Doug Ellis

Because as supporters, we're struggling already to make an atmosphere to one half of the pitch, if that makes sense.

Because you've got the whole tend and then obviously that flows towards Trinity and Doug Ellis.

But on the other side, more towards where I'm in the press box, it is quiet.

Genuinely, there is no atmosphere there.

I don't think this is a huge issue, to be honest.

No, I don't think it's a huge issue.

I'm just saying that I think it's made worse when we're not, controlling games i'm not even saying just playing well i just mean when we have the ball that's when the fans make more noise you know um i don't think there's anything we can do to be honest no obviously the the sides of the north stand between north and trinity north and doug ellis will be filled in the structures will be in place so it'll be less of a hole should we say either side or the two holes but The fact that there's no fans in there, there's no noise being generated from it, there's no noise coming from that side to sort of repel the away fans as well.

I don't think we can do anything about that and we're just going to have to face it this season.

Yeah, it's always been like that.

The Trinity and the Doug Ellis or the Wittenland.

The top of the

north stand was quite good.

It is colder, I think.

I think you might be right.

And when Brentford scored, they were going, who are you? Who are you? But pointing to the Doug Ellis.

So they were pointing across themselves instead of towards the north.

But when I first started to meet these people and the types of people that were making decisions, you just thought, wow, this is still wonderful.

Whereas you used to say that Doug Ellis ran it like a corner shop, but it was still almost naive in terms of its setup.

And Manchester City came with a plan.

They knew the future.

Mm.

And Villa had been pretty much in the doldrums since the '90s through the end of the Doug Ellis era, and in a similar way to the way we've been for the past three or four years, we were filled with this kind of new hope, this, like, proud history, bright future, Randy Lerner, Martin O'Neill, and we really felt like we were gonna be able to break into the Champions League and win trophies.

And just as we were getting there, Man City turned up and suddenly started cherry-picking our players and basically jumped the queue in our eyes, and it was a... [laughs] And Randy Lerner lost interest.

Randy Lerner and Martin O'Neill fell out, and that was really the beginning of Villa's slide, a very long and depressing slide that led to-

I dislike them, but then I've come kind of full circle to be like, "Well, yeah, this is just what they are." Like, I'm...

But it's similar to, like, Villa now, you know, people, people your age now are able to enjoy the success that Villa are having because they've lived through the tough times.

And people who were a bit older than you when the Martin O'Neill era was going on, they felt like they'd really earned that success because they'd been through kind of the, the latter days of Doug Ellis and David O'Leary and the end of John Gregory and all of the, you know, Graham Taylor's second reign.

It, it was a really kind of quite a grim time to be a Villa fan.

Yeah.

Obviously, Witton Lane was what the Doug Ellis is.

I would change that tomorrow

if I could.

He was, like I say, before his time.

And Doug Ellis brought him in because of the way he was trying to redevelop the way football worked.

And then Wenger came into Arsenal and did the same.

And everybody went, oh, he's good, isn't he? Great ideas, yeah.