ON THE ROAD travels to Somerset Park for an intriguing episode of I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here!

Ayr United 3 Dunfermline 0

There were simple questions to be asked at Somerset Park. Can Ayr United get out of the Championship? And can Dunfermline stay in it?

The answers were inconclusive. Ayr’s victory means a play-off spot is confirmed, but not automatic promotion. Dunfermline’s fragile display means a play-off that opens the trapdoor to League One cannot be discounted.

This was the sobering reality behind the understandable hype of the Pars having a one-time-£12million player being signed — and then sent off in his first game — and the considerable celebrity of managers Neil Lennon and Scott Brown in the dugouts.

A considerable travelling support, impeccably detailed at 922, was boisterous and encouraging. The Lennon factor has invigorated them but the manager knows results must follow. The Fifers adhere to that weary template of most struggling teams: they conceded goals, and they can’t score. It’s a simple equation that managers struggle to solve.

Brown and Lennon can be consoled in their immediate ambitions by support from the terraces. The Hub at Somerset Park on Saturday was teeming with fans of both clubs. There was expectation certainly, and also a firm grasp of the reality that faces their clubs.

The Lennon and Victor Wanyama factor had enticed brothers Gary and Derek Ramsay, their friend Andy Wellwood, and his 14-year-old son Keir, to make the journey from Fife.

Lennon can’t believe what he’s seeing as Pars lose 3-0 and his star man is red carded

Scott Brown had a far happier day as he went head-to-head with his former boss Lennon

‘He has been a Dunfermline fan all his days. He was a mascot and played for the academy team and is now at Alloa,’ says his dad of Keir.

‘I work shifts so don’t go to all the games but Lennon and Wanyama made the decision for me today. It has been a disappointing season and we shouldn’t be where we are. The reasons? Managerial appointments and not enough investment.’

Derek Ramsay, who was at the 1965 cup final when Jock Stein’s Celtic defeated the Pars, chips in: ‘I was just nine then, but it has been a tough time since. We should be a big club and we are not at the moment. The aim is to stay up this season and at least get to the play-offs next year.’

The mood among Ayr supporters was predictably more buoyant. Glenn Montgomery, 58, has been coming to Somerset for more than half a century. ‘My cousin eventually married Johnny Doyle, the great Ayr hero who went on to play for Celtic. She was going out with him then. so my uncle took me to the games and I’ve kept coming back.

‘At the start of the season it looked very promising,’ he says of the present campaign. ‘Then came a bad spell and then we came back again. If you ask any Ayr fan before the season, they would have taken challenging for second.’

His mate, Kevin Shove, says: ‘I had a wee bet at 7-1 on us to win the league but the carry-on with rotation of keepers and big Anton Dowds getting injured at the start of the season has derailed us a bit.’

Montgomery points out, though: ‘We are going in the right direction.’

At the next table in the Hub, Gordon McBlain, once a sponsor of the club and a long-time supporter, is wry about his life at Somerset.

Neil Lennon sent on Wanyama for his Dunfermline debut in the 65th minute at Ayr

However, the ex-Celtic star lasted just 18 minutes as he was sent off for deliberate handball

Lennon tries to console the Kenyan international after he was dismissed at Somerset Park

‘I am 62 and have been coming here since I was eight or nine. I remember the premier league (1978-79) when we got relegated. I thought: “A year down does us no harm”. We’ve never been back.’

He points out: “We are sitting second, guaranteed play-offs, yet some are disappointed. I am always a confident person. I hope my best memories are yet to come.’

His friend, Colin Sturgeon, says: ‘ I can remember bits of the premier league. I was five or six. My dad then stopped going but I came back in the eighties with school friends and never wavered since then.

‘There is a feeling of optimism. We have been chapping at the door and hopefully we get there soon.’

Tom Simpson, who is 51, says his best memories are of beating Kilmarnock. The most famous wins were Scottish Cup tie victories in 1998 and 1999.

‘I was working in Abu Dhabi as an accountant,’ he says. ‘I was listening to one of those games on the World Service and when we scored I jumped up and inadvertently gave my flat mate, who was standing behind me, an uppercut.’

He shares a slight sense of disappointment with other supporters that the good start to the season has not led to a place at the top of the table but points out that this is a season when the Championship was very open at the starting line.

‘In previous years you have had Rangers, Hearts, Hibs, both Dundee sides…that’s very difficult to go up against. But this season I had a feeling we had a chance. We made the play-offs under (Lee) Bullen a couple of seasons ago but that was largely on the back of Dipo (Akineymi), who scored a lot of goals. This team is better all round.’

Former Ayr and Celtic striker Andy Walker was another famous face in attendance on Saturday

Ethan Walker, centre, celebrates after making it 3-0 for Ayr United against Dunfermline

Brown is hoping time is on Ayr’s side as they seek a place in Premiership from the play-offs

He believes, though, that the foundations are in place for a better future, no matter how this season plays out.

‘The chairman (David Smith) is a proper Ayr fan. He has started with the infrastructure and invested in the team, too. We have the building blocks in place.’

The Hub is a testament to that strategy, as is the north stand and the hospitality facilities. The club have also acquired land behind the railway end, with plans for training facilities.

One fan passes by and says: ‘He has even tarred the car park.’

This was little consolation for a local hero. Andy Walker, who played for Ayr in 1998-99, and was a guest at Saturday’s game.

‘I turned up at the car park and the steward was desolate that she could not offer me a place,’ he says with a laugh. ‘She said it was full, but added: “If it was up to me, you would have a free car park space right outside the doors”. She still remembered me, particularly for *that goal* against Kilmarnock and kindly pointed me to a space on the street nearby.’

Walker scored two penalties against Kilmarnock in the win in January 1999. *That goal* was the second, a Panenka that has remained in the hearts of Ayr fans.

‘I loved it here,’ he says. ‘We had a good season and the highlight was beating Kilmarnock, but we could have done better.’

A modest sign promotes a match which attracted a lot of media interest on Saturday

Lennon had clearly lost none of his fire as he roared on his Dunfermline team in Ayr

It was to be day that ended in disappointment for both Lennon and star signing Wanyama

He peers out through the rain to Somerset: ‘It is one of those great, old-fashioned stadiums that you love to visit.’

Is there a chance of that wonderful ground hosting Premiership clubs regularly, perhaps as part of an extended top division that could include the likes of Ayr, Dunfermline, Partick Thistle and Morton, who all have strong supports?

‘I see that prospect as complete and utter fantasy, given how Scottish football works,’ says Walker. ‘Celtic and Rangers control everything, and you will never get it unless they agree to it. And they will never agree to it.

‘I hear league reconstruction all the time from people who want to see the development of Scottish players. Look at the games today across all the leagues. How many young Scots are playing?

‘I was in a young group at Motherwell, with Chris McCart, Tom Boyd, Gary McAllister, Fraser Wishart…we all got a chance early. I am not sure that happens now. I know Motherwell have Lennon Miller but they are recruiting from League One and Two in England, and even the National League. So do other sides in Scotland.

‘We see the results of this. The under-21s were thrashed by Iceland.’

The questions for Ayr and Dunfermline were not completely answered on Saturday.

There are bigger ones, however, for the Scottish game.