JIM Ballantyne openly admits tradition matters not one iota to Airdrie United at present and that Ross County, a Highland League team in the not-too-distant past, can now lay more legitimate claims to being a mover and shaker in Scottish football circles. The Lanarkshire outfit's chairman, however, has challenged local people to create their own piece of 21st Century history.
Ballantyne is keen to retain full-time status at the Excelsior Stadium, yet stresses the viability of such a proposal is outwith his own hands. Plummeting crowds – as low as 600 on occasion – have ensured the sums may not add up if Airdrie do not p
rogress into the First Division through the play-off system which continues with Raith Rovers' visit this afternoon. Rather than make-or-break the shape of Airdrie's future, the play-offs merely appear a preamble to matters of more serious long-term concern.
An ongoing feasibility study, aimed at gauging local support, will culminate in crunch decision making within the next month. "I want us to remain full-time and we have had a lot of backing to make sure that happens; it is that backing that will be vital," the chairman emphasised. "A lot of people call themselves Airdrie supporters, people who just look out for the score on a Saturday. They are not real supporters, to me, so there is a responsibility there, a community responsibility.
"I'm not going to throw hundreds of thousands of pounds at the club in trying to get us into the SPL; that model has been proven to fail with the likes of Dundee and Gretna in the past. The timeframe for us getting to the top is not in my hands."
Ballantyne's call for increased community involvement in the club, from business backing to punters paying their cash at the turnstiles every other weekend, should strike a chord with those who lived through Airdrieonians' bankruptcy. "We are trying to remind people what we almost lost six years ago," he added. "Times have changed; people may not like to hear it but Ross County, at this moment in time, are a bigger club than we are. They get 1,500 people paying through their gates at every home game which gives them more money than us to spend on players. Let's be realistic here, we need to compete with them; finishing six points behind them in the league this season was a good achievement."
Airdrie's potential was highlighted in midweek, they took around 700 fans to the 2-0, playoff first-leg victory in Kirkcaldy. Today, Ballantyne hopes close to 2,000 paying customers will head to the Excelsior.
A fan of the play-off system – Ballantyne points out that the Second Division was alive in almost every respect until the dying throngs of the season – he still harbours reservations about the general make-up of the Scottish Football League.
"I don't think leagues of 10 teams are a good thing," he said. "Last season, we played Dundee seven times, we have had other occasions when we have played Queen of the South six or seven times. That's hardly ideal when fans are watching the same teams so often. Two leagues would seem a more sensible option, with 14 or 16 teams in each and two meetings per season, but I admit it's not something I have studied closely."
Airdrie's healthy lead from their visit to Fife – achieved courtesy of two goals in eight minutes from the apparently Kilmarnock-bound Allan Russell – hands them the best advantage of all the teams involved in this afternoon's knock-out matches. Promotion would also justify Ballantyne's decision to sack Sandy Stewart in November 2006; replacing the man now assistant manager to Owen Coyle at Burnley with Kenny Black was his toughest call to date.
"It was hellish at the time," he recalls. "And for a while things weren't very nice between us but thankfully it is better now.
"Kenny's been fantastic. He leads from the front and has a commitment to playing good football. I think we've gained respect from all of our opponents for trying to do that."
The full article contains 695 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
