For more than a week after Aston Villa’s first home match of the season, 41 supporters were waiting for answers following a day they wished to forget.
Christopher White is a season-ticket holder in the Doug Ellis Stand. “They sold us something that doesn’t exist and it’s £1,800 ($2,300) straight out of our bank accounts,” he says. “We’ve got nothing to show for it.”
Villa went down 2-0 against Arsenal on August 24 but stadium issues dominated the afternoon. Urinals overflowed, a digital ticketing system caused large queues and disruption, and disabled supporters learned the news (on the day) that car parking fees had been doubled, prompting an apology from the club.
Christopher, his father Phil and 39 other fans were also left waiting in a Villa Park concourse, missing most of the first half. They had been sold season tickets for seats that did not exist.
“We have been season-ticket holders for more than 20 years sitting in the Doug Ellis Lower,” Christopher says. “We received a letter that said our seats wouldn’t be available to renew for the forthcoming season. I was given a generic email address if I wished to express my discontent.
“I contacted the ticket office to see what the options were. The lower seats in the Doug Ellis Upper were price category one (the most expensive) and represented an additional £460 cost because there were no concessions in category one, despite my dad being over 60. But that was the best option as we didn’t want to move stands. One of the (ticket) staff said there were two seats available in the front row on the halfway line and they had just been put in as part of a redevelopment.
“So we bought them and were offered, by way of compensation for moving seats, an £80 voucher to spend in the club shop. Yet when I asked how we go about redeeming the voucher I was told, ‘We don’t know yet’.
“We managed to get to the ground despite the queues, where we saw our seats (row AA) and sat down. But then the guys to the left of us, who had been sitting there for years, said, ‘No, this is row CC, you’re three rows from the front’. We had been sold tickets for £910 each in rows where there were no seats. Those areas have been used for cameras and audio-visual equipment for around seven years.”
“People who were arriving late were saying, ‘This is our seat’,” adds Paul Raworth, also a supporter who was moved and purchased a season ticket in the same area. “Still, there was a massive camera in the way.”
Paul and Christopher approached the nearby stewards, who, unaware of the extent of the situation, pointed those without a seat to the concourse. After missing the first half, the lead stewards directed supporters to the corporate seats, ironically where they had been moved from, and they were told to find any spare seat they could.
Villa have made no secret of their desire to increase matchday revenue. This time last year, fans in the Holte End were not informed that the Holte Suite, which could hold around 1,000 fans and was an accessible route for disabled people, was no longer open to ordinary match-ticket holders.
Instead, Villa aimed to turn the suite into a hospitality area for 500 fans, calling the initiative ‘The Lower Grounds’, open three hours before matches with all-you-can-eat food and drinks packages. Presenters were hired to host entertainment in the suite, which included interviews with former players and pre-match build-up.
Premium seating continues to expand into new pockets of the stadium, increasing hospitality areas and making supporters such as Christopher and Phil move from their usual seats. This summer, 900 fans were told they either had to relocate seats or pay premium prices for newly installed hospitality in the Trinity, North and Doug Ellis Stands.
After the Arsenal game Villa sent an email to season-ticket holders acknowledging the difficulties, which was signed by Chris Heck, president of business operations.
When asked by The Athletic, Villa said all 41 fans affected by the issues at the Arsenal game had been contacted and moved into different seats for the Everton game and the next home league fixture against Wolverhampton Wanderers. They also said £50 compensation had been offered.
Matt Crossfield’s parents have been sitting to the right of the halfway line in the Doug Ellis Stand for nearly a decade. “Good seats, good views,” is how they would describe them.
Glenys, Matt’s mother, is friendly with the supporters around her, knowing all by name. Such familiarity plays a part in the overall enjoyment of going to games and, despite the increasing costs, Glenys and her husband Mark did not think twice about renewing their season tickets for this season.
They arrived at the Arsenal game expecting everything to be the same. The same faces, conversations and, most crucially, the same view. However, when Glenys tilted her head towards the North Stand, a large handrail stood in the way, installed due to updated health and safety regulations. “The view is now restricted,” Glenys says. “I’m really disappointed in the customer service from my club.”
“My mum is 66, small and just couldn’t see anything,” says Matt. “She spoke to Lee Preece, Villa’s supporter liaison manager, and he put her in touch with the ticket office, who said, ‘Well, we can’t do anything. We can move you but you and your husband have got to sit five seats apart from each other’. I thought that was insulting.”
Villa offered Glenys a discount on her season ticket, eventually classing the seat as a ‘restricted view’.
“But it wasn’t a restricted view when she bought it,” adds Matt. “She hadn’t been given the chance to relocate properly. So I sent Lee Preece an email and he came back and said, ‘There’s nothing we can do’, with his exact phrase being, ‘We are where we are’.
“My mum can’t see any North Stand goal without really twisting her neck. The barrier is chunky. We’ve got so much right on the pitch over the past few years but there’s so much wrong off it. My parents are pensioners; they’re not fit and able and can’t deal with straining their necks.”
When tickets went on sale, the issue over the handrail had not been raised by building control. Glenys and her husband made their way to Villa Park on Saturday for the game against Everton, insisting they had not been offered alternative seats together. Her view remained the same.
The visit of Everton last season in the Carabao Cup provoked consternation from some sections of supporters. Previously, season-ticket holders received Villa’s first cup game free but this had changed, with the third-round fixture priced at £30.50. Villa later admitted they had got it wrong after only 23,851 attended. But considering there were up to 30,000 people on the season ticket waiting list, supply and demand had driven the pricing.
A crowdfunding page was set up before Everton’s visit in the Premier League this season, paying for the purchase of 16,000 red cards that read, “Stop exploiting loyalty.” The plan was for the cards to be raised in the first 97 seconds of the match in protest at Villa’s Champions League ticket prices, with £97 the maximum cost for non-season-ticket holders. In reality, only a smattering of cards were visible, with the crowd instead focusing on showing their support for Unai Emery’s side.
The Athletic revealed last week that Villa had refused a request from their fan advisory board (FAB) to cap the price of Champions League tickets, with the cheapest adult entry now starting at £70. For comparison, the cheapest Champions League final tickets at Wembley in June were £60.
Much of the subsequent ire has been directed at Heck, who spoke publicly after Villa confirmed a sell-out for their first Champions League home game, against Bayern Munich.
Heck declared the reason for the increased ticket prices was due to profit and sustainability rules (PSR) concerns yet Villa earned £15.7million for qualifying for the Champions League and will receive around £590,000 for a group-stage draw and a potential £9.3m if they reach the last 16. Those figures do not take into account earnings from the overall Champions League pot that will be distributed, additional broadcast money or further progress in the competition.
By Saturday evening, Villa Park was roaring. It had been shaken by Everton’s two-goal lead before Jhon Duran, nicknamed ‘Captain Chaos’, unleashed a thunderous strike to complete a 3-2 comeback win. Villa registered a third victory in four Premier League matches and offered another example of how spell-binding Emery’s side can be, especially at home.
From a footballing standpoint, they remain upwardly mobile and can now look forward to their first Champions League fixture on Tuesday against Young Boys. But as a tumultuous international break has demonstrated, off-the-field issues are putting a dampener on things for plenty of fans.
(Top photo: Bradley Collyer/PA Images via Getty Images)
