The Ayrshire Derby refers to matches between the two professional Scottish football sides based in
Ayrshire
Ayrshire ( gd, Siorrachd Inbhir Àir, ) is a historic county and registration county in south-west Scotland, located on the shores of the Firth of Clyde. Its principal towns include Ayr, Kilmarnock and Irvine and it borders the counties of Re ...
:
Ayr United
Ayr United Football Club are a football club in Ayr, Scotland, who play in the Scottish Championship, the second tier of the Scottish Professional Football League. Formed in 1910 by the merger of Ayr Parkhouse and Ayr F.C., their nickname is ...
and
Kilmarnock
Kilmarnock (, sco, Kilmaurnock; gd, Cill Mheàrnaig (IPA: ʰʲɪʎˈveaːɾnəkʲ, "Marnock's church") is a large town and former burgh in East Ayrshire, Scotland and is the administrative centre of East Ayrshire, East Ayrshire Council. ...
.
The first match was held on 14 September 1910, in the same year that Ayr United were formed. This game was the final of the Ayrshire League in the 1909–10 season, and finished in a 4–4 draw. Ayr United were the first of the clubs to record a win the following season. The six most recent meetings took place in national cup competitions because Kilmarnock have played in a higher division than Ayr since 1993. Up until 1998, both clubs competed in a local cup competition, the
Ayrshire Cup
The Ayrshire Cup was an annual association football regional competition in Scotland. The cup competition was a knockout tournament between football clubs in the historic county of Ayrshire. The Ayrshire Cup was first held in 1877–78, with t ...
, which also involved local junior sides.
The current record for Ayrshire derby games in major competitions stands at 56 wins for Kilmarnock and 48 for Ayr United.
The term Ayrshire Derby has also been used to refer to
Scottish Cup
The Scottish Football Association Challenge Cup,2018–19 fourth round when
Auchinleck Talbot
Auchinleck Talbot Football Club is a Scottish football club based in Auchinleck, East Ayrshire. They currently play in the .
The club is also a member of the Scottish Junior Football Association, and have won the Scottish Junior Cup on a reco ...
beat Ayr United.
Results table
National competitions
''As of March 2022''
Table only includes matches between Kilmarnock and Ayr United from 1910. Major fixtures involving Ayr's predecessor clubs are shown below:
*
1875–76 Scottish Cup
The 1875–76 Scottish Cup – officially the Scottish Football Association Challenge Cup – was the third season of Scotland's most prestigious Association football, football knockout competition. The number of entrants nearly doubled from the ...
Scottish Football League Second Division
The Scottish Football League Second Division was the third tier of the Scottish football league system between 1975 and 2013.
History
The Second Division was created in 1975, as part of a wider reconstruction of the Scottish Football League (SF ...
** 1897–98: Kilmarnock 5–2 Ayr FC, Ayr FC 0–3 Kilmarnock
** 1898–99: Ayr FC 1–1 Kilmarnock, Kilmarnock 5–1 Ayr FC
Defunct local competitions
Recent matches
This section shows the ten most recent competitive match-ups between the sides.
----
----
----
----
----
----
----
----
----
----
----In January 2009, the two clubs met for the first time in over seven years. They were drawn together in the
Scottish Cup
The Scottish Football Association Challenge Cup,Somerset Park
Somerset Park is a football stadium located in Ayr, South Ayrshire, Scotland. It has been the home of Ayr United since they were founded in 1910. Prior to that, it was the home ground of Ayr, who merged with Ayr Parkhouse to form Ayr United.
H ...
. The game finished 2–2, Kilmarnock twice taking the lead and Ayr United equalising twice, with the final goal of the game scored by substitute Ayr striker Alex Williams in injury time. Ayr keeper Stephen Grindlay also saved a penalty kick from Kilmarnock's Allan Russell. In the replay at
Rugby Park
Rugby Park, also known as The BBSP Stadium Rugby Park for sponsorship reasons, is a football stadium situated in the Scottish town of Kilmarnock. It was first used in 1899 and is the home of Kilmarnock F.C. Rugby Park has also been used for con ...
