The Ultimate Super Ayr Thread

[ayrmad]

30 minutes ago, Trogdor said:

I think you can be thankful to the Chairman for being a good custodian but critical of his decision making. The views aren't mutually exclusive!

When Roberts contract was renewed it was the worst I have ever felt as an Ayr fan. I didn't renew my season ticket and I only attended when I felt like it. Call me a bad fan if you want? But getting drubbed by diddies week on week and watching a diddy who wasn't up to it in the dugout with an owner who didn't care (how it seemed!) was not for me. I felt the only way I could influence change was to vote with my feet. I returned for home and away games as soon as McCall was appointed and renewed my season ticket. It's been great since! 

I have a great deal of sympathy for those who felt their only recourse was to vote with their feet. I came back but I could have very easily ended up like mccurdieboy.

What he said!

Point not accepted or understood by some on here, it's a number of years since I've posted anything negative about Lachlan in the present but even he would accept that he's made mistakes that ultimately hit him in the pocket.

[Guest]

36 minutes ago, Trogdor said:

I think you can be thankful to the Chairman for being a good custodian but critical of his decision making. The views aren't mutually exclusive!

When Roberts contract was renewed it was the worst I have ever felt as an Ayr fan. I didn't renew my season ticket and I only attended when I felt like it. Call me a bad fan if you want? But getting drubbed by diddies week on week and watching a diddy who wasn't up to it in the dugout with an owner who didn't care (how it seemed!) was not for me. I felt the only way I could influence change was to vote with my feet. I returned for home and away games as soon as McCall was appointed and renewed my season ticket. It's been great since! 

I have a great deal of sympathy for those who felt their only recourse was to vote with their feet. I came back but I could have very easily ended up like mccurdieboy.

What he said!

I also started missing game after game even though I had a season ticket, there's only so much you can take of watching the Arbroaths and East Fifes of this world (no offence intended) on a miserable January day, with no atmosphere, no opposition fans and basically no decent football to watch. The 50 miles round trip just proved too much to venture out the house on occasion.

That's all in the past though (and hopefully it stays there) and there's really no excuse for any Ayr fan to be missing the Barca like football of our current crop of superstars !!!

[Iain]

I was recently reading a matchday programme from the 1989/90 season. In his column the chairman reflects on the fact that the team was aiming to reach the Premier League (despite being about 20 points off a promotion spot with half the season gone). On reflection it's quite sad to recall how things went over the following half-decade.

Anyhow, the point is that we're probably seeing the Ayr team with the best chance of promotion to the top flight for forty years right now (taking stadium issues from the past into consideration). It's hard not to be excited.

[1nickydevlin]

Just hope our manager stays put and doesn't take the job at partick

[D'Jaffo]

Voice of Reason on Twitter saying Partick are interested in McCall.

[ayrmad]

2 minutes ago, 1nickydevlin said:

Just hope our manager stays put and doesn't take the job at partick

Wheesht.

[rb123!]

Shit

 

McBookie has put him from 10/1 to 3/1 and is now second favourite for the job only behind Jim Duffy

[ayrmad]

1 minute ago, rb123! said:

Shit

It is what it is, I'd far rather everyone wanted our manager and players than us being so shit that nobody's interested in anyone at the club, time to get the big boy pants on for another week or 2, ladies can get their Bridget Jones' on as well.

[rb123!]

It is what it is, I'd far rather everyone wanted our manager and players than us being so shit that nobody's interested in anyone at the club, time to get the big boy pants on for another week or 2, ladies can get their Bridget Jones' on as well.

That's true, still concerns me that McCall ain't on any long term contract it seems , it begs the question to me as why?

 

I mean there was certainly nothing announced over the summer so unless it was just never announced

 

Reckon we can expect a club statement or two this week [emoji23]

[ayrmad]

5 minutes ago, rb123! said:

That's true, still concerns me that McCall ain't on any long term contract it seems , it begs the question to me as why?

I mean there was certainly nothing announced over the summer so unless it was just never announced

Contracts don't mean anything IMO, if he really wants to go he'll go and if he really wants to go I'd want him to go, I'm hoping he stays but you're a long time dead in this world for regrets, if only' or what ifs.

I never thought he would go to Falkirk but I'm not as confident this time, although not wanting to take the job after his pal' sacking is probably in our favour.

Edited October 8, 2018 by ayrmad

[Mgc1910]

1 hour ago, ayrmad said:

The tax bill had nothing to do with the size of the club or whether we could operate as a going concern with our turnover, you head to insolvency because of bad stewardship not crowd numbers.

