The Official Airdrieonians Thread - 2019/20 and beyond

[airdrieman]

1 hour ago, Pesadilla said:

Season's finished a week and Airdrie Twitter does it's annual Chernobyl because we've signed four young laddies.

Fortheloveoffuck, Airdrie.....wait at least a fortnight before popping your lids.

Saw comments like "if this is the standard of players we are signing then we are in trouble" and today after we signed up Hutton "finally a good signing" as if any of the young boys signed, with possibly the exception of the reserve players, are going to be anywhere near the first team any time soon. And if they do play then they're obviously good enough in which case we damn well should play them. I suppose TBF myself and others got caught up thinking we were gonna be making some new signings  but some people's reactions have been way OTT. 

Great news getting Hutton signed up. I said it last season but Hutton and Gallacher is probably as good a first choice/second choice pair you'll get at this level. Sensible as well to get young Andrew McNeil (not that one) signed up too. I see he's been confirmed as full-time, are the other young players going to be full-time as well? 

[Jack Reed]

57 minutes ago, stuartcraig said:

 

Maybe, but he’s no Andy Rhodes.

 

Neil Parrry  every bit as good if not better ,O. M. O .

[vikingTON]

50 minutes ago, DiamondDownSouth said:

The three teams that voted against Airdrie that are now gone from the SPFL are Clydebank, East Stirlingshire & Berwick Rangers.  The other 13 are: Alloa Athletic, Arbroath, Ayr United, Clyde, Cowdenbeath, Dumbarton, East Fife, Greenock Morton, Inverness Caley Thistle, Queen of the South, St Mirren, St Johnstone & Stranraer.

For balance the goodies were: Albion Rovers, Brechin City, Falkirk, Forfar Athletic, Hamilton Accademicals, Montrose, Queens Park, Raith Rovers, Ross County, Stenhousemuir & Stirling Albion.

wut

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It was Airdrie's league place

Indeed it was - until Airdrie's complete financial implosion rendered that claim to a league spot null and void. That's quite rightly the default position in Scottish football, as opposed to nonsense countries like England where the likes of Leeds can massively overspend, go bust and then just waltz back in at the same level under a new holding company. Liquidation is a huge event and requires serious sporting consequences. It could have just easily happened to Morton at the same time, and the outcome should have been exactly the same in our case.

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 had we not been denied it then we wouldn't have had to take Bankies' spot - remember there was no pyramid at the time. 

You didn't 'have' to do anything. Whether people object to what happened to Clydebank or not, all responsibility for that decision rests with Airdrie's custodians and not the clubs who refused to let them reclaim their league place.

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When Rangers went bust I noticed that they weren't required to compete against anyone else to rejoin the league, although denying them would have been just as wrong as it was to deny us.

They should have been forced to compete with other applicants and if they had, then clubs should have voted them down as well. Stranraer were the only good guys who called for that outcome but were shot down by the rest. 

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I know it is 17 years ago, but it that time I had already been an Airdrie fan for over 30 years and had these teams had their way I would have had no team to support since 2002.

 

No, you wouldn't have had a national league team to support. There was nothing to stop an Airdrie football club entering the juniors and playing their way up through that level; indeed, that's been the option that Clydebank's supporters pursued themselves. No football club in Scotland has got an entitlement to play in the national leagues and thankfully now the pyramid is flushing away that mentality. 

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I still always want the teams in the first list to lose, even  if they are playing against the ugly sisters.

Well that's just tragic really.

[Pesadilla]

Neil Parrry  every bit as good if not better ,O. M. O .

If Parry had any distribution skills, at all, I think he’d be playing at a higher level than he is.

[Passionate]

36 minutes ago, Pesadilla said:

 

Three words;
Javier
Sanchez
Broto

Hutton has had some decent saves but seems to have been elevated to God-like status after a save at Parkhead.

 

Was thinking the same myself,   decent enough keeper,  I actually think Scott Gallagher is or was the better keeper of the two.  (I don't know if he is a guid rangerz man though).

[Airdrie Minded]

And if they do play then they're obviously good enough in which case we damn well should play them.

Sensible as well to get young Andrew McNeil (not that one) signed up too. I see he's been confirmed as full-time, are the other young players going to be full-time as well? 

First bit first. That’s not really how it works though. See, the players who played this year played but clearly weren’t good enough! So flawed logic there.

Second bit, not aimed at you, but it looks like the model will be a full time core of youngsters. Not necessarily a bad thing but I’d reckon there will be limited experience on that part of the hybrid model based on what we’ve seen so far.

[Chapelhall chap]

Good to see Hutton sign back with us. He had more than  just one good  save at Parkhead and like  most goalies he could make mistakes but I see it as a good move. Any time I had looked at QP on BBC line ups etc this season I had thought it was Mark Roberts as Player Manager so it is good to see it is a different guy ! The puzzle about our signings at present is that we don't know yet how they fit in as PT/FT roles. Will wait to see how it continues to develop.

