William Ayre (7 May 1952 – 16 April 2002) was an English footballer who played for three clubs in a sixteen-year professional career, making over three hundred League appearances in the process.

He guided Blackpool to two successive play-off finals, in 1991 and 1992 (winning promotion in the second appearance), during his four years in charge of the club.

Ayre began his professional playing career at Scarborough in 1975 whilst balancing a teaching profession[3] at St Leonard's Catholic School in Durham, where he taught art and physical education.

In his final season at the club, 1980–81, he made ten league appearances and scored one goal before he was sold to Halifax Town.

He scored a headed goal on his first-team debut in a Football League Trophy tie at Field Mill.

After Mullen's departure at the end of the month, Ayre worked alongside caretaker manager Tom White.

When Carr left, Blackpool were lying in eighteenth position in the Division Four table; six months later, however, the team had qualified for the play-offs after losing only five of their remaining thirty games.

Their good fortune came undone at the last hurdle, however, when they lost in a penalty shoot-out to Torquay United in the final at Wembley and remained in the Fourth Division for another season.

")[16] Ayre was able to keep largely the same team together and guided them back to Wembley the following 1991–92 season, in which they finally gained promotion after another, more successful penalties experience.

[17] Ayre's son, David, was Blackpool's mascot, and accompanied his father in the pre-match walk out to the centre circle.

On the final day of the 1993–94 season, Blackpool avoided relegation by a single point by virtue of beating Leyton Orient 4–1 at Bloomfield Road.

Ayre's league record in his three and a half years at Bloomfield Road: 191 games, 77 wins, 70 draws, 44 losses.

[18] At the time of his departure, Ayre was the sixth-longest-serving Blackpool manager in terms of Football League games in charge.

During this period, players such as Alan Wright, Paul Groves, and, most notably, Trevor Sinclair all left the club for bigger and better things.

In March 1996, Ayre was asked by new Swansea City boss Jan Mølby to be his assistant, but the duo arrived too late to prevent the Swans from sliding into Division Three.

They reached the play-off final a year later, but a last-minute goal saw them lose to Northampton Town and miss out on promotion.

After a month-long break while having a benign tumor removed, Ayre was installed to the manager's seat at Cardiff when Burrows resigned in January 2000.

[24] His services were disposed of completely two months later when Alan Cork was put in charge of first-team affairs and Gould was appointed general manager.

He joined Division Two side Bury as assistant to Andy Preece, but in the spring of 2001 it was found that the lymph node cancer he had initially been diagnosed with in 1995 had returned.

[26] Graham Barrow was given the temporary job of assistant manager while Ayre received treatment for his illness, and he appeared to be recovering; however, he suffered a setback in early 2002 and was admitted to Clatterbridge Hospital in Bebington, Merseyside.

Ayre's funeral took place on 21 April at St. Cuthbert's Church in Halsall, near Ormskirk,[27] and his final wish was to have the Blackpool team with whom he won promotion in 1992 be present.

On 26 May 2001, Ayre had attended the Football League Two play-off final between Blackpool and Leyton Orient at the Millennium Stadium in his then-home, Cardiff.

"[27] "He was a fantastic fella, I couldn't speak highly enough about him," said Phil Brown, who played alongside Ayre at Hartlepool United and Halifax Town and under him at the latter.

"[30] On 17 April 2012, ten minutes into Blackpool's Championship fixture with Leeds United at Bloomfield Road, the home support sang "Billy Ayre's tangerine army", for ten minutes, while a photograph of their former manager appeared on the television screen, along with the words "Billy Ayre, gone but never forgotten".

His wife and children were in attendance at the match, after which Blackpool manager Neil Critchley said he remembered Ayre when he used to bring his teams to Crewe Alexandra in the 1990s.