Alan Campbell examines the likelihood of Airdrie rising like a

DESPITE the obituaries for Airdrie last week, the man who must now sell the club lock, stock and barrel remains hopeful that, like the Phoenix, the Lanarkshire club may yet rise out of the ashes and return to senior football in future years. Having announced that the club were going into liquidation on Wednesday, Blair Nimmo of KPMG must now try to get the best price for Airdrie's three assets - the New Broomfield stadium, a shop in the town, and the name of Airdrieonians Football Club.

Already, an Airdrie Football Supporters Trust have announced they will bid for the club's name, while simultaneously issuing a "hands off" warning to any other interested party. Nimmo, however, believes this is wrong-headed.

"I can understand that frustrations and emotions are running pretty high," he says, "but they have to sit back and ask themselves whether some of their actions in the last two years have been all that sensible. I would refer them to the time of the Steve Archibald era when they were so vociferous in their support of him and against everybody else.

"There were one or two other interested parties at that time and to say they were scared off would be an understatement.

"The more unpleasantness they create, the harder it will be to sell the stadium and the name, and furthermore it won't change KPMG's strategy one iota. But there has been a horrendous amount of misinformation about Airdrie's position and I genuinely feel sorry for the supporters. They don't know who to believe."

Nimmo believes that the best prospect of reviving Airdrie as a senior football club lies in the same purchaser buying the stadium and the name. "The likelihood is that we will sell the stadium to somebody who wants to resurrect Airdrie," he said. "Either that or somebody will buy it and lease it out."

Although the conspiracy theorists are having a field day with widespread speculation that somebody will buy the stadium and demolish it to build houses or retail units, such a scenario is unlikely in the extreme - even if planning permission could be obtained. It would not be the most astute political move for North Lanarkshire Council to approve such a change of use. "There is no hidden agenda," said Nimmo. "What else can the land be used for? Nothing other than football. It is an absolutely first-class stadium and arguably the third best in Scotland."

Assuming a buyer can be found and the ground is saved for football, some kind of ground share between a revived Airdrie, neighbours Albion Rovers and, perhaps, Celtic's under-21 side is a possibility. As well as the potential to be self-financing in a playing sense, New Broomfield also has excellent corporate and catering facilities.

The Sunday Herald has discovered, however, that anybody purchasing the stadium will have to pay up to (pounds) 1m to landscape adjoining land and construct full size, and five-a-side, football pitches. This was one of the complications which led to any attempt to buy Airdrie collapsing in its two years and three months of administration.

North Lanarkshire Council still hold the title deeds to New Broomfield, and won't release them until the work, a condition of Airdrie being granted planning permission in the first place, has been carried out.

"In Scots law any purchaser would have to buy the land [title deeds] as well," said a council spokesman. "You couldn't get the stadium without the title deeds as well."

Most of the coverage of Airdrie's plunge into liquidation has focused on the events of the last two years, but many associated most closely with the club trace the financial problems back to the early 1990s and the actions of the then board of directors, led by George Peat.

Peat, treasurer of the Scottish Football Association, was chairman of the club when they took the disastrous decision to sell Broomfield to supermarket chain Safeway without having an alternative site lined up.

The sale realised (pounds) 6m, but money was frittered away on abortive efforts to find a ground, including an expensive public inquiry. Whatever Airdrie-onians thought of their club, that goodwill didn't extend to having a football ground in their back yard.

The necessity to play home games in Cumbernauld, at Broadwood, added to Airdrie's costs, while simultaneously having an alarming effect on the core support. Even the move to New Broomfield was touch- and-go, with the planning committee of the old Monklands District Council refusing permission before being overruled by the full council.

Peat, who was involved with Airdrie for 22 years before resigning as secretary in 1999, left the club after what he described as a "clash of personalities". The chartered accountant took up the position of general manager with Stenhousemuir, a title which allows him to remain as treasurer of the SFA.

Asked if his decision-making 10 years ago had led indirectly to Airdrie's demise on Wednesday, Peat replied: "We had absolutely no alternative to sell Broomfield when we did. We had a quotation of (pounds) 5m to redevelop the ground. Because we were in the Premier League at the time we could have qualified for a (pounds) 2m grant, but there was no way we could raise the other (pounds) 3m. Also, the purchaser was putting pressure on us to sell quickly."

While Peat blames the murky politics of Lanarkshire for the delays in finding a suitable site for a new ground and gaining planning permission, he does concede that he, and his board, erred in building a state-of-the-art stadium. This point was also raised by Nimmo last Wednesday when he colourfully remarked: "They built a Rolls Royce when a Ford Fiesta would have done."

Peat concurred: "The big mistake was spending too much money on the new stadium. We took the gamble that there would be sponsorship to cover building all four sides at the same time, and to be honest we probably went over the top with some of the furnishings inside."

Despite this admission, Peat said he had no intention whatsoever of resigning his position as SFA treasurer. "I've nothing on my conscience to connect the two events [overspending and liquidation] at all," he said.

The Scottish Football League's management committee meet on Thursday to discuss the Airdrie situation, but with a queue of other clubs who have their own grounds and players clamouring for admission to Division Three there is little prospect of Airdrie returning to senior football at the start of next season.

The supporters, despite the actions of a minority of troublemakers at Somerset Park last Saturday, are redoubling their efforts to resurrect the club, but in an unhelpful financial climate the best bet might be for North Lanarkshire Council to buy the stadium and lease it out to Airdrie and other interested parties.

The ground has been built to Uefa specifications, and was used recently to host a Scotland under-21 game against Estonia.

The liquidation at least means the people employed behind the scenes at New Broomfield, who have been working on half pay for the last two years, can now get on with the rest of their lives.

There was, meanwhile, a painful reminder a week ago on Saturday of the financial difficulties which led to the demise of the first Scottish senior club since Third Lanark in 1967.

As Airdrie's troublesome support finally left the ground after chanting and celebrating for a full half hour after the match was abandoned, two figures were locked in animated argument inside Somerset Park.

Owen Coyle, one of the club's best players and most prolific scorers, had cornered chairman Andy Gemmell and was telling him in no uncertain terms of his displeasure at being denied a signing-on fee he had been verbally promised. Along with the scenes outside, it was a shabby way for Airdrie to die.

Bob Crampsey, Seven Days

Copyright 2002
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