Doug interview on Sky now

[PeterWithesShin]

Have we ever been as bad over such a long period before? We did spend 8 years out of the top flight once, and we could easily break that record. Breaking records is our speciality at the moment. Unfortunately they're the wrong kind.

We went 14 seasons where our highest finish was 15th. From 1950-1976 we finished in the top 10 4 times.

[saunders_heroes]

Yep. Hard to have a go at a man in his nineties, but in the piece I saw, there was no mention that he had also managed to get Villa relegated and from a position of even greater strength.

The club also bounced back to the top division under Ellis too. How confident are we of that happening this time around?

More confident than I was back then when it looked like Dave sodding Bassett would be our manager until SGT was sent gift wrapped to Ellis.

I'm not sure it matters whether Sir Graham was "sent giftwrapped" or not. Ellis made the appointment and the rest is in the history books for all to see.

So by the same token if we go down, manage to retain Garde and we come straight back up, will the same be said about the last 5 Lerner years? Because it rivals anything Doug did 1983-1987. Worse I would say.

I've heard older Villa fans say what's happening to the club now is reminiscent of Villa's decline in the '60s. I wasn't around then but I was certainly around in the '80s and I can assure you that Villa under Lerner and these last 6 years of misery is by far the lowest I've ever felt as a fan of this club. Our relegation in '87 was bad enough, but I don't remember us being humiliated left right and centre like we have been since O'Neill walked. We're a bloody laughing stock.

[PeterWithesShin]

Bizarrely to many i'm sure, i'd give Ellis more credit for hiring Venglos than I would for hiring Taylor as it was a brave move ahead of it's time and hindsight has shown us it was actually smart thinking.
Ellis didn't go after Taylor, Taylor basically chose us as his next job. I doubt there's many clubs would have turned down SGT if he'd made it obvious they were the club for him.

[saunders_heroes]

I think the thing about Doug was he obviously in his eternal arrogance, thought he could maintain the success we had on a lower budget. The fall was pretty quick and disastrous. We'd had a couple of mid-table finishes and a bottom half, only to then finish bottom the following year. In fairness he did then turn things around quite quickly (well, okay, Taylor was predominantly responsible for that).

What I find particularly unforgivable about Randy is the fact we've been playing silly fuckers on the tightrope for 5 straight years. We've been lucky so far but our luck ran out spectacularly this season, and we've been left with the most repugnantly unlikeable and lacklustre squad we've ever had. It's not a simple case of just having a bunch of no hopers either, the worst part has been the lack of effort in too many games. It just doesn't seem to matter to 90% of our squad.
Whilst I'm no Ellis fan by any stretch, at least he was at the games to take the pelters. He does actually have a genuine affection for the club. He surely must do to actually come and sit through this tripe when he's long retired. Randy's total apathy is shocking. He's had ample time to realise where we're heading and do something about it, but he's perpetually ignored it.

As shite as we were in 87 when we went down, we won 8 games. We won't get anywhere near that this time. We've taken shiteness to whole new levels.

Have we ever been as bad over such a long period before? We did spend 8 years out of the top flight once, and we could easily break that record. Breaking records is our speciality at the moment. Unfortunately they're the wrong kind.

Spot on. And I doubt if the club has ever been as humiliated or smashed as many shitty records as we have since 2010 in our entire history. It's something I'll never forgive our owner for.

[Villa in Denmark]

Doug has had the year we were relegated conveniently lobotomized out of his brain.

Maybe so, but the fact that we bounced straight back up the next season seems to have been lobotomised out of the brains of many Villa fans as well. He also gave us the longest unbroken spell in the top flight for decades too.

How much of that was Doug and how much was the bloke he luckily hired? And even after he hired him he was sticking his nose in it. And it's not like Doug recognizing his part in the relegation of the club lavished Sir Graham with a lot of money to get us back up.

Wether you like it or not, Ellis employed Taylor and the rest is history.

Well we'll have to credit him for recognising Taylor as a better bet than Bassett, but that's as much credit as he does get. It's not like he scoured he length and breadth of the country and turn up Taylor.

It was more like going out Christmas shopping at 3pm on Christmas Eve needing to get a present for your partner. You've just about settled on the least shitty bit of tat you've seen in the last 2 hours when suddenly your fairy godmother magics the mother of all presents right into your hand.

Go home with the goods? Yes.
Peace on earth and goodwill to all men? Absolutely.
Am I genius for pulling it off? You must be bleedin' joking.

[dave.woodhall]

Doug has had the year we were relegated conveniently lobotomized out of his brain.

Maybe so, but the fact that we bounced straight back up the next season seems to have been lobotomised out of the brains of many Villa fans as well. He also gave us the longest unbroken spell in the top flight for decades too.

How much of that was Doug and how much was the bloke he luckily hired? And even after he hired him he was sticking his nose in it. And it's not like Doug recognizing his part in the relegation of the club lavished Sir Graham with a lot of money to get us back up.

Wether you like it or not, Ellis employed Taylor and the rest is history.

You could say the same when he sacked Tony Barton.

[Toronto Villa]

Yep. Hard to have a go at a man in his nineties, but in the piece I saw, there was no mention that he had also managed to get Villa relegated and from a position of even greater strength.

The club also bounced back to the top division under Ellis too. How confident are we of that happening this time around?

