some young dude who had a couple of seasons at Feyenoord......i'm speechless.

Michael Brown...also played for some Aussie side..Macarthur Rams.

I am just surprised that we have a squad bigger than 12

mein gott und himmell...the phrase dark horse comes to mind.......... I might be jizzing my knickers before I get my zip down but i'm might impressed with what the club has done this summer.

Woohoo!

Don't know a thing about the bloke, but he must have decent technical ability to have had a stint at Feyenoord.

Is a right back next, or am I just being greedy?

Dazza will do fine when he learns to judge the flight of a ball.

This is great news! Midfield was the one area that was a worry.

The club have done well strengthening every part of the team (except goalie).

Only time will tell but I think we should be more positive about finishing further up the league.

Bring on the Thistle, hopefully pump them on Sat (not in the biblical sense, we know they like the pink)

He sounds of similar stature to Dyron Daal!! Unfortunately for Airdrie he may well be pish, but atleast he'll manage to knock a few past Rab Douglas over the course of the season.

Think there is another 1 or 2 players to come according to earlier reports. judging by the picture on the stomp "the bald assassin" looks abit mental

Indeed. Dyron Daal immediately sprung to mind when I read this. He "played" for Ajax don't you know?

aye he looks like a young fit graveson.......god I hope they rip thistle a new arsehole to accomodate all the new hot cock they will attract with that fruity new top.

I knew he looked like someone but couldnt place it - Graveson - good call Ghostie.

I just hope that he is more successful in Scotland than his look-a-like

i'm sure there is f**k all up with graveson...starchan just dislikes him intently.

Not deliberately trying to be an arsehole, but were is the money for Airdrie's signings coming from?
I'm sure Ballantyne was talking part-time football if you didn't go up, and the step-up in finances can't be that big...
Pardon my ignorance in advance.

Nah, you'd be surprised how much of a boost to the coffers that Mortons gigantic away support brings to the club.....

Seems the Airdrie fans have got a severe case of 'he has a foreign name so must be awesome syndrome'.

Isn't it a shame most would rather neuter themselves with a rusty hacksaw than go to Hunwood then...

Michael Brown - Foreign name, eh?

Born in England

£200,000 from sponsors...we basically raped and pillaged the hospice and sold everything......

We were always going to be full time this season (although this maybe due to JBs inside knowledge that Gretna were going to the wall)

As Ron suggested we got a big whack from the sponsors and we are expecting bigger gates this season from Morton, Partick, Dundee and Dunfermline as opposed to Brechin, Peterhead, Queens Park and Raith.

We are primarily signing young guys or ones that are trying to rebuild their careers on one year contracts. We still probably have one of the smallest wage bills in the league

Aye the money is coming from the Gillespie group. They're angling for planning permission for a huge redevelopment of Airdrie which will surely make them millions, so funding a few players here and there for us as a sweetner to help get the deal go through isn't much of a cost to them.

I was thinking more George Daws.

Stuart

the way housing is going just now it might not be the cash cow they hopes....most games are going to see circa 3000 crowds...thats more than three times our average last year....we are fucking loaded.

Yip! That's why all these continental masters are now entertaining huge crowds at the bin end of British football. Jean Yves Anis anyone?

have McKeown.....we shall see how this lad turns out

tube!

You have no choice. As for Dosser, well, he's managed to find the net twice in a week. Not a bad start.

(I was making a point about imports from 'big' continental teams in general, not taking a pop at yer man BTW.)

Away ya curmudgeonly bunch! Airdrie fans have been screaming for a midfielder with a bit of dig for ages and we're thrilled to now have a player who, on paper, fits this description, especially one who looks like he might have been an extra in "The Hills Have Eyes".

At least give us 27 hours to feel as if our team is making forward progress. I'm sure we'll feel differently by 5pm tomorrow.

Stuart

Stuart,

The game ain't played on paper. Will look out for the fella tomorrow.

A cheap signing from Feyenoord has good vibrations where i'm sitting.......i'm genuinely excited about this season...like Hans Fritzel moving to a new house with a huge basement.....I liked Dosser...he's just not Airdrie "class" any more




even if we lose it's gonna happen over the course of the season....it's looking a lot like we will at least compete this year....

Put it back in the drawer it's your mother's and you shouldn't be playing with it.

Is that Greenockian for "F'ck, Airdrie aren't going to be the whipping boys we expected. Time for a change of pants"?


Anyhow, the answers to that question have already been given. I believe the Gillespie Group's initial sponsorship deal was pretty generous, and the £200K on top of that this season will pay for a bare minimum of 5-6 additional players.

Clyde have an almost identical home support to Airdrie, yet have a squad of 24ish to our 21. How do they pay for that?

Aye we did. You offered an "undisclosed sum" for Dosser, despite being in a big vat of financial poo-poo.

Tubes!!

Tut! Tut!

