BarryLFC

Extract from Iain Bartholomew's column, The Herald, Monday, 7th November, 2005

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>When I asked the editor what my brief for this column was his response was succinct: make it relevant, interesting and readable. Well, what's relevant to me is the influence of foreign players in Scottish football. I hope I don't come across as a hypocrit in writing this, given my use of non-Scots last season in particular, and to an extent this, but I feel my point is worth making.

The Scottish national team has finished fourth in a group of five in qualifying for World Cup 2006. That is bordering on abysmal. We weren't even in the hunt for qualification: Belgium winning the group with 18 points, Ireland and England finishing on 14. We had eight points, and six of those came from wins over Luxembourg! Whilst we took solace in England also failing to secure so much as a playoff place the facts were painfully clear. The eight goals scored were more than the English, but whilst they conceded only three we lost nine. At least three of our squad were or are plying their trade in the Scottish first division, and a 73 year old Paul Lambert is still a starter. For every Hughes, Ferguson and Pearson there is a Dobie, Greacen or O'Brien, and the team is not competitive.

Rangers are Champions, and their squad contains Australians, Belarusians, Chileans, Danes, Georgians, Mexicans, Zambians, Dutchmen, Germans, Englishmen and Portuguese outnumbering the likes of Hughes and Kenny Miller in the starting team, whilst runners-up and Cup winners Celtic's Scots have three starts between them this season as Belgians, Bulgars, Danes, Greeks, Guineans, Uruguayans, Swedes, Slovaks, Norwegians, Koreans, Irishmen and Welshmen fill the team, managed by a man from Northern Ireland. Even Aberdeen who finished third last year have Argentines, Englishmen, Finns, Greeks, Russians and Welshmen aplenty. The trend is clear.

Now the outstanding player this season is þórarinn Brynjar Kristjánsson of Dunfermline, and Queen of the South's Trinidadian Brent Sancho is a clear talent, but the majority of the best performers in the league are Scotsmen, and it begs the question: if these foreigners aren't better than the Scots, why are they playing? Why are they brought here to sit on benches, or make up numbers?

At Ayr last season we found to our cost that foreign does not mean better as we were forced to turn to Scots to salvage our league status. Now that said I should mention that players like Adrian Mihalcea and Eric Deloumeaux have done very well for us, and the two men I have loaned in from abroad this term - Landon Donovan and Robin van Persie - have been welcome additions, I am not anti-foreigners where it is good for our game - how can boys like Craig Beattie and Derek Riordan not benefit from guys like Landon and Adrian - but the flood of cheap imports, low on wages, but low on ability also, is impairing clubs up and down the country.

This season's league is one third of the way through the pre-split schedule and it is teams like Dunfermline, Ayr and Kilmarnock with teams comprosed primarily of Scots that are leading the way - to a surprising extent. The star foreigners - Donovan, Kristjánsson, Larsson, etc. are leading the way in the statistics, but the next level is where players like Livingston's Colin McMenamin, Mark Kerr of Dundee United and Alan Combe of Queen of the South are making the big impression.

...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Extract from Bartholomew's first 'quarter' report to his board:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>...
Statistics:

Landon Donovan is the division's top scorer with nine goals, but he has carried our burden so far, the only other goals coming from Adrian Mihalcea and Jamie Smith with two apiece. The worst performers this season are at or above the level of our best last, and so i cannot complain there.

Analysis:

Whilst we are disappointed to lose our first game in the League Cup - particularly to lower league opposition - the league form has more than compensated. To sit second in the table after eleven games considering last season's tribulations is a big plus, particularly since it is an almost completely altered team. We shall endeavour to press on from here, though the manner of our only two defeats against Dunfermline and Aberdeen are concerning. We shall hope for more victories like those seen at Rugby Park and Ibrox and fewer of the off days in the next part of the season.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

SPL Table:

<pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre">Pos Team Pld Won Drn Lst For Ag G.D. Pts 1st Dunfermline 11 7 3 1 21 7 +14 24 </pre><pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre">2nd Ayr 11 5 4 2 14 13 +1 19 </pre><pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre">3rd Kilmarnock 11 5 3 3 15 11 +4 18 4th Queen of Sth. 11 5 3 3 17 14 +3 18 5th Rangers 11 5 2 4 18 15 +3 17 6th Aberdeen 11 3 6 2 15 13 +2 15 7th Dundee Utd 11 4 3 4 12 14 -2 15 8th Celtic 11 4 1 6 14 14 0 13 9th Livingston 11 2 6 3 14 15 -1 12 10th Hibs 11 2 6 3 14 17 -3 12 11th Hearts 11 2 4 5 12 21 -9 10 -------------------------------------------------------12th Partick Thistle 11 1 1 9 7 19 -12 4 </pre>

shannon2007

Celtic 8th hmmmm. If only.....


