THE TOP 50 BRAND INDEX
(Download the PDF)
I know many of you might not care about this, but I quite like these sort of listings, as even though we’ve been going through tough times in the last few seasons, we really are seen to be a big club when it comes to world rankings.
Consider last season, where we were ranked the 21st biggest club in the world, for instance.
That’s the WORLD.
Which is pretty impressive, if you consider we’d looked likely relegation candidates for a while.
Of course, much of that ranking came about purely because of our place in the Premier league, but we still came higher than many other Premier league clubs.
The brand loyalty must surely have had a lot to do with that, as we have a very good fan base, but that can only take you so far.
Which is why we’ve now fallen to 41st in the top 50.
That’s to be expected given that we’re not in the Premier league anymore and indeed only Newcastle are ranked higher if we’re looking at English clubs outside the Premier league.
I could debate if Newcastle are actually a bigger club than us, but it’s completely fair to say they get bigger attendances at home, which must equal more income.
But then I look at some of the clubs that have overtaken us and it makes me want to weep.
We look at the top 10 and it includes the usual top 6, of course.
Then there’s Everton at number 13, who are worth the best part of 2.5 times what we are according to the index.
If ever there’s a club that are pretty much on a par with us, I’d suggest it’s them, but regardless, that’s how it is.
Then we go a bit further down and West ham are rated at 14, followed by Leicester City, Southampton, Stoke City,
West Bromwich Albion, Sunderland, Crystal Palace and Swansea City.
Really?
Which is the annoying part.
None of these clubs are on a par, in my opinion and except for perhaps Sunderland, none of them have a following as large as ours by a long chalk.
So ultimately, the brand loyalty stuff doesn’t matter so much and it’s all about the money.
Which is fair enough, as that’s all that matters these days.
Those lesser clubs are in the Prem and we aren’t, it’s as simple as that.
Still, the good news is we can easily jump up this table by twenty places.
All we need to do is get promoted.
Which all means Tony Xia’s purchase of Aston Villa could very well prove to be extremely prudent, especially if we can do it first time.
I’ve suggested West Ham aren’t on the same level, as I think their support is diluted by the other London clubs, in the same way ours is by the other greater Birmingham clubs.
But I suspect they might move up a notch, given the free ground that we’ve all paid for.
Another bone of contention, but there you go.
Havnt West Ham sold 52,000 season tickets though?
Have they?
I’d suggest a lot of that is down to the London factor, where the touts will look to make money.
Same as Manc and to a lesser extent, Pool.
Shows how poor we’ve been as a City, politically, media-wise and of course footy-wise.
The people who have run our city over the years have been a disgrace in letting lesser places seemingly overtake us.
But that’s another rant.
Regardless,I doubt any neutral would rate West Ham as a bigger club than the Villa, by any means of estimation. No history, apart from they wear OUR colours and have won next to nothing.
Of course I might be biased 🙂
Completely biased, West Ham have produced some fantastic players over the last 20 years, they now have the Olympic Stadium, they have one of the best managers in the division, they also as OohAhh said sold 52,000 season tickets, as it stands, they are a bigger club than us.
You’re talking current situation.
I’m talking a little bit longer than that.
As I said, won nothing and even basically nicked our colours.
Things can change and the Golds/Sullivan will ultimately achieve little, imo, as they’re only there for the money.
I always had you down as more optimistic, Guest?
To be honest i think the optimism has been beaten out of me, the problem with our illustrious club is that we have been stuck in the same loop for far too long, we do not learn from our mistakes, and although at the moment we seem to have at least steadied the ship, there are things we could still have done better.
Anyway, back to the point in hand, what constitutes a big club nowadays?
Unfortunately history means nothing in the modern game, we are judged by our immediate success, we are not as attractive to the overseas football fans like we once were, it’s no wonder teams like Man City are up there, because they attract the neutrals with their world class players and appearances in the Champions League, week in, week out, so of course over time, especially the last 20 to 30 years, as old fans die out and new fans are born, we are losing our status as a big club.
The Man city takeover is what screwed Lerner up he realised we could no longer go for fourth and Mon jumped before he was pushed as knew what was coming
West Ham in the past have always been a selling club. Imagine if they had kept Rio, Cole, Parker, Lampard etc. The difference now is they could hold onto those players if they wanted.
