An insight into Adam Lyon: The man behind One Team in Ayrshire

The Killie Update and One Team in Ayrshire come together

In recent years, there has been something of a boom in football fan media, including for the clubs perceived as smaller by mainstream media, like Kilmarnock, for instance. The first, and arguably most popular fan media channel following Killie is One Team in Ayrshire. Adam Lyon, the man behind One Team in Ayrshire spoke to us at the Killie Update to give an insight into him and his channel, and the future of the fan media industry as a whole.

One Team in Ayrshire was founded in around 2014, initially as a podcast but has evolved into offering a broader range of content: But what about the person behind it now? Adam Lyon has been key to the success of the channel. His passion for Killie started at a young age, he said: “I’m a big Kilmarnock fan and have been since I was very young, going along to the games with my dad. I'm a newspaper reporter by day, but for the football, I do commentary for hospital radio from all the home games and then travel away to every game as well to watch Kilmarnock and do my One Team in Ayrshire podcast, which we do every week, a bit of a highlight from the games, watched by somewhere between a couple of hundred and a couple of thousand people every week.

It's fair to say that Killie takes over my life on a very regular basis.”

Lyon’s first vivid memory of following Killie was the ill-fated CIS Cup final of 2007 (the less said about the scoreline, the better). He has followed the team since he was three or four years old.

Lyon is perhaps best known as One Team in Ayrshire, but it wasn’t he who kicked it off initially, adding: “I was the third person to come on board with it back in 2015 or 2016. It was another two guys that ran it at the time, and I took it over a couple of years after that. One Team in Ayrshire was certainly the first fan media outlet for Kilmarnock if you're not counting things like the Hippo fanzine and perhaps one of the first major ones in Scotland {at the time}. “

Lyon believes that first-mover advantage has been instrumental to the channel’s success. He said: “I think that longevity has really helped us. We’ve been going for at least 10 years now.”

As well as a successful podcast, One Team in Ayrshire also have a YouTube channel with over 1,400 subscribers. The channel covers all Killie matches, home and away, with games at Rugby Park coming from a particularly unique perspective: From the press box. This is because the One Team in Ayrshire Podcast team commentate on the club’s home matches for HBSA Hospital Radio, Crosshouse Hospital’s radio station. This service is accessible within the hospital, Ayrshire Maternity Unit and online around the world, providing a great platform for One Team in Ayrshire to grow. Their commentary is also available in the ground via headsets to those with visual impairments. On this, Lyon said: “I've been doing that for the best part of five years now, if not bit longer than that. It's a good way for those of us who enjoy that kind of thing, just to be able to talk about what's going on while the game's happening.

It's a service that we love to provide. Myself, Kieran Calderwood and Andrew Milligan do that. It links well with the One Team in Ayrshire stuff; it gives us a good perspective. We're in a good high vantage position there to get our video content, but also in terms of analysing the game, whether that be through our Twitter or on the podcasts when we do them, we are maybe able to take a bit of the emotion out of it compared to a normal fan and maybe see things that other people wouldn't do.”

The club have clearly taken notice of the work of the commentary as they have been asked to stand in on Killie TV in recent times.

In terms of a commentary box highlight, Lyon said his favourite was Eamonn Brophy’s late winner against Rangers in 2020:

In recent years, One Team in Ayrshire have come up against increased competition from Forever and Ever – The Killie Fans’ Podcast and The Killie View. Both these podcasts and One Team in Ayrshire come at things from a unique angle: Forever and Ever is more laid back, almost akin to supporters chewing the fat post-match, whereas the Killie View provides Killie fans with a much more analytical viewpoint.

One Team in Ayrshire strikes something of a middle ground between the two. On this, Lyon added: “Callum and Paul are a bit more informal and sort of like two guys in a pub. For us, we're a bit more serious in terms of our look at the game. That probably stems from the commentary element of it and then The Killie View is very much stats and analytics and sort of analysing how individual players are playing or that kind of thing.

“There’s something there for everyone which I think can only be a good thing to give people that choice. Whether people like to listen to all three or one or two. It's good to have that sort of diversity of content that maybe wasn't there before the last couple of years when the other two came along.”

It is Lyon’s view that fan media is on the up, and with the increased competition of Killie-centric fan media, there could be scope for more collaboration with the club and the other podcasts in the future. A future Killie TV dream team could be formed with One Team in Ayrshire, Forever and Ever, The Killie View, and perhaps even The Killie Update! On that, Lyon added: “Were something that to happen, it would certainly be at a club like Kilmarnock, where everyone's aware of each other. There's a good community there. All of the fan media outlets have that relationship with the club and with Lochlin, the Media Officer, and I'm sure he's probably exploring opportunities for that in the sort of coming months and into the new season.”

Make sure to check out One Team in Ayrshire on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @OneTeamAyrshire and on YouTube by clicking here.