Celtic legend Scott Brown is hoping that Bhoys supporters take over Ayr to watch the club ramp up their pre-season preparations with a friendly at Somerset Park in July.
It was announced on Friday that Brendan Rodgers will be taking a team to play Ayr United on the Friday night of July 5th at 7:45pm.
The friendly will commemorate the opening of a new north stand at Ayr’s home ground and potentially inject the club with a bit of cash if enough fans turn out in big numbers.
It’s not too often that Celtic fans get to travel to an away game in the UK during pre-season. The fixture comes at the start of a schedule that includes a tour of the United States later in July.
Ayr boss Brown is relishing the prospect of taking on the champions and says a strong Celtic following turning out on the night would mean a lot to him personally.
Scott Brown on Celtic’s trip to Ayr United
The former captain told Celtic TV: “It’d be great to see Celtic fans take over Ayr. I would love to see all the fans down at the game – it would mean so much to myself as well.
“Celtic fans support Celtic through everything, thick and thin, win or loss, they travel the world. They sing and travel in their thousands. Hopefully, a wee 45 minutes down the road they can come along in their thousands as well.
“It’d be great because the new stand opening brings a lot of money into the club. Hopefully, the club can maintain itself for a long, long time. That’s what the chairman’s ambition is.
“For us to see our quality players against Celtic’s quality players, to see how they play and how they press and the tempo of their game compared to ours, we have got to set that as our benchmark. That’s going to be a huge game for us.
“We’ll be training a little bit earlier than Celtic but we’re still trying to get players in. Hopefully we’ve got a good enough squad settled in by then. There’ll be no bad tackles, I swear!”
Ayr’s new stand has a capacity of over 700, boosting the amount of seats amongst the rest of their terracing. The build also includes new hospitality and media areas, modernising the club’s ground.
There’s little doubt that Celtic fans will turn out in their numbers. The opportunity to watch the Bhoys so close to home won’t be passed up, even without the Brown factor.
It’ll come at an exciting part of the summer as the team returns to training at Lennoxtown – potentially with some new faces from the transfer market.