The commentator on their game with Bournemouth said they had sold 52knseasin tickets. That new ground is horrible though they are miles away from the pitch awful to watch as well as can’t see crowd.
Don’t get me started on the WHAM’s rip-off of the taxpayer…
Newcastle have the advantage over us that some 50,000 of their loyal/exploited/deluded fans will almost always turn up to watch anything in a barcoded shirt at St. James’ Park.
I’m old enough to remember -even as recently as the 60’s and early 70’s [i.e. before our last league title and the EC win] – people saying that Villa could hang 11 shirts to dry across the pitch at VP and still get 40,000 turn up to watch. Sadly our fanbase has declined since those days- and I’m not sure it’s anything at all to do with the other clubs in the B’ham area.
More likely IMO is that a couple of generations of ‘football fans’ have grown up with the Sky/CL bullshit – if your local club isn’t playing in the CL every season, you should follow one of their ‘Big 4’ or ‘Big 5’ – buy the merchandise and make them even richer. Forget about any local football loyalty. None of our local clubs have had any part of that for the last 20+ years, consequently
attendances at all of them are hardly a patch on the 1970’s.
Villa back in the Prem would certainly leapfrog a lot of those currently higher in your ranking, but unless something major changes as far as CL places go, we’re forever likely to stay below the likes of Chelski or even WHam in the financial stakes – and neither of those are ‘bigger’ clubs than us in any traditional sense.
Agree but when I was school in the 70s (a long time ago) Villa still had a huge fan base even in third division we had nearly 50k for Bournemouth game and 65k for utd in cup. But even in them days at my school there was still a fair amount of Utd and Liverpool fans. I could still walk round Brum in the 70s and see a fair amount of people wearing their shirts. I know people will slag me for this but villa fans are fickle. If we were going for title last year every home game would be a sell out where Newcastke would get 50k regardless. Even in the 70s we always had bigger cried when Liverpool and Utd played why wernt those fans there every week especially as we had a decent team on them days.
Ardent you’re right but where does that leave football in twenty years?
A European elite with numerous feeder clubs?
William McGregor will be turning in his grave.
BWS – I’m worried because that seems to be exactly where football is going, just like every other ‘industry’; you’re either in the elite [-and in 20 years it’ll not just mean ‘elite’ in Europe, but probably global] or you’re just another old defunct brand [see: Austin, Rover, Dunlop, and any other once-massive local company].
Some of us have been waiting for the TV/Football nexus to implode for the last few years – usually every time yet another massive TV deal is announced; we can’t believe that football can keep going this way when all the mega-bucks go straight out of the game into the hands over already-overpaid players, agents and other hangers-on. Unfortunately it doesn’t look like that end will happen any time soon.
If anyone can see a healthier alternative path [realistic one…] I’d love to hear it, but sadly I can’t imagine one myself.
The only way football will die is if fans stop paying for sky sports they have 10m subscribers a month for sport at around £30 that’s 300m a month plus adverts. In comparison the money they pay to secure rights us peanuts to them
if you want to lose money employ randy useless buisness man lerner,took a debt free club from top 6 to nearly bankrupcy,employing knobs with fox the worst,the good doc has work to repair the damage
I don’t need an index to tell me who’s the top club in the world VILLA will always be the top club in my eyes til the day I leave this planet.VTID
Richie DeLaet’s in, good signing in my book.
Rubbish defensively Ranieri had to drop him after Arsenal stuffed them 5.2 last year fir Simpson. He’s good going forward but we need a defender that defends first attacks later
Get away Oohah. Ritchie is the best player in England. He has to be, he holds a 2016 winner’s medal for the Premiership with Leicester and the Championship with Middlesboro. That’s a trick that will never be repeated.
Welcome Ritchie to the villa family Utv thankyou Dr x
Yes welcome Ritchie, Guest, Ardent, BWS, two bloody true lads, we have and did lose our way 30-40 years ago remember Man utd bringing in university people to run their club, we just stood still, they got into all countries we stood still, the same today unless Xia means to change all that, Birmingham is growing badger but its going to take time.New station, New city infrastructure being developed, New Aston Villa.it’s coming and just remember Bill said that, pitty I’ll be just a memory.
