £200 million for an asset you're desperate to get rid of, try not to LOOK too desperate

To me, the announcement on the official website that Aston Villa were now up for sale was needless, and, well, a bit rubbish really.  Usually when a professional football club is sold, the first you hear of it is when the new owners are negotiating the sale.  Sometimes you don't hear of anything until the sale is complete.  Certainly a lame announcement, accompanied by some kind of weird dear John letter is not the kind of thing that will get investors knocking down your door.

And so it has proved.

Season 2014/2015 dawned like a caress on the head with a brick, and by now Paul Lambert was a dejected, isolated figure on the touchline, watching helplessly as his team charged towards relegation like a runaway train full of lemmings speeding towards the edge of a cliff and attempting to reach 85MPH for a time travel experiment.  For everyone's sake he was put out of his misery.

From an impressive list of one possible replacement, cheeky cockney barrow boy and ex Spurs chief Tim Sherwood was chosen.  Sherwood was not known for his appreciation of the finer points of football strategy, hence his less than complimentary nickname, "Tactics Tim".  But what he lacked in tactical acumen it was hoped that he would make up for with brash confidence and self belief that he could pass on to his his players.  Confidence and self belief, which it must be said Mr Sherwood has in abundance.  

Confident!

This was either going to be an inspired choice or a catastrophe.  And, for a while it appeared to be the former!  A rejuvenated Aston Villa clawed their way out of the dropzone with some dynamic performances, and they even got to the FA Cup Final, on the way knocking out bitter rivals West Bromwich Albion, giving me a trip to Wembley for the semi-finals where I enjoyed watching Villa triumph over Liverpool with goals from the aforementioned Fabian Delph and Christian Benteke.

Look Mom, I'm at Wembley!

Then, at a certain point (half time against West Ham on 9th May would be my rough estimate), the decision changed into a catastrophe, and Tim Sherwood managed to produce just one victory over the next five and a half months, including 6 straight defeats in his last 6 matches, and an embarrassingly one sided defeat in the FA Cup Final (ah well, at least I can remember the semis).  It was time for Tim to hit the road.

It wasn't all Tim's fault it had to be said.  Last Summer Villa broke the golden rule (rule number 1, told you we'd get back to it!) for the last time, and it was goodbye Mr Benteke (all the best and thanks for the goals which kept us up for 3 seasons) and Mr Delph (thanks for telling us you'd be at Villa for years to come before changing your mind 5 days later).

Now Villa's latest manager is Remi Garde.  What do we know about Monseuir Garde?  Used to manage French side Lyon, played for Arsenal in the 1990s, and talks a good game.  Villa desperately needed someone to wake them up...

... But for all his effectiveness so far (ten games, no victories at the time of writing) we might as well be managed by Renee from Allo Allo (and at least Renee from Allo Allo could distract us from what was going on the pitch by showing us pictures of the Fallen Madonna with the Big Boobies).

You stupid football team!

So here we are, 11 points from safety, 7 points from second bottom (Sunderland, who were the latest team to put Villa to the sword at the time of writing).  Next season the lower divisions beckon, and for the Premier League obsessed media and the success driven glory hunters, we'll be another 

fallen giant, following in the footsteps of Leeds United and Nottingham Forest, and disappearing from view.  

Of course We've been down before, and we came back.  If Mr Lerner managed to sell up and find us a very rich sugar daddy as a buyer that would help.

Keep the Faith.

Many of the gifs and pictures used in this blog were taken from a very amusing discussion thread in the forum Heroes and Villains.

Once More With Feeling - Or A Moan About Writer's Block

I've always envied those that can create prolifically.  Creatively I'm what in football terms is called a 'confidence player'.  i.e. a player for which certain things, psychological and sometimes physical, have to be in place before they can produce (including the famous 'arm round the shoulder', which is usually provided by the manager/coach, and accompanied by words that will indulge the confidence player's ego).

Of course, writing is not football, and it's very difficult to define what those 'certain things' might be, in creative terms, unfortunately.  For myself, engendering creativity is almost like an engine that needs a different combination of actions applied to it every time before it will 'kick start' (there's kind of an idea in there already I guess...).  The good news is that once it belches out an idea, and that light bulb clicks on, I feel compelled to scribble down whatever it's told me I should be writing about.

