Great post

MrMagoo wrote:Do you think this is a similar story across more clubs?

QBVILLA wrote:On H&V website.This is certainly something i can associate with:



My brother was the first to take me to the Villa, in the mid eighties. He would go everywhere with them, home and away. I enjoyed ten years of his company on the Holte End, getting my terrace education and watching a game that was not yet swamped with player power and agents. My brother is a lot older than I am and during his mid thirties, just as things were looking up under Big Ron, and I was in my late teens, he just stopped going. It did not make sense; I used to tease him saying that he is not a real fan, that no way would I ever stop going to watch the Villa. I remember quite clearly he told me that one day it may happen to me, and once I stop going- as he did- it becomes an easy habit to get into. I did not believe him, he was talking nonsense!

So forward twenty and a bit years…I am the one now in my mid thirties and the old fart is the wrong side of fifty. He came out of Villa retirement when Mon arrived and it was as if he had never been away. Nevertheless, during the last few seasons under Mon, I began to get increasingly more bored and fed-up of match days and even more questionable of the Premier League and all of the over the top hype that surrounds it. Granted, I was not Mon’s biggest fan during his last few seasons and thought that it may well have been for that reason why my enjoyment was diminishing. I made my mind up before the end of his last season not to renew my season ticket.

True to my word, last season under Houllier I did not have a season ticket though I did attend a decent amount of games, many of them at the tail end of the season. Yet with each game I was attending, I was finding myself becoming even more bored and my mind was wandering off during the match. Not even the pre match banter felt the same. The same old routine was becoming a chore. It just got in the way. It was just too much hassle.

My mind was set, I was packing up. Nothing would tempt me back, not even the promise of a big name manager or big new signings. Obviously neither of these two things happened anyway! Though again, I have been true to my word. This season I have been to exactly ZERO games. What’s more, I have not felt at any time that I am missing anything. This has absolutely nothing to do with the current state of the club, or who our manager is, the type of football that we play etc...

I’m not really that sure if I want anything to reignite my interest to the levels it used to be, because I’m quite enjoying life without having to worry about the Villa (saying that out loud still feels all very peculiar and alien to me, yet at the same time I say it with genuine honesty).

I am not sure whether it is just a phase. Maybe I will get a sudden urge one day to get back down there, just as my brother did after over a decade and a half away. What it will take only time will tell, if it happens at all that is. Football is a game that I love but one that I am beginning to loathe. Aston Villa is the club that I still love, but no longer really care for as much as I would like to.

It is a shame, I was a good fan.

ADRIAN_1976 wrote:It's like this guys reading my mind

MrMagoo wrote:Do you think this is a similar story across more clubs?