You are correct, we probably wouldn't be watching the team we are lucky to watch today but we would be watching Ayr United at whatever level that happened to be.

 

Eh?   You head to insolvency because you can’t pay your bills i.e. there is more cash going out than coming in.  Paying off the tax bill (over 5 years as I recall) while operating as a going concern would have been all but impossible without additional funding being injected into the club by the Camerons.  It’s also worth remembering (many don’t) that we’ve had to spend a small fortune on Somerset over the last decade, including 100k+ for new floodlights.  Again, without that investment from Cameron, I struggle to see how we could have funded that work from our own income streams.  That would potentially have meant Somerset closing its doors - where that would have left us we can only speculate.

[ayrmad]

13 minutes ago, Mgc1910 said:

Eh?   You head to insolvency because you can’t pay your bills i.e. there is more cash going out than coming in.  Paying off the tax bill (over 5 years as I recall) while operating as a going concern would have been all but impossible without additional funding being injected into the club by the Camerons.  It’s also worth remembering (many don’t) that we’ve had to spend a small fortune on Somerset over the last decade, including 100k+ for new floodlights.  Again, without that investment from Cameron, I struggle to see how we could have funded that work from our own income streams.  That would potentially have meant Somerset closing its doors - where that would have left us we can only speculate.

No, you are missing the point, if a club can't pay their bills it is because they have chosen to spend more than they should have on other things, the 1st tax bill had nothing to with Ayr fans or our turnover and everything to do with Barr' poor stewardship and a lack of due diligence on Lachlan' fathers front, when you buy any business for a quid there is usually a reason for it, you don't get anything for nowt in this world, it is your duty as purchaser to find the reasons.

As for spending on Somerset, as a club we spent an absolute shitload chasing Heathfield.

I can appreciate the good things Lachlan has done for Ayr without kidding myself on that no mistakes have been made on the journey, you're obviously different, that's fine but it ain't me.

I'm a good guy today but I don't try and tell folk I've always been a good guy with no mistakes.

I'm not and never will be a happyclappy person, if I see it I'll call it, at the moment everything is rosy but to suggest it's always been hunkydory is nonsense, 600 crowds not too long ago attest to that.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, ayrmad said:

I never thought he would go to Falkirk but I'm not as confident this time, although not wanting to take the job after his pal' sacking is probably in our favour.

Look on the bright side, Stevie Aitken is now available and it wasn't so long ago that many wanted McCall bagged and Aitken was seen as the messiah who everyone wanted at Somerset.

Strange game is the old fitba......................................

[Mgc1910]

51 minutes ago, ayrmad said:

No, you are missing the point, if a club can't pay their bills it is because they have chosen to spend more than they should have on other things, the 1st tax bill had nothing to with Ayr fans or our turnover and everything to do with Barr' poor stewardship and a lack of due diligence on Lachlan' fathers front, when you buy any business for a quid there is usually a reason for it, you don't get anything for nowt in this world, it is your duty as purchaser to find the reasons.

As for spending on Somerset, as a club we spent an absolute shitload chasing Heathfield.

I can appreciate the good things Lachlan has done for Ayr without kidding myself on that no mistakes have been made on the journey, you're obviously different, that's fine but it ain't me.

I'm a good guy today but I don't try and tell folk I've always been a good guy with no mistakes.

I'm not and never will be a happyclappy person, if I see it I'll call it, at the moment everything is rosy but to suggest it's always been hunkydory is nonsense, 600 crowds not too long ago attest to that.

Literally no one has ever suggested the tax bill had anything to do with either our fans or the turnover.  I personally don’t think it was ever really explained how the bill arose, though at the time it was suggested it related to unpaid VAT on transfer fees during the Barr era.  Who knows, but it left the club with a huge liability in excess of 500k.  I’ve no idea what due diligence has to do with anything.  It was a liability accruing to the club  that would have arisen irrespective of the change of hands from Barr to Cameron.  Indeed, it could be argued that Cameron might have walked away if he had understood the full extent of the tax bill that was about to fall on top of us.  The point is without the support of the Camerons, and with no other white knights stepping forward to help, the club would have struggled to survive that period.

Don’t understand the relevance of the comment about Heathfield.  My point was that we have been obliged to spend a fortune on Somerset in recent years in order to keep the place open for business.  Without Cameron’s money, we’d have struggled to finance this ourselves.  If Somerset had closed its doors, the very future of the club would have been in doubt.  

