Scotland's Franchise Club: The Merger Of Clydebank And Airdrie 

Wow that’s not something I knew or saw mentioned. Thank you for your input.

KPMG was the company, they refused valid offers for the club because of their pre arranged plans you stated, Im sure Steve Archibald was leading a group to take over, we seen a whole load of Spanish players arrive, Nacho Novo being one, thing were looking up, but as you stated the company was all about asset stripping, they were not interested in a deal to save the club.

David Smith, who was Vice Chairman of the club at the time, told a fans group (I was at that meeting) that the balance outstanding on the stadium build was about 50K once snagging and incomplete work was taken into account. This was a couple of weeks before the club entered administration, at which point the builders submitted a claim for the full amount of the outstanding invoice (roughly 500K) rather than the amount that Smith said the club had negotiated prior to that point. At the time the club went under as well as the outstanding stadium bill, the debt involved about 750K owed in fees to the administrators and about 1.8M tax owed to HMRC as well as other smaller amounts (200K owed to BoS was the next largest debt). The tax was owed on the proceeds on the sale of Broomfield which Airdrie should have been able to write off since that money was then used to pay for the construction of New Broomfield. Unfortunately the club failed to fulfil all of the conditions of the stadium planning consent (improvements to local roads) and as a result couldn’t receive the title deeds to the new stadium, which was the documentation required to waive the tax. It’s probably fair to say that the situation was a combination of incompetence by some of club office bearers, and bad faith actions by other parties. Ultimately it was the fans of Airdrie and Clydebank who suffered and local small businesses who were never paid. It was also rumoured at the time of the election attempt that Ballantyne was approached by other parties and encouraged to buy Clydebank with assurances that a request to move the club to Airdrie would be approved by a majority of the other league clubs. Obviously no-one has ever provided proof of that claim but it feeds beautifully into the reputation of the steak pie, blazer and cigar brigade of club chairmen who run the league.

Yeah that's how this is portrayed in the video

@@charliestelios3855 no he’s saying Airdrie & Clydebank merged which wasn’t the case. The only two clubs in Scotland that merged recently were Inverness Caley & Inverness Thistle!

Hmmm I wonder what club that might have been

Although Airdrie had to buy it back from the SFA for like 500k or something. Rangers paid companies house for a team and got theirs. Shambles

So your saying the sfa are biased towards a certain club? Who knew 😅🤣

So your saying the sfa are biased towards a certain club? Who knew 😅🤣

So your saying the sfa are biased towards a certain club? Who knew 😅🤣

As a par why could they no have just taken over the faith

Because we’re simply massive

Oh god you’re right, I must of got confused between second division and league 2. Sorry should have checked that.

Yeah it’s wild seeing a large stadium used for 5th their football

Glasgow City don't play at Broadwood, they play at Petershill. Rangers Women play at Broadwood.

@@gordon1545 My bad - I worked through the wikipedia article and when I came to comment must have mixed up which team played there currently (Rangers WFC) and which team played their 20/21 season there (Glasgow City WFC).

That’s a fairly glib assertion. Airdrie are the same club in lots of ways that matter. Same ground, same supporters, same strip and traditions. Ok, the club’s official league honours are those of Clydebank but if you were to ask current fans who were around back then whether they consider pre-2002 Airdrie to be a different club or a continuation of that club then 99% would say the latter and, as far as opinions which count go, their’s is the only one that really matters.

What on earth were people smoking where Dublin seemed like the go to place to move a football club

I’ve sent you a message

It’ll be tough with Broxburn in the playoffs but it would be good to see them make their way up again

Thanks for the vid Callum. I enjoyed it in the same way you enjoy the end result of a root canal...if that makes sense! Good luck to Clydebank. The shenanigans that put them out of the league never sat easy with me. I always considered Airdrie United to me no more than an Airdrieonians tribute act. I think it was the name. I always hated it. That and the badge. But fair do's to Jim Ballantyne for keeping us in the fight, even though it was at another team's expense, which I wouldn't wish on anyone. When the Lord Lyon stole our right to use the original crest, citing ridiculous rules about heraldic symbols, it truly did feel like the end of my club. Les, Jim, Ian and many others fought tooth and nail to stop the demise of Airdrieonians, even siding with Steve Archibald's plans to have them as a "selling club": bringing talent from abroad and hoping to attract buyers from the British leagues to fund the running of the club. I often wonder where that plan would have taken us.

Egg on my face here

My last video was on Gretna

Livingston makes sense as Meadowbank Thistle struggled to get fans in Edinburgh. Hard to believe there are now 4 league clubs in the city.

and yet Livi's attendances are still appalling. Edinburgh City's have always been small, and they seem to be doing everything they can to put people off going. At least The Spartans seem to have a plan, and I 'm not a supporter of theirs - I'd back Edinburgh City more than I do if they can someday get their act together.@@user-vj6op6zi2n

Livingston are definitely a franchise, but Clyde is more awkward because they lost their ground through no fault of their own, and didn't want to move away. The fact that they still exist after nearly 40 years of nomadic existence is pretty remarkable.

@@RevStickleback existence would probably be less nomadic if they cleaned up their act... not hiring a rapist would certainly have meant one less move

And just because you say they aren’t doesn’t make it so either.