Ayr United F.C. - History

History

Ayr United were founded in 1910 after the merger of Ayr Parkhouse and Ayr. Although Inverness Caledonian Thistle are also the product of a merger between two clubs, Ayr United are the only Scottish Football League club to have been formed from a merger of two existing league clubs.

The club's honours include winning six Second Division titles (as the second tier championship) and a further two such titles (as the third tier championship), most recently in 1996–97. They have not won any national cup competitions, although they were runners-up in the 2001–02 Scottish League Cup, and in the Scottish Challenge Cup in the first two seasons in which the competition was held: 1990–91 and 1991–92. They have won the local competition the Ayrshire Cup on 26 occasions, most commonly facing fierce local rivals Kilmarnock F.C. in the final. The Ayrshire Cup was last played for in season 1996–97, since when the competition has been suspended.

The club's record scorer in a single season is Jimmy Smith, who scored 66 goals for Ayr in only 38 league matches in 1927–28, which remains the British goalscoring record for a single season. The club's overall record scorer is Peter Price, who scored 213 times in competitive matches for the club between 1955 and 1962.

Former Scottish national team manager Ally MacLeod is regarded as the club's most famous and most successful manager. He led the club on three separate occasions spanning fifteen years, during which his teams recorded a record 214 wins, won two league titles and finished one point short of qualifying for European competition in 1973, when Macleod was also voted as Ayr's Citizen of the Year. More recent managers have also included the recent Scottish national team manager, George Burley, and former Scottish League Cup winner with Raith Rovers, Gordon Dalziel. Their current manager is Mark Roberts.

Although the club has spent 34 seasons in Scotland's top division, they have played in the second and third tiers of Scottish senior football since the 1977–78 season. During the late 1990s and early 2000s, the club established a record of defeating teams which played in higher leagues in cup competitions, including Hibernian, Dundee, Dundee United, Motherwell, Dunfermline Athletic and four consecutive wins in cup competitions against their fiercest rivals Kilmarnock.

In 1988, Ayr United fan and businessman Sir David Murray offered to buy the club but the club's shareholders rejected the bid by a vote of 60 to 56. The manager at that time, Ally MacLeod, had threatened to leave if Murray's bid had succeeded: Murray went on to become Chairman of Rangers, which coincided with a period of financial growth and league success for that club. During much of the 1990s and 2000s, a period of relative success both in league and cup competitions, the Ayr United Chairman was local construction magnate Bill Barr. After Barr stood down, there were occasional boardroom struggles: the club suffered significant cashflow problems in 2004 although it survived with a combination of efforts. Prestwick-based Roy Kennedy failed to takeover the club in 2005, and his company Kennedy Construction went bankrupt in 2006.

On 24 May 2009, Ayr won the Scottish First Division Play-off against Airdrie United 3–2 on aggregate to win promotion to the First Division. For season 2009–10, to celebrate the club's centenary, Ayr United played in black and white hoops, the club's original black and white kit. The away kit was crimson and gold with blue shorts to reflect the original club colours. Ayr were relegated on the last day of the season after losing 2–1 to Morton. At the end of the 2010–11 season, Ayr United defeated Forfar Athletic 7–4 on aggregate in the First Division play-off semi final, to set up a final with Brechin City. In the first game at Somerset Park the match ended 1–1, however Ayr United won the second leg at Glebe Park 2–1, which promoted Ayr United to the First Division for the 2011–2012 season. Also, in the 2010–11 season, they knocked out Hibernian in the Scottish Cup, winning 1–0 at Somerset Park in a replay.

Early in the 2011–2012 season, Ayr have enjoyed success in the 2011–12 Scottish League Cup, beating SPL sides Inverness, Hearts and St. Mirren on their way to the semi-finals. Ayr United are now playing against Ayrshire derby rivals Kilmarnock in the semi-finals, the first time the two clubs have met at this stage, Kilmarnock won one-nil. At the end of the 2011–12 season, Ayr United were relegated to the Second Division following play-off defeat to Airdrie United, Ayr drew the first leg at the Excelsior Stadium, 0–0, before losing the home leg, 3–1.

On 15 May 2012, Ayr United announced that Brian Reid's contract will not be renewed, with the club appointing, the clubs top-scorer in the last three seasons, Mark Roberts as the manager, with head of youth development, Davie White as his assistant.