Ron Saunders

Ron Saunders
Personal information
Full name Ronald Saunders
Date of birth (1932-11-06)6 November 1932
Place of birth Birkenhead, Cheshire, England
Date of death 7 December 2019(2019-12-07) (aged 87)
Position Forward
Senior career*
Years Team Apps (Gls)
1951–1955 Everton 3 (0)
1955–1957 Tonbridge Angels 53 (39)
1957–1958 Gillingham 49 (20)
1958–1964 Portsmouth 236 (145)
1964–1965 Watford 39 (18)
1965–1967 Charlton Athletic 65 (24)
Total 445 (246)
Managerial career
1967–1969 Yeovil Town
1969 Oxford United
1969–1973 Norwich City
1973–1974 Manchester City
1974–1982 Aston Villa
1982–1986 Birmingham City
1986–1987 West Bromwich Albion
* Club domestic league appearances and goals

Ronald Saunders (6 November 1932 – 7 December 2019) was an English football player and manager. He played for Everton, Tonbridge Angels, Gillingham, Portsmouth, Watford and Charlton Athletic during a 16-year playing career, before moving into management. He managed seven clubs in 20 years, and he was the first manager to have taken charge of Aston Villa, Birmingham City and West Bromwich Albion, the three rival clubs based in and around the city of Birmingham.

Saunders also managed Yeovil Town, Oxford United, Norwich City and Manchester City. He was involved in football for 36 consecutive years; he left his final managerial role, at West Bromwich Albion, at the age of 54.

Playing career

As a player, he was an old-fashioned, hard-shooting centre forward who scored 246 goals in 16 years for Everton, Tonbridge Angels, Gillingham, Portsmouth, Watford and Charlton Athletic. Saunders was leading goalscorer for six consecutive seasons at Portsmouth and his goals were a key factor in helping Pompey win the Third Division title in 1962. He remains their third highest goalscorer. He retired from full-time playing in 1967, when with Charlton.

Managerial career

Early career

Saunders became player-manager at non-league Yeovil Town.

Norwich City

As a manager, Saunders first tasted success at Norwich City, guiding them to the Second Division title in the 1971–72 season, which saw them promoted to the First Division for the first time in their history. Sixth place had been the closest Norwich City came to promotion during the 1960s. Saunders steered Norwich City to survival in their first season in the top flight. They also reached the League Cup final making their first appearance at Wembley Stadium, losing 1–0 to Tottenham Hotspur. He resigned as Norwich manager on 17 November 1973 following a boardroom row after a 3–1 home defeat to Everton. Saunders remained highly critical of Norwich chairman, Sir Arthur South. When Aston Villa visited Norwich on the last day of the 1974–75 season, he required the team bus to drive past South's furrier's business several times with his players ordered to give the two-finger salute.

Manchester City

Five days after his walk-out, Saunders accepted an offer to take over at Manchester City. For the second season running he managed a team to the Football League Cup final, but once again he lost, this time to Wolverhampton Wanderers. Despite their cup run, City's league form was shaky. However this was not the reason Saunders was dismissed. Three weeks before the end of the season, he was undone by the "Player Power" of City's big-name star players. There were serious dressing room disagreements with the likes of internationals, Mike Summerbee, Peter Barnes, Colin Bell and Joe Royle not easily accepting Saunder's strict-disciplinarian style.

Aston Villa

Saunders did not stay out of work for long, and the following month joined Second Division side Aston Villa as manager. His relationship with Chairman Doug Ellis would sour before the start of his first season at Villa, over the circumstances of his first signing, Frank Carrodus. Aston Villa had an uninspiring start and, with defeat against Cardiff on 28 December, had "virtually lost touch with the promotion race". However, Saunders galvanised the team and guided Villa to promotion to the First Division as runners-up in his first season as manager. He became the first manager to take three clubs to the League Cup final in three successive years by winning the 1975 Football League Cup final. His performance would see him awarded Bell's Whisky Manager of the Year, ahead of Dave Mackay of First Division Champions Derby County.

