With all due respect to the Somerset Park club, could you imagine an Ayr United player these days signing for the top team in England?
Me neither.
I couldn’t even imagine many top Premiership players directly signing for English teams of the moment such as Chelsea, Tottenham, Liverpool and the two Manchester clubs.
I might — just might — make an exception for Celtic defender Kieran Tierney, because he is a bit special, but most ‘great’ players leaving Scotland for down south usually go to Southampton, Hull, Stoke and the like.
However, on September 14, 1981, that’s exactly what happened.
And it seems it was a route well trodden for one particular manager.
This has come to light as, recently, I’ve been sharing some of the information unearthed when perusing through our cuttings files.
A cutting, under the heading ‘Nicol To Sign For Liverpool’, read:
Liverpool manager Bob Paisley is set to complete his fourth-biggest deal in Scotland since he took over as boss from the late Bill Shankly.
The Merseyside club have agreed a fee of £300,000 with Ayr United for the transfer of Steve Nicol, the 19-year-old left-back of the Somerset Park club.
The deal will be completed at Anfield tomorrow when manager Willie McLean and the player travel south.
Liverpool, by that time, will be back from Holland, where they are playing AZ 67 Altmar tonight in the European Cup.
Nicol has been capped on several occasions for the Scotland U/21 team.
He joined Ayr United two years ago from their nursery team Ayr United Boys Club.
As mentioned earlier, he will be Liverpool’s fourth-biggest deal in Scotland.
The others being Kenny Dalglish from Celtic, Alan Hansen from Partick Thistle, and Frank McGarvey from St Mirren.
Troon-born Nicol spent 14 years at Anfield, winning many major honours such as five league titles, three FA Cups and a European Cup.
In 1994, he left Liverpool to join Notts County, before having stints with Sheffield Wednesday and Doncaster Rovers.
In 1999, he emigrated to America and played for and coached Boston Bulldogs, and also coached New England Revolution.
He won 27 full caps for Scotland and played in the 1986 World Cup in Mexico.
This article originally appeared on the Evening Telegraph website. For more information, read about our new combined website.