And how you'd love it wouldn't you?
What Villa do or don't do is of little concern to me these days.
When you become competition again, I'm sure I'll take more interest.
I don't take any pleasure in seeing teams relegated though. I know how it feels, and I'm not that sort of bloke.
I do however believe that fans who have suffered that fate have a better appreciation of how nothing in football is guaranteed, and they learn an appreciation of the ups and downs (literally) of football.
Fans that haven't experienced it often have a air of smugness in the assumption that their own club could never suffer such an experience.
Villa are bigger than us - look at what they've won since our cup win in 73.
So they often get less gates than us but the pop of w.Midlands has to sustain wolves, wba, brum and Walsall.
It's very difficult to judge a club that way. They have a much higher population, but as you say, they also have other clubs to content with. Half of Sunderland's radius is in the North Sea though, so Villa already have twice the catchment area for a given radius.
You could also look at it another way and argue that Sunderland comparative lack of success only serves to makes their gates even more impressive. After all, with all the past glories Villa have enjoyed, shouldn't they be pulling in bigger crowds? (just playing devil's advocate).
I'd say Villa are a big crowd puller (compared with most clubs), but I'd say there's little to suggest they are going to get any 'bigger' in the coming years, whilst other clubs clearly are surpassing them. That ultimately means they are falling behind. I don't see anything to suggest Villa are any bigger than Sunderland at this point in time (which is nothing to do with their past successes).
If the debate what who has been the most successful, than Villa would be ahead of most clubs, including City, but that's not the debate.
