The Ultimate Super Ayr Thread

[UpInTheAyr]

6 minutes ago, ayrunitedfw said:

Mathie will quite rightly get most of the criticism for the footballing side of things however Smith isn’t exempt. At the end of the day he is Mathie boss and is paying his wages. If he isn’t happy with his performance he should be addressing this.

There is no doubt Smiths construction work off the park has been great and has pushed the club forward in that respect. There has been non Ayr United fans asking about the hub and the new stand. However he has proven himself to be quite thin skinned (Cammy Smith situation & Itzdrk getting Dmed after being critical of club). It seems there is a narrative at the club atm whereby if you criticise the club on any level you’re against them. That’s a culture that’s been created by Mathie and Smith and really needs changed. Mathie has been at Hibs and you’d think he’d be use to criticism on a bigger scale than what’s ever been received at Ayr United. 

Mind Smith went on a twitter rant after getting beat by Arbroath under Hopkin. No doubt he sees all the social media stuff but has learned from experience not to respond to it now.

[AyrExile]

8 hours ago, diege said:

Your point was Mathie has an iron fist and was firm on not allowing the coach bringing their own staff in. Load of bollocks

If the manager doesnt want these guys about, they wont be about

How many clubs at our level have the range of full time positions helping in the background. Many places will have a manager , assistant  and some part time/occasional staff who will split the duties. This will include part of Mathies job and cover all of the others too. Bearing in mind Ayr currently have this set up is an assistant really required? Would candidates from this level be able to pitch up with a working team where they could replace our current employees?

It would seem expensive and unlikely someone could just rock up and completely change our structure. It was initially built to provide more stability and doubt they could just revert to a manager and assistant. Perhaps after working with them for a bit the new person could move some on if they thought they weren't very good. Paying everyone off would also be an expensive exercise. Might be wrong but i don'r seem to remember wholesale changes at other clubs running this way when someone leaves.

I can't see this set up changing until there is another mess or two made and Mathies decision making is questioned.  So we will be looking for a certain type and it won't be someone coming with an entourage 

[United1973]

19 minutes ago, ayrunitedfw said:

Mathie will quite rightly get most of the criticism for the footballing side of things however Smith isn’t exempt. At the end of the day he is Mathie boss and is paying his wages. If he isn’t happy with his performance he should be addressing this.

There is no doubt Smiths construction work off the park has been great and has pushed the club forward in that respect. There has been non Ayr United fans asking about the hub and the new stand. However he has proven himself to be quite thin skinned (Cammy Smith situation & Itzdrk getting Dmed after being critical of club). It seems there is a narrative at the club atm whereby if you criticise the club on any level you’re against them. That’s a culture that’s been created by Mathie and Smith and really needs changed. Mathie has been at Hibs and you’d think he’d be use to criticism on a bigger scale than what’s ever been received at Ayr United. 

#WeAreUnited

[Thumper]

The biggest problem Mathie has is that current communications are so poor that the dimmest bulbs in the support have decided he was leaving wee notes for Bullen in the dressing room saying "mind and get your boy to miss his penalty today Lee, you know I want Ayr United to lose" and the club is doing nothing to contradict it.

[Thereisalight..]

Is this Senga's last game with us? 

[malkyshotton]

19 minutes ago, Thumper said:

The biggest problem Mathie has is that current communications are so poor that the dimmest bulbs in the support have decided he was leaving wee notes for Bullen in the dressing room saying "mind and get your boy to miss his penalty today Lee, you know I want Ayr United to lose" and the club is doing nothing to contradict it.

So your saying even thick people are starting to question if mathie is getting things wrong, may be something in that then.

Edited January 20 by malkyshotton

[GaryMc93]

As much as the club deserve criticism for some things, this week people seem to have knee jerk reactions to a lot of speculative stuff that is unconfirmed and has no given source but accepted it as fact anyway. It's possible it is from sources within the club or people directly associated with the first team but I suppose time will tell and for some of it we'll never know what's true.

[Thumper]

9 minutes ago, malkyshotton said:

So your saying even thick people are starting to question if mathie is getting things wrong, may be something in that then.

Very clever.

