The Ultimate Super Ayr Thread

[honestman54]

15 minutes ago, D'Jaffo said:

I’m not doubting his “achievements”, I’m saying that for the money he spent we massively underachieved.

McCall doesn’t have anything close to the money Dalziel would’ve had and short of reaching a cup final has pretty much equaled what Dalziel did.

Im not comparing Dalziel to McCall as Ian is still with us.  IO was talking about previous times.  Dalziel got us in League 1 and brought us to the championship and ke us there.  He also got us to our first ever national cup final (and other cup semi in the same season - no other manager has managed this.  The club got relegate the season after Dalziel left.

[AUFC 1910]

The club need to try and keep McCall at all costs. We will go into free-fall if he leaves. We are punching above our weight with regards to infrastructure and time spent as a full time team. It would be like a lottery win if we were to pull out a gem of a manager that could keep things going. Just look at the total dross that is the merry-go-round of lower league managers. I'd happily forego any money we might be able to spend in January and line McCalls pockets with it. Money might not be everything, but it helps soften any blow.

Edited September 19, 2019 by AUFC 1910

[ayrmad]

8 minutes ago, honestman54 said:

Im not comparing Dalziel to McCall as Ian is still with us.  IO was talking about previous times.  Dalziel got us in League 1 and brought us to the championship and ke us there.  He also got us to our first ever national cup final (and other cup semi in the same season - no other manager has managed this.  The club got relegate the season after Dalziel left.

We were spending like Gretna and never raised a challenge for promotion.

[THEHonestman1910]

31 minutes ago, ayrmad said:

We were spending like Gretna and never raised a challenge for promotion.

To be fair, he did take us to 2nd and was only a few points off winning the league, and it was before the play offs too. 

[Hursty]

The difference was that if in those days Dalziel had lost the equivalent of Murdoch to injury for the season he would already have brought in about 4 replacements.  Possibly by signing someone for a fee from a team in the same league.

Or maybe if someone had lost form.  Or if he just fancied a change in 3 or 4 positions.  The amount of cash we must have spunked was unreal.  A semi competent manager with that money and backing at the time would have romped us into the Premier.  

Yes we got a Cup Final and some great cup days but I can't help but lpol back on those days and see it as a massive under achievement that all we really did was get a day out at Hampden to get humped 4-0

[ayrmad]

17 minutes ago, THEHonestman1910 said:

To be fair, he did take us to 2nd and was only a few points off winning the league, and it was before the play offs too. 

To be fair, we were in more of a title battle last season.

[Guest]

2 hours ago, D'Jaffo said:

Is he “a million miles behind” Ally?

Dalziel was pish considering the money we spent at the time.

I think you misunderstood my post, I was meaning in terms of how Ally could work the media and how he could big everyone and everything up in order to promote the team and stir up interest. I was meaning McCall is the first guy we've had in a while who knows the buttons to press.

Incidentally I agree with you on Dalziel, he failed miserably with what he had at his disposal and was a complete w****r to boot.............

[Superhursty7]

The whole Dalziel time is a bit of a contradiction he gave us some great times we had two of our greatest results ever against killie some amazingly performances like Motherwell away in the cup brought some out outstanding player's to the club Hurst, Teal, Castilla, Craig Reynolds, Sheerin to name a few and obviously took us twice to Hampden in a week but looking back we spent so much money we should have been in the prem (stadium issues withstanding) with a better manager plus by all accounts he was a bit of an arse of a man meaning most folk now don't look back on his time as a success.

[diegomarahenry]

He was an arrogant arse of a man, as soon as a player was getting headlines, Daziel dropped him and they were sold soon after, Kerrigan, Ferguson, Hurst. He spent more money than any other Ayr manager and at times the football was dreadful. We never had consistency and paid big wages for small return. The cup results overshadowed how bad the league results were half the time, probably to do with the massive bonuses the players were on. He also had some big name assistants in his time. 

It was a great time because of the players we signed, it wasn't boring but we paid massive wages for players like Pat McGinley, John Hughes etc and free'd players like Scott Chaplain, Neil Scally, John Bradford and Mick Dunlop, all of whom played the bulk of their careers in and around the same level as Ayr. Its one of the reasons I am glad that over the last few years we have stuck with guys like Crawford, Forrest, McCowan, McGuffie etc rather than filling our team with average "known" players. Maybe money has something to do with that though.

[Mgc1910]

Dalziel was a knob.  

I’ve nothing else to add.

[D'Jaffo]

Brian Reid tho

Now he was a REAL manager!

[THEHonestman1910]

Just now, D'Jaffo said:

Brian Reid tho

Now he was a REAL manager!

I don't think he had enough players on the goaline against Kilmarnock at Hampden 

[Trogdor]

5 minutes ago, THEHonestman1910 said:

I don't think he had enough players on the goaline against Kilmarnock at Hampden 

[Hawk89]

I don't think he had enough players on the goaline against Kilmarnock at Hampden 

Still have visions of Wardlaw watching 95% of the game from the centre circle.

