The Ultimate Super Ayr Thread

[rb123!]

So the championship is getting its own TV deal with the BBC, with most of the premiership teams ending up with the money....

[Guest]

In our past few visits to this league we've had a part time team of League 1  & end of career championship level journeymen, who quite frankly weren't capable of pulling off anything better than a relegation play off place, however this young up and coming team of exciting youngsters is a completely different proposition entirely.

We're now at the point where we've played everyone other than Dundee Utd & Ross County and so far we're the best team I've seen, as such anything other than a play off place minimum will be a disappointing season for me.

I'd also be looking to start tying down as many of our players as possible on extended deals with increased wages, as the cash from the Rangers game / cup run couldn't be used in any better way.

Our squad is excellent, our team spirit is excellent and our dressing room togetherness is excellent, so now is the time to kick on and make this a team for the next few years rather than just a great 6 months to a year.............

[North Terrace Gazza]

In our past few visits to this league we've had a part time team of League 1  & end of career championship level journeymen, who quite frankly weren't capable of pulling off anything better than a relegation play off place, however this young up and coming team of exciting youngsters is a completely different proposition entirely.
We're now at the point where we've played everyone other than Dundee Utd & Ross County and so far we're the best team I've seen, as such anything other than a play off place minimum will be a disappointing season for me.
I'd also be looking to start tying down as many of our players as possible on extended deals with increased wages, as the cash from the Rangers game / cup run couldn't be used in any better way.
Our squad is excellent, our team spirit is excellent and our dressing room togetherness is excellent, so now is the time to kick on and make this a team for the next few years rather than just a great 6 months to a year.............

Agree with much of this for real stars; Shankland and Smith for example we should try and get extensions if at all possible.
However, you obviously weren’t at Palmerston if we’re the best team you’ve seen.

[Guest]

Just now, North Terrace Gazza said:

 

Agree with much of this for real stars; Shankland and Smith for example we should try and get extensions if at all possible.
However, you obviously weren’t at Palmerston if we’re the best team you’ve seen.

 

No, I missed Palmerston and also Inverness but I'd still be looking at tying down most of our young players on extended contracts.

As far as I'm aware the only player we have on a 2 year deal is Harvie, so I'd be immediately looking to tie up Smith, Forrest, Murdoch, McDaid, Rose, Crawford & Moore plus of course chance our arm with Shankland, although I'd think him signing is probably unlikely.

Back of a fag packet calculations and I reckon we could pull out all the stops and offer these guys an extra £250 - £300 per week, with bonuses for the others in the squad, so as not to disrupt anyone and additional bonuses for all in the event of promotion.

Speculate to accumulate and the bottom line is that hanging on to these guys and also having them as assets has got to be worth the investment.

[Squirrelhumper]

If you useless c***s could get promoted it would be most pleasing.

Preferably in the place of Hamilton.

[UpInTheAyr]

If you useless c***s could get promoted it would be most pleasing.
Preferably in the place of Hamilton.

Looks like we'll need to be with all this extra money we're throwing about hypothetically

[Guest]

29 minutes ago, UpInTheAyr said:

35 minutes ago, Squirrelhumper said:

If you useless c***s could get promoted it would be most pleasing.
Preferably in the place of Hamilton.

Looks like we'll need to be with all this extra money we're throwing about hypothetically

Well, there comes a time when you need to make big decisions, do we want to kick on when we have the chance and even possibly sell a prized asset further down the line for a decent 6 figure sum ? or do we just carry on with the "wee club" mentality, have a good season and then watch all our players leave for free and then begin again with the journeymen dross and find ourselves back in League 1 struggling to compete with part time Dumbarton etc ???

I'm sorry, but we've just had a decade of that and it aint no fun.

I know what one I'd rather go for.............

[UpInTheAyr]

16 minutes ago, WATTOO said:

Well, there comes a time when you need to make big decisions, do we want to kick on when we have the chance and even possibly sell a prized asset further down the line for a decent 6 figure sum ? or do we just carry on with the "wee club" mentality, have a good season and then watch all our players leave for free and then begin again with the journeymen dross and find ourselves back in League 1 struggling to compete with part time Dumbarton etc ???

