The Ultimate Super Ayr Thread

[D'Jaffo]

4 minutes ago, Rb123 said:

That buzz as an Ayr United supporter from after full time title celebrations in May 2018 to first league home game against Partick in August 2018 i don't think will ever be matched IMO

There's riding on the crest of the wave and then there was that which was riding on the top of a wave as high as Mount Everest 

Aye there was so much to love. Winning the league despite the odds, retaining Shankland and co, recruiting really well over the summer with the likes of Murdoch and Harvie, chucking out bids for Shankland and holding onto McCall, romping the league cup group and then starting the season on fire. 
 

I doubt that’ll ever be topped.

[AUcal]

2 minutes ago, D'Jaffo said:

I doubt that’ll ever be topped.

By far the best time I've ever experienced following Ayr

[No_Problemo]

6 minutes ago, Rb123 said:

That buzz as an Ayr United supporter from after full time title celebrations in May 2018 to first league home game against Partick in August 2018 i don't think will ever be matched IMO

There's riding on the crest of the wave and then there was that which was riding on the top of a wave as high as Mount Everest 

My perfect example of signings leading to supporters giving something back in appreciation of what the club are trying to do playing wise. 

As soon as Shankland signed back on I signed up for the AU 500 find and got my first season ticket in years (I normally pay at the gate as I work some weekends) 

I left the 500 fund while Hopkin was manager, and there’s certainly nothing convincing me to get a season ticket this year so far. In fact some of the rhetoric from last night is having the opposite effect. 

[Nelson]

If the only issue today was a Dipo shaped hole in the forward line,  I don’t think we would be in terrible shape.  But that just wasn’t the case.  The midfield was as one dimensional and one paced as last season.  There was no pace or quality in the wide areas and McKenzie was no more or less ineffective than usual.  Stanger might be Ok, but as a young defender, he surely needs an experienced right back to support him, not an even younger defender looking to him for guidance.  Amartey was really disappointing - maybe he’ll improve, but his disappearance at half time felt a bit ominous.  Murphy surely has more to offer.

Will be giving the rest of the league cup games a miss - hopefully we look like a very different team come August.  At the moment, we’re only a couple of injuries away from starting Bangala…

[Rb123]

1 hour ago, D'Jaffo said:

Mathie said last night that if they get the person they are after then it should improve so I can only hope they’ve identified someone and are trying to get them in. 

Hopefully they've a better success rate with in house signings than the football side of signing targets this season lol

[diegomarahenry]

26 minutes ago, Rb123 said:

That buzz as an Ayr United supporter from after full time title celebrations in May 2018 to first league home game against Partick in August 2018 i don't think will ever be matched IMO

There's riding on the crest of the wave and then there was that which was riding on the top of a wave as high as Mount Everest 

When I hear Mathie and Bullen bemoan the difficulties they face, there is a team of maybe 6 people now doing this when McCall did it all on his own.

McCall was flawed but he did this stuff well, he took Doc, Turner, Holt and the rest to Thistle.

[Rb123]

29 minutes ago, AuAl said:

Aye it was a great time. Spending the summer seeing players like Shankland sign up again and also seeing the arrival of decent players to address problem / lack of depth areas (i.e. Andy Murdoch and Daniel Harvie). Was great. Hit the ground running for the first couple of months of the season too, battering teams for fun.

29 minutes ago, D'Jaffo said:

Aye there was so much to love. Winning the league despite the odds, retaining Shankland and co, recruiting really well over the summer with the likes of Murdoch and Harvie, chucking out bids for Shankland and holding onto McCall, romping the league cup group and then starting the season on fire. 
 

I doubt that’ll ever be topped.

25 minutes ago, AuAl said:

By far the best time I've ever experienced following Ayr

24 minutes ago, No_Problemo said:

My perfect example of signings leading to supporters giving something back in appreciation of what the club are trying to do playing wise. 

As soon as Shankland signed back on I signed up for the AU 500 find and got my first season ticket in years (I normally pay at the gate as I work some weekends) 

I left the 500 fund while Hopkin was manager, and there’s certainly nothing convincing me to get a season ticket this year so far. In fact some of the rhetoric from last night is having the opposite effect. 

5 minutes ago, diegomarahenry said:

When I hear Mathie and Bullen bemoan the difficulties they face, there is a team of maybe 6 people now doing this when McCall did it all on his own.

McCall was flawed but he did this stuff well, he took Doc, Turner, Holt and the rest to Thistle.