Title for Ayr :o

BarryLFC

BBC Scotland coverage, World Cup Final, July 9th 2006

Dougie Vipond: Hello, and welcome to BBC Scotland's coverage of the final of Deutschland 2006. With me in the studio are former Rangers, Brighton and Kilmarnock player Gordon Smith, and Ayr United manager Iain Bartholomew. Good afternoon gentlemen.

GS: Afternoon Dougie.
IB: Awrighty?

DV: Well we've watched this tournament from the start, and it's been explosive. Let's take a look at how we reached this stage:

Footage plays

Voiceover: The group stage saw many upsets, like Guinea's 2-1 win over the Czech Republic in Group E courtesy of Souleymane Youla's double, or Belarus' 2-1 win over Turkey in a fiery encounter. We've seen Ivory Coast beat Ukraine with a goal from a Brechin City player, Jean-Yves Anis, and Burkina Faso defeat Croatia. We've seen Ireland thrash Argentina 3-0 and even Trinidad and Tobago won a match, and all this in the first matches of the groups!

This type of result became the norm, as Turkey spontaneously combusted, seeing three red cards in their first two games, and Ivory Coast became the first team to qualify for the knockout stages. Kuwait eliminated Colombia in a last-game showdown with a 1-0 win in Group B, and they were accompanied into the Second Round by the Dutch side. France and Portugal made it from Group A, but only after the Portuguese drew 0-0 with Honduras ni the final group game to edge out the Central Americans on goal difference. Turkey kept 11 men on the field, but finished as the worst team in the competition as they followed up a 6-1 loss to Sweden with a 5-1 defeat against the host nation, who progressed with the Swedes. Italy and the Ivory Coast had already qualified, and played out a 1-1 draw in their final match whilst Zimbabwe surprisingly defeated Ukraine 3-2 in the other group game.

In Group E the Czechs bounced back from losing to Guinea to progress with a 2-0 win over Brazil, joined in the knockout phase by Belgium, whilst Group F saw South Korea and Canada progress as the North American side rallied from near-certain elimination to beat Burkina Faso 4-1 and edge out the Africans in a group where Croatia were the surprising whipping-boys. Argentina and Ireland eked past Hungary and Uruguay, whilst Trinidad and Saudi Arabia were the surprise qualifiers from a group containing Mexico and Australia.

Footage ends

DV: So that was the group stages. Now, let's take a moment to talk about the domestic season in Scotland. Gordon, Rangers Champions again, but Celtic win their third straight Scottish Cup. More impressively, the Gers also made the Semi Finals of the Champions League.

GS: Yes, it's been a thrilling season at home and abroad. You really have to appreciate the job Alex McLeish has done at Rangers, whilst Ruud Gullit has come in halfway through the season and turned Celtic around completely.

IB: You have to say that they were impressive teams, but for me the consistency of Livingston and Dunfermline in finishing third and fourth, a long way clear of ourselves in fifth and Kilmarnock in sixth.

DV: To be honest Iain, nobody cares about diddy teams like Livi, Dunfermline or, no offence, Ayr. We really want to talk about the Old Firm.

GS: Rangers were really outstanding at times...

IB: F*ck you guys...

DV: Can we go to VT?

Footage plays

Voiceover: It all began regularly enough as France disposed of Kuwait and the Dutch edged out Portugal, Italy dealt with Sweden comfortably enough, but it all went askew so far as the hosts were concerned as the remarkable Ivory Coast team produced a tremendous 1-0 win. The Czechs prevented South Korea repeating their run of four years previous with a 2-0 win, but Belgium needed extra time before they dealt with Canada, coming through 4-3 in the end. Ireland had few problems seeing off the Saudis, but the shocks weren't quite over as Trinidad & Tobago hammered Argentina 4-2 in the final match of the stage.

Holland played party-pooper in the Quarter Finals, comfortably seeing off the Ivory Coast 2-0, before a clash of titans saw France triumph 2-1 over Italy. The Czechs eliminated Trinidad 1-0 before the only shock of the round saw Ireland lose out 2-0 to the Belgians. France won by the odd goal in three against the Czechs, and in a fiercely contested game it took a silver goal from Michael Lamey to finally see off the Belgians who had equalised twice in normal time, including an injury time strike from Emile Mpenza.

