The Ultimate Super Ayr Thread

[Roxanne's man]

24 minutes ago, Trogdor said:

Duffy shouldn't have a say in anything. He doesn't give a f**k and is going through the motions. He won't make it to January.

[ComradeDiego]

7 hours ago, Rugbypark said:

Maybe now that your Chairman had shown some ambition, you’ll start to attend games and back the club up. A few hundred diehards turning up will get you nowhere. Reward the man.

Says the diddy *** over here, we’ve seen the orange in they kits… and the loyalist in the dugout

[HeathrowAUFC]

Good interview with the chairman & Graeme up on B&W TV lads.

[Lochwood]

Well really good interview with the new MD, and chairman and the honesty that I’m out my depth here so well done him.

Sounds like a very ambitious  professional individual and no doubting he knows a player, seems very confident that things are gonna improve soon mentioning the January window, I don’t think it would have been cheap to employ him so there’s money there and there would be no point in bringing him in if he wasn’t allowed to get a few bodies in to sort us out. Has Santa come early I think we’ll know soon.

[diege]

Just watched the interview and fair fucks to David Smith, he's realised footballing wise, he hasnt got the experiance and will stick to the CapEx building which he can excel in. Exciting appointment, it certainly has convinced me we have a bit of ambition. Time ticking down on Commercial Manager starting. Just need to get a team on the park now to get us safe in the Championship

[Trogdor]

Very good interview, glad Dave Smith has accepted he can't run the show by spending 1 hour a day on it. We need someone in charge of day to day matters.

Graeme seems like a positive guy and he is excited to be joining us. It would be good to hear more about the vision and where he sees us going but I appreciate the immediacy of the January window and making signings must take priority.

We just need Duffy fired out a trebuchet along with McGinty, Salkeld and McAlister. Then I'll be content.

[D'Jaffo]

Yeah it's a really good interview. Couple of points that stood out.

- Smith knows he needs help. He doesn't have the experience nor the time to run this club properly and has held his hands up and sought out someone to support him. Props to him for that.

- Mathie oozes enthusiasm for the role and that is something that I don't think I've seen since McCalls interviews in the summer of 2018 when we were returning to the Championship. He wants to try and build something sustainable here and I'm looking forward to seeing what happens. He's also very confident when talking and dealing with questions and is the "footballing character" we've been crying out for, for ages. 

- Mathie was trying to keep his cards close to his chest with regards to Duffy and only really spoke about him when he was outright asked about him. Strikes me as "I'll work with him in the meantime but I'm going to be ready to look for his replacement at any moment".

- Mathie mentioning that at some point down the line he wants to get the club into a position where we can actually sell players for a profit. Obviously Mathie did pretty well in tying down assets like Porteous, Nisbet and Doig at Hibs and they'll probably end up being sold on. The prime frustration of many fans over the last few years has been losing Shankland, Forrest, Crawford, Rose, Devlin, Smith and McCowan for a collective fee of zilch. We need to do better in that regard but we also have to accept that the club needs to be on a solid footing before it can offer better players 2-3 year contracts. 

- He also seems eager to get stuck in and identify what we want to achieve this season. Obviously the goal is to stay up but he also mentions the January window as being key so we can definitely expect some movement there. This appointment also allows him to start planning for next season and identify who we want to keep at the club and what areas we need to improve on. 

All in all it's an exciting appointment and one that hopefully pays off. 

[rb123!]

34 minutes ago, D'Jaffo said:

This appointment also allows him to start planning for next season and identify who we want to keep at the club and what areas we need to improve on. 

That should take all of about 2 minutes 

[diegomarahenry]

Glad they put an interview up, clears up some aspects of what is going on. There wasn't any targets or statements of intent mentioned or any bold predictions. 

Nothing of note really other than the enthusiasm he seems to have for the job. It looks like a good development opportunity for him as well as a highly regarded employee for the club. 

Unfortunately he's not going to get a quiet  induction period because we are going to need almost a rebuild in January. 

Smith said during the Spiers interview that a footballing director was something we didn't have the budget for currently. perhaps the projected income from the Hub has facilitated his hiring. He was pretty honest about his football knowledge, it must be frustrating owning your boyhood team and making a James Hunt of your first appointment and then being sold a pup on your second. It will have been a costly mistake and hopefully Mathie will prevent to many more.  

