Oh S$*%, we havn't got him have we!

[Legion]

Uriah Rennie.

[The Left Side]

Philip Don was another bastard to us!

[PeterWithesShin]

Uriah Rennie.

I was going to say him as well. Loads of people seemed to think he was a good ref whereas he always struck me as a "hey look, i'm on TV and i'm important" type ref.

[Exeter 77]

Alf Buksh was shit. And if you wanted an afternoon of ref watching you would be hard pressed to trump Winter or Rennie.

Buksh was the worst top flight referee I can remember although Elleray made some terrible decisions against Villa - giving a penalty for handball against Mark Delaney when the ball hit him on the shoulder blade at Sunderland was the worst.

[OzVilla]

For a one off games, the Ref at Anfield circa 1992 when Ronnie Rosenthal did a diving back flip to earn the Redscouce a penalty - clueless right through.  Some bloke from Kendall, Peck I think.

Also the Ref we had against Juve in the 83 European Cup Qtr Final for disallowing a perfectly legal Villa goal for a suppossed foul on their thuglike centre half Brio - who was trying to climb inside Gary Shaw's shorts all night.

Halsey against Arsenal at home in 2003.  Star struck and intimidated all game.

[KevinGage]

Elleray. Always had a prickish headmaster way about him, having to lower himself to deal with the plebs.
He's not missed.

Roger Milford and Gerald Ashby were two of the better ones, ones where your heart didn't immediately sink when you spotted their name on the match programme.

[peter w]

Are refs always shit when we have them and only when we lose?

[ADVILLAFAN]

How about the ref at the 1878 Cup Final ? Segar Richard Bastard.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segar_Bastard

"Actually it's B-stard"

[E I Adio]

Clive Thomas. Self important arrogant Welsh twat whose objective was to make himself the centre of attention.

[curiousorange]

Martin Bodenham. Fat twat, always seemed to have him for United games where they'd get marginal offsides and petty 50/50s in their favour. And I can't believe nobody's mentioned Paul Durkin. Not even a closet Red.

[AV1874]

Ironically enough, having read Ellary's book, he noted that he always enjoyed coming to Villa Park to ref us.

[pooligan]

From days gone by, Ellery, Styles, Rennie, Courtney, Poll ,Wilkie and Dur'so or what ever is name was. Also the guy who missed the goal that never was at Leicester the year we were relegated to the 3rd. Osborne i think was his name. Also a guy who we only had for friendlies , Vic Callow a self confessed Bluenose. As for todays lot, Dowd,Clattenburg, Halsey and the guy from Cheshire who i think is Mark Jones

[Pat McMahon]

From days gone by, Ellery, Styles, Rennie, Courtney, Poll ,Wilkie and Dur'so or what ever is name was. Also the guy who missed the goal that never was at Leicester the year we were relegated to the 3rd. Osborne i think was his name. Also a guy who we only had for friendlies , Vic Callow a self confessed Bluenose. As for todays lot, Dowd,Clattenburg, Halsey and the guy from Cheshire who i think is Mark Jones

Did you go to that Leicester game pooligan? I remember (from the local news) it being on a Saturday evening in foul weather and that the ref did not see the ball go in and come out. Not sur ebut i think it was a Pat McMahon shot.

I never liked Elleray - always made bad decisions against us, especially at Sunderland with the Delaney handball, though in his defence I think he reffed the Bolton semi in 2000. Halsey has always filled me with dread and lately Dowd too. I remember liking Gordon Hill from the 70s as he seemed to be a lucky charm. I think he reffed the 75 Norwich final and was not averse to giving players a mouthful of abuse if they had a go at him.

[pooligan]

Yes Pat, i was at that Leicester game. Yes for some reason it was a Saturday evening , which meant i was able to go and watch a Central League  game at Villa Park beforehand. I remember it was heavy rain most of the night and getting soaked on the long walk to and from the ground and the station.It was Pat McMahon who shot and the ball beat Peter Shilton all ends up and hit the stanchion at the back of the net and bounced  back on to the pitch. To our amazement ,Leicester played on and actually put the ball in the net at the other end,but by then there was one hell of a arguement going on with Villa players protesting to the ref that the ball had hit the net. Another thing i remember about that game, is in the last minute the Leicester winger Len Glover who was very skillful and direct ,actually put the ball in the net and lot of fans thought it counted but to our relief we noticed that most of the players were shaking hands and walking off the pitch.To this day i don't why the goal did not count.

I never liked Elleray either, always seemed to make bad decisions against us like you say. Worst one as far as i am concerned is the Enkleman clanger at Small Heath. He had no idea if Enkleman had touched the ball or not but gave the goal.I liked Gordon Hill to, another two i remember as being ok refs were Joe Worrell and Roger Kirkpatrick

[The Man With A Stick]

Never liked Paul Danson, he always seemed to have a shocker against us.  I'm quite sure the fact that he was from Leicester and we were managed by SBL had absolutely nothing to do with his performances at all though.