Inside Ayr United's bid to return to the big time as April Fools' Day fallacy still haunts 46 years on

“(Manager) Alex Stuart will get time to bring on his talented youngsters,” one opined following the 1-0 defeat to Motherwell that condemned them, with the likes of Walker McCall and Steve Nicol, who made his debut the following season, mentioned as part of this new wave coming through.

“Willie P nods - and Ayr are doomed!” was the headline in the Sunday Post on the same weekend, with reference to match winner Willie Pettigrew. “Secretive lot at Somerset,” the report jauntily notes, the point being that Ayr seemed to be keeping themselves to themselves to the extent that nobody had told them they were in such peril, such was the resolve on show at Fir Park.

But relegation it was, with six matches remaining. Ayr haven’t been back in the big time since. The contention that dropping a division might prove A Good Thing, however well intentioned, has been exposed as a supreme fallacy.

There have been a few brushes with fame since, some notoriety too, but I'd contend that no other club in Scotland have been so negatively impacted by Scotland's first major reconstruction event of the mid-1970s, when two leagues became three. A new ten-strong Premier Division resulted in a brutal culling that saw eight teams relegated at a stroke.

Ally MacLeod's Ayr United were not one of them. They initially survived, the only part-time team to do so, and they kept their place for the first two seasons of the new elite division before slipping out, not for their own good it turned out, a few weeks before the Argentina World Cup, by which time MacLeod had moved on to Scotland.

It's hard to believe that the ill-starred campaign in South America is more recent than the last time Ayr played a top-flight game, against Clydebank at Kilbowie in front of 1260 spectators. Not many now can say they were there, although might history’s wheel be about to turn?

The question’s been asked before, of course. As recently as two seasons ago, when Ayr reached the play-offs after finishing second in the league…and lost 7-0 on aggregate to Partick Thistle, who had finished two places below them.

Currently sitting top of the Championship under the management team of Scott Brown and Steven Whittaker, who have been in place just over a year, a potentially defining fortnight lies ahead, starting on Friday night in the Scottish Cup against Hibs and followed by two arguably bigger games in the league against title rivals Falkirk and Livingston. Graeme Mathie, the club’s managing director, desperately hopes Ayr can break through the glass ceiling this year.

“I sit on the SPFL board as a Championship rep,” he says. “Teams in the Championship do feel the Premiership is a bit of a closed shop, it could be the same teams going up and down every other year. I do sense within the group a feeling that it might be nice seeing someone else get there, maybe someone who hasn’t been there for a while.

“We aren’t the only team in the Championship that can be said about. It’s not to say everyone is rooting for us, far from it. But I do feel it would be a great story. I was going to say you can’t imagine Aberdeen, Hibs, Hearts, Celtic and Rangers coming down to Somerset Park a couple of times a year, but you can – and hopefully we can make that happen.”

Mathie wasn’t born when Ayr were last in the top flight. He also has a unique perspective, since he was once a Kilmarnock season ticket holder. His father, former SFA youth coach Ross, played up front for the Rugby Park side and was once dragged into the North terracing at Somerset Park by an angry Ayr fan while attempting to take a throw-in.

“That was one thing I had to own up to before I took the job,” he says, with reference to the season ticket. “I think they are fairly well convinced I am an Ayr United fan through and through now. My kids wear the black and white rather than the blue and white, much to their grandad’s annoyance!”

They aren’t the only ones donning the colours. “The atmosphere is different,” observes Mathie. “Crowd numbers are growing, there seems to be more Ayr United badges around the town. It feels like, for a younger generation, it’s cool to support Ayr now whereas it wasn’t for a long time. It shows the tangible progress being made.”

Tangible is a good word. From the new North Stand, opened in the summer with a game against Celtic, to the bar and office unit dubbed the Hub behind the main stand, progress is visible. Chairman and owner David Smith has also recently bought derelict land behind the Railway End, with a new training ground mooted. It’s not just talk anymore, like when David Murray flirted with the idea of purchasing the club before buying Rangers. He was turned away.

Murray later reflected that he wanted his investment to put the club on a par with “someone like St Johnstone”, which is interesting when placed in the current context. St Johnstone could well be the team Ayr end up replacing if their promotion dream is realised this season.

There have been some embarrassing episodes, too, such as when the club - prior to the current regime - started promoting their new kit using near naked female models, who had it painted on their upper torsos. Cue hardly surprising howls of outrage. “They’re using tactics from the 1970s to sell strips,” claimed one critic.

The current tactics could be said to put one in mind of 1970 - Brazil 1970. The goals count stands at 23 in the last eight games, during which time they have conceded only three times. Their promotion locomotion is gathering pace and Somerset Park is a place to be again, with all eyes set to fall on the beloved old ground in Friday’s televised game against Hibs.

Mathie has been in the thick of things this week, to the extent that he’s been getting his hands dirty helping move barriers to cope with the influx of away fans from Edinburgh. Hibs have sold all their 3,000 allocation.

“We are trying to market ourselves as Scottish football’s best away day – people love coming to an old-fashioned football ground and it’s a bit of a throwback,” he says. “I do think the design team and the chairman pitched it perfectly with the new stand – it combined the modern hospitality space, good seating, a nice view and good roof with the old-fashioned terracing. You can experience the way the game used to be.”

He’s looking forward to welcoming Hibs to this vibrant corner of Ayrshire, particularly given the ties he has, along with Brown and Whittaker, to the Easter Road club. As head of recruitment, Mathie played his part in their hoodoo-busting Scottish Cup win of 2016. “I don’t doubt for a moment that Scott and Steven will be far more fondly remembered by the Hibs fans than I will be, that’s the nature of the job I do,” he says.

“I’d love to stand on another open topped bus. I would love this club to achieve something that hasn’t been done for many, many years as well, like Hibs." It’s not been a wait of 114 years, but nearly half a century is quite long enough as Ayr target a belated top-flight return.