Doug Ellis

Herbert Douglas " Doug " Ellis ( born January 3, 1924 in Hooton, Cheshire ) is a British businessman and especially as a former chairman of English football club Aston Villa known. The millionaire, who was considered a pioneer of " package tourism " to Spain in the late 1950's, impressed in his two terms of office 1968-1975 and 1982-2006 pioneered the development of the club from Birmingham.

Youth and rise to riches

Ellis was born in the county of Cheshire in the small village of Hooton on the Wirral Peninsula. Early in his life he had to take responsibility within the family. The father died at the age of 27 years on a lung and pleurisy, as Doug Ellis was just three years old and eight weeks before birth nor a little sister. From the age of twelve, the young Doug milk delivered from its surroundings and immediately after his graduation he began as a railroad worker. His first independent activities also included that he began to breed canaries at home and budgies and occasionally repaired motorcycles.

At the age of 17 years, Ellis volunteered for the British Army. There he served four years of the Fleet Air Arm (FAA ), and was also to Ceylon, now Sri Lanka, ordered at this time. Here he learned to know his first wife, who had treated him as a nurse during a malaria disease. In Southeast Asia, he then built his first transportation company to which vehicles the Austin Motor Company from the British home to Ceylon brought to the three FAA bases and ships in Trincomalee. He employed about 80 people, including indigenous Tamils ​​and the Sinhalese. When in 2005 the Indian Ocean tsunami wreaked devastation many in Sri Lanka, in particular, the region was affected, had worked in Ellis.

Ellis left the Southeast Asian island in 1946, but decided to stay with the travel and transportation business. He remembered mainly for the numerous discussions with soldiers who had seen the world during the war and like to want to return to peacetime to these places with their families. Back in England, Ellis hired in Preston with frames Tours, the then second largest travel company in the country. There he introduced a number of innovations in its range, including exclusive excursion programs in the context of sporting events, including football, and besides still boxing and racing events listed. Although he was very successful with it, wanted to be employers raise the wages of 30 pounds per week is not on and so founded the young entrepreneur with a starting capital of 2,500 pounds, the " Ellis Travel Agency ".

In 1955 Ellis started with the organization of package tours to large population groups in Birmingham. Later, Manchester, Glasgow, Dublin and Belfast came more cities from the "province" added and also in Canada, he did pioneering work in the tourism industry. He forged an alliance with three other travel agents and so organized the mass flow holidays to mainland Spain and Mallorca. The business developed so rapidly that Ellis meanwhile chairman of 19 companies and had 600 houses and an apartment complex built in Birmingham. For this purpose he had in addition to numerous stores an electronics company, a construction company, three butchers and two farms. The on-site brewery " Aston Manor Brewery " is now run by his son Peter and produces around one million bottles a week. The wide range of companies reduced Ellis in 1976 radically when he sold twelve companies in a short time.

Aston Villa

The affection for English football led Ellis to Aston Villa. The club was in 1969 to prevent virtually bankrupt and at the worst, he lent the club £ 100,000. Between 1968 and 1975 he was Chairman and majority shareholder of Aston Villa and during this time he pursued rather the concept of education instead of expensive transfers. To this end, he called one of the first football academies in the country in life and although the biggest recent success of the club in 1981 and 1982 - the English league title and a year later won the European Champions' Cup - do not come within the term of office of Ellis, had but seven players in the squad contributed from their own youth program to this item.

In 1975, he first put down the club presidency and in 1979 completely dismissed from the board. Three years later, he became in turn the running of the club and held that even until the takeover of the club by the American businessman Randy Lerner in 2006 held. The reputation of Ellis within the supporters of Aston Villa was there never very good. Especially made ​​him the fans for the demise of the club, which culminated in relegation from the top English league five years after the European Cup victory, responsible - other voices, however, were the main culprit in the increasing debt that made ​​the club during the absence of Ellis had ..

In May 1997, Aston Villa went under the leadership of Doug Ellis on the stock market and had a capital value of 126 million pounds. In the aftermath Ellis sold part of his share package of ex 47 % in 1996 gradually to about one- third of the shares outstanding amount. Analysts also believe that Ellis with its trading activities in connection with the IPO generated some four million pounds. Over time, the share price fell by almost 90 %. Other decisions of Doug Ellis, as the demolition of the grandstand at the Trinity Road from the 1920s or later to pay yourself a salary, led to inconsistencies in the trailers that already characterized suspected that he tasks the board of the local rivals Birmingham City and Derby County had taken over and had even been chairman of Wolverhampton Wanderers.

The now 80 -year-old Doug Ellis fell ill in 2004 from prostate cancer and handed over some of his duties to Bruce Langham, whom he made CEO. In May 2005, however, Langham entered already back to alleged inconsistencies with Ellis. In the same year, Ellis was awarded the Order of the British Empire as " OBE ". After a successful bypass surgery and a three-month break, he returned shortly after the beginning of the season 2005/ 06 in Villa Park back. After the successful takeover of the club to Randy Lerner, the new club management appointed him as "President of lifetime". In July 2007 his Aston University awarded an honorary doctorate.