[Pick that one out Marshall]

2 hours ago, Iain said:

Biggest failure of the Reid years - losing the biggest Ayrshire derby in history.

 

Biggest failure of the Dalziel years - nobody snapped Andrei Kanchelskis' leg clean in two.

[Guest]

13 hours ago, Superhursy7 said:

The whole Dalziel time is a bit of a contradiction he gave us some great times we had two of our greatest results ever against killie some amazingly performances like Motherwell away in the cup brought some out outstanding player's to the club Hurst, Teal, Castilla, Craig Reynolds, Sheerin to name a few and obviously took us twice to Hampden in a week but looking back we spent so much money we should have been in the prem (stadium issues withstanding) with a better manager plus by all accounts he was a bit of an arse of a man meaning most folk now don't look back on his time as a success.
 

I've still got Andy Walker as perhaps the best ever player I've seen in an Ayr jersey, due to his touch, intelligence and way he could make everything look so easy as he always seemed to have so much time in tight situations.

The front 3 of Hurst, Walker & Teale was simply superb to watch, however I think we're pretty close to it at the moment with McCowan, Moffat and Forrest. 

That's something I'd never thought I'd be saying when I was watching us a couple of seasons back in front of 800 people at Somerset getting outclassed and outplayed by the likes of Peterhead, Albion Rovers & Stenhousemuir...................

[edinburghhonestman]

11 hours ago, diegomarahenry said:

It was a great time because of the players we signed, it wasn't boring but we paid massive wages for players like Pat McGinley, John Hughes etc and free'd players like Scott Chaplain, Neil Scally, John Bradford and Mick Dunlop, all of whom played the bulk of their careers in and around the same level as Ayr. Its one of the reasons I am glad that over the last few years we have stuck with guys like Crawford, Forrest, McCowan, McGuffie etc rather than filling our team with average "known" players. Maybe money has something to do with that though.

This.  Sticking with good young players needs to be our USP.  Whether we develop them through the Academy or help guys like Shankland and Rose rebuild their careers I think Ayr need to stand for giving youth a chance.  It's where McCall is miles better as a manager than Dalziel ever was and why I hope we have him for a while yet.  It helps us attract some of the best players we've had in ages and is why clubs like Celtic, Aberdeen and Rangers trust us with their youngsters on loan.  Too many clubs in Scotland are wasting money on journeymen and it's getting them nowhere and is dragging the game in Scotland down.

Edited September 20, 2019 by edinburghhonestman

[BukyOHare]

38 minutes ago, WATTOO said:

The front 3 of Hurst, Walker & Teale was simply superb to watch, however I think we're pretty close to it at the moment with McCowan, Moffat and Forrest. 

Time clearly fades the memories.

As good as things may be at the moment to suggest those groups of 3 are in anyway close is hilarious. Not even close I'm afraid, and it'll take something extremely special for that to ever change. 

McCowan's played 591 minutes over 3 seasons and 11 1st team games.

[Mgc1910]

4 hours ago, Iain said:

Biggest failure of the Reid years - losing the biggest Ayrshire derby in history.

 

Biggest failure of the Dalziel years - nobody snapped Andrei Kanchelskis' leg clean in two.

Hard to believe anyone is still trotting out this nonsense.  Too many Ayr fans at the time thought it being an Ayrshire Derby was some sort of leveller.  Might be hard to accept for some, but Killie were an established premier league team who were stronger than us in every department.  If we’d conceded early that day, we could easily have taken a real hiding.  Reid made sure that didn’t happen.  If we’d been up against anyone other than them, we’d have walked away from Hampden recognising that we’d over achieved massively to get to that stage and that reaching the final was just a step too far in what was a very impressive series of cup results.  

[Guest]

36 minutes ago, edinburghhonestman said:

This.  Sticking with good young players needs to be our USP.  Whether we develop them through the Academy or help guys like Shankland and Rose rebuild their careers I think Ayr need to stand for giving youth a chance.  It's where McCall is miles better as a manager than Dalziel ever was and why I hope we have him for a while yet.  It helps us attract some of the best players we've had in ages and is why clubs like Celtic, Aberdeen and Rangers trust us with their youngsters on loan.  Too many clubs in Scotland are wasting money on journeymen and it's getting them nowhere and is dragging the game in Scotland down.

I agree, however we need to concentrate on getting as many under decent contracts as we can, as we cannot continue as a club to be in a situation where we're developing young talent and then watching them walk away without a penny in compensation being paid to our club.

Luke is probably the only player we have which we'd gain anything from as regards a development fee but my worry is that the likes of Forrest, Harvie and possibly Roscoe, if he continues his improvement, will all be walking away for nothing at the end of their contracts.

We can't allow this to go on.........