User talk:Airdrie Legend

Death Of Airdrieonians Football Club
Airdrieonians were perhaps one of the more succesfull clubs in scotland outside of the old firm. The club was formed in 1874 and enjoyed great sucess in the 1920's, winning the scottish cup in 1924 and reaching the final three times. The club enjoyed more sucess in the late eighties and early nineties, reaching the final of the scottish cup twice only to be beaten by the old firm by a close margin in those games and also playing in the 1992 european cup winners cup agianst the czech republic's sparta prague. Airdrie lost the tie 3-1 in aggregate against a superior sparta side, Playing for prague that night was a young Pavel Nedved, who now stars for Juventus.

Airdrieonains' sucess in the late nineties was probobly one of the main causes of the clubs death. After the directos realised that if airdrie was to grow as a club, they had to move from Broomfield which had been the diamonds home for over 100 years. They played their last game at broomfeild in 1994 against Dunfermline only to be relocated to Clyde's ground Broadwood. The Diamonds ground shared with the Cumbernauld outfit for over 4 year whilst there new ground was built. Their new ground was finally ready in 1998, and was named shyberry Excelsior Stadium although later changed to New broomfield which suited the fans more.

This was the beggining of the end for airdrie, finacial problems due to the building of the new ground were now a major problem, no linger was the club in the SPL it was now in the first divison. The club were now in serious debt and there were few people who would even consider taking on the job of maintaining the mess that the directors, geroge Peat, Cambell Craig and crew had caused.

In 2000 with the clubs fiances in the red, Steve Archibald who had been in Spain with Barcelona, brought many spanish players over with him from his spell in Barcelona some of the best being, David Fernandez, now with livingstone, Jesus Garcia Sanjuan now reitred and Antoino Calderon now a well respected coach in spain and was fromerly of Spanish Giants Deportivo.

The clubs fortunes on the pitch turned round and eventually won the Bell's Challenge cup in 2001 beating league leader at the time Livinstone.

Archibald was dismissed by the board of directors,and found himslef outside of airdrie. With the clubs finaces now at a critical state Ian McCall was appointed manager for the clubs last season in exsistance. He brought a whole batch of players in for virtually no money and worked wonders with them, even sitting to of the league until late on in the season, when the bubble finnally burst and finsihed second in the league, just missing out on promotion to the SPL by Partick.

The last ever game that in airdrie's history was against Ayr United, coincidently the chairman of Ayr was one of airdrie's main creditors and was allegedly getting more money of airdrie than he was entitled to after his building consortium that he owns 'Barr Construction'. The fans staged a protest by sitting down on the terraces behind the goals. The Infamous Secton B then invaded the park with banners after Ayr scored their first goal and about 5 or 6 swung on the bar dislodging it from the post. The game was then abandoned and airdrie fans then sang and slowly left the ground.

On the first of may 2002 Airdrieonians were unable to find a new buyer and went into full adminisration.airdrie was the first senior football club in scotland to go bust since the 1960's and shockwaves were felt across scotland.

meanwhile on the other side of Glasgow another club was about to enter full adminisration, their name being Clydebank. Soon after Airdrie went bust Jim Ballantyne and accountant and life long fan created a new club called Airdrie Fc and applied for the scottish league. They were unsucessful and Gretna took their place.

But this was not over yet, Ballantyne then bought Clydebank and cleared their debts, renamed themseves to Airdrie United and took the clubs place in the second divison. They were unlucky not to go up in their first season missing out by just a point. they did however achieve promotion the following year at Alloa. Last season they consoldated well and lost big name players. This season they have had a unucky season rarely conceding more than one goal a game. They currently sit 7th in the league and are on form.