[DiamondJack85]

Think most people are forgetting that we're currently sitting with a squad of 17 just now if everyone we've offered contracts to re-sign (and that's not including the 8 yougsters) so there's a fair bit of deadwood to shift from the squad first before we go signing loads of new players.

Also, if memory serves me right there was a rule change last season where all players are contracted with their clubs until the transfer window re-opens (1st June?) so realistically nobody is out of contract till then (and would also mean we can't get rid of the guys who are transfer listed till then).

[Spanish Armada]

 

Three words;

Javier

Sanchez

Broto

 

Hutton has had some decent saves but seems to have been elevated to God-like status after a save at Parkhead.

He doesn’t count wasn’t here long enough

+The save at Stenny and at home to Forfar should’ve warranted a new contract the man is a decent goalkeeper is it because of his personal life and who he supports got to do with how good he is?

[Pesadilla]

25 minutes ago, Spanish Armada said:

He doesn’t count wasn’t here long enough

+The save at Stenny and at home to Forfar should’ve warranted a new contract the man is a decent goalkeeper is it because of his personal life and who he supports got to do with how good he is?

Hutton hasn't been here long enough to deserve the "legend" tagline. Broto won us the Challenge cup and moved on to bigger things. Hutton is of this level.

I never brought into the conversation his personal life and who he supports, you did.

[FLDiamond]

Only with us a short time but Allan Ferguson before we went bust was an outstanding keeper. Glad Hutton has re-signed. Much needed for the season ahead

[DiamondDownSouth]

11 hours ago, virginton said:

wut

Indeed it was - until Airdrie's complete financial implosion rendered that claim to a league spot null and void. That's quite rightly the default position in Scottish football, as opposed to nonsense countries like England where the likes of Leeds can massively overspend, go bust and then just waltz back in at the same level under a new holding company. Liquidation is a huge event and requires serious sporting consequences. It could have just easily happened to Morton at the same time, and the outcome should have been exactly the same in our case.

You didn't 'have' to do anything. Whether people object to what happened to Clydebank or not, all responsibility for that decision rests with Airdrie's custodians and not the clubs who refused to let them reclaim their league place.

They should have been forced to compete with other applicants and if they had, then clubs should have voted them down as well. Stranraer were the only good guys who called for that outcome but were shot down by the rest. 

No, you wouldn't have had a national league team to support. There was nothing to stop an Airdrie football club entering the juniors and playing their way up through that level; indeed, that's been the option that Clydebank's supporters pursued themselves. No football club in Scotland has got an entitlement to play in the national leagues and thankfully now the pyramid is flushing away that mentality. 

Well that's just tragic really.

Our financial implosion can't be compared to Leeds whose business model was based on a massively risky strategy of having to qualify for Europe.  Airdrie's owners went bust because of a chain of events in building a new stadium that complied with the Taylor report.  Remember Falkirk had been denied a place in the SPL because they didn't have a compliant ground at the start of the season when they won what is now the Championship.  I won't go into the ins and outs of what happened that led to our liquidation, not that I am particularly in the know, but planning delays and a temporary move to Cumbernauld that lasted 5 years and led to a decline in the fan base and left us crippled with debt and no chance of paying it off.

You imply that Airdrie needed to be punished for taking the "easy option" of declaring bankruptcy to get out of our debts and then simply waltzing back into the league, but I don't know a single Airdrie fan who had hoped that would be the outcome.  I agree that if the situation happened now, rather than taking Clydebank's place we could work our way back into the league, but the pyramid system, which I was long an advocate of, didn't exist back then and we would have gone the way of Third Lanark, aided by the Chairmen of the clubs who voted against us.  I really don't have anything against the fans of these clubs, but as I said we wouldn't be here if your Chairmen had had their way, and that was after the Airdrie fans, led by Jim Ballantyne, had worked their socks off to resurrect Airdrie.

Finally, I can understand why you think my apparent bitterness is tragic, and I would agree if I poured over the results every week hoping that the teams who voted against us would lose.  However, that is not the case, I only really care about Airdrie, but at the weekend I was pleased, as I am guessing you as a Morton fan were, when I saw that Hamilton had beaten St Johnstone.

[Old Diamond]

In all fairness to the Chairmen of the other clubs, word was that the banks and other lending institutions had a major influence on the decisions made.  The financial institutions did not like what they saw, a club going bust  owing a considerable amount of money then magically reappearing debt free, there were and still are several clubs that were close to financial collapse and if Airdrie had been resurrected they probably correctly predicted that others would try that path (one notable club later did and unfortunately succeeded).    Phone calls were made to chairmen warning that overdrafts would not be renewed and future lending would be made more difficult if they voted in favour of the reelection of a club in Airdrie.  Watching your own arse was and still is the primary consideration.

