Ayr United F.C. Managers - Duncan Carmichael

Did you know that a former Ayr United great was the first Briton to be a football manager in Argentina? Did you know that he wasn’t the only Ayr United manager to have been contracted to a South American club? Did you know that a former Ayr United manager gave first team debuts to such luminaries as Gareth Bale and Theo Walcott? There are facts aplenty here but the overall purpose of this compilation is the study of the managerial evolution at Somerset Park. It seems inconceivable that Ayr United managers used to have no input in team selection, or that a modern day incumbent would have clerical work almost at the top of the list of their priorities. These practices were down to nothing more than it being consistent with the protocol of the time. Nowadays, the manager is either revered or vilified according to whether it is a halcyon period or a time of struggle. It was not always so. From the viewpoint of the present day, the reader gets chance to chart the changes. Sometimes the efforts of past managers were in vain. Sometimes it came to glorious fruition. Either way it is all documented within these pages.