Ayr United chairman on Scott Brown, new pitch, and legacy

The Herald Scotland

21-06-2025

You could be forgiven for thinking though that the Somerset Park side have been rechristened 'Former Celtic captain Scott Brown's Ayr United', a phrase which, thanks to the modern-day need to kowtow to our search engine masters, has featured in just about every headline about the club over the past year and a half.
Still, for chairman David Smith, it's a small price to pay simply to have Brown in the dugout.
'We will never beat that in the press, it's always going to be there,' Smith said.
'It's clickbait, isn't it? We were fully aware of that, and we were fully aware that he was a bit box office and so was [assistant manager] Steven Whittaker when he came in.
'We can deal with that.'
Another thing both Smith and Ayr have had to deal with this summer has been their management team being linked with just about every vacancy in Scotland, bar the one at Ibrox, of course.
What added fuel to that fire was an emotional post-match interview after the defeat to Thistle at Somerset, where a clearly seething Brown blasted that he didn't recognise his team, accused his players of not even trying to win the game, and said he would have to think about his future.
That may have set alarm bells ringing among the support, but Smith was confident that a bit of distance would result in some perspective being applied, and Brown returning laser-focused on bettering their efforts next season.
'I think Scott's interview was taking a bit out of context if I'm honest with you,' he said.
'Things have calmed down and we've reflected on what I look at as a really successful season for a variety of reasons.
(Image: SNS Group) 'Off the park, we had the new stand opening, and it did exactly what we designed it to do. We smashed the hospitality last year with record numbers. So, that was good, and there are lots of other off the park infrastructure projects we're working on too.
'The academy stuff that we're doing in the community was really good, and then you come to the team.
'When we do our board meetings, we break the season down into quarters and Scott gets the stats, and the first three quarters were amazing. The last quarter, we kind of fell off a cliff a wee bit, and we all recognised that.
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'So, whilst that was disappointing, it was still our highest points tally in The Championship, so that's a real great stat in itself.
'I think there was a lot of good to come out of last season. The fan numbers were up, we played some really good football, and I think everybody recognises that the last quarter wasn't brilliant.
'It's been a tough couple of months, but still it was a really successful season, and I think the relationship I've got with Scott is stronger than ever.
'If I'm honest, I don't feel any pressure about Scott and Steven potentially leaving. They get linked with every job really, but every conversation I've had with them, there's no short-term approach to it. It's all long-term.
'I think what we've given them and what they've given us really complements each other as a club and as people, and I'm not sure you would get that everywhere.
"We've not quite thrown them the keys and said get on with running the football club, but what we have done is said look, you know we'll obviously do checks and balances and all that kind of stuff, but the style of play, recruitment, training days, all that kind of stuff, how we're going to run the catering and all that, it's your call.
'We'll check and balance it and discuss it and we'll see what we can and can't afford and have open conversations about that stuff, and I'm not sure you get that anywhere else. They're fully aware of that.
'We try to promote Ayr United as a family club and a community club, because that's what we are, and Scott and Steven's wives and kids are at every game, their mums and dads come to the games and we know them all, and we've socialised with them all.
'So, I don't see it as a short-term appointment, and I genuinely don't think they do either.
'Don't get me wrong, if the right opportunity came along and it was a big draw we'd have a conversation, shake hands, say all the very best and give us some loans if you end up at a really good club!
'We're fully aware that that's the deal with Ayr United. Come along, make us as successful as you can, and if we happen to be a stepping stone for you to go on to bigger and better things, that's fine.'
Moving the club on to bigger and better things, both on and off the park, has been Smith's mission statement since he took the helm four and a half years ago now. And looking to the setbacks of the recent past, particularly the poor form he references in the final quarter of the season, has helped both him and Brown to understand how they can avoid similar pitfalls next term.
Recruitment has been going at a steady clip, with experience at the level being one of the main qualities that Ayr have been looking to bring into the club. While the likes of Mikey Devlin have left, seasoned campaigners like David Mitchell, Shaun Want, Liam Dick and Stuart Bannigan have been brought in, and Smith believes their Championship know-how could be key.
'I think resilience in the squad in The Championship is really important,' he said.
'We lost that in the last quarter, and actually all the defensive frailties coincided with when Mikey Devlin got injured and stopped playing for the season.
(Image: Ross MacDonald - SNS Group) 'Having his leadership was vital. We had a young squad on the pitch and there was probably a little bit of a lack of leadership, particularly in the back five, so that is predominantly the reason that we fell away in the last quarter.
'I think Scott has probably learnt a few lessons over the last year in terms of recruitment. Who we recruited in goals, for instance. We've got somebody in [in Mitchell] that we wanted, somebody experienced, who is vocal, that's good with their feet, so that's what we were looking for and I think that's a real step forward.