More confident than I was back then when it looked like Dave sodding Bassett would be our manager until SGT was sent gift wrapped to Ellis.

I'm not sure it matters whether Sir Graham was "sent giftwrapped" or not. Ellis made the appointment and the rest is in the history books for all to see.

So by the same token if we go down, manage to retain Garde and we come straight back up, will the same be said about the last 5 Lerner years? Because it rivals anything Doug did 1983-1987. Worse I would say.

I've heard older Villa fans say what's happening to the club now is reminiscent of Villa's decline in the '60s. I wasn't around then but I was certainly around in the '80s and I can assure you that Villa under Lerner and these last 6 years of misery is by far the lowest I've ever felt as a fan of this club. Our relegation in '87 was bad enough, but I don't remember us being humiliated left right and centre like we have been since O'Neill walked. We're a bloody laughing stock.

Had the Internet existed in 1983-87 you'd have felt exactly the same way as you have the past five years. The exposure, the media and the overall attention football gets at the top level today far exceeds what it was in the 80's. It all contributes to how you feel because it's everywhere and there's literally no getting away from it.

[Villa in Denmark]

Bizarrely to many i'm sure, i'd give Ellis more credit for hiring Venglos than I would for hiring Taylor as it was a brave move ahead of it's time and hindsight has shown us it was actually smart thinking.
Ellis didn't go after Taylor, Taylor basically chose us as his next job. I doubt there's many clubs would have turned down SGT if he'd made it obvious they were the club for him.

I'd agree with that bit about Venglos. Brave, forward thinking. Not often you'll put those three words nexr to Doug Ellis in the same sentence.

[saunders_heroes]

Yep. Hard to have a go at a man in his nineties, but in the piece I saw, there was no mention that he had also managed to get Villa relegated and from a position of even greater strength.

The club also bounced back to the top division under Ellis too. How confident are we of that happening this time around?

More confident than I was back then when it looked like Dave sodding Bassett would be our manager until SGT was sent gift wrapped to Ellis.

I'm not sure it matters whether Sir Graham was "sent giftwrapped" or not. Ellis made the appointment and the rest is in the history books for all to see.

So by the same token if we go down, manage to retain Garde and we come straight back up, will the same be said about the last 5 Lerner years? Because it rivals anything Doug did 1983-1987. Worse I would say.

I've heard older Villa fans say what's happening to the club now is reminiscent of Villa's decline in the '60s. I wasn't around then but I was certainly around in the '80s and I can assure you that Villa under Lerner and these last 6 years of misery is by far the lowest I've ever felt as a fan of this club. Our relegation in '87 was bad enough, but I don't remember us being humiliated left right and centre like we have been since O'Neill walked. We're a bloody laughing stock.

Had the Internet existed in 1983-87 you'd have felt exactly the same way as you have the past five years. The exposure, the media and the overall attention football gets at the top level today far exceeds what it was in the 80's. It all contributes to how you feel because it's everywhere and there's literally no getting away from it.

No. It feels worse now because it is worse. No other reason, and it's nothing to do with the Internet.

[PeterWithesShin]

I reckon it also feels worse because we're older. Most of those that say they had great fun in Div 3 were young at the time. Same with Div 2 under SGT. My dad and his Villa friends etc of a similar age fucking hated us being in division 2.

[Toronto Villa]

I'd like to know how going from the Champions of Europe to relegation in 5 years is worse than going from finishing 6th to relegation in the same length of time?

[Louzie0]

Well, neither record is redolent of success.
Just sayin.

[saunders_heroes]

I'd like to know how going from the Champions of Europe to relegation in 5 years is worse than going from finishing 6th to relegation in the same length of time?

Again, we've had nearly 6 seasons of decline and humiliations where we seem to have smashed every shitty record the club has ever had the misfortune to set and club has become a bona fide  laughing stock, but if you think this isn't  as bad as our relegation in '87 then good luck to you, but you'd be wrong, in my opinion of course.

[Toronto Villa]

I'd like to know how going from the Champions of Europe to relegation in 5 years is worse than going from finishing 6th to relegation in the same length of time?

Again, we've had nearly 6 seasons of decline and humiliations where we seem to have smashed every shitty record the club has ever had the misfortune to set and club has become a bona fide  laughing stock, but if you think this isn't  as bad as our relegation in '87 then good luck to you, but you'd be wrong, in my opinion of course.

That's my point. You talk about decline but we declined from 6th to whatever will be this season compared to the pinnacle of European football to relegation in essentially the same length of time. You can't compare the decline now to back then. The decline now is not remotely as steep. But it's your opinion. I don't agree.

[PeterWithesShin]

Both are utterly shite and take a high level of incompetence but '87 was worse. To be relegated so soon after 80-82 was a bigger disgrace than this one. With so little TV money the money we were getting for good gates, cup runs etc, especially compared to the rest of the country, should have meant we were well away from that. Worth remembering our 26K average in 1983 was the 5 highest in the country and in those days people through the turnstiles really mattered as clubs needed to maintain a certain average attendance or they were in the crapper.

Now, gates etc don't matter as much, so we don't have much of an advantage money wise over a club that average 10K less than us. So it's more of a level playing field, so make some of the wank decisions we have there's not so much wiggle room. As an example of what I mean, there is pretty much zero chance a club like Stoke would have had a prayer of signing a player like Bojan back in the 80s. Now just about any PL club can.