They -
1) Prostitute themselves to the Current Buns.
2) Put the profits from the Ferris Wheel back into the club.
3) Eat their children.

Hmm ... vats of financial poo-poo ... Thistle and a lot of other teams. That'll be why we're all hiring hammer throwers ditched from 'big' continental teams.

How much was offered for McKeown?

Bare in mind two of these players are ricky waddell and scott gemmill who are both terrible players. Also willie mclaren gets paid in bottle of buckie so they save some money there. Also peter cherrie who is also pretty pish. Thats four players already.

As for the new boy...i shall reserve judgement on him until i see him although apparently he showed up very well in his trial game, apparently described by australia 4-4-2 magazine as his clubs star player and he looks like an absolute nutter which is what we are needing. Only time will tell.

Ps i would take dosser back in a second...always liked him as a player and our team struggled badly last year when he left (hopefully this new bloke will be better than him)

No - within one game I'm already certain that we'll be finishing above the mini-Huns, as for yourselves we'll have to see.
Clyde, as said above, are whores to Hunnery and bigotry: although their quantity does not equal quality.

The magical "undisclosed"

Edit - I would have dosser back in a shot

Our midfield needed bolster and we have brought in a midfielder - whether he played with a big club or not is irrelevant - I would alos be delighted if we signed a hammer thrower as we have been distinctly lightweight for 10 years now.

Whilst 3) might be a bit of a short term fix, 1) and 2) are a business model that I'm sure Airdrie could follow in future.



Not quite. If the shit hitS the fan, we'll go part time. We've never had and never will have any borrowings. Thanks to generous support from local business, we'll be fine at this level for a year or two. If crowds don't improve in the medium term, we'll be part time in division two.

McKeown went for £10k as I recall.



Pish players maybe, but McGuire, Smith and the two youngsters who went full time this season will hardly be on any more than the Clyde lot.



Morton probably have more goals in them this season, but you still seem leaky at the back. You could finish anywhere from 4th-10th IMO.

to be honest apart from probably dundee and st johnstone, anyone could finish anywhere. Everyone will take points off each other. Shall be a very competitive league.

McKeown did go for £10k, Thistle offered £5k, Airdrie wanted more, Offered £10k, accepted this and it was a done deal as far as i'm led to believe!

As for Captain Baldo the Midfield Maestro, he does indeed look like a fruitcake and for one hope Dosser feels the full brunt of his flying fist of Juda on saturday .

I think there will be a few shocks on the cards this season including St J not finishing as high as they think. IMO Dundee are the only ones that "on paper" will win the league, fancy maybe dunfermline for a surprise 2nd and St J maybe 3rd if there lucky. the other 7 teams ye can shove in a hat and pick em out in whit order ye like

Another good piece of business by the club, looks like a very capable player and sort of what we've been calling out for in the middle of the park. Oh and for once the moaners seem to have disappeared for a bit. I almost miss the constant doom and gloom rambling about how dire everything is at Airdrie...Well maybe not!

As I said when Gretna went bust I jsut had this sneaky feeling we wouldn't be whipping boys this year, call it blind faith or whatever you like but I just felt that maybe JB & KB had something up their sleeves and this appears to have been the case based on the good signings we've made and our early form which has been very good.

I know there is a very long way to go and we could still easily be relegated this year but there is definitely cause for optimism at our club. Dunno bout anyone else but I personally believe this is the best squad we've had since our first season in divison 1 back in the 04/05 season.

All this optimism worries me, it's just not natural for Airdrie fans!

Agreed - cue a humping at the weekend and calls for the managers head.

All this talk of humpings and head will have Ron Burgundy here in 2 seconds.

and you seem to be very keen on his sexual innuendo

Agreed, from what ive seen and on paper, the squad is much stronger than previous seasons but then the opposition are much stronger now. We are still favourites for the drop but hopefully they can keep their good start up

I don't know about the other strikers at the club which I am assuming are 2nd division pish, but if Dicrapimo does his usual and gives up then from what I've seen from Lynch then you could struggle to get goals.

That's the hope anyway.

Our strikeforce definetly isn't the area of the park we're worried about in any case. Di Giacomo and Lynch have both had very promising starts, Stuart Noble is a very skilled forward as well who likes to take people on and as well as a decent goal record he also set up many of Allan Russell's goals last year. We also have Kenny Watt whos still young but has the ability to come into a game and cause defences a problem with his pace. The other striker we have is Stephen McGuire who is a really highly rated youngster from the Motherwell youth system. As I say I don't think we'll be short of attacking options or goals.

As for Di Giacomo, well many of the County fans (who saw Allan Russell on a few occasions last season) have said they thought Di Giacomo looked a much more able player than Russell in the cup game the other night so im not too worried about him 'giving up'. Afterall we were told by a few Thistle fans last year that Russell would give up after a couple of games