Newcastle 1 – Aston Villa 0: When Supporters Turn on Each Other

“Notice how all the pro-Lamberk supporters have gone quiet?”

Or words to that effect. I saw the comment on Facebook on Sunday and haven’t bothered to look for them again. I know I captured the sentiment: it’s almost as if the commenter is pleased the team has lost, so he can make his point. Would he have been quietly fuming had we eked out a win or a draw?

Bad times have turned some supporters against one another. You only have to visit the forums and the Facebook pages to see that, moments of clarity aside, an astonishing amount of energy is being expended in a war of words between those who want to sack the manager and those who don’t. Just recently, I wrote that Paul Lambert isn’t the problem. I could be wrong, but I’m sticking to that, no matter how tempting it is to demand change, any change. Blaming one person is a reductive argument, and it’s not productive, because we don’t get to make the decision about whether he stays or goes. And fan infighting is definitely making the season harder to bear than simply the poor performances on the field. One Facebook commenter, saddened by the ongoing negativity, said he was going to stay offline for awhile.

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It’s not all about Lambert. It’s not all about Lerner. It’s not even all about the players. Who is it all about? The fans. Because our experience is what matters. Players, managers, owners—all of them will come and go. The fans are the only constant. It makes a certain amount of sense for fans to be angry with the players, the manager, the owner. It doesn’t really make sense for us to be angry with each other. It isn’t the fans’ job to play the games or pick the team or provide money for transfers and salaries. We’re not meant to be professionals, our judgment isn’t supposed to be infallible.

And is there any fan who doesn’t want the team to do well? We all want the team to do well, and we’re all equally powerless to do anything about it.

Well, almost. Supporters who are able to go to games can put aside the negativity and the infighting, sing and cheer and take on the identity of the mythical creature known as the Twelfth Man. Players are human, they hear it. Even if you think they are jaded professionals who don’t give a shit—and most of them aren’t, most of them are young men who want to do well—it can’t help but lift their spirits and their play.

But, aside from that, fans can’t do anything to affect what happens on the field. So, to preserve the illusion that they CAN do something, they argue with each other. I guess the idea is that, if you win an argument, you’re the better fan. For me, if you start an argument, you’re a poor fan. (I’m talking about real arguments as opposed to friendly banter. Say what you like, but say it with a smile on your face.)

Had we won the game, my response would not have been, “See? I’m right! Keep Lambert!” Because it’s not about Lambert.

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All season long, I’ve been wanting to write an essay for American readers, called, “Relegation: Best Idea Ever, or Merely the Best Idea in Sports?” Because I do believe that relegation is one of the things that makes the Premier League, and La Liga, and Bundesliga, and Serie A, and even Ligue 1, superior to NFL, MLB, NBA, and MLS. The idea that teams will be punished for lack of ambition, success, and results is a good one. Many American cities have teams who are perennial cellar dwellers. Sometimes ownership just doesn’t have the money to compete, sometimes it seems as thought they’d rather spend the money on something besides a competitive team.

But the threat of relegation makes a big club prove to its fans that it is a big club, willing to do what it takes to avoid the drop. And, if a club is too small to compete in the top league, then why not give the fans of another small club a thrill, a chance to see if they can get up and stay up. Look at Wigan: not a bad run.

It’s hard to cheer the idea of relegation this week, as Villa edge ever closer to the scrum at the bottom of the table. Just because I like the idea of relegation, doesn’t mean that I want to see Villa relegated. But the threat of relegation has another purpose besides culling the herd. It gives fans of underperforming teams something to cheer for. It quickens the blood. Here in Chicago, Cubs fans know too well the pain of following their team through a 162-game season with no hope of success and no consequence for failure. In such a situation, the fan becomes an ATM for its owners, visiting the park for the privilege of spending money—lots and lots of money—on overpriced tickets, beer, and merchandise.

Fear of the drop gives fans at the bottom of the table something to worry about and cheer for. It gives creates stakes where otherwise there would be none. It should be a reason we pull together, not fall apart. Yes, it’s been a string of the worst seasons in memory, but turning on each other won’t remedy that.

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Of course, fans of a small club recently promoted to the top tier can cheer a seventeenth-place finish unambiguously. For a small club that has long labored in lower divisions, survival is itself a victory.

It’s different for Villa. Villa is one of a handful of teams never to have been relegated from the Premier League. It’s a team that has won the European Cup. It’s a team with one of the longest, proudest, and richest traditions in English soccer—its fans are not content to merely stay up.

