Thumper

Very clever. Right now, a sizeable chunk of people on here believe most, if not all of the following: Graeme Mathie is a control freak who demands complete control of Ayr United from signings to tactics to substitutions. He hired Lee Bullen specifically to nod and smile and visit nursing homes. Lee Bullen, who left Sheffield Wednesday and travelled hundreds of miles up north to join Ayr without his family because he wasn't given the control he wanted at Wednesday, happily agreed with this. Mathie is unhappy that the fanbase forced Lee Bullen out by calling him bald. This forced the managing director to sack him. Otherwise he would happily have allowed the club to be relegated because it meant he could keep telling Bullen to bring on Mark McKenzie after 75 minutes. Mathie will only accept as a replacement another yes man, who will want no control whatsoever. This includes none of his own staff, no control over signings, and to do whatever Mathie says. Tam Courts, Gary Bowyer, Ian McCall, Scott Brown and Jose Mourinho have all been interviewed for the job already and immediately turned down because they did not agree to the above. If he can't get his choice of manager, Mathie will either take the job himself or deliberately see the club run into the ground to spite the fans. I call this Operation Head Coach, much like Operation 15-Minute Cities, another thing that retired people are mad about on Facebook.

The biggest problem Mathie has is that current communications are so poor that the dimmest bulbs in the support have decided he was leaving wee notes for Bullen in the dressing room saying "mind and get your boy to miss his penalty today Lee, you know I want Ayr United to lose" and the club is doing nothing to contradict it.

What pub? How's the food?

Also Smith, Mathie, Glendinning, Davie White, Voice of Reason, and the one random guy on Facebook who predicted Bullen's departure.

It's almost as if, as usual, people who left school at 16 and 40 years later are becoming the Unabomber through Facebook posts are somewhat misinformed as to the current state of Ayr United Football Club!

I know it's a low bar but compare the club's media output under McCall to that under the next two managers. I'd argue that it was better than Bullen's as well for that matter. But my main beef was with the idea that McCall somehow didn't care or put in the effort. His problem is the exact opposite.

This is just absolute nonsense. McCall might not have been touring every assisted living facility in the country but he is famous for getting involved in everything possible regarding running a club. As already mentioned, one very specific example of this in managing to hunt the media-starved clown that is currently serving as stadium announcer. When he was at Partick my mate called the ticket office one day to find out where his Ayr ticket had gone and it was McCall that answered it. He now has a signed envelope.

Forty minutes down the motorway from Glasgow, versus fucking Kirkcaldy. I wish this myth would die.

It genuinely is curious how many people on this football forum absolutely fucking hate Ian McCall.

The notion that employers should not be reluctant to sack their employees (or indeed, as more than half a dozen people have suggested on here, that the owner of a football club should not seek to somehow sack his entire board and staff when a manager does not work out) would seem odd if expressed to real people not on a football forum.

"The board have proven their incompetence by sacking Lee Bullen too early" is another absolute barnstormer today. Unprecedented levels of normal.

I really have to stress that people who think Partick Thistle have been any sort of model for boardroom transparency of late need to step back one or two paces. Scottish, bald, one of the first recipients of the Full FA Coaching Certificate.

The two previous managers were utter charlatans. I do believe this is the first time I have ever heard someone suggesting that giving up one's weekends is not the sort of thing you'd expect from the manager of a football team. Congratulations.

Presumably seasoned managers are going to be abundantly aware of what the job entails at a professional football club.

There is no bigger club than Falkirk. Only planning permission issues prevented The Grangemouth Stadium from having a capacity of 200,000, which it would fill every week (even when Falkirk were playing away).

I swear people think McBookie wants to lose money. The odds will be priced on who's putting money on them. The less terminally online will obviously think Campbell is in for a shout, given the club's record of hiring bald dinosaurs.

I am fairly sure that what players do following their graduation is outside of the remit of AUFA and thus Davie White. Who has repeatedly stated that his periods as interim manager have been a matter of duty to the club and that the academy is still his actual job.

By imbeciles on Facebook, yes. Nobody else in their right mind should be questioning AUFA. If your first team contains two (2) players from your own academy, this is typically considered to be a once-in-a-generation roaring success. This applies everywhere. Remembering the end of the Reid era when Jackson Longridge got sent off vs Airdrie. Roberts, having basically the same IQ as the average SRE poster, decided to take it out on him. Wondering who ultimately came out of that fiasco looking better.

Worth pointing out that if Raith hadn't hit the post in the 94th minute on the last day of 2017/18 then McCall would probably have been sacked even with Shankland's heroics and 100+ goals that season.

I soured on Bullen earlier than most but I was still thrilled with second and was happy for him to stay in the job even after Hubgate. I think it's quite difficult to argue that "almost everybody... wanted him out" during the summer: that wasn't even a consensus opinion on here at the time, and very clearly it wasn't impacting attendances as the season kicked off. What ultimately did for Bullen wasn't the shite football but the shite football coupled with being in the relegation zone. The football under Reid was usually incredibly monotonous stuff but he shitfested his way to two promotions and over half a dozen victories against top flight teams. Ultimately he didn't get emptied for the football (though I'm apparently the only person who left Hampden that day not thinking he should be sacked) but because he got relegated. If you stay up you can always have another go next year. If you get relegated then there might not be a next year. The choice is not between unglamorous but effective versus entertaining but risky. The choice is between potentially getting a guy who is unglamorous but effective, or ending up with a clown like John Hughes who will primarily provide entertainment for fans of other teams. If it somehow miraculously comes down to Bowyer vs McCall, I'd want McCall. But it isn't.

His job was to win the league. Winning the league is what he did. That it wasn't glamorous is potentially a positive. Of course Hopkin also won the league, but the general consensus appears to be that this was quite literally fraud

Two Akinyemi beauties that night following an absolute horror show early away goal. I don't remember a lot of fantastic football being played. On the other hand, I was quite drunk in a German hotel room at the time.

It really is something else that he was dealt the best hand of any manager in the last twenty years (several years of Championship stability, money to spend, and solid club infrastructure) and has left the club in exactly the same place as when he joined. And yet it's being treated as if he's left to manage Arsenal or something.