Footage ends

DV: Well, I think we'd better hand over quickly to Rob McLean and Sandy Clark...

Screen drops to static...

Footnote:

Belgium gained third place with a 4-0 whumping of the Czechs.

France rallied from 1-0 down at half time to a Makaay goal to regain the World Cup with goals from Trezeguet (50) and Cissé (80).

SPL table:

<pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre">Pos Team Pld Won Drn Lst For Ag G.D. Pts 1st C Rangers 38 24 6 8 71 39 +32 78 2nd Celtic 38 23 8 7 73 30 +43 77 3rd Dunfermline 38 17 10 11 59 41 +18 61 4th Livingston 38 17 10 11 64 55 +9 61 </pre><pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre">5th Ayr 38 14 10 14 51 47 +4 52 </pre><pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre">6th Kilmarnock 38 13 9 16 48 53 -5 48 7th Queen of Sth. 38 12 12 14 66 72 -6 48 8th Dundee Utd 38 13 8 17 47 71 -24 47 9th Aberdeen 38 10 15 13 49 54 -5 45 10th Hibs 38 10 14 14 41 52 -11 44 11th Hearts 38 11 9 18 41 59 -18 42 12th R Partick Thistle 38 6 5 27 40 77 -37 23 </pre>

Albion Rovers gained a third successive promotion to reach the SPL

shannon2007

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>DV: To be honest Iain, nobody cares about diddy teams like Livi, Dunfermline or, no offence, Ayr. We really want to talk about the Old Firm.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

So very true

BarryLFC

BarryLFC

After a summer of reflection, and transferring, Ayr United today take the field at Somerset against local rivals Kilmarnock in a repeat of last season's final fixture which the home team won 2-0. There have been changes in the Ayr squad though - a particularly vicious raid by the champions saw Adrian Mihalcea, Jökull I ElÃ*sabetarson and Marc Smyth move to Ibrox for a combined £7,000,000 - and it's a different looking team that now takes the field. Other departures include Emmanuel Dorado on a Bosman to Dundee, Per Morten Kristiansen, a goalie signed in January, and Juho Mäkelä who failed to live up to his billing, to Aberdeen for a combined £800,000 and Steven MacLean to Blackburn for £1,100,000 and Alan Morgan, a Scottish left-back. With Gilles de Bilde and Eric Deloumeaux not having their contracts removed that left an entirely Scottish first team squad for the first time in recent memory.

Coming in were Wigan's Gary Teale for £1,600,000; A youngster named Ross from Hamilton for over £100,000, Peter Sweeney from Millwall for £1,200,000; Morgan from Blackburn as part of the MacLean deal; and Nottingham Forest's Chris Doig, Portsmouth's Gary Fisken, Everton's Gavin Rae and Iain Turner, also of Everton on Bosmans, though Turner's move drew a £550,000 fee due to his age.

This meant that the team taking the field to face Killie was somewhat removed from last seasons preferred XI:

Iain Turner (Goalkeeper) Turner replaces Norwegian Kristiansen who has moved to Aberdeen.

Willie Lyle (Right-back) Lyle is an Ayr United youth product who has earned this shot at staking his claim to be a starter.

Ian Murray (c) (Left-back) Former Hibs stalwart, Murray is accomplished, and signed a 4-year extension to his contract in the summer.

Callum Moffat (Centre back) Moffat was, ironically, poached from the Kilmarnock youth team last January in a move that cost the club £300,000 at tribunal. He established himself in both our first team and the Scotland u21 side towards the end of last season despite being just 16. Now 17, the Uddingston lad is making a name for himself for all the right reasons.

Chris Doig (Centre back) Doig and Moffat are a godsend for this team that has struggled to find a settled central defensive pairing despite trying the likes of Marc Smyth, Mark Campbell, Steven Pressley and Lee Mair over the past two years.

Gary Teale (Right wing) Teale is an Ayr legend, and both he and the fans and indeed the manager, were ecstatic to see his return. Now 28, he is yet to be capped by Scotland, but the call can surely not be far away if he brings his form north with him.

Peter Sweeney (Left wing) Peter is a prospect who we hope will produce the goods. A gap was created on the left when the sale of ElÃ*sabetarson forced Murray to left back, and Sweeney should be capable of filling the role.

Gavin Rae (Central midfield) Rae was a huge Bosman capture for the club, and is looking to build on three solid seasons at Everton by establishing himself in the National team.

Grant Brebner (Central midfield) Grant played most of last season, and produced a goal voted third best in the SPL by a panel in the 1-0 win over Partick in January. Does a vital ball-winning job in the centre of the field.

