Ellis and Charidee

[pauliewalnuts]

Wasn't he really just one of the very last of that old traditional school of club owners? Moderately successful provincial businessmen wanting to boost their stock on their patch by owning the local football club?

Doug, Swales, even Louis Edwards - a travel agent, a television salesman and a butcher - that type, of which Doug was the last.

Look at the sort of people who own top flight football clubs nowadays, and it is totally different. It is just that, for us, Doug held on for ages.

I guess the only one of the traditional big clubs in that sort of ownership now is Everton, and even Bill Kenwright is a bit more lah di dah West End than provincial, truth be told.

[adrenachrome]

Wasn't he really just one of the very last of that old traditional school of club owners? Moderately successful provincial businessmen wanting to boost their stock on their patch by owning the local football club?

Doug, Swales, even Louis Edwards - a travel agent, a television salesman and a butcher - that type, of which Doug was the last.

Look at the sort of people who own top flight football clubs nowadays, and it is totally different. It is just that, for us, Doug held on for ages.

I guess the only one of the traditional big clubs in that sort of ownership now is Everton, and even Bill Kenwright is a bit more lah di dah West End than provincial, truth be told.

I wonder then, if "leveraging their brand" is the modern global equivalent of  the old parochial "boosting their stock".   

[ktvillan]

Before our relegation in 1987 the fall from grace of England's biggest and wealthiest club from European Cup Winners in 1968 to relegation six years later was probably the most monumental cluster fuck in football history.  I reckon Doug wanted to go one better and did it in style. 

It obviously wasn't all bad under Doug, but even when it was going well you always knew he wouldn't build on it and we'd end up going backwards.  To me it felt like he held us back for 25 years. 

[mr woo]

Fwiw.... Dougies efforts in the Birmingham Mail are nothing compared to the tear-shedding,  mansion owning, Ferrari driving, prime time TV promoting wankstains on Comic Relief this evening.

Self promotion and hypocrisy from some of the richest people in the UK will once again be overlooked, no doubt.