Right now, a sizeable chunk of people on here believe most, if not all of the following:

• Graeme Mathie is a control freak who demands complete control of Ayr United from signings to tactics to substitutions.
• He hired Lee Bullen specifically to nod and smile and visit nursing homes. Lee Bullen, who left Sheffield Wednesday and travelled hundreds of miles up north to join Ayr without his family because he wasn't given the control he wanted at Wednesday, happily agreed with this.
• Mathie is unhappy that the fanbase forced Lee Bullen out by calling him bald. This forced the managing director to sack him. Otherwise he would happily have allowed the club to be relegated because it meant he could keep telling Bullen to bring on Mark McKenzie after 75 minutes.
• Mathie will only accept as a replacement another yes man, who will want no control whatsoever. This includes none of his own staff, no control over signings, and to do whatever Mathie says.
• Tam Courts, Gary Bowyer, Ian McCall, Scott Brown and Jose Mourinho have all been interviewed for the job already and immediately turned down because they did not agree to the above.
• If he can't get his choice of manager, Mathie will either take the job himself or deliberately see the club run into the ground to spite the fans.

I call this Operation Head Coach, much like Operation 15-Minute Cities, another thing that retired people are mad about on Facebook.

[Trogdor]

21 minutes ago, Thereisalight.. said:

Is this Senga's last game with us? 

You know the rules. We don't want to give the opposition a competitive advantage so you'll only find out when he's gone.

[malkyshotton]

2 minutes ago, Thumper said:

Very clever.

Right now, a sizeable chunk of people on here believe most, if not all of the following:

• Graeme Mathie is a control freak who demands complete control of Ayr United from signings to tactics to substitutions.
• He hired Lee Bullen specifically to nod and smile and visit nursing homes. Lee Bullen, who left Sheffield Wednesday and travelled hundreds of miles up north to join Ayr without his family because he wasn't given the control he wanted at Wednesday, happily agreed with this.
• Mathie is unhappy that the fanbase forced Lee Bullen out by calling him bald. This forced the managing director to sack him. Otherwise he would happily have allowed the club to be relegated because it meant he could keep telling Bullen to bring on Mark McKenzie after 75 minutes.
• Mathie will only accept as a replacement another yes man, who will want no control whatsoever. This includes none of his own staff, no control over signings, and to do whatever Mathie says.
• Tam Courts, Gary Bowyer, Ian McCall, Scott Brown and Jose Mourinho have all been interviewed for the job already and immediately turned down because they did not agree to the above.
• If he can't get his choice of manager, Mathie will either take the job himself or deliberately see the club run into the ground to spite the fans.

I call this Operation Head Coach, much like Operation 15-Minute Cities, another thing that retired people are mad about on Facebook.

Has this been taken from Mathies contract offer to any prospective candidate? Thing is this could all be true or all be false or something in between but to call people “dimmest lights” because they are guessing/speculating about Graeme Mathie and his part in running the club seems harsh. 

[UpInTheAyr]

Wonder if there'll be a noticeable change in demeanour from the players today, a spring in their step, or if they'll still be in a state of mourning like the rest of the club.

Any truth in the rumours there having a minutes applause for Bullen before kick off?

[Richey Edwards]

Just now, UpInTheAyr said:

Wonder if there'll be a noticeable change in demeanour from the players today, a spring in their step, or if they'll still be in a state of mourning like the rest of the club.

Any truth in the rumours there having a minutes applause for Bullen before kick off?

Free entry to everyone who shaves their head and wears a gilet to the game.

[Nelson]

Don’t think it’s reasonable to expect Mathie to respond to every piece of nonsense that gets posted on social media, but it is a bit odd that we haven’t heard a word from him since Bullen went.  

[Trogdor]

Aye, the talking head being missing in action is heightening my anxiety.

Spoiler

[Thumper]

27 minutes ago, malkyshotton said:

Has this been taken from Mathies contract offer to any prospective candidate? Thing is this could all be true or all be false or something in between but to call people “dimmest lights” because they are guessing/speculating about Graeme Mathie and his part in running the club seems harsh. 

Speculation is one thing. Building on layers and layers of speculation to invent a whole new reality is another. Every bullet point there is a wild conspiracy theory which requires someone to have accepted as truth a whole bunch of deeply counterfactual arguments. If you look at any of them and don't immediately laugh then you're in too deep.

