Ellis Backs Appointment Of Lambert

There is not a lot anyone can teach Sir Doug Ellis about how to run a football club. The present owner will be doing well if he can come close to Doug's record of two trophies, two second-place finishes, an FA Cup runners-up and innumerable European qualifications. All he is saying is that changing the manager every year is not a good idea, while he also understands that managers have a finite shelf-life and that they have to be changed to freshen things up. He has a lot to be proud of and deserves far more respect than he generally gets. Lerner might have lots of his Dad's money but he could learn a thing or two from Doug.

It's not like Randy has planned to sack the managers he's chosen after 1 season, he always said he wanted stability, we just had the wrong managers to provide it. Hopefully now we can settle down and start the next 3-5 year plan.

Interesting that Mike as i read in the media Ellis left us with no debt and a good solid basis to build upon? There is no question Paul Faulkner and Randy have done brill for Villa on the commercial and overall income to turnover ratio side of things no one could argue otherwise about that, but i thought Ellis said he agreed to sell Villa due to his ill health and the fact he could not keep up the demand of the costs but i never heard or read we were increasing borrowing under Ellis, Anyway hopefully now with Lambert as manager we can start to climb back upto where we belong so we can have success on the pitch in the near future im looking forward to the ride but i will not look back on the Ellis years as a total negative memory as i have some great memories thats all i know ;)

Ignore what Randy has put in, and consider IF Ellis had put in what he actually had out of the club, the comparison would be we'd be the early Prem years Man City, and we really would've become the team SirAlex feared we would. But as ever, the manager usually took the axe when fans questionned Ellis' investment and support for on pitch matters.

and never trust a man who claims to have invented the bicycle kick!

You're just being picky Matt lol

That would be plausible Matt, but I honestly don't know as I can't remember if his share ownership from roughly 33% ever fluctuated. I just know amongst his shares, the friendly institutionals and his families shares nobody could ever vote against him with a suspicion of winning the vote at AGM's. I will add also in business there's nowt wrong with doing that lol

Yep very true Mike but I never let facts get in the way of another reason for me to dislike the man!! I just seemed to recall the float price was way over the top and they dropped like a stone afterwards. (note from my legal team) I'm obviously not suggesting any inpropriety but it all seemed a bit strange at the time.

lol, I have to! Most shares are overvalued unfortunately, look at the recent facebook debacle. Very few football clubs have ever done well when shares were brought at floatation because a season is too volatile for any stability. Buying after it's bottomed out is a good investment like RBS and TSB will prove to be in the future.

Poor old Doug. He is clearly deluded if he thinks he was in charge when Ron Saunders left. Everyone knows we went on to win the European Cup in 1982 after Saunders had gone and that Hubert was not chairman at the time.

I see what you mean Mike, i didn't know a lot of the stuff you just wrote, shows how much i know lol, shame we never kicked on and built on our earl 90's team unde Big Ron or later. I think the floating idea is a good one, Randy would gt a quivk boost as you say and we would all be happy unless Randy would rather keep say that 10% for when he sells up in the future i dunno im not a finance and stock expert as remember im a Yam Yam for gods sake we don't do stocks n financie's cos if we did you think this global economy crash is bad know? If a Yam Yam was in charge of the econimies we would make this crash look like a holiday ;)

Why work is done boys. Clive, yes, double whammy boost if there was a partial share issue again, not at stupid money, but sensible that all fans could take advantage of - even if heavily restricted to booking history and one per fan etc. More milleage in it than not in my view. Wouldn't create millions, but with the belief that the club is no longer ours, especially after the last few seasons, it would again be a good bridge repair even though it obviously wouldn't result in voting rights.

Sorry Steve, not into blaming the fans for Ellis' lack of business savvy to push us on and take advantage of the commercial opportunities available. We might not have turned out in the numbers like Arsenal, but commercial revenue especially since the inception of the Premiership should, if run right, always eclipse fan revenue - whether we like it or not, and I happen not to like it because the fans should always be the lifeblood of any club. And our brand clearly is, hence the tripling of turnover in so many short years.