[GaryMc93]

Listened to a few podcasts yesterday that Mathie had been on and his passion for the youth development side comes across. Mentioned the different perspective he found between being academy director at Hibs to that of helping coach his sons team at Cambusdoon so hopefully can bring both viewpoints to the table. Also talked about player progression and pathway into the first team using Porteous as the example. 4 seasons ago instead of bringing in an experienced 4th choice CB, he was given that opportunity and the money was used for another position. Pre-season McGregor got injured and Porteous ended up playing the next 6 months.

That's not really something we've done well at and even a simple thing like instead of naming 5 or 6 subs we could call up 1 or 2 U18's (ones not out on loan of course) and give them that experience of a 1st team matchday and it gives them extra motivation to keep improving to the level required. Sadly not sure that will happen this year as the short term nature of Duffy's contract means he'll likely go with experience over youth as he won't get any benefit out of it.

As for Smith he always comes across as a nice, likeable, honest and hard working guy with Ayr's interests at heart but in the football world maybe a little naive and prone to taking things personally (in the Spiers interview he mentioned an agent, Todorov's I imagine, that wouldn't be welcome at Somerset anymore) but certain things might be more unique to football in that sense which he wouldn't get in the building world. However he deserve credit for recognising he doesn't have all the answers rather than doubling down and making things even worse.

[ZingaliMan]

As we will meet each other in the Scottish cup I looked up Jack Baird I see he has only had 8 appearances . Is that for this season I take it. I really like Jack when he was with Saints. Any news on him would be appreciated.  Looking forward to our cup tie Ayr is one of the best days out at the football. 

[AyrTroopMajor]

I'm sure Mathie will prove to be a very astute appointment, but why is there absolutely nothing on the club's social media channels?

We really need to be a bit more professional in that sense, other clubs would have made the announcement on official channels accompanied by an interview and an article. We get told by the Voice of Reason's Twitter account. The club website still has the link to the 'Hopkin Appointed as Ayr Manager' article in very prominent positions. Definitely an area that needs improvement asap.

[AyrTroopMajor]

As we will meet each other in the Scottish cup I looked up Jack Baird I see he has only had 8 appearances . Is that for this season I take it. I really like Jack when he was with Saints. Any news on him would be appreciated.  Looking forward to our cup tie Ayr is one of the best days out at the football. 

You'll be an even bigger fan of him when he plays against you

[Jeff Venom]

As we will meet each other in the Scottish cup I looked up Jack Baird I see he has only had 8 appearances . Is that for this season I take it. I really like Jack when he was with Saints. Any news on him would be appreciated.  Looking forward to our cup tie Ayr is one of the best days out at the football. 

He's been beyond a disappointment, he's been a liability, and that's being diplomatic.
Who did he play beside in your title winning season? It's hard to imagine the Baird we've seen being in that St Mirren team, but perhaps your other players were that good that the ball rarely went near him.

[Hawk89]

6 minutes ago, AyrTroopMajor said:

I'm sure Mathie will prove to be a very astute appointment, but why is there absolutely nothing on the club's social media channels?

We really need to be a bit more professional in that sense, other clubs would have made the announcement on official channels accompanied by an interview and an article. We get told by the Voice of Reason's Twitter account. The club website still has the link to the 'Hopkin Appointed as Ayr Manager' article in very prominent positions. Definitely an area that needs improvement asap.

I think it is all down to current resource, I would be disappointed if by the start of next season our social media isn't a completely different animal. As the club starts to progress and grow then they can look at adding a dedicated marketing person etc. But for now, we are awaiting a commercial manager starting. From the outside looking in it is good timing having both the MD and CM starting almost together. 

Mathie's #1 priority will surely be to steady the onfield side of things and keep us up this year if he can. You can forgive short-term poor comms if things are going well on the field and you can see clear progress elsewhere.

[North British]

9 hours ago, diegomarahenry said:

Glad they put an interview up, clears up some aspects of what is going on. There wasn't any targets or statements of intent mentioned or any bold predictions. 

Nothing of note really other than the enthusiasm he seems to have for the job. It looks like a good development opportunity for him as well as a highly regarded employee for the club. 

Unfortunately he's not going to get a quiet  induction period because we are going to need almost a rebuild in January. 

Smith said during the Spiers interview that a footballing director was something we didn't have the budget for currently. perhaps the projected income from the Hub has facilitated his hiring. He was pretty honest about his football knowledge, it must be frustrating owning your boyhood team and making a James Hunt of your first appointment and then being sold a pup on your second. It will have been a costly mistake and hopefully Mathie will prevent to many more.  

