DOUG ELLIS: A MAN OF THE MIDLANDS

Sir Herbert Douglas Ellis, (3 January 1924 –11 October 2018) earned the OBE, which was awarded to him in 2005. He was an English entrepreneur and became the chairman of Aston Villa FC from 1968 to 1975, and again from 1982 until 2006. In 1994, a stand at Villa Park was named after him. Ellis received an honorary degree from Aston University in July 2007.

On March 4th 2012, Ellis was knighted in the New Year's Honours List, for his involvement of various charities. In January 2012, the Doug Ellis Learning Hub was opened at the University of Birmingham Medical School. Ellis donated £416,000 towards the feature. In April 2013, the newly refurbished Sir Doug Ellis Woodcock Sports Centre at Aston University opened, featuring a new sports hall and squash courts. This work was partly funded by Ellis.  Also in 2012, Ellis donated £10,000 to the building of a new school gymnasium at Sutton Coldfield GS for Girls. 

He liked proving that he was as loyal as he was free and easy with the purse strings, when he became the Chairman of Wolverhampton Wanderers on this day in 1982, managing to save the club from extinction. Doug had already been at "near" neighbours, Aston Villa as Chairman and also been on the board at nearby Birmingham City. He then later joined the Villains, fancying himself as the answer to a very covoluted trivia question about West Midlands football!!

Doug attended trials with Tranmere Rovers as a child, but chose to pursue his business career rather than football. During World War II, he was based with the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), and the experience of his first trip abroad inspired him to provide low-cost foreign package holidays to people of a similar economic background. Before he was 40, he had become a millionaire by pioneering holiday deals to Spain, with his company Sunflight.

He died on 11 October 2018, aged 94.