Yep and he was on the socials every week doing interviews with Callum which i remember he'd always say it was McCall who'd message him to get down to Somerset to do interviews for either new signings or just updates for supporters. 

Ian McCall for Director of Football anyone

*give it a couple of months and it might be for the managers gig, stranger things have happened in football

Edited July 15, 2023 by Rb123

[No_Problemo]

9 minutes ago, Rb123 said:

Yep and he was on the socials every week doing interviews with Callum which i remember he'd always say it was McCall who'd message him to get down to Somerset to do interviews for either new signings or just updates for supporters. 

Ian McCall for Director of Football anyone

*give it a couple of months and it might be for the managers gig, stranger things have happened in football

I would happily have McCall in the Mathie position, just not the managers one. 

[D'Jaffo]

3 minutes ago, No_Problemo said:

I would happily have McCall in the Mathie position, just not the managers one. 

Maybe more suited to Glendinnings role. Think he’s fine at signings but Mathie not sure he’d take a particular interest in building links with the community or stuff like that. 

[itzdrk]

13 minutes ago, No_Problemo said:

My perfect example of signings leading to supporters giving something back in appreciation of what the club are trying to do playing wise. 

As soon as Shankland signed back on I signed up for the AU 500 find and got my first season ticket in years (I normally pay at the gate as I work some weekends) 

I left the 500 fund while Hopkin was manager, and there’s certainly nothing convincing me to get a season ticket this year so far. In fact some of the rhetoric from last night is having the opposite effect. 

I don't usually get a season ticket but I got a half season ticket the year we won the league and then to help the club out during the covid season.  I was a very early member to the 500 club and also left when Hopkin became manager.  

While it's highly unlikely I'll do a season ticket, I'm definitely willing at some point to come back into the 500 club fold if I feel the football is worthwhile funding and it just hasn't been and there are no signs it will be.  

 

[No_Problemo]

1 minute ago, D'Jaffo said:

Maybe more suited to Glendinnings role. Think he’s fine at signings but Mathie not sure he’d take a particular interest in building links with the community or stuff like that. 

I’m not too sure on that one, it was in my thinking but he has spoken in the past about wanting to move upstairs and be involved in different levels of decision making. Ultimately he can delegate too. 

Just now, itzdrk said:

I don't usually get a season ticket but I got a half season ticket the year we won the league and then to help the club out during the covid season.  I was a very early member to the 500 club and also left when Hopkin became manager.  

While it's highly unlikely I'll do a season ticket, I'm definitely willing at some point to come back into the 500 club fold if I feel the football is worthwhile funding and it just hasn't been and there are no signs it will be.  

 

Unfortunately the club don’t seem to see it this way at all, but I do think there will be a decent proportion of people this will be the case for. 

I’ll still PATG most games, but I need to see something to contribute more than that. 

[D'Jaffo]

3 minutes ago, itzdrk said:

I don't usually get a season ticket but I got a half season ticket the year we won the league and then to help the club out during the covid season.  I was a very early member to the 500 club and also left when Hopkin became manager.  

While it's highly unlikely I'll do a season ticket, I'm definitely willing at some point to come back into the 500 club fold if I feel the football is worthwhile funding and it just hasn't been and there are no signs it will be.  

 

And I think that position is absolutely fair enough. As I said a season ticket is a product the club has to sell. And like anything you sell the onus is on the seller to convince people it’s worth buying. For some random reason it’s the only thing in the world that people believe should be bought for no other reason that it’s a fans duty to. 
 

Times are becoming increasingly difficult for a lot of people and whilst I think there’s value in getting one, I think the club could be doing more to convince people. 

[D'Jaffo]

3 minutes ago, No_Problemo said:

I’m not too sure on that one, it was in my thinking but he has spoken in the past about wanting to move upstairs and be involved in different levels of decision making. Ultimately he can delegate too. 

I think one of the things I’ve realised about McCall is that I’m not sure how much he said when he was at Ayr was true. He spoke loads about staying with us and I fully believed he’d be here for another few years and then move into a boardroom role. I have no idea if that was ever actually in his thinking. 
 

Mathie did mention McCall last night and basically said how he felt he was unlucky to lose his job in the middle of an injury crisis and then Doolan takes over just as the big players are coming back. I don’t think Jobby would work well alongside Smith and Mathie in all honesty though. 

