Airdrie United Football Club are a Scottish professional association football team based in the town of Airdrie, North Lanarkshire. They are members of the Scottish Football League and currently play in the First Division. They are currently managed by Sandy Stewart.
Contents
1
History
2 Managers
3 Current squad
4 External links
History
The club was formed in May 2002 on the bankruptcy of a previous club, Airdrieonians, who had finished runners-up in the Scottish League Division One but went out of business with debts of almost £3 million. The collapse of Airdrieonians left a vacant place in the Scottish Football League (in Division Three), but Gretna were preferred by league members to fill the place, instead of a new club called “Airdrie United”. However, Jim Ballantyne soon completed a buy-out of the ailing Division Two side Clydebank. With SFL approval, the club was relocated to Airdrie and its name was changed to Airdrie United.
Airdrie United play their home fixtures at New Broomfield, Airdrie, as the fans call the stadium, officially known as Excelsior Stadium. The defunct Airdrieonians’ previous home was sold to supermarket chain Safeway (since taken over by Wm. Morrison), who were given permission to build a new supermarket on the site. It was this transaction which helped trigger the financial ruin of Airdrieonians, as their old ground was demolished several years before the new ground was given planning permission. The years away from Airdrie (Aidrieonians ground-shared Broadwood Stadium, in Cumbernauld, with Clyde) meant that the money from the sale of Broomfield which was to be used for building a new stadium, was frittered away.
This hiatus and the fact that the board of directors built a stadium with a capacity in excess of 10,000, despite crowds being less than 2,000, didn’t help the club’s cause. A stadium with a 10,000 capacity was built because the Scottish Premier League (SPL) required this for entry into their league. Ironically, the requirement is now only 6,000 seats, which may have been enough to have saved Airdrieonians from the financial burden they faced on building the new stadium.
Airdrie United have inherited Airdrieonians’ distinctive playing colours and nickname, ‘The Diamonds’ since the team play in white top with a red diamond.
United’s first, and so far only, trophy came in the 2003-04 season, only the club’s second season in existence, when they won the Second Division Championship and promotion to the First Division. The final game of the season saw a crowd of over 5000 at New Broomfield to see Airdrie defeat long-time league leaders Greenock Morton 2-0 and lift the League Championship trophy. Earlier in this season, the club reached the final of the Bells Challenge Cup, but lost 2-0 to Inverness Caledonian Thistle.
In 2005 the club finished fifth in the Scottish Football League First Division, a position exceeding the expectations of most Airdrie supporters. The club lost several key players in the summer of 2005, and went into the 2005/06 season with little expectation of repeating their success of 2004/05, but the club finished a respectable sixth in the league.
Managers
Scotland Sandy Stewart (2002-present)
Current squad
No. Position Player
Scotland GK Lee Hollis
Scotland GK Stephen Robertson
Scotland DF Kevin Christie
Scotland DF Paul Lovering
Scotland DF Neil McGowan
Scotland DF Stephen McKenna
Northern Ireland DF Marc Smyth
Scotland DF Gary Tierney
Scotland DF Graeme Watson
France MF Xavier Barrau
No. Position Player
Scotland MF Graeme Holmes
England MF Kevin McDonald (on loan from Hibernian)
Scotland MF Stuart Taylor
Côte d’Ivoire FW Aimé Koudou
Scotland FW Steven McDougall
Scotland FW Stephen McKeown
Scotland FW Brian McPhee
Scotland FW Brian Prunty
Scotland FW Gary Twigg
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