Obituary: Richard Cairns

RICHARD CAIRNS (11/7/1957 – 2/6/2025)

It was with great sadness that everyone connected with Kilmarnock Football Club learned of the passing of Richard Cairns on Monday, 2nd June 2025, at the age of 67.

Richard was a very well-known and highly respected shareholder and season ticket holder, as well as a trustworthy servant to the Club for well over 45 years. He was a TRUE supporter.

In the early 1980s, he and fellow historians Gordon Allison and John Livingston spent many hours, weeks and months – spread over several years – painstakingly gathering as much information as they could from regular visits to libraries and museums throughout Ayrshire, as well as Glasgow, which eventually produced an astute statistical record and history of Kilmarnock FC.

The three of them, along with guest player Alan Robertson, formed the KFCSA Quiz team that won the 1985 and 1986 Radio Clyde Scottish Football Quiz competitions, beating Celtic in the final on both occasions. When it returned as an all-sports competition in 1988, the trio, assisted by guest player Paul Martin, won it again – thrashing Celtic once more in the final.

Richard was an avid programme and football memorabilia collector, and around this time in the late 1980s, he also became the editor of Killie Ken, the first ever – and most fondly remembered – KFC supporters’ magazine: a subtle but humorous read which endeared him to many of the supporters of that era. He also started doing, off his own back, an “unofficial” 4-page programme at reserve games, much to the delight of the supporters who went to the games. His work on the Killie Ken publication and his own reserve game issues impressed not only the supporters but also the management team at the time.

In the summer of 1991, Jim Fleeting and his assistant Jim McSherry (with a little help from Richard’s KFC friends) persuaded him to become the Club’s official match-day programme editor – a position he was to hold for a total of 27 seasons – eventually retiring at the end of the 2017/18 season.

Fellow Club Historian, John Livingston, told the club’s official website: “He brought respect and credibility to the KFC programme, twice winning the Programme of the Year awards in both the First Division and Premier Division.

“But Richard was still the wee guy who not only edited the programme but also sold it as well – always positioned outside the back of the Main Stand in his programme stall box, no matter what the weather was like, and always ready with a chirpy reply to anyone who tried to short-change him!

“He was a real character, and as a supporter, he never held back from letting a referee know what he thought of him – especially when the decisions were against his beloved Kilmarnock!”

He co-wrote, with John Livingston, both the 1999 100 Years at Rugby Park and the 2019 KFC 150th Anniversary books, as well as the Killie ’Til I Die book in 2011 with Gordon Allison.

Richard was always very highly regarded by the Club itself. In April 2014, he was invited onto the Hall of Fame committee, and in 2015 was the representative of the newly formed Community Engagement Board, which allowed him to attend directors’ meetings – although he declined to sit in the Directors’ Box at games, preferring his own seat in the East Stand. He eventually resigned from the CEB position before the end of the year.

After deciding to retire from his daily working career as a civil engineer in South Ayrshire – as well as from the programme editor role – in 2018, he still contributed the quizzes that appeared in the programme and, more recently, in the monthly magazines.

Richard was also honoured by the KFC Supporters’ Association in 2022 when he, along with John Livingston, was awarded the Sandy Ferguson Unsung Hero Award, which was presented by Sandy’s daughters Lynsey and Laura.

John Livingston continued: “In recent times, despite his health issues, he attended as many first-team, reserve and youth games as he could – home or away. He was always heard before he was seen, always gave the referee a hard time, and if any opposition player was not playing the game cleanly, he would let him know too!

“He was a good man, a great friend to many, and an outstanding supporter of Kilmarnock Football Club. He will be very sadly missed by us all – but more importantly, he will ALWAYS be remembered. That is the real legacy a good man always leaves.”

Our thoughts and prayers are with Richard’s wife Ann, his sons Steven and Gary, and all his family and friends at this sad time.

R.I.P. Dear Friend.