FA Cup winners when I was a boy didn’t jet off to Asia, Africa or North America for mini tours promoting their club, shirt and soul! No! They came to the seaside capital of Scotland, the Paradise Coast, the Land of Milk and Honey — yes, my home town of AYR! The attraction of its top golf courses, top race track, great night life, miles of sandy beaches, ice cream cones to follow a nice ‘fish supper’, and that Atlantic gulf stream that brings the tropical weather played their parts too 
Of course, the main attraction was that this is the home of the famous Ayr United Football Club, the only team in Ayrshire!!
West Ham United had lifted the FA Cup with a Trevor Brooking goal only a few weeks prior to this pre-season friendly.
Word on the street was, during their stay, Frank Lampard and Trevor Brooking were walking along the Ayr prom with Frank Lampard’s son, Frank Lampard junior. Junior was complaining about the pony back rides on the beach, and said all his friends were going to Italy this summer. Frank Lampard senior told him to be quiet, and he should think himself lucky to be associated with such fine pedigree of donkeys, even though they had obviously seen better days. 
Please check out the team sheets. Of course I can picture in my head even today the whole Ayr United team I watched as a boy (I was 13yrs old at this game) . The most known Ayr United player in that squad was Stevie Nicol, a fine product of the Ayr United Boys Club. Stevie Nicol won everything with Liverpool in the 80’s, and is now in charge at MLS team New England Revolution. As for the West Ham team, even for me, most of those players were household names. The result was 1-1, but I do not recall the scorers on that warm summers night.
These were the standard of teams Ayr United Football Club attracted when I was a boy. Or maybe the pony rides on the beach were better than we thought…..
