Ayr United out with heads held high

Jan 23 2009 By Michael Pringle

Kilmarnock 3 Ayr United 1

AYR United bowed out of the Scottish Cup last night in a frenetic fourth round replay at Rugby Park. In the end Kilmarnock were just too strong for a valiant Ayr side.

There was a crackling atmosphere inside the ground as around 4,000 honest men and women packed into the Chadwick Stand. Ayr were defending the goal at that side of the park in the first half and it wasn’t too long before the Ayr support got a close up of the action as full back Neil McGowan headed Russell’s deflected cross out from under the bar.

10 minutes into the proceedings the travelling support were delirious, a clearance from Ford went straight to Keenan who played it long back to where it had came from, Bryan Prunty managed to get between Ford and keeper Alan Combe. The striker stooped his head towards the ball and made contact with it to knock it beyond the keeper inside the right hand post. TV pictures showed that the striker had knocked the ball in with his hand.

Kilmarnock had the bulk of the possession and another goal line clearance from McGowan maintained Ayr’s slender lead. Prunty limped out of the action to be replaced by last week’s goal hero Alex Williams after 22 minutes. Keenan was booked for a foul on Gibson and Ayr reached the interval in front. Gibson was to pick up a yellow in the second half as this personal battle threatened to boil over.

Taouil and Fernandez had looked threatening in the first half and they were involved in some of the games key moments. Ayr started the second half brightly but it was Kilmarnock who were to draw level five minutes into the second half when Grindlay looked to have saved from Simon Ford but managed to knock the ball over the line with his hand.

\Grindlay made a good save from Ford to keep the scores level after 65 minutes and the pendulum looked to have swung in Ayr’s favour a few minutes later when David Fernandez saw red after lashing out at Martyn Campbell.

A minute later Ayr had a great chance to go in front when Frazer Wright was short with a passback, David Gormley latched on to it but failed to connect cleanly with the ball making life easy for Combe.

Ayr were to rue that missed chance as it was Kilmarnock who were to score the crucial next goal. Stephen Grindlay parried a low drive from Bryson but Taouil was lurking to fire the ball into the net off the right hand post after 76 minutes.

Ford put the game beyond doubt with six minutes remaining when he rose to power in a header.

The Ayr United supporters behind the goal remained defiant to the end and stood to a man to applaud the team from the pitch, singing: “there’s only one team in Ayrshire”.

Kilmarnock manager Jim Jeffries claimed the Ayrshire Post had been the main motivation for his team; he didn’t give a team talk instead taking in copies of your favourite paper for his players to read.