I think when we get HS railway that will put us in a close par with London. Think about it players can be in Bham in half an hr and still live around London if they want to
Bill – we lost our way when we completely failed to capitalise on the Rotterdam win.
I know that’ll immediately have all fingers pointed at Deadly, and a lot of those will be deserved, but personally I don’t blame him for all of it. Perhaps we were no worse in that respect than Forrest – after all, they had two EC wins under their belts, and look at them since.
Villa did have another chance to join the ‘elite’ [IMO] – the 1992/3 season when Big Ron’s team finsihed 2nd to ManU. OK, there was a 10 point difference in the end, but at times that season we looked like we were going to be the first ‘Premiership’ champions. Where might that have taken us?
Look at the final table that season: L’pool 6th, Spuds 8th, ManCiteh 9th, Arse 10th, Chelsea 11th,
If only…!!
Welcome Richie.
Good signing and at last we have a proper RB. Impressed with all the signings so far.
Just that striker now please Dr. Tony 🙂
Messi wouldn’t put it past him.
Rubbish defensively though good at attacking. May as well have stuck with bacuna
Bacuna is poor both defensively and in attack, so De Laet for me is a better option. Would rather have gone for Yedlin, much like i would have preferred us to have gone for Gayle instead of McCormack … same old Villa, always making the wrong decisions.
Am loving Xia’s honesty over Twitter, very refreshing, at least he is quick to dismiss the players we have no interest in, his latest tweet about Bas Dost was exactly what i said earlier “We need pace not height”
A million miles away from Lerner and his absence.
Guest – you may of course be right.
However, at some point maybe all of us armchair experts might need to concede that Xia, RDM and the rest of the management team do actually know what they’re doing in the transfer market?
For now I’m going to trust that they have a better idea of what the finished jigsaw puzzle is supposed to look like than those of us on the outside who haven’t seen the overall picture [-until I’m proven wrong, of course, when I’ll moan like everyone else..]!
Lol I bet you were a joy as a kid on Christmas morning…
Mom a Tomahawk? A ***king Tomahawk?
You know I wanted a Chopper!
Ha ha your not far off
Bloody hell BWS, you make me smile mate you’ve got my humour, you got to take your hat off to what’s been done up to now, ok could be better ..
🙂 Must be a Brummie thing mate.
If ever a squad needed a complete and utter clear out it and quickly was ours! So hats to the Doc, RDM and all their backroom staff.
Good signing in De Laet, another player who is known to be a good character around the squad and thats been crucial in reshaping this team
In the space of around 2 months we’ve gone from:
Guzan, Hutton, Richards, Lescott, Richardson to a possible back 5 of
Gollini, De Laet, Elphick, Chester, Amavi,
therefore there should be no moaning about the defensive side of the team now.
Add in one more striker and creative midfielder and I’m feeling confident of a good campaign ahead
He does lack concentration so bound to be error prone. If the guys best asset is going forward which it is then play him as a right winger or midfield. Why okay someone who can’t defend at left bk. Then get Yedlin in who can defend and concentrates. Dosnt make sense to me. Though looks like Yedlin is off to our rivals on Geordie land typical
Mate he could be the new John Gidman, come on defending was never his forte but he was great at tearing down the wing and a great player in his own way.
(I bet all the youngsters out there are thinking who the ***k is John Gidman?)
So here’s a blast form the past
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvJihwW-w2M
Love this game 57,000 there from memory. Was gutted when we lost 3.2 at their ground. Was at back of tilton about 48,000 at blues couldn’t see a thing villa everywhere though. We had whole tilton and the railway end behind opposite goal was mainly villa
Funny that.
I only mentioned Gidman recently to my sons [both Villa fans, now in their 20’s] and received a bit of a blank look: they’d heard his name before, but since he’s even pre-1982, they didn’t know anything about him.
Still think he was one of our most memorable players in that really exciting mid-70’s team, although I do recall that Sir Ron let him go rather than improve his contract at the time?
It was about money Ardent,he found out (by dubious means) how much Sir Dennis was on, asked for a rise and was sent packing.
(That’s not from memory, googled him and found the following link, it’s a good read mate).
http://sabotagetimes.com/football/the-crazy-life-and-times-of-aston-villa-and-manchester-uniteds-full-back-john-gidman
So was Lenny swain a winger turned into a full bk
Kenny
Thanks for the memory BWS, them days have gone mate for us, but I hope the younger generation get to see games like that and gates like that, 51 now games like that would put us in the top ten today.