, Ayr United took the lead with a goal from Bryan Prunty, which television replays confirmed had involved the use of his hand. However, Kilmarnock won the tie 3–1 with goals from Simon Ford (twice) and Moroccan Medhi Taouil. This was Kilmarnock's first victory in the derby in a senior competition for seventeen years.
The previous meeting was a
Scottish League Cup
The Scottish League Cup (also known as the Viaplay Cup for sponsorship reasons) is a football competition open to all Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL) clubs. First held in 1946–47, it is the oldest national League Cup in existen ...
tie in October 2001. Ayr United had midfielder Paul Sheerin sent off early in the second half, playing the rest of the 90 minutes and extra time with ten men. However, no goals were scored in open play, and Ayr United won 5–4, with Chris Innes of Kilmarnock missing the vital spot-kick. Prior to that, Ayr United recorded 3–0 and 2–0 wins in the Scottish Cup in 1997–98 and 1998–99, the former bringing to an end Kilmarnock's reign as the cup holders. In the 1998–99 match, Andy Walker scored two penalties, the second of them being chipped over the Kilmarnock goalkeeper Gordon Marshall.
2011–12 League Cup Semi-Final
On 28 January 2012, Ayr United and Kilmarnock met at
Hampden Park
Hampden Park (Scottish Gaelic: ''Pàirc Hampden''), often referred to as Hampden, is a football stadium in the Mount Florida area of Glasgow, Scotland. The -capacity venue serves as the national stadium of football in Scotland. It is the no ...
for the League Cup semi-final. Kilmarnock won 1–0 thanks to a 109th-minute goal from
Dean Shiels
Dean Andrew Shiels (born 1 February 1985) is a Northern Irish former footballer, who is the current manager of Dungannon Swifts. He played for Hibernian, Doncaster Rovers, Kilmarnock, Rangers, Dundalk, FC Edmonton and Dunfermline Athletic, ...
. This was the first time that the Ayrshire derby had taken place in the semi-finals of a major competition and it was also the first derby to be played at a neutral venue. The game also achieved the highest recorded post-
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
crowd of any Ayrshire derby with 25,057 people travelling to Hampden (Kilmarnock versus Ayr United on 19 March 1938 had a crowd of 27,442).
League
The last league meeting between the sides was on 20 March 1993 at Rugby Park, finishing in a 1–1 draw. Since then, Kilmarnock have played in the
Scottish Premier League
The Scottish Premier League (SPL) was the top level league competition for professional football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football' ...
and Ayr in the
First
First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1).
First or 1st may also refer to:
*World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement
Arts and media Music
* 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and rec ...
or
Second Division
In sport, the Second Division, also called Division 2 or Division II is usually the second highest division of a league, and will often have promotion and relegation with divisions above and below. Following the rise of Premier League style compet ...
s. By contrast, in the late 1970s Ayr United played in the then-top tier of Scottish league football with Kilmarnock in the division below. Following Kilmarnock's relegation from the Premiership in
2020–21
The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...
, the two clubs will share a division for the first time in 28 years in the following season. Kilmarnock would win the first derby of the season on both clubs' opening league day, winning 2–0 at
Rugby Park
Rugby Park, also known as The BBSP Stadium Rugby Park for sponsorship reasons, is a football stadium situated in the Scottish town of Kilmarnock. It was first used in 1899 and is the home of Kilmarnock F.C. Rugby Park has also been used for con ...
.
Ayrshire Cup
The two clubs have both won this local competition on many occasions, but the last time it was contested was in 1998, when Kilmarnock won 4–2 at Rugby Park after trailing 2–0 at half time. This match was made even more special with Kilmarnock left back Dylan Kerr jumping into the Moffat Stand to celebrate his superb strike to make it 3–2. The trophy has been won by Kilmarnock on 42 occasions and by Ayr United on 27.
Other matches
Between 2003 and 2005, a series of annual one-off friendly matches were held in October, sponsored by a local commercial radio station and named the ''West Sound Trophy''. Kilmarnock won the first match at Rugby Park 1–0; the following year at Somerset Park Ayr United won on penalties, having earlier been 2–0 behind; and in the final match Kilmarnock won 4–0 at home.