Randy Lerner - An Appreciation

His allusions in his 'Farewell'  letter were references in literature.

It's a shame so many "fans" on many villa forums were ignorant of it and thought he was a crackhead or mental.
The lack of education is on the fans.

Randy, whilst not being a business-whiz, and proving it with the Browns and Amex...will have had advisors, lawyers, financial advocates etc ...to bloody help him and and advise him over the years.

Unfortunately ~~  whatever advice he was ever given, anywhere at anytime, didn't seem to come through in his many decisions.
Every bit of advice and direction, surely couldn't have led to so much financial loss...everywhere ?

To be truthful, I couldn't stand the man I considered a dillentante, the weakest of the litter that somehow inherited wealth beyond imagination. And dissipated it, ignoring advice and guidance. In an arrogant, egotistical manner.

To be truthfull, I now realise, after his letter...that some call a "Ramble"...that the guy is a "ROMANTIC"...in the best sense. A"Great Gadsby" out of time.

Thinking for himself and ignoring advisors, always wishing for the best and trying to find a way out of the woods himself, and getting lost, again and again.

Ego -- yes

Maliciousness - never

Ability - zero

A ROMANTIC, that wished the best, ignored advice.... hoped more than planned...and needed a Hatchet-Man like Hollis, at long last to bring him to his senses.

His Heart was always in the right place, with the Browns and us...no mistake..he just wasn't capable of accepting advice, when his dreams were more important.

A TRUE ROMANTIC

I doubt our Cup Final defeat dented those dreams....because we were there anyway

I once thought Randy was a carpet-bagger, US asset-stripper etc etc...up until his final letter, I truly detested the man.

NOW, I feel guilty.

The guy is basically an innocent..WAY OUT OF HIS DEPTH...a Romantic innocent.

Gadsby he ain't....obviously....Mary Popins might be closer...but ...imo....

Randy thinks he is  believes he is.... Holden Caulfield ...and "The Catcher in the Rye"

That's my pyscho-babble over.



I believe Randy wanted the best, hoped for it rather than faught for it

A weak man, who was a Romantic and literature inclined, rather than a ruthless bussiness man.

I AM HAPPY HE HAS MOVED ON.

BUT...I thank him at the same time.

:)

Alf T wrote:
Thinking for himself and ignoring advisors, always wishing for the best and trying to find a way out of the woods himself, and getting lost, again and again.

Ignoring advisors (as well as fans) and 'wishing" is the EXACT reason why people think this...

Alf T wrote:
... thought he was a crackhead or mental.

He might not be mental but he's either egotistical or naive or just plain fucking stupid to try and run and football club without any experienced advisors and to go against the fans.

Randy Lerner isn't worthy of anyones sympathy or guilt as it is his decisions that got him and the club to where it is. He's a disappointment to his family and to the memory of his father.

As I said on a other thread, his farewell letter read like he was half potted watching TV when it occurred to him that he's spunked his children's inheritance on an FA Cup final ticket and doing up a pub.

When that realisation hit him, I bet he was like "FUUUUCK" and had a chuckle to himself.

I bet he's confused though as to why August's payment of the balance of the Brown's sale is three (or four??) times more than he's getting for ALL of the Villa sale.

Still, as Randy Lerner's finances go, the next quarter will be a very unusual one.

Even if Lerner lost all his personal wealth tomorrow, he'd still be alright, the 'Lerner Family Trust' would see to that. I read somewhere recently that he's selling his remaining stake in the Cleveland Browns, that will probably bring in no small fee.

I thought the billion his sold it for was to be paid in installments with the last $300m due in august. But you could be right...he might still own a chunk of it.

I think at the time it was reported that he still owned 17%. It's actually the Lerner Trust who owned the Browns, which I think is his mother, sister and himself. That's why when he sold them to Jimmy Haslam for a Billion Dollars, his own personal wealth didn't increase, because it went into the trust.

Edit: It was actually reported at the time that he would retain 30%.

I'm guessing he structured it that way to keep the money away from his ex-wife.

Bet his Rugeley slapper is rubbing her hands, though.

Romantic, that must be the new meaning, of unable to take advise, unable to concentrate, lacking interest in an institution that he has nearly brought to it's knees, allowing a bunch of oxygen stealing bastards to do what they like, when they like as they knew the men put into position by this great romantic did not have a clue how to handle their over inflated egos.
Some may call it being a Romantic, I like to call it as it is, He is a Wanker and may he never ever set foot in Villa Park again and if he did go broke, this would be one happy Brummie.

He did the acorns thing, which was a fantastic thing to do - I think he deserves much credit for that.
In the words of Graham Taylor he tried to run Aston 'Over a transatlinic telephone line' - which was never going to work.

Its a bit of tragedy really, he was prepared to put money - and was fine financing dougs plans, bodymoor heath refurb, holte pub - but he couldn't seem to execute his own plans.

I don't believe he was a vindictive bloke - in some ways that proved his downfall - he refused to recruit complete bstards - leaning towards 'yes' men - with pretty disastrous results....
Although he was a spent force towards the end, For me its "what might have been"

Yeah, I'm not looking back all misty eyed at his reign. It's been too long since the days of Carew, Young and O'Neil, the mosaic and the Holte pub, and, let's face it, all the goodwill he banked from then has long since dried up. And, yes, Alf T, I did pick up on the literary references thank you very much... and I still come to the conclusion that the guy is a rich, yet well educated moron, who has done literally THE WORST THING POSSIBLE for my club in getting it relegated. The guy can go and romantically nourish the business end of a 12 gauge for all I care.