Scott Brown (Forward) Broonie is a star already, with three caps and an international goal to his name at age 21. Hopefully set for a long stay at the club. Succeeded Mihalcea as Fans' Player of the Year after last season.

Steven MacLean (Forward) Set to move to Blackburn tomorrow, MacLean says his farewells today. Spent most of last season on loan at Hearts after recovering from a major injury, so not a fans favourite, this will be only his second appearance for Ayr.

Lee Mair (Substitute) Mair played a lot last season in relief for the always-injured Mark Campbell. Not a superstar, but solid enough. Can also deputise at left-back if needs be.

Derek Soutar (Substitute) Derek started last season as the first choice keeper, but struggled often, and never made the jersey his for keeps. WIll be hoping for another chance to do just that this season.

John Rankin (Substitute) John played well in midfield last season, but the arrival of Rae sees him on the bench. Will be an instrumental player when he gets on the park.

Scott Chaplain (Substitute) The fans' darling, Chaplain was their player of the year in our First Division championship season. Will get his chances, but may find his place on the bench challenged if the number of u21 players starting falls below two. (Brown and Sweeney are on the cusp at age 21, the former in January, the latter in four weeks time.)

Craig Beattie (Substutite) A successful loan spell at First Division Dundee last season sees Beattie on the bench this. Will remain number three after MacLean leaves as Alex Williams will return from suspension.

BarryLFC

Technically in a 38-game schedule the halfway mark is reached once everyone has played 19 games, though this isn't altogether accurate in the SPL. Nonetheless, we may as well dip in to that division at that stage and get a snapshot of how things are developing up in Jockoland.

The first thing to note is that the division is much tighter than last season where Rangers and Celtic proved untouchable, finishing within apoint of each other the best part of twenty ahead of fellow Champions-League qualifiers Dunfermline Athletic. Celtic now lead the way by four points from Hearts, with Ayr United third under outspoken boss Iain Bartholomew. Rangers lie a dismal seventh, thirteen points adrift of their traditional rivals. At the foot Albion Rovers are all but relegated with three points from nineteen matches, courtesty of home draws with Celtic on the opening day, Hibs and Dundee United. The SPL's decision to allow them to play at dilapidated Cliftonhill was unexpected, but the 2500 capacity has hamstrung the club financially.

In Europe Scottish clubs have disappointed. Whilst Rangers qualified from their Champions League group once again, and face a Second Round tie with Real Sociedad in March, Celtic and Dunfermline gained just 6 points apiece and were each beaten to third spot in their group by a club from Donetsk, Shakhtar nudging past the Pars whilst Metallurg beat out Celtic.

In the UEFA Cup Kilmarnock were beaten by FC København in Round 1 with Livingston also falling at the first hurdle with a narrow 2-1 aggregate loss against Hertha Berlin. Only Ayr United have provided any cheer with a 2-1 aggregate win over CSKA Sofia after a 1-1 draw away from home in the first leg in Round 1, and an indentical sequence of results seeing off Livi's conquerors Hertha Berlin in Round 2. Ayr will square off against Greek Champions League drop-outs Olympiakos in March.

<pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre">Pos Team Pld Won Drn Lst For Ag G.D. Pts 1st Celtic 19 11 6 2 36 11 +25 39 2nd Hearts 19 10 5 4 26 17 +9 35 </pre><pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre">3rd Ayr 19 9 7 3 28 17 +11 34 </pre><pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre">4th Hibs 19 9 4 6 24 19 +5 31 5th Queen of Sth. 19 9 3 7 28 29 -1 30 6th Aberdeen 19 7 6 6 23 22 +1 27 7th Rangers 19 7 5 7 25 21 +4 26 8th Livingston 19 7 5 7 40 40 0 26 9th Kilmarnock 19 7 4 8 36 34 +2 25 10th Dundee Utd 19 5 7 7 30 37 -7 22 11th Dunfermline 19 4 3 12 18 37 -19 15 12th Albion Rovers 19 0 3 16 11 41 -30 3</pre>

BarryLFC

Ayrshire Post, season review, extract

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>...possibly the greatest season in Ayr United's recent history. Bartholomew led the team to the fourth round of the UEFA Cup with 2-1 aggregate wins over CSKA Sofia, Hertha Berlin and Olympiakos, but the titans of Valencia proved too big a hurdle, though the 3-0 loss in the Mestalla was followed by a 1-0 Somerset victory.