The question remains: is Villa still a big club? I believe it is, its fans know it is, and hopefully Randy Lerner understands this. He’s rich, but he’s not a sheikh or a Russian oligarch. He doesn’t see the team as an extension of himself, so he’s not going to throw money at it, not after what happened with Martin O’Neill. He’s getting the finances in order for measured improvement. Will we ever win the league again? I don’t know. I think we should grow back into a club that competes for fifth, sixth, or seventh every year. I think most of us would be happy with that.

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It’s taken me a couple of days, obviously, to write this. Time’s been in short supply and I’ve (clearly) had a hard time focusing my thoughts. There’s not much I want to say about the game itself. Our passing was awful, we allowed too many corners, and we gave Newcastle far too many chances. The only thing that saved us as long as it did was that their finishing was woeful. I heard someone describe it as “Two drunks trying to fit their keys in the lock,” which is apt.

I keep playing our best chance in my head. Benteke, moving toward the goal with the ball at his feet. He has support to the right and the left. We have numbers. All he has to do is play the ball to the open man at his left, and surely we score. But Benteke dithers, perhaps thinking he’ll be the hero, he loses the ball, the moment is over.

Benteke, our savior last season: could he become an albatross, the man we wished we’d sold when we had the chance?

There’s no doubt about it, this one hurt. I rate my pain at about a seven. You?

Villan of the Week: George Wilson

I haven’t met George Wilson, but Rick Edwards vouched for this Memphis-born Villan, and that’s good enough for me. The more stories I learn about other American supporters, the more kinship I feel with them. Our reasons for choosing Villa are often eerily similar: it clearly takes a certain kind of person to see past the recent cash infusions that have transformed some front-running clubs to instead follow one whose best moments lie in the past—and, we believe, in the future. And I couldn’t agree more with what George says about what it means to support the team.

The Starting Eleven

Where were you born, where do you live now, and what do you do for a living?

I was born in Memphis, Tennessee, but lived all over the South before making my way here to Marquette, Michigan.

How and when did you choose Villa?

I started watching European soccer around 2006. I watched some Scottish Premier League, Serie A, and La Liga, but quickly realized the talent and history of the EPL. I knew when looking for a team that I wasn’t interested in being a frontrunner. Nine times out of ten, a U.S. EPL fan supports one of five teams that regularly are at the top of the table. What’s the fun in that? I wanted a team that had history, style, and was going to fight their way up the table. Villa fit that bill perfectly.

What was your happiest moment as a Villa supporter?

Honestly, my happiest moments haven’t necessarily been associated with how the team played. My happiest moments have been when I’m able to be with lots of other Villa fans. Meeting the team in Columbus, Ohio, was a great day, but my happiest moments have been watching the team live with my fellow Chicago Villans. I’ve been told a hundred times that being a Villa supporter puts you in the company of the greatest group of fans on the planet. Every experience I’ve had with my Villa brethren has proven that true.

What was your most painful moment?

It was the back-to-back losses in March 2009—when we got destroyed at Anfield 5-0 and then lost at Old Trafford 3-2 with United scoring late—to two teams I despise in two successive games. Recent years have taught me to have more patience with the squad, but back in 2009 I expected to earn a Champions League spot. So the losses were all the more crushing.

Which team would you most like to see Villa beat (or beat again) this year?

I’ve managed to maintain a constant disdain for Liverpool ever since I started watching Premier League. I really don’t care what happens in any given week to lots of teams, but I always like to see Liverpool lose—especially to us.

Who is your favorite player on the current squad?

It’s really hard to pick just one, but I’ll go with Gabby. He’s been the one constant across all the years I’ve been following Villa. He’s gone through a few dry spells, but he always seems to come through for us when we need someone to step up.

Who is your favorite player of all time?

I haven’t followed the squad long enough to have an all-time favorite, so I’ll stick with Gabby for this one too. I have to give an honorable mention to Olof Mellberg. If I had started following Villa a few years earlier, I suspect he would be my choice. He was a tough defender and had some skill on set pieces.

What are your favorite sources for Villa news?

The rise of fan pages on Facebook has made that the most convenient way to keep up with Villa news. I used to check the BBC, Heroes and Villains, the official site, and several blogs each day, but now there are a legion of Villa fans doing that for me and reporting back everything on Facebook.