Bill, yes it was violent, the conditions not always the best but how I miss the electric atmosphere of those days.
Is it just me or do games seem so sanitised today?
BWS, did Gidman end up at Coventry? I remember me winning a radio question by Birmingham sports station, hey asked if id seen the game? and then ask what did I think, told them that Gidman was at fault getting beat and not going after his player , so I blamed him, bloody he’ll Gidman came on radio and said that he was hurt, he bloody wasn’t. Happy days BWS.
Bill following the link I’ve posted above, a cracking read mate.
BWS, very good read that, lots I never knew but the eye I did, good luck to the lad.
As far as I know, Gidman never played for the Sky Blues. He finished up at Darlington when Brian Little was manager there, after a couple of seasons at Stoke.
Cheers Ardent, happy days them.
For me that team was superb – not consistent enough to have won the league, but NOBODY could come to VP in those days taking a win for granted; on their day they were capable of beating anybody, especially at VP!
The season after that we only lost one game at home to blues of all teams. We stuffed Liverpool 5.1 as well and beat Arsenal 5.1 too. It was our away form that cost us we finished fourth but better away form we would of won league
Was at that have the atmosphere even before setting foot in the ground was electric.
The fans of today will never experience that type of atmosphere they wouldn’t believe how packed VP could get in the 70s. Loved standing and surging firward when we attacked
Oh yes…..thanks BWS for the 2 best things I have seen for years…….Brill match and got to sort out that Gidman book……best things I have read about the lads…..The Blues match was a week before I got married and my best man was getting soaked on the Witton End…ha ha. On the wedding day we drew 0-0 at Boro. Missed the Man Utd cup match in the mid week when Gray made debut…we lost 1-2.
Lol VAD3 that reminds of a mate who divorced recently, I asked “what was your wife’s grounds for divorce?”
He replied “she said I had an obsession with football.”
I then asked him “how long were you married?”
He replied “seventeen seasons.”
VAD3 Given today players are writing (or should that be ghost written?) at ages when they’ve achieved next to nowt and played a handful of games
(had a bottle, shit myself, kicked a ball round a couple of seasons and bought a Merc and got a trophy girlfriend,my how interesting.) It’s a pity not one of the league and European Cup winning side have written an autobiography, there’s a Kenny Swain biography but that’s your lot.
I’d love read about the that golden era at Villa Park, what Sir Ron was all about, well just about every aspect of it.
Come Mr Lerwill get your finger out 🙂
I’m a bit surprised that Deadly’s not written an autobiography; he’s always enjoyed being the centre of attention, and/or justfiying himself…
It would just have to be entitled “Dispatched”
See rumour that Hull may want Micah Richards – possibly in p/ex deal for Abel Hernandez.
That would do just fine…
Yes story in the Mirror saying that Phelan wants Richards in for Saturday’s game against Man U –
http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/hull-line-up-transfer-aston-8691617?
Phelan’s welcome to him. Even without Hernandez coming the other way it’s a clear win but if we get Hernandez as well then someone at Villa’s doing some extremely clever wheeling and dealing.
With De Laet in Hernandez would be the last piece in the puzzle for me.
BTW many congrats to Northampton for knocking the Baggies out of the EFL Cup. Well done lads.
If we can offload Richards, Gabby and Lescott as well as bringing in another striker, this will have been our best transfer window in a long long time!
We’re stuck with Gabby.
The fat gas-sniffer won’t go anywhere because he wants his £millions – and there’s not a club anywhere stupid-enough to take him off our hands.
Not even Rangers or any of the usual American, Turkish or Chinese suspects where most over-the-hill premier league players end their careers.
@Ardent
Unfortunately I agree. Still we should find him something useful to do while he’s at VP, personally I’d have him cutting the grass…with a pair of nail scissors!
Just give him a book, that should see his contract out.
Interestingly on Twitter someone suggested the Villa line up if we get Hernandez –
Gollini, Amavi, Chester, Elphick, De Laet, Tshibola, Jedinak, Grealish, Ayew, Hernandez and McCormack
Only 3 in the team that played last season (only 2 really as Amavi was out for most of it).