One day, perhaps, science will derive the mathematical formula that is behind the human creative spark.  I have mixed feelings about this prospect.  On the one hand harnessing this force could give us a very powerful tool in the advancement of knowledge and all kinds of progress.  On the other hand, would it make us any more ethical, any more moral?  At the worst I suppose it could speed us down the road to extinction as we come up with ever more creative methods of destruction.

The other reservation I have about the 'mathematical formula of creativity' is just the feeling that some mysteries should remain mysteries.  There is nothing logical I can give to justify this feeling, other than a need to believe that there is still some magic in the Universe.

Getting back to what (to the best of my knowledge) inspires me to write, I would say vision and feeling.  A vision comes to you, and it is accompanied by the feeling that the vision gives to you.  Recently, I collaborated on plotting a story based upon this picture:

The person who collaborated with me suggested that although I was making plenty of suggestions as to the concepts and the course of the story, I wasn't putting much 'feeling' into it.  At the time I did kind of dismiss the criticism as a bit girly (hope my collaborator doesn't mind me putting it in those terms if she's reading...) but upon reflection I find the criticism may have been valid.  I suppose it was down to the affect that the picture had on me, ultimately.

So is there a 'creative fuel' that can be guaranteed to supply both the 'vision' and the 'feeling'?  For me, there is: music.  Not every piece of music of course.  just certain pieces and at certain times.

And so I'll close this blog with an example of a song that has had precisely this affect, and screamed at me "I am a story waiting to happen".

Will I ever write that story?  Maybe.

If you listen to this song and get a 'vision and a feeling' then you have my commiserations - because there's something in your mind that works in a similar way to mine.

 

Exerts From My Dream Diary

Dream 1
I was on my way to the football match. I was on a minibus, which was taking the strangest and most random route to the game.  We raced down cobbled streets, through buildings and down river banks.  Eventually we reached the stadium of Aston Villa FC and I disembarked.  Aston Villa’s stadium, Villa Park, looked nothing like I remembered, but I did not feel any concern.  I made my way to my seat.

It was difficult to concentrate on the football match, for more than one reason.  For a start there seemed to be many attractive ladies at the match.  For another reason, there were two guys sitting next to me who were having a loud conversation.  One of them had blond hair and seemed very angry, and he ranted and shouted a lot.  His colleague had black hair, was very cool and detached and had a European accent (could’t quite place the country).

Although the blonde haired guy seemed very angry about something, he appreciated the more laid back view of his friend.  At one point he asked his friend, “do you believe in God?”
“Hmm… Interesting…” said the dark haired guy.

I was quite annoyed by their conversation.  Deep meaning philosophical conversations aren’t meant to be had at the football, I thought, they are meant to be had at the pub.  I got up and left.

The journey home from the match was even more random than the journey to the game, and the minibus was speeding through a small picturesque village.  I could feel the fear of the driver, who was terrified that the bus would crash into a wall.  But suddenly we burst onto a river bank, and the driver lost control, and we tumbled into the dark, cold water.

I recovered and swam away from the bus, now being pursued by a herd of swimming cows.  Fortunately for me, the river was contained within high walls, like a reservoir, and I was able to hang on to a vine that grew from one of those walls as the herd of cows swam past.

I watched one of the cows, a brown cow with a big fat cow body, climb over the wall.  As it did so, we regarded each other solemnly.


Dream 2
There was a town in Alaska where all they did was have sex.  They had sex as often and with as many people as possible.  There was even a totem pole standing at the boundary of the town, featuring scenes that were a bit like the Karma Sutra, including scenes of mass orgies.  One of the girls who lived in the town had picked up a boyfriend, but he had no idea about her lifestyle.  A guy is making a documentary about this situation and is driving out to meet the boyfriend to break the bad news to him. 

“How could he not know about the way his girlfriend lives?” says the documentary maker, “There’s even a totem pole outside the town with all of those depictions!”

When the boyfriend hears the news he is very upset, as you would expect.  The rest of the documentary follows him around as he attempts to cope with the way things are.  The documentary maker grows more sympathetic towards him as time goes by.

At one point, in his frustration, the boyfriend grabs a microphone and sings a song.  Here are the words:

F*ck f*ck f*ck f*ck f*ck f*ck f*ck f***ck,
F*ck f*ck f*ck f*ck f*ck f*ck f*ck f**ck fuggidy f***ck…