Ayr United up for sale

Nov 6 2009 by Mike Wilson, Ayrshire Post (main ed)

AYR United is up for sale.

Chairman Lachlan Cameron admits he must step aside as the club faces troubled times.

But he insists the Honest Men can make money for potential investors.

And he’s begged the community to step in and support the town’s historic football club.

Mr Cameron said: “This isn’t scaremongering on my part – I simply can’t take the club any further with the finances available to me.

“Ayr United is a wonderful club. It’s been part of my life for over 20 years.

“But I have to look for someone that can take this club forward and give it the investment that I can’t.

“People criticise me for not opening my wallet more,but I find that is a reallysilly argument.

“The reason we’ve got problems is because someone before us got their wallet out too much.

“Just because things were run that way in the past doesn’t mean I’ll run them that way now.

“We need the support of the community. People don’t understand what we put into the community through our youth academy and we need some help in return.”

Lachlan, who came from California to run the club five years ago, believes their failure to build a new stadium has been a killer.

United’s proposal to build a new stadium on a site at Heathfield has been met with red tape for more than a decade.

And their latest attempts ground to a halt when housing giant Barratt pulled out of a deal to buy Somerset Park.

The club has debts of £1 million, mostly in directors’ loans, and desperately need a move.

Now it’s also struggling on the park, lying bottom of the first division with only one win this season.

But Lachlan, 39, denies the for sale signs have anything to do with poor on-field results.

He said: “I don’t want people getting confused here and thinking my position has anything to do with the team’s bad performance.

“I’ve always been open to selling the club and said if someone could do better than me then I’d gladly step aside.

“We have an asset in Somerset Park and, if we had the new stadium up and running, I think we could be looking at multiple income streams.

“That’s what I envisaged when I came here and this is potentially a money-making venture for any investor.”

Lachlan will now invite offers for his majority shareholding, which stands at 62 per cent.

Club historian Duncan Carmichael praised Mr Cameron’s honesty and insists would-be buyers must have Ayr United at heart.

He said: “Obviously the big fear is that someone comes in who doesn’t have the best intentions for Ayr United.

“The key is getting someone with a mixture of business acumen and passion for the club.

“That’s going to be difficult but I don’t think Lachlan is the type of person to hand the club over without being sure.”