BFR 75 Today

[Louzie0]

He's made mistakes, he's been ignorant and said some stupid things. But he's given us some never to be forgotten memories and been fantastic for football over the years so I wish the big man a happy birthday and all the very best.

So do I.

[OzVilla]

He's made mistakes, he's been ignorant and said some stupid things. But he's given us some never to be forgotten memories and been fantastic for football over the years so I wish the big man a happy birthday and all the very best.

So do I.

Count me in too.

Always will have a massive soft spot for Big Ron.  Villa through and through and there simply cannot be enough of them.

[baddowvillans]

I wish him well. Under BFR we not only played good attacking football we won trophies when the "big" clubs played their first team. The best thing for me though was after a poor performance his post match interview was honest and forthright.  I remember him saying he had reminded the players how people had to work all week to pay for their match day tickets and how they had let them down. Didn't change the result but made me feel better. Happy birthday Ron

[Deano's Mullet]

Although it arguably started with Graham Taylor MK 1, under BFR the media definitely did treat us as a big club, the Villa  did receive  high media coverage as a result of him being manager. This carried on into the  Little years too. Under Gregory though I felt like the press started to treat us like small fry, particularly when top of the league, they treated us like we'd never been there before.

[Damo70]

He had the swagger and belief to walk into a top flight club like Albion as if he owned the place after a life spent in non league and a couple of years at Cambridge then carried that attitude on to United, Wednesday and Villa. And backed it up with results and trophies.

[robbo1874]

Managed some Spanish side for a bit too didn't he? ; )

[lovejoy]

Ron managed Villa for an all too short but successful period, a few off the cuff comments won't diminish the stature of the man.

[Dave Cooper please]

Ron managed Villa for an all too short but successful period, a few off the cuff comments won't diminish the stature of the man.

I'm so pleased you can casually dismiss racism as "off the cuff comments".

[PeterWithesShin]

If a manager we didn't like had made those comments we'd slaughter them for it. As much as I enjoyed some of the time he was manager, i'm not going to change how I view someone who uses racist language just because of it.

[taylorsworkrate]

If a manager we didn't like had made those comments we'd slaughter them for it. As much as I enjoyed some of the time he was manager, i'm not going to change how I view someone who uses racist language just because of it.

Precisely. Look at the way (Rightly so) that Suarez was slaughtered towards the visiting Liverpool fan on this site.

[dave.woodhall]

I'm in two minds about the BFR/racism thing. On the one hand actions speak louder than words and nobody advanced the cause of black players more than he did, from the time when they were still a novelty having bananas thrown at them, to the dawn of the modern era when a player's race, colour or nationality is irrelevant. On the other hand, what he said was, regardless of context, unforgivable and just as telling was the C4 documentary when he gave the impression he still didn't know what the fuss was all about. I think it was Paul Parker who said that you can't use the 'n' word without being racist because if you weren't you wouldn't even think about it. I don't think Ron is racist in the classic meaning of the word whereby other races are inferior but the language he used went beyond the sort of dressing room banter you could just laugh off as a product of his times.

[Dave Cooper please]

Of course he advanced the cause of black players but let's not forget that the two most talented of the "Three Degrees" were signed before he went to West Brom (Batson followed him from Cambridge) and despite the racism amongst the crowds black players were always going to make their mark in the game because of their sheer talent which no manager would be able to ignore for much longer. I don't know how racist Ron Atkinson is or isn't but the fact he played the incredibly talented Regis and Cunningham in a side of his doesn't detract from his comments one little bit, no manager taking over that side could have dropped either of them anyway.

[brian green]

I think younger people than I (I am two weeks younger than BFR) have a far more censorious attitude to racism because the acceptance of the wrongness of it did not happen overnight.   Morality is fluid.   Things which were taboo fifty years ago are now commonplace and vice versa.   MY mother was the most saintly and pious person ever to go to church twice every Sunday.   She would give away her last slice of bread to a hungry person and left all of the money she had in the world (not much) to a dog rescue in Shrewsbury.   But she used the 'N' word casually and frequently.   We had a dog with the 'N' name, and later a cat.   Her favourite colour was 'N' brown, her favourite television was the Black and White Minstrel Show and her favourite music hall star was G H Elliot whose bill matter was "The Chocolate Colured C**n".

So men my age and BFR's age have been obliged to acquire a mind set of what is or is not acceptable language.   I sympathize with BFR for not moving with the times and eliminating racism from the landscape of his life.

In conclusion, just to put my point in context, my mother in common with just about all of her generation would never say the word "cancer".   It was completely taboo and at the very most could only be mouthed silently, but more often than not simply referred to as "you know".   

[E I Adio]

I'm not quite as advanced in years as you are Brian and neither am I anywhere near as eloquent, so thank you for explaining so succinctly what I was attempting to explain a few pages ago.

And I also recall my mother using the 'N' word when describing the colour of shoes, shoe polish, fabrics etc.

[Sexual Ealing]

But BFR isn't from either of your mothers' generatiion.