Ron Saunders

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Ron Saunders (born November 6, 1932 in Birkenhead, Cheshire) was an English football player and successful manager. He remains the only manager to have taken charge of Aston Villa, Birmingham City and West Bromwich Albion.

As a player, he was a hard-shooting centre forward. He scored over 200 goals in 13 years as a centre-forward for Everton, Gillingham, Portsmouth, Watford and Charlton. Saunders was leading goalscorer for six consecutive seasons at Portsmouth and it was largely his goals that won Pompey the Third Division title in 1962. He remains their third highest goalscorer to this day. He retired from playing in 1967, when with Charlton.

As a manager Saunders first tasted success at Norwich, guiding them to the Second Division title for the first time in 1972. A short spell at Manchester City followed, before he joined Aston Villa in 1974.

He managed Villa to the Second Division title and the League Cup in 1975, winning the League Cup again in 1977 before taking the club to its first Championship success for 70 years in 1981. He resigned from Villa on the verge of the club's greatest achievement, winning the European Cup, due to a disagreement with the board over his contract.

Surprisingly he moved straight to Villa's arch-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. He 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.

On 23 December 2006, the 74-year-old Saunders was the guest of honour at Villa Park for the match between Aston Villa and Manchester United. This was the first time he returned to the club since his resignation in 1982, as the guest of new chairman Randy Lerner. However, he returned to Villa Park shortly after on 5 May 2007 for the 25th Anniversary celebrations of the 1982 European Cup win. Although Saunders was not in charge for the final (he resigned three months earlier at the time of the quarter-finals) he had brought in all the players who won the European Cup under his successor Tony Barton.

His long-standing record of scoring 4 hat-tricks in one season for Tonbridge Angels was recently beaten by Jon Main.

Ron Saunders is a cousin of American Football coach Al Saunders.

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