I'm sorry, but we've just had a decade of that and it aint no fun.

I know what one I'd rather go for.............

That all sounds good but  you're being unrealistic in regard to budget and the size of our club. Shankland is a goner  end of the season, that's pretty much  certain, no way he's signing an extension mid season. McCall has pretty much  said that himself, and alluded to that with a couple of others if they carry on with their form. And  giving 7 or 8 guys an  extra 300 a week is increasing wages by about 50%, do you honestly  think the club can afford to have most of the team on 7 or 800 a week? Where is the money coming from.

 

[Ira Gaines]

Idiots would always prefer to overspend and then said idiots would complain when it goes tits up. You can complain about a "wee club mentality" all you want, but most of us ARE wee clubs and we need to live within our means. The alternative doesn't bear thinking about.

[Guest]

11 minutes ago, UpInTheAyr said:

That all sounds good but  you're being unrealistic in regard to budget and the size of our club. Shankland is a goner  end of the season, that's pretty much  certain, no way he's signing an extension mid season. McCall has pretty much  said that himself, and alluded to that with a couple of others if they carry on with their form. And  giving 7 or 8 guys an  extra 300 a week is increasing wages by about 50%, do you honestly  think the club can afford to have most of the team on 7 or 800 a week? Where is the money coming from.

 

As I said, where is the money from the LC run going ?

I'm pretty sure we've made around £200k+ which is extra cash, not to mention our increased home gate receipts and getting most of our young players on 2 year + deals would, in my opinion, be well worth the increased investment of around £100k as this would mean that anyone wishing our players would need to be paying transfer fees of £250k+ if they wished to secure their services.

As it stands, they can basically all walk away as free agents apart from the odd development fee here and there and it's times like now that we, as a club, must be looking to seize this opportunity.

What's the alternative ? Do we just look back on a good half season to season tops and then start again with a bunch of dumpling journeymen and then bemoan what might have been, had we show even just a little ambition ??

 

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Mayor Wilkins III said:

Idiots would always prefer to overspend and then said idiots would complain when it goes tits up. You can complain about a "wee club mentality" all you want, but most of us ARE wee clubs and we need to live within our means. The alternative doesn't bear thinking about.

If you read my posts I'm not advocating doing a "livi", I'm talking about attempting to keep a young exciting squad of players together and using the money from our cup run to do this.

[Yid_in_Exiile]

Of course you would, it's not your (extra) money!

I suspect we have already taken a bit of a chance assembling this team so doubt that plan is manageable in full.  But in principle I would agree with you - perhaps trying to get Murdoch, Smith, Rose and maybe one of Forrest/Crawford on extended contracts.  We need to earn some money from at least some of this squad  if we can't afford to keep it all together for the longer term.

If that is the case then the Quarter-Final cash just offsets part of that existing extra investment - Ayr has not dramatically increased its revenue so must be running at deficit already. LC is speculating already trying to find a buyer for a Club  that looks like it belongs in the Championship.  To expect dramatically more seems a stretch unless income is up 50% which it cannot be. You don't generally in business set up your long term financial obligations on the back of one-off windfalls. 

 

Edited October 2, 2018 by Yid_in_Exiile
Clarification

[UpInTheAyr]

As I said, where is the money from the LC run going ?

I'm pretty sure we've made around £200k+ which is extra cash, not to mention our increased home gate receipts and getting most of our young players on 2 year + deals would, in my opinion, be well worth the increased investment of around £100k as this would mean that anyone wishing our players would need to be paying transfer fees of £250k+ if they wished to secure their services.

As it stands, they can basically all walk away as free agents apart from the odd development fee here and there and it's times like now that we, as a club, must be looking to seize this opportunity.

What's the alternative ? Do we just look back on a good half season to season tops and then start again with a bunch of dumpling journeymen and then bemoan what might have been, had we show even just a little ambition ??