By far the most likely scenario is:

• Bullen talks the talk but ultimately lacked in several key areas. He leant on, and was in turn carried by, several strong signings until opponents saw through his reliance on them.
• He was sacked because there was no excuse to get a drab scoreless draw against an injury-plagued team who had been bottom of the league for most of it.
• The club's recruitment program has some serious flaws, but these are due to inexperience or a lack of money as opposed to a sinister conspiracy by Mathie and Glendinning to repopulate Ayr entirely with inner-city London wingers.
• The lack of transparency in the last week is par for the course.
• The number of managers to have actually sat down with the board so far is zero. It is rare for mis-season sackings to result in immediate long-term replacements, and the appeal of Ayr as a job is a bit indirect.
• There is absolutely no factual basis to believe that Bullen calling himself "head coach" and not "manager" has anything to do with his role being restricted from the traditional scope, and any time he or the club has been asked they have said the opposite.

[Lanky Highlander]

1 hour ago, Thumper said:

Very clever.

Right now, a sizeable chunk of people on here believe most, if not all of the following:

• Graeme Mathie is a control freak who demands complete control of Ayr United from signings to tactics to substitutions.
• He hired Lee Bullen specifically to nod and smile and visit nursing homes. Lee Bullen, who left Sheffield Wednesday and travelled hundreds of miles up north to join Ayr without his family because he wasn't given the control he wanted at Wednesday, happily agreed with this.
• Mathie is unhappy that the fanbase forced Lee Bullen out by calling him bald. This forced the managing director to sack him. Otherwise he would happily have allowed the club to be relegated because it meant he could keep telling Bullen to bring on Mark McKenzie after 75 minutes.
• Mathie will only accept as a replacement another yes man, who will want no control whatsoever. This includes none of his own staff, no control over signings, and to do whatever Mathie says.
• Tam Courts, Gary Bowyer, Ian McCall, Scott Brown and Jose Mourinho have all been interviewed for the job already and immediately turned down because they did not agree to the above.
• If he can't get his choice of manager, Mathie will either take the job himself or deliberately see the club run into the ground to spite the fans.

I call this Operation Head Coach, much like Operation 15-Minute Cities, another thing that retired people are mad about on Facebook.

Superb

[Iain]

29 minutes ago, Thumper said:

 

• The lack of transparency in the last week is par for the course.

This isn't quite right. Sometimes they communicate well, but like much of their other marketing/comms activity, it suffers from not having anyone in a dedicated role at the club. This means that from time to time it'll bubble up to the top of the to-do list, there will be a flurry of activity and things will look good for a while, but focus will inevitably shift elsewhere eventually and, without an organisational commitment to it or somebody to drive it, output reduces. Inevitably that means at times of high stress it's easy for them to believe they have more vital things to allocate their time to, resulting in the perfunctory efforts we've seen lately.

[BukyOHare]

Just now, Iain said:

This isn't quite right. Sometimes they communicate well, but like much of their other marketing/comms activity, it suffers from not having anyone in a dedicated role at the club. This means that from time to time it'll bubble up to the top of the to-do list, there will be a flurry of activity and things will look good for a while, but focus will inevitably shift elsewhere eventually and, without an organisational commitment to it or somebody to drive it, output reduces. Inevitably that means at times of high stress it's easy for them to believe they have more vital things to allocate their time to, resulting in the perfunctory efforts we've seen lately.

Within our fan base I'd have thought there must be a large number of people regularly online, willing and able to volunteer to help the club out.

Just a thought.

[Iain]

Just now, BukyOHare said:

Within our fan base I'd have thought there must be a large number of people regularly online, willing and able to volunteer to help the club out.

Just a thought.

They were looking for someone with experience in the field to join the board not so long ago, but I don't remember hearing whether that was successful.

[BukyOHare]

3 minutes ago, Iain said:

They were looking for someone with experience in the field to join the board not so long ago, but I don't remember hearing whether that was successful.

I'm just talking about someone working in the background without becoming a director, somebody with fresh ideas and who can identify with the fanbase.

Lots of people on here seem to have ideas, interesting if they'd fancy stepping forward.

 

Edited January 20 by BukyOHare