diegomarahenry

They have been shelved because there was additional costs incurred during construction. I think they hit problems when putting the foundations in and it required piling. it'll now be a phase one and phase two. its a sensory room, business lounge and additional toilets that will be part of phase two.

Another team that Bullen did well against. Brown has made some positive changes that may or may not suit against Dunfermline. We have gone from leaking goals, to being pretty tight at the back to comedic defending at times over the last two games. Dunfermline look to have sort of turned a corner in the last week and are at least picking up points. We have been performing well with a couple of players out but there is every chance it will catch up with us eventually unless they come back in soon. 3-3 draw

He was pish against Airdrie in the same role though. He’s either improved or it’ll only work in certain games. Thistle like to play from the back and Bryden & McKenzie were straight on them last night, that wouldn’t have happened with Chalmers and Murphy. Alternatively, if you are playing a team that have a low block, Bryden isn’t going to draw two out to challenge him like Chalmers does.

It Reading is out for a while, we still have time to get a loan player in. We won last night but Musonda wasn’t great, he was the same on Saturday and it has affected the shape of the team with him out there. We are at too critical a stage of the season to be pissing about playing players out of position and making do.

Sanders looks like the first thought that goes through his head when he receives the ball is - FUUUUCK It’s the same thought when he takes his second attempt to control it and sometimes his third. like Muirhead had to do with Baird, McGinty not only marked Graham but Sanders and Musonda as well.

If I was Mathie, look at who does it well like Stranraer. Ask them what set-up they use and mirror it. Invite their team up to the Morton game assuming they aren’t playing that night and go through it with the AU media guys. If the guys who do it aren’t tech savvy, put out a request. Are you an Ayr United fan? Do you have a degree in this? Do you like the idea of watching Ayr for free?

There seems to have been a policy under Bullen of not shithousing or getting at the referee that has changed in recent weeks.

We have gone from being a heartless shambles to a heartless shambles with Akinyemi to a heartless shambles. Brown in a few short weeks has turned us in to a lot less of a shambles with some heart.

I want safety early to allow us to get players signed up for next season. I’d take the playoffs and hope we’d win them but we are miles away from being a premier league ready team.

We need to concentrate on building gaps, if we lose on Saturday, Dunfermline will be above us with a game in hand. A win and we build a 6 point gap. Inverness are at Morton so we could build an 8 point gap over them.

That was fucking horrible and fucking brilliant at the same time. 3-1 up and fairly comfortable, Thistle were self-imploding. We go to 5 at the back and immediately concede twice. I’m pretty sure we scored with our only 5 shots on target. The Keeper made 3-4 fantastic saves but looked suspect for the goals. McHugh did well in the middle and went forward rather than side to side like he did on Saturday. Willoughby wasn’t involved much other than his two goals but McKenzie and Bryden did all the running for him.

Under Bullen, I would have seen that line up and thought, what the f**k is this?

I said before Friday before the Raith game that 4 points from our next two games would be exceptional but zero would be a pisser. It would show how far we had come and how far we had to go. We were fine against Raith and individual errors killed us again, the players we have as back up aren’t good enough. Well, we may have more of them in the starting 11 tonight which is a concern. One change Thistle will notice is, they will be in for more of a fight than before, we are better organised and the players at least look like they know what they are doing. We haven’t looked like taking a doing since Bullen left. So going up against a team that has handed us our arse on several occasions recently, it’ll be good to see how we fair.

Absolutely. He said there were a number of people trying to by the club and the majority of them were chancers. The only ones that Went public were Kennedy of Kennedy construction who went bust months after trying. Brian Gilmour who pissed off after being told to sort the stadium first and the Rosta-roof guy who went full breakdown and then went bust.

He wanted to be given the land at Heathfield, he would sell Somerset, build an entertainment park with the money and then build the football park next to it. That way it would all finance the other. Cameron would only sell if the stadium was in place first, so he fucked off. Which shows how committed he was to the club and the project.

Pre devolution, Barr had a lot of public infrastructure work, I think he had the contract to resurface every road in Scotland at one point, when things like that used to happen. Post devolution, he didn’t get any work and there was a perceived problem between him and the Scottish Government who was labour and the local council, that was also labour. That (maybe conspiracy) was thought to be behind the rejection of the planning application. I think it was revised a few times at his cost before being agreed but with a requirement to change Whittlets roundabout added. This was an additional seven figures on to the cost, so he pulled the plug. Asda ended up paying for it I think.

