McCall: I will never forget debt to Lach
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Ian McCall hailed Lachlan Cameron for plucking him off the managerial scrapheap after Ayr United clinched a return to the Championship in May.
McCall had been out of football for more than three years before landing the Somerset Park hot seat.
And he was in no doubt about the debt he owed to chairman Lachlan who gave him the nod after beating a high calibre list of candidates.
Bookies had stopped taking odds on former Scotland Under 21 boss Billy Stark replacing the axed Mark Roberts at the helm. But McCall blew away the Ayr board at his interview and was given a return ticket to management after stints at clubs including Partick Thistle, Queen of the South, Falkirk and Dundee United.
McCall said: “I had been out of management for three and a half years.
“That’s a long time in the game as within six months you are forgotten.
“I felt I needed a chairman who recognised that almost every human being comes with baggage.
“The chairman was openminded. He saw me as someone who had changed an awful lot of things in my life and he gave me a chance.”
McCall inherited a team of strugglers who were in danger of dropping into the bottom tier when he took over in January 2015.
But he steadied the ship and then pulled off a last day of the season Houdini- style win at Forfar to save Ayr’s skin in League One.
There was no wild clearout as McCall saw enough in the squad to know that there was quality in the ranks to make a push for better things.
The transformation has been stark and although a title chase with Dunfermline fell just short, Ayr came good in the play- offs.
After a 1- 1 draw in the play- off final at Stranraer, they won the second leg in a penalty shoot- out before a near- 5000 crowd at a rocking Somerset Park.
McCall’s men are now making their mark in the Championship. The future is bright.