Ellis praised Saunders for his achievements in building three successful Aston Villa teams through inspired recruitment, while his military-style methods squeezed the best out of those players. In his second season he brought in Dennis Mortimer and Andy Gray, "excellent purchases both of them as indeed were the majority of his signings." However, Ellis was critical of Saunder's difficult personality which alienated players and board-members alike. He exhibited signs of jealousy, and Villa's longest-serving player, Charlie Aitken, while acknowledging that Saunders was "one-hundred per cent efficient" in his training schedules and match preparation, theorised that he "suffered from an inferiority complex and it was this that constantly spurred him to prove to anyone with a public profile that he held the upper hand".

Under Saunders, Villa also won the 1977 Football League Cup final. In 1980–81, he guided Villa to their first First Division title for 71 years.

He resigned from Villa on 9 February 1982. At the time, Villa were mid-table in the First Division but had reached the quarter-finals of the European Cup. There had been increasing tension between the manager and Chairman Ron Bendall with Saunders complaining about stadium manager Terry Rutter's expenditure and seeking more say over non-footballing matters. Rutter would later receive a suspended prison sentence having been prosecuted for conspiracy to defraud the Football Grounds Improvement Trust and obtaining money by deception from the club. The judge stated that Bendall would have faced these charges too had he not died.

Saunders' assistant Tony Barton then took over, eventually led them to victory in the 1982 European Cup final four months later.

Birmingham City

Saunders moved straight to Villa's local rivals, Birmingham City. They went down in 1984 but he got them back into the top flight at the first attempt. In January 1986, Saunders walked out on struggling Birmingham to take charge of local rivals and fellow strugglers West Bromwich Albion.

West Bromwich Albion

Saunders was unable to stop Albion from sliding into the Second Division and was dismissed in September 1987, after failing to get them back into the First Division. This was his last managerial role.

Retirement

In a friendly fixture staged as a testimonial for the recently deceased Tony Barton, Saunders appeared at Villa Park in 1994 as manager of a Villa side drawn mostly from players who had played in the European Cup final in 1982, against a West Midlands all-stars side. This was the first time he had returned to the club since his resignation some 13 years earlier. In December 2006, the 74-year-old Saunders was the guest of honour at Villa Park for the match between Aston Villa and Manchester United, invited by new chairman Randy Lerner. He returned to Villa Park shortly after, on 5 May 2007, for the 25th anniversary celebrations of the 1982 European Cup win.

Managerial statistics

Managerial record by team and tenure
Team From To Record Ref(s)
PWDLWin %
Yeovil Town 17 April 1967 1 March 1969 128553637043.0
Oxford United 1 March 1969 9 July 1969 12633050.0
Norwich City 10 July 1969 18 November 1973 221846176038.0
Manchester City 22 November 1973 12 April 1974 3010911033.3
Aston Villa 4 June 1974 9 February 1982 395180106109045.6
Birmingham City 22 February 1982 16 January 1986 202725377035.6
West Bromwich Albion 14 February 1986 2 September 1987 65141932021.5
Total 1,053421287345040.0

Death

Saunders died on 7 December 2019, aged 87.

