Sir Doug Ellis is honoured with a knighthood
by Karen Jones
Touchbase editor Karen Jones talks to Sir Doug Ellis about his charity work, for which he has received a knighthood in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours
“I would like to dedicate this knighthood to my mother and many other people who have helped me on the way to my 88th birthday,” says Doug Ellis, as he reflects on the honour that has been bestowed upon him.
The former chairman of Aston Villa Football Club not only celebrated the turn of 2012 with the news that he was to be knighted for his charitable work, but also saw in his 88th birthday on January 3rd.
It’s turning into a vintage year for him.
“It was November 16 when I received a letter telling me that the Prime Minister had recommended that I be knighted,” he explains, as he shows me around his smart Sutton Coldfield home.
“I sat for a moment reflecting and thinking about where I had come from in my life. I couldn’t believe it. I was told that the recommendation had been made due to my work with many different charities.”
Sir Doug, who was awarded an OBE in 2005 for services to football, has a 30-year association with a number of charities, which began when he supported the British Commonwealth Society for the Blind through his first travel company, Midland Air tours.
“A lady who ran the Birmingham branch came to see me at my travel agency and she told me the purpose of raising money was to pay for the travel arrangements for two doctors and four nurses to go to Northern India and set up a camp under canvas,” he recalls.
“They planned to invite mothers to bring their children to have a cataract operation, if they needed one. Some mothers walked some 100 miles to get this treatment for their child.
“Every year I gave a prize of a fortnight’s holiday at one of my hotels in Spain, travelling from Birmingham airport on my chartered aircraft.
“My aim was to help any charity that was helping children. The main reason for this was that I was not born with a silver spoon.”
Sir Doug describes his upbringing as “hard”. His father, a former Tranmere Rovers footballer, died at the age of 27 from pneumonia and pleurisy. Sir Doug was just three years old and his younger sister, Doreen, was just eight weeks old.
“For my mother this was a struggle beyond measure and throughout my childhood we were very poor,” he says.
Now, the controversial businessman, who sold Aston Villa in 2006 to American billionaire Randy Lerner in a deal said to be worth £63 million, supports more than 30 charities here in the Midlands, the UK and abroad.
It is believed Sir Doug, who was chairman of 19 companies at one point in his career, has donated more than £2.5 million to good causes.
He supports several cancer research and heart charities, following his treatment for prostate cancer in 2004, bowel cancer, and more recently, having to undergo a triple heart by-pass.
“There are several charities dealing with cancer that I support and several more, including the British Heart Foundation. I specialise in anything that is local, particularly in North Birmingham and more locally, Sutton Coldfield. I like to support any charity dealing with youth and sport particularly football.”
The Life President of Aston Villa FC still receives between 20 and 30 letters every week, asking him to champion numerous causes, and it is thanks to his PA, Marion, who worked with him when he was at Aston Villa, that he is able to deal with the correspondence.
“She is brilliant; I couldn’t do without her. She knows me inside out,” laughs Sir Doug. “She was with me for 30 years at Aston Villa and now I’ve built her an office next door. She has a computer and she runs me.”
ChildLine and the NSPCC are among his favourite charities. He donated a significant sum after having a conversation with Esther Rantzen, who founded ChildLine, about the numbers of telephone calls they were missing from vulnerable youngsters because of a lack of funding.
“She told me that because of the shortage of money, ChildLine was only able to accept two thirds of the telephone calls from distressed children and a third would never be heard as they couldn’t afford to man the phones during the night when actually a lot of the calls came in,” he said,
His donation ensured that the charity could employ those much-needed extra people during the night.
“She [Esther] introduced me to one of her male volunteers, who happened to be a school teacher. He told me about a recent case of a boy of 13 who was calling to ask them to advise his mum and dad, his school master and his pal the reason he was committing suicide.
“He was calling from the parapet of a bridge on the M5. Whilst he kept the boy talking, the other member got in touch with the police in Stourbridge, who sent out a constable to the bridge. The policemen and this man talked him down after one hour and ten minutes.
“My thought immediately was that if this boy had been one of the third of calls that previously weren’t being answered, he would be dead by now. I was glad we made a difference.”
It’s not just local causes that he has supported. When the devastating tsunami hit Sri Lanka on Boxing Day 2004, he organised a fundraising event at Villa Park, which raised £106,000 and paid for 42 fishing boats for stricken families whose livelihoods had been destroyed. Each one was painted claret and blue and named after Villa players. One was named after his wife Heidi, whom he married in 1963.
Sir Doug was born and bred in Chester, but spent most of his life in the Midlands, spending 35 years at Villa Park. He took over the club in 1968 when it was bankrupt and courted controversy during his tenure, which lasted until 1979 and later, in his second spell at the club, between 1982 and 2006.
“I ran it on a tight budget for 35 years, suffering a lot of abuse from a minority of supporters, most of whom are congratulating me today,” he explains. “I sold it to a good man [Randy Lerner] for much less money than I could have taken from four other predators, who were all borrowing money to purchase Aston Villa.”
While at Villa, he was nicknamed “Deadly” Doug - but not for reasons people assume.
“People think it was sacking managers: I had 13 managers and sacked 11,” he says.
But, in fact, it was after a salmon fishing expedition with his old friend Jimmy Greaves, the former footballer and TV pundit.
“I used to make films of me fishing, one of which was paid for by a Champagne company,” he recalls. “They asked me to make a film catching salmon and so they had a camera on the beach and a camera on the boat and I hooked this salmon. I’d taken Jimmy Greaves with me and after ten minutes it was in the boat. I despatched the salmon; Jimmy Greaves couldn’t do it.
“That’s how I got the name ‘Deadly’.”
As he sits and reminisces, he glances at the 150 cards and letters that wellwishers have sent him, following the announcement of his knighthood.
“I owe thanks to those who nominated me,” says Sir Doug.
Locally, Lady Jayne Ackers spear headed the nominations with the help of other supporters, she took on the quest after the death of her husband, Sir James who firmly believed that Doug should receive the highest honour for his charity work both in the West Midlands and nationally.
Sir Doug explains that he is clearly touched by the honour and the efforts of those who have supported his nomination.
From humble beginnings, through to serving in the Royal Navy, starting his own business and then leading Aston Villa FC, it has been a life of achievement and hard work for Sir Doug. And at 88, he clearly has an appetite for more.
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