Rate yourself as a fan. What are your best and worst qualities?

Enjoying a pint of Widow Maker

If you are an American and you can honestly say your favorite sports team isn’t in the NFL, NCAA, MLB, or NBA, but instead is Aston Villa of the Barclay’s Premier League, then I think you’re pretty solid. Almost anyone who knows me personally or professionally knows that I love Aston Villa. I think my best quality as a fan is that I have learned to be patient with the results and get my satisfaction from simply being part of the Aston Villa universe. If the team pulled a Sheffield United and dropped into the bottom of League One, I’d still love Villa the same. I guess my worst quality is that it’s just too easy to flip off the TV when you’re half a world away and the squad is playing like crap. I’ve been known to go shovel snow rather than watch the second half an uninspiring performance.

Where do you usually watch games?

There aren’t any pubs where I can watch Villa on a Saturday morning in Marquette, so I usually watch at home. I’m working on seeing if we can get a place to open for morning games, but I’ve found no takers yet.

What are you usually drinking?

I like the local brews and Keweenaw Brewing Company makes a fantastic black ale called Widow Maker. That is my beer of choice, but among the larger commercial brews, I like Bass.

Extra Time

Match any player on the current squad with the cartoon character that is most like him. (You could also choose a former player if you’d rather.)

I immediately thought of Randy Lerner as Mr. Krabs from SpongeBob SquarePants since he really knows how to pinch a penny, but you said player. Then I thought of Paul Lambert as Wile E. Coyote from Looney Tunes since he was always coming up with new, “ingenious” plans on how to catch the Road Runner that usually ended with him falling off a cliff—but you said player. The obvious matches would be Ron Vlaar as Thor and Brad Guzan as Captain America, but I’m going to go with Marc Albrighton as Meg Griffith from Family Guy. It doesn’t matter what Meg does, good or bad, she never gets any love. I think our fans treat Marc that way a lot.

Going Farther, Getting Closer to the Game

Or: How are you going to keep the fans down on the farm after they’ve seen Barcelona?

On my way to work this morning (picture me standing at the absolute front of a crowded 148 bus, making its way down Lake Shore Drive toward the sunny skyline of Chicago), reading a few pages of Arthur Hopcraft’s legendary The Football Man, I came across this sentence:

But the process of the running down of small clubs in the Third and Fourth Divisions had already begun, not because players wanted more money but because a more mobile, more amused population was ready and able to travel further for its enjoyment.

This is from the chapter “The Player,” and Hopcraft is writing about the the years 1960–1963, when, after years of being treated like chattel by the club owners, English players finally won the right to negotiate their own contracts and to be paid commensurately with their talents. It’s a dramatic story, and one that has been repeated at different times in different sports. But what really resonated with me, at this moment, was the idea of more mobile fans who are willing to travel farther for their football, given the promise of more entertaining games.

At the time, that must have meant that, despite your family’s allegiance to, say, fourth-division Whatsit Wanderers, who play at a small ground in your village, rising wages and ease of travel meant that you might consider an hour’s journey to see a bigger club in an actual stadium. And, having seen the game played at a higher level, the Whatsits’ regular fixtures begin to lose some of their allure.

Fast forward 50 years, to the era of ultimate mobility. Many Villans of my acquaintance make an annual pilgrimage back to Brum to catch a game—some travel more than once. (An upcoming Villan of the Week is this very day flying from San Diego to B6 for the Cardiff City fixture, may he bring us many goals.) You would think that all this travel, the ability to choose, would make us fickle. And yet. While many of has have second teams, or take in local games for the atmosphere, and truly voracious fans pick a team in La Liga, Serie A, the Bundesliga, and even MLS, I’ve never heard of someone who, say, stopped following Villa and chose another team because it was more convenient. It’s unthinkable.

So increased mobility allows us to choose any team, but once chosen, that team stays ours.

And think about TV, the ultimate in mobility. Now we can watch almost any game played anywhere. (Although China is still mostly out of reach; my younger son, who is learning Chinese at school, regularly complains about not being able to watch Chinese games.) Last night I watched parts of two Champions League games I had recorded, played in Spain and Germany, games played at the absolute highest levels. Before the advent of televised games, such a wealth of viewing was unthinkable.

