Sunday 20th May 2012 – Airdrie United 1-4 Dumbarton. That was it – the promotion dream was over for another year.
Fast forward two months and the demise of Rangers, coupled with the newco’s placement in the bottom tier of Scottish football, means that the fixture above counted for nothing and today we host an Airdrie United side who, for a third time, have benefited from other club's misfortunes.
The 2007-2008 season ended with the enforced relegation of Gretna to the Third Division and Airdrie, as losing play-off finalists were promoted to the First Division despite having lost the final to Clyde. The following season, Airdrie lost to Ayr United in the relegation play-off final and were all set for the plunge to division two but again, they were given a reprieve after we, ourselves, were handed a double relegation to the third division meaning Airdrie kept their place in the first.
This Summer of course, after that loss to Dumbarton, ex-Livi defender Jimmy Boyle began to shape his team for another promotion push in division two but very late in the day, fate again dealt in Airdrie’s favour as they were promoted to division one to take Dundee’s place for the season ahead.
Many Diamonds fans, and indeed Chairman Jim Ballantyne, will argue that in actual fact, the Summer of uncertainty for them along with the timing of the promotion has meant Boyle and his assistant Alan Lawrence haven’t had a great deal of time to prepare for life in division one and may struggle to make the step up accordingly.
Mixed fortunes in both cups so far have also added to that feeling of unknown around New Broomfield. A solid defensive showing and a late strike from Willie McLaren clinched an impressive 1-0 victory in the Ramsdens Cup first round against Hamilton at New Douglas Park and set-up a winnable, second round tie away to East Stirlingshire. However, the following week a trip to Firhill to take on Queens Park in the first round of the Scottish Communities League Cup seen the Diamonds fall at the first hurdle, going down 3-2 in extra-time to the third division outfit.
Airdrie travel to the Braidwood Motor Company Stadium today with a couple of familiar faces in their ranks. Michael Hart, a stalwart in our first SPL season, is a new signing for Airdrie and he’s likely to start today on the right hand side of the Diamonds back-line. He’ll be joined in defense by Cammy MacDonald who moved to Airdrie midway through last season and helped spearhead that unlikely push for the play-offs which effectively resulted in promotion – eventually.
Airdrie are also buoyed by the signings of Paul Di Giacomo from Morton and goalkeeper Kenny Arthur from Grimsby Town along with the resigning of both Willie McLaren and David Lilley. The latter pair both left the club at the end of last season but talks were ongoing throughout the summer and Boyle managed to convince both to return for the first division battle.
A quick look at the bookies prices and there’s no surprise that Airdrie are the favourites to lose that particular battle. However, they’ll be looking to last season where they took points from both of the other promoted sides, Cowdenbeath and Dumbarton, and hoping that if they can win the battles against those two, they’d be giving themselves a chance of staying up come May.
The sides last met on league duty in our second division title winning season only two years ago and we picked up four wins out of four – the Diamonds will be hoping to avoid a similar stat this season with a win today.
As published in 'ROAR' - the Livingston FC Matchday Magazine.
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