HEATED: Kilmarnock and Ayr players clash at Rugby Park in 2022 (Image: Kilmarnock Football Club)
Kilmarnock and Ayr United go head-to-head in the last 16 of the Premier Sports Cup tonight, and the excitement ahead of the big fixture is building.
The fierce rivals lock horns for their first competitive meeting since 2022, with a place in the tournament’s quarter-finals up for grabs in September.
Both sides have experienced contrasting starts to the league season.
The Honest Men have begun their Championship season with a win over Arbroath and a hard-fought draw at Dunfermline under new manager Gary Naysmith.
Killie have endured back-to-back defeats in their opening two Premiership games to St Johnstone and Celtic despite previously progressing from their Premier Sports Cup group.
Speaking to club media, Ayr boss Naysmith is feeling the excitement for the Friday night encounter and knows his side have a plan to attack.
He said: “It is exciting, and there’s a lot of things I’ve been pleased about and other things we need to improve on.
“It’s great to go into this game on the back of six games unbeaten, but the players have to control their excitement and make sure that when this game comes around, we know what we have to do.
“All we focus on is the team we pick to cause them problems, and we know there’s going to be a great crowd, great grass pitch, and we’re looking forward to it.”
BOSS: Gary Naysmith gives instructions from the sidelines during Ayr’s draw with Dunfermline (Image: Voice of Reason via X)
On the back of conceding nine goals in the previous two games, Killie boss Neil McCann believes his squad are right up for the upcoming clash.
He said: “It’s the perfect game for us to get into being a derby and a chance to get into the next round of the cup.
“I’m well aware of what it means to the fans, and I’ve been lucky myself as a player to have been a part of such big derbies in my career, and this is the next one to be involved in.
“I know there’s going to be a crowd of near enough 10,000 and I’m fully expecting us to be right at it after the weekend as we were hurting, and I wanted them to feel that.
“We may have come unstuck in these first two games, but this upcoming one is a chance to prove to our fans that we are getting better.”
ACTION: Tyrece John-Jules carries the ball forward during Killie’s defeat to Celtic (Image: Kilmarnock Football Club)
Ayr fans have not been short of making their presence known with a near 3,000-strong travelling support up the A77 packing out the Chadwick Stand at their rival’s ground.
The last competitive meeting between the sides in March 2022 saw first half goals from Rory McKenzie, Oli Shaw and Jack Sanders seal a 3-1 win for Killie under the floodlights at Somerset Park.
United had their say in the last meeting at Rugby Park in February 2022 when they came from a goal behind to emerge 2-1 winners with goals from James Maxwell and Patrick Reading.
Kick-off tonight in East Ayrshire is at 7.45 pm and will be broadcast live on Premier Sports.
Ayrshire MSP Katy Clark has criticised a reduction in funding for the No Knives, Better Lives campaign, warning it could affect pilot projects in North Ayrshire. YouthLink Scotland received £447,000 to deliver the programme during 2025/26, but that has fallen to £302,940 for 2026/27. North Ayrshire Youth Services has run pilot projects in Ardrossan, Saltcoats, Stevenston and Irvine, alongside regional training for practitioners across Ayrshire on violence and weapon prevention.
East Ayrshire Council has unveiled plans for the future regeneration of Kilmarnock town centre, with a vision for how it could develop by 2040. The proposals aim to improve public spaces, transport links and business opportunities, while bringing vacant buildings back into use and encouraging more people to live in […]
Ayr’s Kayleigh Brown is preparing to compete at the World Boccia Championships in Seoul with the Great Britain squad from August 26 to 31. Kayleigh recently reached the medal matches at a World Cup for the first time, following bronze at the Europeans, silver at an International Challenger and fourth […]
today20/08/202611
Manage Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