I don’t doubt mistakes have been made - the era of Marko was one long screw up from start to finish.  Neil Watt and Mark Shanks were disastrous appointments too, but at least had the decency not to stick around too long.  Brian Reid did well with the resources he had and I personally felt sorry for Robert Connor who was a good Ayr man who had zero chance of making a go of it when we could only afford to sign juniors.

[rb123!]

Contracts don't mean anything IMO, if he really wants to go he'll go and if he really wants to go I'd want him to go, I'm hoping he stays but you're a long time dead in this world for regrets, if only' or what ifs.
I never thought he would go to Falkirk but I'm not as confident this time, although not wanting to take the job after his pal' sacking is probably in our favour.

Well they mean something up to a point if it results in Partick swooping McCall away and being able to give us pretty much zero compensation.

[ayrmad]

55 minutes ago, Mgc1910 said:

Literally no one has ever suggested the tax bill had anything to do with either our fans or the turnover.  I personally don’t think it was ever really explained how the bill arose, though at the time it was suggested it related to unpaid VAT on transfer fees during the Barr era.  Who knows, but it left the club with a huge liability in excess of 500k.  I’ve no idea what due diligence has to do with anything.  It was a liability accruing to the club  that would have arisen irrespective of the change of hands from Barr to Cameron.  Indeed, it could be argued that Cameron might have walked away if he had understood the full extent of the tax bill that was about to fall on top of us.  The point is without the support of the Camerons, and with no other white knights stepping forward to help, the club would have struggled to survive that period.

Don’t understand the relevance of the comment about Heathfield.  My point was that we have been obliged to spend a fortune on Somerset in recent years in order to keep the place open for business.  Without Cameron’s money, we’d have struggled to finance this ourselves.  If Somerset had closed its doors, the very future of the club would have been in doubt.  

I don’t doubt mistakes have been made - the era of Marko was one long screw up from start to finish.  Neil Watt and Mark Shanks were disastrous appointments too, but at least had the decency not to stick around too long.  Brian Reid did well with the resources he had and I personally felt sorry for Robert Connor who was a good Ayr man who had zero chance of making a go of it when we could only afford to sign juniors.

I mentioned Heathfield because a lot of money was spent chasing that project at the expense of Somerset, like any old structure, the more you neglect it the more it costs you in repairs at some point down the line.

As for the tax bill, it should just have meant that the actual cost to purchase Ayr from Barr was tax bill + £1, not £1 + oh shit we're in deep shit because an unexpected bill arose, like I said in an earlier post, Lachlan has probably received criticism for things that really were not of his making, it's not right but if we as fans are kept in the dark then we're going to criticise the person in the hotseat at the time.

[Trogdor]

Well said @ayrmad

 

[Trogdor]

Who are Partick after? Is Neilsen confirmed at Dundee United? I'd imagine both clubs are in for him like a bald man fighting over a comb.

I hope McCall stays and going on what hes said I think he will. However, if he were to leave for anyone it would be Partick.

Squeaky bum time for us as Sir Alex would say.

[ayrmad]

2 hours ago, rb123! said:

5 hours ago, ayrmad said:

Contracts don't mean anything IMO, if he really wants to go he'll go and if he really wants to go I'd want him to go, I'm hoping he stays but you're a long time dead in this world for regrets, if only' or what ifs.
I never thought he would go to Falkirk but I'm not as confident this time, although not wanting to take the job after his pal' sacking is probably in our favour.

Well they mean something up to a point if it results in Partick swooping McCall away and being able to give us pretty much zero compensation.

In all honesty, I'm a fan, ultimately I'm bothered about what happens on the pitch on a Saturday, if McCall wants to leave he will leave regardless, compensation or none won't play a part in it IMHO, why on earth would any fan or board member wish to keep a manager that wants to go. McCall isn't some young manager looking to climb the ladder, if he goes to Partick it will be for things other than ambition or cash, I HOPE HE STAYS as much as I wanted Shankland to stay but I'll understand his reasons if he goes, it would be a huge disappointment if he left us at this point.

[Panda Pies]

Eh?   You head to insolvency because you can’t pay your bills i.e. there is more cash going out than coming in.  Paying off the tax bill (over 5 years as I recall) while operating as a going concern would have been all but impossible without additional funding being injected into the club by the Camerons.  It’s also worth remembering (many don’t) that we’ve had to spend a small fortune on Somerset over the last decade, including 100k+ for new floodlights.  Again, without that investment from Cameron, I struggle to see how we could have funded that work from our own income streams.  That would potentially have meant Somerset closing its doors - where that would have left us we can only speculate.

Don't think the club paid for the lights. There was a donation made by a fan to cover the costs and a grant from the league. Supposedly!