Herbert Douglas Ellis

'Deadly' Doug Ellis began life in a poor family with a widowed mother. However, he had become a millionaire before he was forty due to pioneering package holidays to the sun.

Ellis has been a controversial Chairman and major shareholder of Aston Villa F.C. for two separate spells; the first being from 1968 to 1975. Ellis was replaced as Chairman and finally ousted from the board in 1979. However Ellis returned in 1982 and has remained chairman of the club to this day. Fans remain bitter towards Mr Ellis after the decline of the Club so soon after the European Cup victory in 1982; within five years the Club was relegated.

In 1996 Doug Ellis owned 47 percent of Aston Villa. In May 1997 Aston Villa floated at a valuation of ?126m. Ellis sold a number of his shares at flotation, raising around ?4m for himself and reducing his shareholding to around one-third of the total shares in the club. Since issue, the club's share price has fallen by almost 90 percent.

Ellis has an infamous reputation as English football's most feared and egotistical chairman. He caused a storm amongst the fans in the mid-1990s when the Witton Lane Stand was renamed The Doug Ellis Stand, a change Doug claimed to know nothing about.

Supporters have long critised his lack of ambition and spending on top players, Ellis's reply has always been one of financial prudence. However an uproar was caused when he was reported to be the very first football club director to pay himself a salary (believed to be as high as ?200,000 per annum) when it was made legal by The Football Association in the early eighties. Along with this, his love of Aston Villa Football Club has been questioned in light of the fact that he has served on the Boards of Derby County and Villa's arch-rivals, Birmingham City.

If you have examples of things that Doug Ellis has said or done please email them to dougsaid@astonvilla.biz.

We're going to start with this classic. Doug's letter to shareholders in 1979.