The Ultimate Super Ayr Thread

[HMIP]

37 minutes ago, diegomarahenry said:

Bill Barr's legacy will show he was the chairman who funded our run to three semi-finals and a final of major competitions and a team of exciting players who ordinarily wouldn't have signed for Ayr. he also built a hospitality suite. He hired Campbell Money as the head of youth development who, at the time was one of the best in Scotland. 

The reality was a very shortsighted approach to not only the football club but also Ayr Eagles and the Centrum project. Almost overnight, the funding was withdrawn from everything. Somerset had almost been run in to the ground waiting on a stadium that never happened. Daziel had about two years too long in the job and was allowed to spend money to hide his inadequacies. 

One of the most common things I get asked when talking to folk about football who aren't Ayr fans is, how could Barr build every stadium in the UK and not build Ayr one? My answer was always, because every club he built a stadium for promised to pay him. Why should he fire £5-10-15 million of his own money in to a stadium he''d never see back? His sustainable approach to a stadium deal probably means that Jim Kirkwood didn't have to buy the ground as well as the car park a few years back to pay the tax bill. 

He gave me some of the best moments of my time supporting Ayr and deserves more credit than Daziel for the whole period. 

I’m not sure what more Barr could have done during that period to build a new stadium.  He made it clear his personal wealth didn’t stretch to funding it out of his own pocket and therefore required the retail park at Heathfield as part of the deal.  I also vaguely remember him mentioning that devolution meant we didn’t qualify for substantial grants that a similar sized club in England would have received.  

The bottom line is that south Ayrshire council absolutely screwed us.  They approved the stadium but added utterly ridiculous and financially unsustainable conditions while at the same time refusing permission for the retail park.  I remember the red Tory who was the local MP at the time (Osborne?) congratulating us on getting planning permission for the stadium when it was clear we effectively had no means to fund it.   I also remember a figure of £200k+ being quoted at the time for the judicial review alone which took about a year to be heard only for the Scottish Government to drop their opposition the day before it was due to be heard.  

It really is a sorry tale - I’m not sure what happened in the end, but I think ill health and internal politics at Barr Construction forced him out and he seemed to lose the will or the means to keep backing us at the point.  I’d criticise him for not binning Dalziel who was a quite appalling manager, but I wouldn’t criticise him for the failure to build a stadium.

[Trogdor]

32 minutes ago, rb123! said:

https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/sport/football/4942566/ayr-police-hunt-yobs-spat-steward-coins/

Nice bit of bad publicity for the club

Oooft, no defending that.

[ayrunitedfw]

Trialist starting for the reserves v Airdrie tonight. Presumably Ryan Blair? 

[Richey Edwards]

4 hours ago, HMIP said:

Sad news about Bill Barr.  Brought some good times to the club after years of going nowhere.  Don’t suppose we’ll ever know now why local politicians fought so hard to stop him realising his dream of a new stadium that would undoubtedly have been his true legacy to the club.  Given the millions he poured into the club, he deserves to be well remembered though it is regrettable that so many view those years as a lost opportunity.  Great memories though, especially in the cups.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing and it's easy to sit here and say that it was a missed opportunity, but Mr Barr did a lot of good for the club and deserves a lot of credit for the successes of that period.

Mr Barr was a good friend of my grandpa and was responsible for arranging one of the most fondly remembered days of my childhood, when I got to watch a game in the directors box and meet all of the players and staff. He was a very kind and generous man.

RIP.

[Trogdor]

RIP Bill Barr. The best owner we ever had?

[BukyOHare]

6 minutes ago, Trogdor said:

RIP Bill Barr. The best owner we ever had?

How do you begin to rationally quantify "best"?

And how many owners, in the true sense of the word, have the club actually had?

 

[Trogdor]

Just now, BukyOHare said:

How do you begin to rationally quantify "best"?

And how many owners, in the true sense of the word, have the club actually had?

 

More of a rhetorical one from me. Rather than a debate starter.

I guess he actually gave it a go and poured what must have been millions of his own money in. It was some ride, the end was a bit bumpy right enough. 

In terms of owners since 1910, one for Duncan Carmichael. 

 

[Aufc]

He's right though. 

Using someones death to point score? Aye sound

[D'Jaffo]

Using someones death to point score? Aye sound

Good thing that’s not what he did then.

[rb123!]

48 minutes ago, Trogdor said:

RIP Bill Barr. The best owner we ever had?