[stuartcraig]

51 minutes ago, DiamondDownSouth said:

I won't go into the ins and outs of what happened that led to our liquidation, not that I am particularly in the know, but planning delays and a temporary move to Cumbernauld that lasted 5 years and led to a decline in the fan base and left us crippled with debt and no chance of paying it off.

We weren't crippled with debt.

Ignoring the tax bill and the money owed to Barr Construction, which would have been £0 and £30-50K rather than the £1.8M and £400K claimed at the time of the club's liquidation, the club only had something like 2 - 300K of debts which would have been perfectly serviceable under normal circumstances.

[Moon]

The Morton fan can make all the points he or she wants to, my grudge is firmly in place and won't be shifted. 

 

re the negativity of the fans around signings etc, I've went on about how disappointing last season was, so you know my views. But I think the concern is around how much we'll challenge this year.

 

It's early days but some of the things being said extrapolates out to another wasted year.

[Rio 2]

20 hours ago, virginton said:

wut

Indeed it was - until Airdrie's complete financial implosion rendered that claim to a league spot null and void. That's quite rightly the default position in Scottish football, as opposed to nonsense countries like England where the likes of Leeds can massively overspend, go bust and then just waltz back in at the same level under a new holding company. Liquidation is a huge event and requires serious sporting consequences. It could have just easily happened to Morton at the same time, and the outcome should have been exactly the same in our case.

You didn't 'have' to do anything. Whether people object to what happened to Clydebank or not, all responsibility for that decision rests with Airdrie's custodians and not the clubs who refused to let them reclaim their league place.

They should have been forced to compete with other applicants and if they had, then clubs should have voted them down as well. Stranraer were the only good guys who called for that outcome but were shot down by the rest. 

No, you wouldn't have had a national league team to support. There was nothing to stop an Airdrie football club entering the juniors and playing their way up through that level; indeed, that's been the option that Clydebank's supporters pursued themselves. No football club in Scotland has got an entitlement to play in the national leagues and thankfully now the pyramid is flushing away that mentality. 

Well that's just tragic really.

In your opinion!

[DiamondDownSouth]

9 hours ago, Old Diamond said:

In all fairness to the Chairmen of the other clubs, word was that the banks and other lending institutions had a major influence on the decisions made.  The financial institutions did not like what they saw, a club going bust  owing a considerable amount of money then magically reappearing debt free, there were and still are several clubs that were close to financial collapse and if Airdrie had been resurrected they probably correctly predicted that others would try that path (one notable club later did and unfortunately succeeded).    Phone calls were made to chairmen warning that overdrafts would not be renewed and future lending would be made more difficult if they voted in favour of the reelection of a club in Airdrie.  Watching your own arse was and still is the primary consideration.

I wasn't aware of that, so thanks for letting me know - maybe I need to soften my stance towards these clubs then...!

[DiamondDownSouth]

8 hours ago, stuartcraig said:

We weren't crippled with debt.

Ignoring the tax bill and the money owed to Barr Construction, which would have been £0 and £30-50K rather than the £1.8M and £400K claimed at the time of the club's liquidation, the club only had something like 2 - 300K of debts which would have been perfectly serviceable under normal circumstances.

Thanks to you also.  As I said I wasn't in the know, so that is a real shame that we went under for such a small amount.  I seem to remember the domino effect was begun by one of David Murray's businesses, a printer in Airdrie, who we owed money to?

[airdrieman]

7 hours ago, Moon said:

The Morton fan can make all the points he or she wants to, my grudge is firmly in place and won't be shifted. 

 

re the negativity of the fans around signings etc, I've went on about how disappointing last season was, so you know my views. But I think the concern is around how much we'll challenge this year.

 

It's early days but some of the things being said extrapolates out to another wasted year.

That is, and should be, everybody's aim. But I think some people are just getting frustrated at other people's negativity because at this point there's no real way of telling how we're going to get on next season. Given that our only new signing so far is Roberts, and we've only got a handful of players from last season still on the books (assuming the guys on the transfer list can get shifted) then the doom & gloom seems a tad premature. If though by the start of the season we've signed a pile of pish or a squad that on paper doesn't seem capable of challenging then aye it will be fair enough to have a moan and question Murray and Millar. It's still only May though, they've got plenty of time to put a decent squad together. 

[Passionate]

Getting back onto the here and now,    that's another rival signed quality Part Timers Forfar signing Jordan Kirkpatrick, and relegated stenny signing Liam Buchanan.   Both of these players would have improved our team greatly..... Pre season training starts in 4 weeks,  not panic stations yet,  so far nothing to get excited about...   I would expect a statement of intent soon on the playing front, especially with season ticket renewals around the corner.