I think he had the right intentions but was hopelessly inadequate as an owner. Let's hope he really did sell to someone who will take the club forward, and that won't turn out to be another thing he's screwed up.

OK Randolph, thanks for the 1st four years, you gave it your best but you let it slide like gabby at a waterpark.

Oh....... best of luck trying to get your future payments from Samuelson and Co when we get promoted

Good riddance.

You lost me immediately at proving it with the browns

Lerner is now history thank McGrath for this no longer do we have to suffer no money to buy decent players no longer do we have to watch the twat appoint another muppet manager that just agree's to having no money to spend and has to make cutbacks and sell our better players, we finally have some ambition again and hope for the future which feels alien tbh as it has been that long since that twat of an owner Lerner had drained us all of any hope and energy,

Watching clubs like Sandwell overtake us and have a higher net spend every year and even Bournemouth and Watford absolute disgraceful to see happen, Lerner ought to be ashamed of himself and deserved every single anger at him he got!

Good riddance and they say the people with the best intentions can lead you to the road to hell,,,,,,,,quite true in this twats case i find.

I see the resident sty dweller has raised his head out of the pit, take this how you like Alf,

Real shame it turned out the way it did, cause a few things Lerner did had a lot a class about it. Like the pub, Acorns, ceramics etc.

Unfortunately he's a complete fucking idiot when it comes to business.

 


That feels better! (thanks for the great gif CoE82 I'm sure it will be used a lot on here) Lets all hope that the next time we see Lerner will be on Tattoo Fixers just to rid Villa and it's fans from all this contempt.
Enjoy the video Alf.

He gave it a go, then Randy got divorced, Man City won the oil money jackpot, and he lost interest in Villa completely. The way he ran the club the last 5 years has been nothing short of disgraceful and he needed to go. Time will tell if Dr Tony actually puts his money where his mouth is, but so far it seems as if Randy selling to the good doctor is the best thing he did for the club as our owner.

OK.... I can take abuse, from the anonymous-'keyboard-warriors' _ hey you dumbnuts, do you understand my avator ?

.........................

BOT:

I ACTUALLY appreciate Lerner, he kept Villa a going concern.
Before this forum existed, many of our sister forums were screaming everything from suicide to death threats about Doug Ellis.
Lerner was the new Saint.
Just like Lambert and Tactics etc.

Lerner has sunk, publicly over £225 million in villa over 10 years. He will get back what he paid initially and clear our loans, but, even on the alleged promotion bonus, he will not recover his investment in us.

So Be It.

A cr@p businessman, a cr@p listener to pro-finance-advisors. A bloody ROMANTIC.

I've obviously upset a few anonymous keyboard warriors by posting a "positive" thread about Lerner.

I'm glad he's gone..OK ?

But I think it's puerile and juvenile to kick a dead donkey. 'Cos that's what Randy is and was....
His social investment and his BMH investment should be enough to allow him to leave with some dignity.
In those areas he left Ellis in the dust.

His ambition was to build, he chose cr@p yes-men in my opinion and saw future projections conflict.

Out of his depth, he withdrew....he never had any contact nor communication with supporters..like at the Brown's
... he was a BENEFACTOR and those people just accept plaudits as they 'wheel n deal'.

Unfortunately Randy couldn't do either, didn't listen, followed his hopes, and lost out big time with us.

A Romantic ... with an overdose of self-belief.

Aunt Sally - a person set up for abuse or easy criticism. Or in this case a person who sets themself up for abuse or easy criticism........I'm 100%, no 200%, no actually fuck it 300% sure that you are a troll Alf. I've seen it before in forums and something says to me you are either a nose trying to get a reaction, a previous disgruntled forum member - possibly banned - who is causing mischief or just plain weird. I think with your chosen user name, use of Mister Trotts and slightly older person references you want to come across as a slightly eccentric Corporal Jones don't mean any harm guvnor type of person. For me it just doesn't ring true. I wouldn't be nasty to you or call you anything horrible because how can I really KNOW? But I am calling you out cos there's something too off in your posts. I'm convinced they are designed to elicit a reaction rather than to genuinely contribute.
So there you go. I can't prove it, you'll never convince me you are not a troll but you know the saying; if something walks like a duck, looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it's a duck.......and for the love of God please less it on the red font.

Alf T wrote:

But I think it's puerile and juvenile to kick a dead donkey. 'Cos that's what Randy is and was....
His social investment and his BMH investment should be enough to allow him to leave with some dignity.
In those areas he left Ellis in the dust.

Fuck me... where did he leave us? 17th in the Prem and holding on by our fingernails? Nope, that was the year before! He fucking relegated us. A top half (at the very least) club, a feat which he only managed to achieve four times in ten seasons, to dead last in a league with Norwich, Sunderland, Watford and Bournemouth.

Yes, he's a terrible businessman, he's lost a lot of money and he's had us making a loss year on year since he first took over.

Thank fuck he's gone, Alf... you total wind up merchant!