'In terms of the rest of the recruitment, everybody's shopping in the same marketplace, so we've tried to break that in the past by bringing people up from England and we've had varying degrees of success.
'This season, we're very much focused on Scottish Championship experience, Premiership experience, that's kind of where we are.
'But the squad's coming together well. I think potentially we've got a stronger squad this year than we did last year.'
Off the field (well, the Somerset Park one anyway), Smith is hoping the community ties the club have been working to strengthen will be fortified further when the training pitch they are well on the way to delivering near the stadium opens its gates, as he looks to bring the women's team and youth teams closer to their spiritual home.
'In terms of a status update on that, we're just waiting for planning to come through and we've got we need to do some ecology stuff for that, so we're working on that just now and we're waiting,' he said.
'We've had some good vibes from the 'Pitching In' fund and we're waiting for a letter to come through. If that comes in, then we're kind of good to go, and we're expecting some support externally for that too.
'So, the update is that I would like us to be on site for possibly September. That would be really good and would be pretty quick.
'I think it's important that the women and girls find a home, because at the moment they play in East Ayrshire. No disrespect to East Ayrshire, but that's not where Ayr United are from, so if we can get the home games in next to the stadium that'd be great. And the academy having a base for their games there as well would be really important too.
'We've got lots of other things going on too. There's lots of tie-in with South Ayrshire Council that we can do on the park as well, so actually the first team training there is probably a tiny percentage of what it's going to actually deliver when we get around to getting it built.'
Such projects are, Smith believes, a key factor in fostering trust between the fanbase and the board, showing evidence that they are constantly looking to take the club forward.
'For some reason there's a lot of tyre kickers in football, and I've never really understood why,' he said.
'People come into clubs and say they're going to do x, y and z and don't deliver anything, and they haven't got the money to deliver what they say.
'I've never really understood why that is, but it happens a lot, so I think people seeing progress year on year in terms of infrastructure and progression up the league and stuff like that is really important, and it maintains the buzz, it maintains the numbers coming into the stadium.
'If I'm honest, I do think we're probably one of the best run football clubs in Scotland, and we run it like a business. We know when to invest and when not invest.
'I think the fans appreciate progress, but they also appreciate the way I'm trying to do it. People keep saying to me, if you build it, they will come, and I suppose that there's a little bit of that in there.
'When I took over four and a half years ago, there wasn't a huge amount of expectation around Ayr United other than staying in The Championship. Fast forward four years, we've got The Hub, we've got a big shiny new car park, we've got a new stand, we've bought the land behind the ground, and it comes with expectation.
'The expectation is that we'll be in the playoffs every year and vying up the top end of the league, but I like that challenge, it's good.
'Community buy-in has been brilliant. The stuff that the academy do is utterly fantastic and we complement that as a football club with as much as we can do as well.
'I do feel we're in a really privileged position as owners and directors and people who run a football club, and I don't think I really understood until I got heavily involved about how much of a focal point it is in the community.
'It means the world to an awful lot of people this football club, and it's not just what's on the park.'
Smith knows personally, in fact, the power that Ayr United have to impact the lives of their supporters.
'My dad unfortunately has got Lewy body dementia,' he said.
'He's in a nursing home now, but before that, I was taking him to our Ayr United Memories events that our academy run, and they're fantastic.
'You get 80, 90 people there at some of them, and it is people who just want to relive parts of their youth and chat about games and chat about history. But for us and others, from a family point of view, you kind of get your dad back or your mum back for a little bit during those conversations.
'I've seen it first-hand how important the community stuff is, so we do embrace it, and we do try and do as much as we possibly can.'
The focus then is on creating more of those memories for the current and future generations of Ayr United supporters, with Smith hoping this can be the season where his beloved team finally break back into the topflight for the first time since 1978.
And not only that, make a real go of it once they get there.
'Infrastructure wise, there's absolutely no reason why we wouldn't be able to cope with the step up,' he said.
(Image: Ross MacDonald - SNS Group) 'I genuinely think a lot of the Premiership teams would really enjoy their day down at the seaside. We market ourselves as Scotland's best away day, coming down to Somerset and standing behind the goals, and when it's packed it's an old-fashioned atmosphere and it's fantastic. It doesn't take 30,000 people for it to feel busy and intense, it takes maybe 8,000 people to feel that.
'And I think we could make a fist of it. Budgets would change and stuff like that, but we have got some really good quality football players under contract already and I have to say, most of them have bought into what we're trying to do. So, I think we would make a fist of it, I really do.
'I hope my legacy at the football club will be Ayr United in the Premiership, and lots of infrastructure improvements.'
Over to you, Broony.