Aston Villa Supporters' Trust: A voice of reason in a sea of stupidity

A few years ago, in the wake of the hiring of Alex McLeish, RandyLernerOut.com appeared and spit vitriolic stupidity onto the Internet by releasing a "fan statement" that called for the ousting of Randy Lerner. I did my best to tear it to shreds at the time, and I remain wary of such sweeping and broad statements that claim to capture the voice of the fans today.

But things with this club are once again coming to a head. I mentioned in the match report on Saturday that I was finally on board the Lambert Out wagon, and Matt had an excellent, level-headed look at that very idea yesterday. I was beginning to fear that we'd see another repeat of the RandyLernerOut.com statement, though, as it seemed that the most vocal of fans on twitter were being especially stupid lately.

So consider me surprised to say that I whole-heartedly agree with the most prominent public "fan statement" to date. This comes from the recently formed Aston Villa Supporters' Trust. I'll excerpt the last two paragraphs here, but the entire statement is absolutely worth a read:

The AVST feels as it stands, two seasons later, the club is in exactly the same position in terms of the club's expectations and potential being unfulfilled.

However, in the interests of stability it is only rational considering the stage of the season to give the current Villa management the full season before considering the overall picture in the context of the Villa board's statement of two years ago. We wish everyone involved at the club the very best in securing Aston Villa's Premier League status in the meantime.

What strikes me most about this statement is how eminently reasonable it is. No calls for drastic, knee-jerk decisions. No pure emotion getting in the way of reason. And (thankfully) no terrible grammar and writing style obscuring the message while making the messengers look dumb.

I've been a bit on the fence about the AVST, mostly because I wasn't really sure what they were going to do and how they were going to do it. If this is any indication of the direction in which that organization is headed, they can count on my support.

There needs to be some sort of change at this club, but it needs to be done intelligently. I am beginning to hope that the reasonable approach voiced by the AVST is actually that of most Villa fans and that the reactions I see on the Internet are mostly a result of that medium's echo-chamber nature.