Well we said we needed a whole new team and it looks like RDM and Dr, Tony might not be far off giving us just that.
I feel we’re in a much better position than I would have expected after the long drawn out disaster of last season.
Still unsure if we’ll go up first try but beginning to think we might not be far off.
UTV
The new Aston Villa number 9 will be a player who does a double somersault when he scores. That’s all I’ll say.
Does that mean it’s going to be Max Whitlock the gymnast then Henrik? 😉
Not Ballotelli please.
OLL, what makes you think that, I’ve just choked on my dinner lad, that would be a disastrous move for us.heaven help us.
Being linked with Jordan Rhodes now
Agree we will just miss out this year but should do it next year as team would have gelled. It’s a big ask to go up this year with so many changes.
Never say die Oohah, stranger things happen, I’ll even say Leicester?
We have assembled a pretty good squad of new players in the summer with a few more to come in hopefully. If we can gel quickly and get a few wins together over the next few games the season could be very promising. I by no means expect us to win the league (this season) but I will not except that we cannot get automatic promotion on the basis of the last 4 games. It’s basically going to be a whole new starting 11 from last year’s rejects by the start of September. We have got what we have all being crying out for this last few years….. WE HAVE GOT OUR VILLA BACK … And although we have had to suffer a relegation along the way , it maybe just maybe the best slice of luck we have had in that we can build a team of winners out of the spotlight of the premier league. I hope that we are laying the foundations for the future of this club and that in ten years time we will look back and say that the season we were relegated was the beginning of the rebirth of the mighty Aston Villa FC !
Deluded ???? Maybe . But I’ll never stop believing that one day we will rise to the top of the tree AGAIN. Otherwise what is the fucking point of being a football supporter ?
Love Dr. T’s tweets but is it starting to look like he was premature with the ‘world class striker’ one?
Hitch I’m with you there I do feel that tweet was a bit OTT but I do love how he keeps us fans informed, what a welcome change. UTV
changing a whole team is tough, whole squad much harder but it can be done. depend on the management and the types of players in the group. but it could all gel straight away. results sofar av been less than the performance warranted. if we can start to score goals. this would be like lighting the torch paper. we have now the quality along with the right attitudes to burn this league up this season.
Going to be tough tomorrow at Bristol. Gestede and tshibola both out so could be another 0.0 at best
Jedinaks in villa win.
AEK and Olympiakos are apparently after Λεσκοτ as they call him. Well they’re welcome to Lescott, if ti was within my power I’d send him over with the Elgin Marbles in his suitcase if it would ease his passage away from VP.
Agree tomorrow is going to be tough but I feel we’ve still got more than enough to win.
Bristol 0 -2 Villa
‘Elgin marbles’ – the best song The Jam ever wrote!
Think a draw tomorrow can’t see us scoring we couldn’t create a thing v Derby
Ooha you said we’d be battered by Derby lol
True but we were never going to score in a million years
Stiff test tomorrow and although it pains me I can see then turning us over –
1-0.
0-3 VILLA 😀
Behave Giddy where are 3 goals going to come from exactly. We’ve only scored 4 all season and 3 of them were against the worst team in the division
Have faith mate even if it’s blind Utv
Pat57 I am impressed that you can type Greek script into this site, I struggle to paste an umlout.
Copied via Google translate. Its all Greek to me otherwise!
Think will nick it tomorrow 0-1! Still need a striker & attacking mid but hopefully that will be sorted by Wednesday. Utv
I see Bennett has left for Cardiff and we aren’t contributing to his wages.
Good work, Dr X!
It’s also interesting to see that Xia made a Maoist reference to the “masses”, that seems to indicate that he’s listening to the fans who said they didn’t fancy Enner Valencia.
While of course I don’t believe for one minute that the hierarchy would let the fans decide transfer incomings, it is nice to see that he apparently listens and doesn’t ride rough-shod over our opinions.
Simply put, I think there’s no chance that we’re even in for Valencia.
http://metro.co.uk/2016/08/26/dr-tony-xia-believes-the-views-of-aston-villa-fans-are-more-important-than-scouting-reports-6091770/
If the scouting reports are from Paddy Riley, DR X is saying what Sherwood said.