Steve, 57000 filled Highbury to see the Champions of England being crowned which included an estimated 20,000 Villa. Arsenal averaged 32,000 that year. whereas Villa were facing Middlesbrough a relegation threatened club....check out the old MOTD coverage if you want to see the packed Boro end that day? Man U averaged 45K that season and Liverpool 37K. Yet we'd finished 7th the year before and didn't particularly look like going on to win the league the following year and averaged 34K. Clearly Liverpool and Man U have miles more support than we have and probably ever will but in those years the differences were not as stark. The Villa brand was amenable but I'm afraid we failed. Even before the Big Ron years don't forget attendances across the board plummeted in the 80s. We used to get 15K and Blues were down at 6000 or 7000. It was starting to recover. We had 28K average for Big Ron but again compare it to Newcastle at 33K or Everton 22K ??? It's not that different. Overall Villa have averaged at about the 8th best supported club in England I don't think it's beyond the pale to imagine that if Villa had maintained a level of success during the 80s and not had a period of appalling decline overseen by Ellis then the attendances could have been held at the 3rd or 4th best supported club in the country. The relative success we had in the 90s has helped to platform us at the mid 30s where we are now and Doug should take some credit for that but I equally he should still take some responsibility for the 80s decline and the damage that did to our supporter base.

You talk a lot of sense Matt, hell of a lot, well done.

Steve Wade - M'ONS first season and we had 26,000 season ticket holders and averaged over 40,000. It would have been much higher had the ground been bigger due to the amount of sell out games we had. And this for a team that was on it's backside. The support is there as long as we have direction and ownership that knows how to tap into the market. Matt B - you are spot on in your assesments of comparable crowds. I remember going to Spuds the game after we beat Tranmere (I think it was) I think we drew 1 -1 and Bosnich saved 2 penalties. The crowd at Spuds that night was 17,000. Teams attendances and support changes with club performance, TV, finance etc. We have the potential if only someone knows how to tap into it. As for Doug I also echo many of the sentiments made by Matt B and others. When he first came as part of the Harry Parkes consortium he helped the club in its darkest hours. That should never and will never be taken from our history and for that alone I have no issue in him being recognised as being a part (he wasn't even the biggest financial contributor to the consortium) of our history. However he never recovered from the fact he was ousted from the club and without him we went on to win the League and European Cup. He should never come back in 1982 and he then spent years scrimping and saving and taking the club from the best in Europe to relegation. That was the time when Aston Villa needed investment and leadership and were in a position to be as big a global brand as the like of Manure and Barcelona are now. The younger readers will never understand what opportunity we had and missed. The first season of the Premier League put the club in touching distance of greatness again and once more Ellis failed to invest at another crucial time in our history and once more the opportunity was lost. The manager that took us to 2nd and won us the League Cup in 1994 (Big Ron) was then sacked in the November of the following season after a few poor results. Very simply Ron was bigger than Doug and that couldn't be tolerated. So he sacked our most succesful manager since Ron Saunders after a run of 9 games without a win, but 6 weeks ago was advising Randolph to stick with the manager we had for last season. And don't get me started on naming a stand after himself and then feigning surprise that he knew nothing of it. I went to several shareholder meetings when the overwhelming vote was against him (Fear you remember those?) but he used his block vote to stay in power. Lets not re write the Ellis years with rose tinted glasses. We stayed relatively financially secure despite him, not because of him. The greatest opprtunity we ever had to build the Villa name around the world, was missed because he never knew how to move it on. Oh in terms of fairness Ellis's purchase of Bodymoor Heath was a masterstoke. Well done on that score.

Spot on Voice, never would, and never will take away the good that Ellis did do us and for that we should applaud and be grateful, but fair criticism also where it's due.

Doug could have learnt a fair bit from Lerner in my humble Steve, ie how to put money in, not take take take...! And agree with Matt B re the share prices and the total farce he presided over. Personally think he stopped Villa being the Liverpool of the 80's. Scrub that, I don't personally think it, I know the team of 82 think it, Alan Evans and Sir Dennis have both said it.

My Dad still likes to abuse old Doug if he sees him filling up the Roller in Mere Green, and why not!? Wonder if Deadly thought PL was the man for the job after watching us tear Norwich apart at home?