Best in terms of providing success to the club on a national level for a very short period of time which included 2 national cup outings to Hampden.

Lachlan Cameron the best over for saving the club by using and losing his own money, if he hadn't done that for the last 10-13 years there would be no Ayr United to talk about today. End of.

[Sergeant Wilson]

20 minutes ago, Aufc said:

 

Using someones death to point score? Aye sound

 

Fūck him. I danced a merry jig when I heard the news today. It didn't go down well at the cenotaph to be fair.

Edited November 11, 2019 by Sergeant Wilson

[BukyOHare]

3 minutes ago, Sergeant Wilson said:

Fūck him. I danced a merry jig when I heard the news today. It didn't go down well at the cenotaph to be fair.

Care to elaborate why?

[Sergeant Wilson]

Just now, BukyOHare said:

Care to elaborate why?

He was a cūnt.

[Aufc]

Fūck him. I danced a merry jig when I heard the news today. It didn't go down well at the cenotaph to be fair.

My view is yes he was part of the reason for our demise but i wont take pleasure in his death

[BukyOHare]

6 minutes ago, Sergeant Wilson said:

He was a cūnt.

Im sure he didn't mean it personally.

[Sergeant Wilson]

Just now, Aufc said:

 

My view is yes he was part of the reason for our demise but i wont take pleasure in his death

 

I do.

Just now, BukyOHare said:

Im sure he didn't mean it personally.

He did.

[D'Jaffo]

Can the bitter Airdrie/Clydebank fans gtf please. No one really cared what happened to you back then and even fewer people care now.

[UpInTheAyr]

4 minutes ago, D'Jaffo said:

Can the bitter Airdrie/Clydebank fans gtf please. No one really cared what happened to you back then and even fewer people care now.

At least it's not QOS fans.

[Parkhouse]

Lachlan Cameron the best over for saving the club by using and losing his own money, if he hadn't done that for the last 10-13 years there would be no Ayr United to talk about today. End of.

Who or what did Lachlan save the club from, himself? At the time the Cameron family took on majority ownership from Bill Barr we were told the club had no debt. Check back on the papers at the time if you want evidence of that. So who was responsible for where we found ourselves not long after?

My own guess is the Cameron family bought the club for a token sum from Barr. Now if that’s correct , you’d need to be a very trusting person not to ask yourself why someone would sell you their majority share in a football club for a token sum if there were no strings attached. Presuming due diligence was undertaken, it’s logical therefore to think the Cameron family took over ownership with a fair idea of where the club sat financially.

The club has never been in administration or admitted to being close to deaths door. If either situation had arisen who’s to say a fans consortium wouldn’t have save saved the club? Who’s to say other interested parties would not have emerged? We’ll never know as the situation never materialised but it’s complete rubbish to say Lachlan saved the club, unless you mean from his own mismanagement?

[diegomarahenry]

1 hour ago, HMIP said:

I’m not sure what more Barr could have done during that period to build a new stadium.  He made it clear his personal wealth didn’t stretch to funding it out of his own pocket and therefore required the retail park at Heathfield as part of the deal.  I also vaguely remember him mentioning that devolution meant we didn’t qualify for substantial grants that a similar sized club in England would have received.  

The bottom line is that south Ayrshire council absolutely screwed us.  They approved the stadium but added utterly ridiculous and financially unsustainable conditions while at the same time refusing permission for the retail park.  I remember the red Tory who was the local MP at the time (Osborne?) congratulating us on getting planning permission for the stadium when it was clear we effectively had no means to fund it.   I also remember a figure of £200k+ being quoted at the time for the judicial review alone which took about a year to be heard only for the Scottish Government to drop their opposition the day before it was due to be heard.  

It really is a sorry tale - I’m not sure what happened in the end, but I think ill health and internal politics at Barr Construction forced him out and he seemed to lose the will or the means to keep backing us at the point.  I’d criticise him for not binning Dalziel who was a quite appalling manager, but I wouldn’t criticise him for the failure to build a stadium.

It was approved on the agreement that the club paid for the upgrading of Whittlets roundabout, effectively adding £2 million to the price of the stadium build and it would need to be done before the work could start on the stadium. 

Pre-devolution, Barr had the bulk of government contracts, I'm sure I read an article at the time they had the contract to resurface every road in Scotland. Post devolution they didn't get the same contracts.