[Trogdor]

51 minutes ago, Rb123 said:

That buzz as an Ayr United supporter from after full time title celebrations in May 2018 to first league home game against Partick in August 2018 i don't think will ever be matched IMO

There's riding on the crest of the wave and then there was that which was riding on the top of a wave as high as Mount Everest 

If Carling did a summer break that would be it. 

[Shibuya]

Had a season ticket last season but I'm still very much on the fence about renewing it this year. It was turgid stuff at times last year and Dipo bailed us out on countless occasions. I'm not sure I want to watch our style of play from the second half of last season for another 9 months. 

As for McCall, that ship has sailed. 

Edited July 15, 2023 by Shibuya

[Mod1967]

1 hour ago, D'Jaffo said:

To try and offer a balanced argument I would say that the squad as it is will struggle this season. I don’t think that can be disagreed with. Even with Akinyemi it’s a bottom two squad at best. Lacking a lot in the full back areas, nothing special in midfield in terms of contributing going forward, wide options are pretty poor besides Jamie Murphy and we have no presence up front. That’s quite a lot to resolve at this stage of the season. In times gone by you’d maybe go into the league cup games needing one or two reinforcements and those games would be an indication of what’s missing. We made really good signings in the last few years after these games like Lawrence Shankland in 2017, Liam Smith in 2018, Cammy Smith in 2020 and then last season when we got Mullin and Chalmers. There’s a running theme there. One or two quality additions to take the squad up a notch. This season however we’re looking at four signings if Bullen gets what he’s after. That’s a big ask imo and the way we’re looking we need all four to be a success. Not many clubs have that kind of success ratio for new signings. It’ll be interesting to see how we get on but I would say we’ll be doing well to get two good and two half decent players in. I can only hope that’s enough. 
 

The conundrum we’re facing is that there’s a fair bit of uncertainty surrounding over how good Bullen in. It can’t be argued that last season in the league it was a success. The Scottish Cups was heartbreaking and the playoffs were embarrassing. How much of those three things can you attribute to Bullen. Because if you’re praising him for the league you also have to criticise him for the other two and I think that’s fair. I think the performance in the second half against Falkirk was poor and had a change been made to shore up the midfield it may have been different. The playoffs are difficult as we missed Akinyemi in the first game but again the decision to choose Hewitt over McAllister and to go to Firhill playing a 442 was a big call. Arguably he got it wrong as we were wide open all game and the tie was over in the first leg. Second leg is what it is and we were never overturning it. I don’t really blame anyone for it. I think what he said last night about the players being embarrassed in that game was true but ultimately the first game is where the mistakes were made that cost us. 
 

If we move on to recruitment so far then I’d say it started off quite well. We lost McAdams, Kirk, Mullin, McAlear and Magure. We replaced them relatively quickly with Mutch, Stanger, Murphy, Pendlebury and Amartey. If I’m being honest I’d say those replacements are either mostly equal to or an improvement on what we had with Pendlebury and Mutch already looking better that McAlear and McAdams but Stanger is probably a downgrade on Kirk but if we’re being honest we were all expecting that given how good Kirk was. The issue is that last night the club said they knew Dipo would be leaving and also said the trouble with not having his replacement in the building is that agents and clubs will try and get more money from Ayr knowing they have just had an injection of cash. So no one on here can say the club didn’t have a chance to prepare or there was no chance of someone being here to replace him. It should’ve been Ruari Paton but that’s not to say that it’s excusable that we have no replacement. What it’s led to is pointless chasing of Brian Graham and Billy McKay, who are very different strikers and that in itself shows that we don’t know really know what kind of forward we want. Even Bullen last night said he wants some of this and some of that but if that was the case then it sounds like we’re looking for way more that six players. So either Bullen is hedging his bets in saying four but wanting more or the club don’t really have a solid plan of what it is they’re after and they’ll take what they can get. 
 

I think the club has done a lot of things right and Ayr is in the good hands but I have this horrible feeling it’s going to go wrong and a decision has to be made on Bullen’s future. A LOT is riding on what decisions we make in the transfer market between now and the end of August. 

 

By a mile your best post on here and little I think to argue about, still an arrogant b****** though 

[Iain]

The Bullen postgame interview isn't too bad. If you were optimistically minded you might feel they know what needs done and you might trust them to do it.

[Rb123]

 

[Superhursty7]

 

[diegomarahenry]

44 minutes ago, Rb123 said:

 

Hell's head high?