Dear Herb

Dear Herb,

Why we have put up with you for so long boggles the mind, and you should look at Murray and how he left Sunderland – with some dignity and self respect left in tact. You are ruining this great club and you should be ashamed, quite frankly you are running the risk of being remembered as the cancer that blighted our great football club.

Do Aston Villa call themselves a forward thinking and forward planning club? Because once again a great player at our club (Milan Baros) has came out saying ‘no`. As for the farcical manner in which you dealt with James Milner, and failing to bring another future star to the club defies belief, and reminiscent of another of your past failings in bringing Robbie Keane to Villa Park. You have let us down again, and again, and again, time after time, after time.

In the Premiership Villa are now non-entities, cannon-fodder for the big six. Using Rodney Marsh`s description of the Premiership being comprised of three tiers, we used to be a tier two club, no one expected us to win anything, maybe a cup run here or there, but we flirted with Europe and would settle for mid table or thereabouts. Villa are now a tier three club, weaker than average and with a possibility of relegation and expected to finish bottom eight.

A club with a magnificent, all be it patchy history, a fantastic football ground – and I mean ‘ground` not some shiny soulless bowl of a stadium; and one other thing, next time you think about sitting in the directors box opposite the stand with your name on it, remember 70% of the fans sitting around you want the stand named after a real Villa Legend. An Aston Villa website operated by Jonathan Fear ran a survey (The Evening Mail survey aside – to which we are still waiting for answers) asking,

‘After which Villa legend should the Doug Ellis stand be re-named when ‘he’ goes?`

70% said Ron Saunders, no real shock there.
17% said William McGregor, who the Trust are trying to raise funds to erect a statue for.
8% said Dennis Mortimer.
4% Peter Withe, & 1% Tony Barton.

Do not delude yourself any further, you have not taken this club forward for at least six/seven years or so and since Gregory left, and right now you are butchering it – top to bottom.

At the centre of this nations second biggest city and in fact with NO premiership competition throughout the whole of the Midlands and yet you are completely incapable of capitalising on our catchment area alone, putting the rest of your rather questionable business acumen aside. Incapable is how I would sum you up, also as power hungry spiralling dangerously out of control convincing yourself you are still capable to tend to the daily running of a PLC.

But on a lighter note I bet your season ticket sales are going well! Good luck with that you’re going to need it.


Yours sincerely,


Michael Bakewell

Season Ticket Holder – Trinity Road