Of course, I wonder whether this embarrassment of riches ultimately diminishes the game in some way. I love that I’m able to watch the very best players in the world, of course, but having seen their exploits, the players on my team pale in comparison. How can a local hero live up to Lionel Messi? And, when we can watch as many games in a week as our wives, children, jobs, and hemorrhoids will allow us to, isn’t each moment of genius a tiny bit devalued? (Not that I have hemorrhoids; I’m just saying there’s a limit to how much one can sit on one’s arse.) I don’t have the best memory to begin with, but I’m guessing that we all have a harder time remembering details, now that we can watch countless games in countless ways each year. When your local team was literally the only game in town, surely each moment mattered more, was remembered more.

Once I started following Villa, I found myself that much less interested in my local team, the Chicago Fire. The Fire aren’t as good as Villa, certainly most days, and they definitely don’t play equally challenging teams. So, in theory, if I spent last night watching Barcelona’s mesmerizing tika-taka, how can I stand to watch Villa hoofing the ball forward every time it reaches our keeper on Saturday? Well, in theory, I couldn’t, but that’s one of the mysteries of life, because, as much as I also enjoy watching the glamour teams in Champions League, I always come back to Villa. I chose them, or they chose me, and we’re stuck with each other, no matter the distance.

Aston Villa 3 – Manchester City 2: Beating the Blues

We still have a load of issues to address, but you know what? We will get better. And we’ve just bought ourselves a little time in which to do it.

I’ll admit it: I wasn’t looking forward to watching us play Manchester City. Yes, I had dutifully set my DVR to record the game, and, yes, I was hiding from the score as I spent the first part of Saturday coaching my AYSO teams. But I expected nothing. With a team that can’t win on the road playing a team that can’t win at home, my natural sense of fatalism kicked in and I assumed it would be City who would see their streak end first. They have bought some terrific players and, at times, have played some great soccer.

Then my friend John tweeted at me: WHAT A GAME. I had been avoiding Twitter, but an inadvertent glance at my phone’s lock screen let me know something was up. Then other tweets arrived. I was buoyed, thinking that, if nothing else, the game would be worth watching. Perhaps Villa had scored an equalizer, or even gone ahead, before ultimately succumbing to a Dzeko strike in stoppage time. Another loss, probably, but perhaps more hope for the future.

Then someone tweeted WE ARE VILLA and I thought, hold on, we got a point!

Funny how the mind works.

Anyway, back at home and with the kids sent off to the showers, I finally watched the game, hoping against hope that . . . I don’t know, could we have actually won this thing?

I know exactly how he feels. Except for the part about scoring the winning goal in a game nobody expected us to win. But apart from that, Andreas Weimann and I feel exactly the same way.

Well, you know the result, and I finally do, and it’s certainly one of the most unlikely come-from-behind victories I have ever seen. We gave up thirteen corner kicks, and two goals from corners, and relinquished possession for long stretches (we had only 33% overall) while we played five men across the back.

And yet! OK, El Ahmadi was offside, but only half a step. It doesn’t take anything away from the play. And what a free kick by Bacuna. The more I see this guy, the more I like him, and not least because he seems to actually enjoy playing the game. (Why don’t more players smile, I wonder? Surely getting paid to play the game you love can be fun?) And, finally, brilliant distribution from Guzan, a nice flick on from Kozak, shocking defending from City, and a confident finish from Weimann, who really has deserved to be on the score sheet more often this season, given his relentless desire to move forward.

Against Norwich, we got three points for a poor game. Against City, well, on balance we were outplayed—and we have to do something about our woeful defense of set pieces—but we finished our chances when we needed to. And City, despite having some of the best players money can buy, didn’t have what it took to close out what should have been their first three points on the road.

We have played six, lost three, and won three. We’re in ninth place. (Manchester United is in twelfth!) We won six points against two teams you have to figure will finish the season in the top four. We still have a load of issues to address, but you know what? We will get better. And we’ve just bought ourselves a little time in which to do it.

Final thought: Taking Villa out of it, this is shaping up to be an entertaining season. The top of the table (currently Arsenal, Liverpool, Tottenham, Chelsea) looks like it might be up for grabs, and the next three spots (Southhampton, Man City, Hull) show signs of change as well. No, I don’t expect the Saints and Tigers to be there for long, but in a weekend where Villa beat City, Tottenham played Chelsea to a draw, and even the Baggies beat Man United, it feels like anything is possible.

Which, as we all know, is an all too rare feeling.

Imagine following La Liga!