Ground 11: Somerset Park

Somerset Park, home of Ayr United FC

Game: Ayr United 2 v 1 Clachnacuddin

Date: Saturday 3^rd November 2012

Competition: Scottish Cup 3^rd Round

Attendance: 1032

Admission: £10

Programme: £2

I have a conflicted relationship with the Scottish Cup. On the one hand, it’s one of the great cup competitions in the world – and the second oldest cup competition in the world, the romance...but on the other hand, I’m a Hibs fan, so I loathe the competition with every sinew of my being. It’s been 110 years since Hibs won the Scottish Cup and after May’s 5-1 drubbing from Hearts I am even less sure that I’ll ever see them lift the cup at Hampden Park.

But every year, I find myself falling back in love with it. When the draw was made last month, this clash between the Second Division side and the Highland League team from Inverness looked to be the most tempting. And if I’m truly honest I just liked the fact I was seeing Clachnacuddin. It’s a quintessentially Scottish football team name – evocative, exotic and difficult to place – there are more clubs in Scotland that don’t give a clue as to where they are located (Albion Rovers, Celtic, Clyde, Heart of Midlothian, Hibernian, Morton, Queen of the South, Queens Park, Raith Rovers). I was hoping for a good, old fashioned, competitive cup game.

I was joined on this trip by my friend Greg and my Mum and Dad – my Dad wished to see the Ayr game whilst my mother saw it as an opportunity to get some early Christmas shopping down in Ayr town centre. We drove through on a gloriously sunny winter’s day arriving in Ayr around 2.15pm. We got parked in the town centre and made our way through the high street and across the river Ayr in attempt to find Somerset Park, which we did pretty easily. Once inside the ground we got our ‘lunch’ which for me was a pie and a Ribena, an exotic combination if ever there was one.

I’d only been to Somerset Park once before – 18 months previously when Hibs visited in the Scottish Cup replay on a Tuesday night – it was a miserable night in which Hibs predictably lost 1-0 and my friend Mark and I appeared on Sky Sports as the gloomy looking Hibees. What I did enjoy that night was the intimacy of the ground and the noise generated by the Ayr fans that evening.

Unfortunately that wasn’t to be replicated on this day, although the arrival of the Clach fans from Inverness certainly did ramp the volume up – knowing full well of their chances of victory against the Honest Men, the Clach fans made plenty of noise and a good number of them had turned up in fancy dress.

From our vantage point on the terrace facing the Main Stand, we spent a lot of the first half shielding our eyes from the bright sun. Looking around Somerset Park, you would be far pushed to call it anything other than rustic, although I’d rather watch a game at Somerset than at an identikit new stadium such as St Mirren Park or the like.

Clach almost gave us a cup shock in this game by taking the lead after 14 minutes with a well worked goal. However, from that moment on the Lilywhites were on the back foot against a team that were evidentially much better. However, Ayr couldn’t make it count and went in at half-time 1-0 down.

The second half began much like the first had ended with Ayr dominating Clach. The feeling on the terracing was that it was only a matter of time before Ayr unpicked the lock to Clach’s goal, whose defending wasn’t as assured as a giant killing side’s need to be. Only five minutes into the second half and Ayr equalised through a Michael Moffat header from a fine cross by Ross Robertson.

Ten minutes later and Moore killed off any chance of a replay in Inverness when David Winters was brought down in the box. Moore slotted the penalty home and gave Ayr an unassailable lead. The gulf in the two teams became more apparent with every substitution as Clach clearly didn’t have the depth in their squad that the Honest Men had.

No cup upset, but a competitive enough match to make Somerset Park an enjoyable visit. The only disappointment I would say was the lack of backing that Ayr had, although it was consistent with the crowds they’d be getting all season. Just over a thousand people in a town of 46,000 (not including the wider area) is not great, but there may be numerous reasons behind this.

Ayr now find themselves in the draw for the 4^th Round with an away tie to Forfar Athletic.