 

You're forgetting that the young players  only want to be signing one year deals, so that if they have a good season they might get a good offer from a bigger club without the hassle of a transfer fee, which might put clubs off. It's out of the clubs, and managers hands, in that  respect. Unless you tell them that it's a two year deal or nothing, in that case you won't even get them for a season.

 

 

[Mgc1910]

23 minutes ago, WATTOO said:

As I said, where is the money from the LC run going ?

I'm pretty sure we've made around £200k+ which is extra cash, not to mention our increased home gate receipts and getting most of our young players on 2 year + deals would, in my opinion, be well worth the increased investment of around £100k as this would mean that anyone wishing our players would need to be paying transfer fees of £250k+ if they wished to secure their services.

As it stands, they can basically all walk away as free agents apart from the odd development fee here and there and it's times like now that we, as a club, must be looking to seize this opportunity.

What's the alternative ? Do we just look back on a good half season to season tops and then start again with a bunch of dumpling journeymen and then bemoan what might have been, had we show even just a little ambition ??

 

Back in the 90s, we called this “speculate to accumulate”.  Trust me, it doesn’t end well.  Even Rangers went bust.

[Guest]

29 minutes ago, Mgc1910 said:

Back in the 90s, we called this “speculate to accumulate”.  Trust me, it doesn’t end well.  Even Rangers went bust.

I'm in my mid 40's and have worked in finance most of my life so I do have an idea of this, however I'm not advocating paying £3k per week, I'm merely saying that any spare cash we have should be used to tie up our young players on longer contracts where possible.

[Guest]

46 minutes ago, Yid_in_Exiile said:

Of course you would, it's not your (extra) money!

I suspect we have already taken a bit of a chance assembling this team so doubt that plan is manageable in full.  But in principle I would agree with you - perhaps trying to get Murdoch, Smith, Rose and maybe one of Forrest/Crawford on extended contracts.  We need to earn some money from at least some of this squad  if we can't afford to keep it all together for the longer term.

If that is the case then the Quarter-Final cash just offsets part of that existing extra investment - Ayr has not dramatically increased its revenue so must be running at deficit already. LC is speculating already trying to find a buyer for a Club  that looks like it belongs in the Championship.  To expect dramatically more seems a stretch unless income is up 50% which it cannot be. You don't generally in business set up your long term financial obligations on the back of one-off windfalls. 

 

Football though is unlike any other business and the landscape regarding transfer fees has changed dramatically, personally I think it would be a good investment / worth the risk when we could be receiving a transfer fee / fees for one or more players which could realistically bankroll our squad for the next few years.

[ayrmad]

I'll bow to McCall and Lachlan regarding extensions for players, I've no idea how well or not our finances look after the Rangers tie, as for Shankland, the only way I'd accept us looking to keep him is if we do pull off an unexpected promotion, the boy has already did us and himself a turn by staying this season, we should be looking to get the boy the best move possible for him(NOT THE DUNDEE' OF THIS WORLD) in the summer instead of profiteering, that would be as good a selling point to any future signing targets as we could have, that is speculating to accumulate the correct way for a diddy club IMHO.

[rb123!]

Interview with Lauchlan Cameron in this week's Ayrshire Post.

Mainly talks about how he'll only sell the club to the right person and isn't looking for money out of any sale as long as he gets his £1m back.

Also doesn't rule out giving McCall backing for more business in January IF we're still at the top of the end of the table by then.

[Mgc1910]

Just seen the Scott McKenna tackle against Celtic - very reminiscent of the challenge he got red carded for against Hibs in the cup!  I assumed it was youthful exuberance at the time, but it looks like he actually does favour a waist high assault on an opponent.

[Guest]

5 hours ago, rb123! said:

Interview with Lauchlan Cameron in this week's Ayrshire Post.

Mainly talks about how he'll only sell the club to the right person and isn't looking for money out of any sale as long as he gets his £1m back.

Also doesn't rule out giving McCall backing for more business in January IF we're still at the top of the end of the table by then.

Whatever happens and despite all the abuse aimed at him over the years, Lachlan has been very good as a custodian of our club and deserves lots of praise so far as I'm concerned.