Honours

Player

England U18

Portsmouth

Manager

Norwich City

Manchester City

Aston Villa

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Ron Saunders". UK A–Z Transfers. Neil Brown. Retrieved 28 January 2010.
  2. ↑ "Pompey 1st Team Squad: 1958/59". PompeyRama. Archived from the original on 15 July 2011. Retrieved 28 January 2010., and subsequent season pages.
  3. 1 2 Jones, Trefor (1996). The Watford Football Club Illustrated Who's Who. T.G. Jones. p. 205. ISBN 0-9527458-0-1.
  4. ↑ "Pompey Database". Portsmouth F.C. Supporters Club of U.S.A. Archived from the original on 14 April 2009. Retrieved 11 April 2014.
  5. ↑ "History – 1970/1985". Norwich City F.C. Archived from the original on 22 July 2012. Retrieved 29 March 2007.
  6. ↑ "Club History". Norwich City F.C. Archived from the original on 15 August 2022. Retrieved 20 September 2022.
  7. ↑ "Club History – 1970 to 1985". Norwich City F.C. Archived from the original on 22 July 2012. Retrieved 28 January 2010.
  8. ↑ "English League Cup Final 1972–73". Soccerbase. Centurycomm. Archived from the original on 27 November 2007. Retrieved 26 March 2007.
  9. ↑ Green, Geoffrey (19 November 1973). "No valid answers for collective decline". The Times. p. 8. Last year, Norwich only just escaped relegation by a whisker and again find themselves in the shadows, made even darker on Saturday night when their manager, Ron Saunders, resigned after an angry scene in the boardroom following the 3–1 home defeat by Everton.
  10. ↑ Deadly!, Doug Ellis, Page 71, 1998, ISBN 09-4686647-3
  11. ↑ "Derby players not to go on strike". The Times. 23 November 1973. p. 11.
  12. ↑ Deadly!, Doug Ellis, Page 69, 1998, ISBN 09-4686647-3
  13. ↑ Matthews, Tony (1995). Birmingham City: A Complete Record. Derby: Breedon Books. pp. 64–65. ISBN 978-1-85983-010-9.
  14. ↑ Deadly!, Doug Ellis, Page 70, 1998, ISBN 09-4686647-3
  15. ↑ Bloomfield heads the queue for unhappy Osgood, The Birmingham Post, 31 December 1974, p17
  16. 1 2 3 Deadly!, Doug Ellis, Page 71, 1998, ISBN 09-4686647-3
  17. ↑ "Ron Saunders: Former Aston Villa manager dies aged 87". BBC. 7 December 2019. Retrieved 13 March 2026.
  18. ↑ Stride, Steve (22 December 2024). "The inside story of an Aston Villa legend's fall from grace at Villa Park". BirminghamLive. Retrieved 17 February 2026.
  19. ↑ The Aston Villa Miscellany David Woodhall, 2007. ISBN 1-905326-17-3
  20. ↑ Ward, Adam; Griffin, Jeremy (30 September 2002). The essential history of Aston Villa. Headline. p. 129. ISBN 0-7553-1140-X.
  21. ↑ Matthews (3 March 1995). Birmingham City: A Complete Record. Breedon. pp. 42–44. ISBN 978-1-85983-010-9.
  22. 1 2 Jawad, Hyder (6 December 2006). "Saunders to return to Villa Park". Birmingham Post. Retrieved 11 April 2014.
  23. ↑ Jawad, Hyder (23 December 2006). "RETURN OF THE HERO; Villa salute to 'greatest boss' long overdue He was the catalyst of Aston Villa's greatest successes but Ron Saunders became the forgotten man". Birmingham Post. Retrieved 11 April 2014 – via The Free Library.
  24. ↑ "O'Neill: Heroes should inspire". Express & Star. Wolverhampton. 4 May 2007. Retrieved 11 April 2014.
  25. ↑ "Stats: Managers: Ron Saunders". Yeovil Town F.C. Digital Archive. Retrieved 2 April 2025.
  26. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Manager search: Saunders, R (Ron)". English National Football Archive (ENFA). Retrieved 2 April 2025.
  27. ↑ Bonell, Jonny (7 December 2019). "Aston Villa legend Ron Saunders dies, aged 87". Birmingham Mail. Retrieved 7 December 2019.
  28. ↑ "Ron Saunders: Former Aston Villa manager dies aged 87". BBC Sport. 7 December 2019. Retrieved 7 December 2019.
  29. ↑ "England Youth results". England Football Online. Retrieved 26 June 2022.
  30. ↑ "PAST MASTERS - RON SAUNDERS". Gillingham Football Club. 3 July 2012. Retrieved 26 June 2022.
  31. ↑ "Norwich City v Tottenham Hotspur, 03 March 1973". 11v11. AFS Enterprises. Retrieved 11 October 2026.
  32. ↑ "Manchester City v Wolverhampton Wanderers, 02 March 1974". 11v11. AFS Enterprises. Retrieved 11 October 2026.
  33. ↑ "Aston Villa v Norwich City, 01 March 1975". 11v11. AFS Enterprises. Retrieved 11 October 2026.
  34. ↑ "Aston Villa v Everton, 13 April 1977". 11v11. AFS Enterprises. Retrieved 11 October 2026.
  35. ↑ "1981/82 Charity Shield". footballsite.co.uk. Retrieved 4 November 2019.

Bibliography