In the League Cup, Ayr finally picked up their first ever national trophy. Their campaign started in the Third Round thanks to their presence in the UEFA Cup, and Second Division Motherwell were defeated 2-1 in a surprisingly tough encounter. The Quarter Final saw some fringe players take the field, and Derek Riordan helped himslf to a double to seal a 3-1 win. The semi final saw Ayr square off against Rangers at Hampden, and the February date drew little over 31000 as the Rangers fans expected victory. Not so! Lee Miller, recently recruited from neighbours Kilmarnock, scored twice, his second ultimately the game winner in the 86th minute, before Scott Brown sealed the 3-1 win in added time. That brought us to the final, where a capacity crowd saw Miller fire Ayr into an early lead, only for Padlo den Ouden to level for Celtic within three minutes. The game seemed set for extra time when Scott Brown popped up seven minutes from the end to scramble home the goal that handed Ayr their first piece of major silverwear.

The Scottish Cup campaign began with a pleasing away win against local rivals Kilmarnock courtesy of second half goals from Chaplain and Brown, before First Division side Partick Thistle were beaten after a replay in the Fourth Round. Another First Division side, Dundee, were our Quarter Final opposition, and goals early and late from Brebner and Brown put paid to their challenge. The Quarter finals saw two major upsets as Hamilton, relegation probables in the Second Division, and Falkirk of the First, eliminated the Old Firm from the competition. The result was that they met in the semi final whilst Ayr squared off against Livingston. A red card for Peter Sweeney early in the second half of the semi final at Hampden handed Livi the upper hand, but we toughed it out, even after losing Scott Brown to injury, and drew 0-0 with Livi's Scott McLaughlin sent off in injury time. The replay, also at Hampden, saw Ayr trail with fifteen minutes to go, before goals from Chaplain (75, 77) and Brown (79) in a deadly four minute spell saw us through to face Hamilton in the final. The Accies had sadly been relegated, but put up stiff resistance, knowing we were not guaranteed the third place in the SPL that would give them UEFA Cup football to go with their Third Division status for the 2007/2008 season. We were taken to extra time before goals from Brown and Callum Moffat gave us the trophy for the first time in our first ever final appearance.

Though Ayr sat third at the split, a total of three goals, all in the win over Livingston, in the subsequent five matches put that under threat. In the end the 1-0 and 2-0 losses to Celtic and Rangers respectively, and the 0-0 draws with the Edinburgh sides were enough to edge out Hibs on goal difference, and send Ayr to the Champions League for the first time, and giving us European football for only the second time ever...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>


<pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre">Pos Team Pld Won Drn Lst For Ag G.D. Pts 1st Celtic 38 22 13 3 64 18 +46 79 2nd Rangers 38 18 10 10 60 37 +23 64 </pre><pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre">3rd Ayr 38 16 12 10 44 32 +12 60</pre><pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre">4th Hibs 38 17 9 12 48 41 +7 60 5th Hearts 38 14 12 12 46 48 -2 54 6th Livingston 38 14 9 15 66 67 -1 51----------------------------------------------------- 7th Aberdeen 38 16 8 14 53 50 +3 56 8th Queen of Sth. 38 15 7 16 51 60 -9 52 9th Kilmarnock 38 14 8 16 60 65 -5 50 10th Dunfermline 38 13 7 18 53 61 -8 46 11th Dundee United 38 11 12 15 57 56 +1 45 12th Albion Rovers 38 2 5 31 33 100 -67 11</pre>

BarryLFC

Ayr United: European Adventure

Champions League Qualifying Round 1

Disaster struck for Ayr after a comfortable 1-0 win in Serbia over Red Star of Belgrade as a 2-1 loss at Somerset sent the Balkan side through to the group stage, and dumped Ayr United into the UEFA Cup First Round, shattering any hopes of finance and glory from the Champions League for this season.

UEFA Cup Round 1
Birkirkara of Malta were the opponents here, and a 2-0 win in Ayr made sure that the Second Leg would be a formality. An injury to Iain Turner on the eve of the match left David Marshall to face the Maltese attack, and he too was stunned as the home side scored twice in a three minute spell early in the second half, ultimately forcing a penalty shoot-out. In the end a single Marshall save was enough to hand Ayr a 5-4 shootout win, and secure progression to the Second Round.

UEFA Cup Round 2

Molde of Norway were the opponents in the next round, and though the first leg ended in a 2-0 away win for United, there was some trepidation ahead of the return match at Somerset. Sceptics felt justified as the Norwegians took an early lead, but as Ayr eased away to a 3-1 win, 5-1 on aggregate, most were satisfied, and looking forward to a Third Round clash with Slovan Liberec in the New Year.

shannon2007

Cmon you can do it Iain