By Paul Cooper

Kilmarnock’s Scottish Cup winning Captain Ray Montgomerie has his eyes on another victory this Saturday (April 19) as he leads hillwalkers up Goatfell in aid of The Killie Community charity.

‘Monty’, now an ambassador at Rugby Park, will be joined on the climb by other fundraisers, including ex Killie players, Jim Cockburn, Kevin McGowne, Garry Hay and Ally Mitchell.

Speaking to the UWS Newsroom, he said: “We’ve got about 60 people going up there, it’s quite significant because it’s 60 years since Kilmarnock last won the league, it’s got the imagination of people, more are speaking about the community, so it’s working.

It’s nice to raise a bit of money for the charity, but I think we’ve achieved what we’re really wanting to achieve, and that is making people more aware of The Killie Community.”

In another commemoration of arguably Killie’s biggest triumph, a replica league winning flag that was flown over Rugby Park previously will be with the group on Saturday, this will be proudly displayed at the summit.

Monty continued: “The original flag when they won the league went missing, but it was replaced in the 80’s and that got lost, John Livingston, the club historian only came across that a couple of months ago.

To give people an incentive to try and raise as much as they could, we thought we would take the flag up with us, and whoever raised the most got the honour of unfurling it.”

Despite the challenge, a fun trip with lots of positivity is lined up when the blue and white contingent descend on Arran at the weekend, the man himself assures that the ex-players in attendance will bring some banter to keep everyone entertained.

Monty commented: “We’ll all be over there wearing our Killie strips, Killie scarves, we’ll be en masse and go up and down there at our own pace.

The ex-players I’m sure will be letting the supporters know some stories, it’ll be very enjoyable, I’m looking forward to it.”

As well as plenty of future fundraising plans, The Killie Community hope to build on the important local work they have already done for younger and older people.

No different from towns in the majority of Scotland this day in age, families in the local communities of Kilmarnock face a number of challenges, including rising costs for leisure activities, lack of facilities and unemployment.

The man at the helm of The Killie Community, Charity manager, Jordan Allison, told UWS Newsroom what services they provide: “It runs completely independently from the football club, we just work in really close partnership, we use the power and reach of Kilmarnock Football Club to try and improve lives.

“From nursery age to primary school age we are running fun football sessions that are either free or more cost effective than the majority of private sector coaching sessions, the cost of playing football is too high for families.

We couple that with an average of about 150-200 free tickets for matchdays at Rugby Park, for kids, families, individuals, older people who have never been before or who can’t afford to come to matches.”

In smaller towns around the country, there is usually a choice between kids either supporting their local team or one of the more popular Glasgow old firm clubs (Rangers or Celtic).

The work that The Killie Community do, as well as being very important in the local areas, could also have an impact on kids choosing to add themselves to the Kilmarnock fanbase in the future.

Jordan also said: “Academy aged pupils we’ve got an employability programme, the ones that are coming on that are school leavers or unemployed 16–25-year-olds, and we’re getting so far 100% into positive destinations.

We’ve got loads of wellbeing programmes for adults, Football fans in training is one, which is a 12-week weight management programme, 96% of those that come through that, not only are they losing weight their mental health has improved as well.”

Any facility that can help improve mental health, is a valuable commodity now, and this has been a big focus since the Covid pandemic.

Football memories classes, an SFA initiative, were brought out around Scotland to help the elderly connect with like-minded fans, they are also important in helping people with dementia recollect football memories.

Jordan continued: “We do walking football, women’s recreational football, we do our walk and talk every week, and we’ve got our get together, which is a free, or pay what you can community café.

We’ve grown our ‘football memories’ programme massively, every Monday we have older people living alone or with early on set dementia coming to Rugby Park, and they are getting a bit of reminiscence therapy.

We {also} work with about 300 young people and adults with either physical or learning disabilities every week as well because there’s not a lot of groups for them.”

Already offering as much as they do locally at the moment, how can The Killie Community aim to grow in the future?

Jordan stated: “We’ve grown a lot in the last five years, we’re becoming important to the local community, which is good, also it comes with a lot of responsibility.

The next three years the vision should be, maximise what we do, accommodate as much as possible.

That’s one part of the vision, the second part is, partnerships, work with as many organisations across Ayrshire as possible that are doing similar things, so that no one is left behind.”