There were a few rumours, we had apparently bought the east stand from Love street when that was knocked down, the pitch was being turned 90 degrees. He was dismantling Airdries ground. The steel work for the new stadium was sitting in a yard in Girvan or somewhere. Barr built the hospitality as a temporary building, the shop and ticket office went from a shed in the car park to more temporary offices. There was always a sense that any day, we’d move to a new stadium. He spent a fortune on planning and bought the ground at Heathfield which he sort of gifted to the club. He also had the ice hockey team and Centrum was his pet project. He must have rented out every flat in Ayrshire for ice hockey and football players. It was good times under him. Daziel was a fud though and he always fell out with the star of the team because they got more praise but at the time they were quickly replaced. Stevie Kerrigan>Ian Ferguson>Glynn Hurst>Eddie Annand The Alarming thing was, Barr was allowed to pack up his stuff and piss off causing absolute carnage. The football club were lucky compared to the Ice hockey team. Because we were always about to move to a new stadium, Somerset was left to rot. The temporary buildings were past there use by date and because of the amount of money he pumped in to the club, left us with a huge tax bill. The only legacy he left was the hospitality. I am glad that Smith has went the other way about.

I think that’s always been the case though, when I started working, some of the behaviours of the older staff would get a jail sentence now. Some of the things that were said and done in front of me as a sheltered 19 year old were a real eye opener. Working with people that were clearly drunk, sexual harassment was just banter and anyone reporting it was a miserable b*****d. Threats and actual violence. Now people are well aware of their rights. People’s upbringings are different now and the workplace is different but it is still a big leap when you go from education, hanging about with folk your own age, to working with people in their 40s and 50s. In my first week of work as a 19 year old, I was described as being a big shy boy. A chain smoking alcoholic cleaner in her 60s told she would meet me in the car park and ride the shyness out me. Nothing in my upbringing prepared me for that moment. (Her telling me that)

You haven’t grown up rattling Red Bull, Monster and Starbucks in to your veins 10 hours a day while spending 4 hours looking at your phone a day. Ending up with a resting heart rate of an overactive squirrel. I think people are more likely to speak of mental health issues or step away from pressure now that prevent breakdowns. But medicate themselves in to a panic attack on an hourly basis.

My last employer provided income insurance, as standard, you had 6 months full pay and 6 months on 75% After that you were passed on to an insurance company that paid 75% of your wage for up to 5 years. Essentially allowing the company to go out and hire a replacement. Particularly with mental health issues, the individuals were put under no pressure to return. In my first job, one of my coworkers had a heart attack and was asked on his first home visit, when he’d be back.

Having been in the workplace for over 20 years now, all within Global organisations, there has been a big shift from companies outwardly trying to keep employees happy to almost the opposite. There has also been a shift to personal brand being more important than the actual job. I had a 1-2-1 recently where the main focus was put on the fact my profile in the in-house social media was blank than any performance. A job for life is very rare as well so people are less bothered about holding on to one. Terms are less agreeable. When I started my first job I had a final salary pension, a 10% yearly bonus and a share purchase scheme. These kind of terms would make you job conscious. Within 10 years, they closed the final salary pension due to costs, they didn’t do the same to the German employees as it would be illegal there. I started a new job over a year ago and the additional terms are pretty good but almost standard, health insurance, dental insurance etc along with a joint contribution pension. But all of the jobs I applied for at the time had much the same. There have been societal changes as well, previously people would seek help from their parish or from family, community etc for personal problems. Most of these things don’t exist any more so they expect their workplace to give support. In a short space of time at my last job, I had two people contact me out of hours to say they were suicidal, I had to facilitate counselling through the company. I couldn’t understand why they didn’t go to their family but some folk don’t have the option. It is easy to blame it on folk being shut-in nerds or socially awkward but there is very little incentive to be job conscious any more.

Interview with Stevie Kerrigan was a decent listen. He was probably the first all round modern forward I’d seen at Ayr, before it had been goal hangers like John Sludden, runners like Tommy Walker or target men like Ally Graham. He scored goals of all types. I remember when we played Kilmarnock in the CIS cup, he was involved in a scramble in the box which resulted in him pinning the Kilmarnock keeper to the deck while Bobby Conner battered the ball home. He clearly wasn’t a fan of Daziels either.

Yeah, he needs chances to prove himself though and get experience, at the moment he is miles away from displacing Dowds, probably even McKenzie. He had Muirhead rattled last season after giving him a dig when he came on. I prefer and expect Willoughby to play though but I can see merit in Bryden playing.

Doubt it, they only tend to do it for Inverness/Arbroath games

If we signed Forrest, it would be on loan. We couldn’t sign him outright because there are probably about 8 clubs in the Premier and at least 2 teams in the Championship that would take him before us. Even if it’s a loan deal, of those 10 clubs, they would be able to offer a higher wage % than we could. Which makes a loan move unlikely. Unless Celtic are doing us a favour and don’t want him to go on loan to another team in their league(both unlikely) or the player is desperate to play for us and willing to take a huge wage cut(unlikely) I don’t see him signing for us.