You just can’t help yourself Mr Negative can you ? Whatever your doing for a living drop it immediately, there is a post waiting for you in London working with the other two modellers (worst case scenarios only) at Sage .

I gleaned plenty of information from that article , he mentioned that the academy was important but hinted it should be providing more players and hinted that it was odd that it wasn’t in-house ! He mentioned that other clubs of our size were doing fine (St Johnstone) and there was no reason we couldn’t do like wise . He mentioned getting the town behind the team , this can only be done with a huge improvement on the field . On that he noted that it was clear we needed “budget parity” . Again paying the rate can only be seen as good news . On Smith and the funding of the Mathie  appointment , in a five year plan, it’s called start up costs . Maybe brought forward a bit due to the Hopkin fiasco and the blow back from that .

All in all this is a spectacular appointment for “poor wee Ayr” . It’s a clue to the direction of travel , Mathie ain’t coming here to bury a very decent CV in mediocrity . He plans to win . Smith plans to win . Music to the ears for most !

Mathie also mentioned his immediate priority is “the fast approaching transfer window” , I’m fairly sure he knows what he’s doing in this regard  ! Looks like Duffy will have all the support he needs to plug those gaps in the team . 

So Henry get your big boy boots on and join in for what should  prove to be an exciting five months as the old ways of poor wee Ayr get laid to rest , ... then the fun really begins ...

[diegomarahenry]

19 minutes ago, North British said:

You just can’t help yourself Mr Negative can you ? Whatever your doing for a living drop it immediately, there is a post waiting for you in London working with the other two modellers (worst case scenarios only) at Sage .

I gleaned plenty of information from that article , he mentioned that the academy was important but hinted it should be providing more players and hinted that it was odd that it wasn’t in-house ! He mentioned that other clubs of our size were doing fine (St Johnstone) and there was no reason we couldn’t do like wise . He mentioned getting the town behind the team , this can only be done with a huge improvement on the field . On that he noted that it was clear we needed “budget parity” . Again paying the rate can only be seen as good news . On Smith and the funding of the Mathie  appointment , in a five year plan, it’s called start up costs . Maybe brought forward a bit due to the Hopkin fiasco and the blow back from that .

All in all this is a spectacular appointment for “poor wee Ayr” . It’s a clue to the direction of travel , Mathie ain’t coming here to bury a very decent CV in mediocrity . He plans to win . Smith plans to win . Music to the ears for most !

Mathie also mentioned his immediate priority is “the fast approaching transfer window” , I’m fairly sure he knows what he’s doing in this regard  ! Looks like Duffy will have all the support he needs to plug those gaps in the team . 

So Henry get your big boy boots on and join in for what should  prove to be an exciting five months as the old ways of poor wee Ayr get laid to rest , ... then the fun really begins ...

Again with the wee patter. You really are an odd person.

there is also nothing negative about what I posted, the interview was a day 1 say the right things without saying anything definitive…which is exactly the right thing to do. Others are reading between the lines of what he said but there is nothing there. Why? Because it is his first day.

When a manager comes in and makes bold statements on day 1 they are normally either playing to the gallery with no substance behind what they are saying, or they are arrogant fuckwits that will blame everything around them other than themselves when it goes wrong.

it is you that is negative, Reading everything I post, absolutely raging and trying to find an agenda…then posting creepy stuff fantasising about me being small (I’m 6’1 for reference) 

the last time you got this worked up was backing your man Hopkin to the hilt then had to take a months sabbatical once he was sacked in embarrassment.

 

[AUcal]

A lot of synergy talk in that interview. I like it. I think. 

On an unrelated note, what is synergy?

 

Mathie comes across really well. Fingers crossed January goes well.

[ZingaliMan]

1 hour ago, Jeff Venom said:

He's been beyond a disappointment, he's been a liability, and that's being diplomatic.
Who did he play beside in your title winning season? It's hard to imagine the Baird we've seen being in that St Mirren team, but perhaps your other players were that good that the ball rarely went near him.

He had Harry Davies and Scott McKenzie beside him two good experienced defenders.  Talking to Morton fans they were hoping he would sign for them.  Sad to hear its not working for your club and Jack.  

[Hawk89]

10 minutes ago, AuAl said:

A lot of synergy talk in that interview. I like it. I think. 

On an unrelated note, what is synergy?

 

Mathie comes across really well. Fingers crossed January goes well.

Something you need to promote when your a boss. 

(In all seriousness) it is effectively 2 or more things that complement each other when working together to become greater than the sum of their parts.