IT WAS a standing joke in Scottish football circles for years. Bill Barr, owner of a successful building firm and the chairman of Ayr United, was responsible for the construction of stadiums throughout Britain while Somerset Park descended into a decrepit state.
The laughing has long since stopped in Ayr, though. Thursday evening's confirmation that Barratt Homes have withdrawn their offer to purchase Somerset for housing development represents the latest blow in the ongoing saga of finding a new home fo
r the town's football club. A 20-acre site at Heathfield has been identified for a decade for such a venture; Barratt's move to scrap their purchase, as was allowed before planning permission was granted, has plunged United's plans and future into further doubt.
Barratt claim planning concerns relating to social housing are behind their decision but market forces at present cannot be ignored. Such a downturn in property values will, moreover, affect Ayr's chances of realising their valuation of the six-acre Somerset site when selling to another developer. Six years ago, plans for the Heathfield development were scrapped when a retail proposition was thrown out by council chiefs; after a second proposal was pieced together, starting in 2003, Ayr thought they were on the verge of progress before Barratt's move.
"I still think there is a good deal out there for someone," said Lachlan Cameron, the Ayr chairman. "Planning permission for Somerset should be granted within the next two weeks; there will be no four or five-year delays for someone wanting to build houses here."
Yet Lachlan freely admits his club's very existence hinges on the stadium project. "We have spent a great deal of funds already, we were expecting an up-front payment from Barratt when permission was granted and that has obviously now gone," he added. "This deal has to happen. We could stay where we are, cut the budgets by another 60 per cent and mess around as a club in the lower reaches of the Second Division or in the Third Division, paying players £75 or £100 a week, but the directors here have no interest in that. We want to be, as a minimum, challenging at the top of the First Division."
Somerset crowds, currently hovering around the 1,300 mark, represent tacit illustration of United's decline.
Cameron and his fellow directors harbour underlying grievances over South Ayrshire Council's treatment of their stadium plans and the lengthy timescales to date. An aim of kicking off at Heathfield at the start of next season – Ayr's centenary campaign – is edging towards fantasy with a 36-week building period estimated, while the club's accounts make grim reading. Loans totalling £1.1million have been received to keep creditors at bay, while "uncertainty as to the timing of cash inflows and the reliance of the company on the financial support of the directors" have been highlighted by club accountants.
"I am not a bureaucrat, and I would not want to be responsible for this mess," said Cameron, rather pointedly. "We are trying to produce facilities for the community, not just the football club. It would be nice if everybody got behind that; there is not one pitch, for example, with floodlights and a decent surface in the entire town of Ayr."
Cameron's more general concerns relate to Scottish football's structure. "We are the laughing stock of Europe," he claimed. "We played Morton six times last season, for example. There should be a top league of 18, with three up and three down, and a second league of 24. England can have 24-team leagues, why can't we?"
The chairman stresses he will "remain composed" over the latest round of bad news, with a statement on just how Ayr plan to manage through a potentially make-or-break short-term period expected next midweek. Meanwhile, Brian Reid's players will kick-off at Stirling today as the unbeaten leaders of the Second Division.
"Brian has given us a really solid group of players and hopefully they won't be influenced by what is going on off the field," Cameron said.
Those in the directors' box have the very survival of a football club to occupy themselves with.
The full article contains 709 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
