Last week Michael Johnston, the embattled Kilmarnock chairman, explained in this space why he believed he was the right man to lead the club out of its current crisis.

This week it is the turn of those - and they are many - who are highly disillusioned with Johnston and are actively seeking his removal.

Hardly a week goes by without Johnston finding a fresh means of either irking or angering many Kilmarnock supporters. This week it has been the "cut-price ticket fiasco", whereby the chairman contrived to offer Celtic fans cheaper tickets than home fans for the match between the clubs at Rugby Park today. On Wednesday and Thursday, Johnston was scrambling to repair the damage, quoting little-known Scottish Professional Football League rules and seeking to extricate himself from the mess. But the damage had been done. Once again Kilmarnock supporters were made to feel a decidedly low priority in the mind of their chairman.

It only further fuelled the long-time grievances of such as James Morrison, the vice-chairman of the Kilmarnock FC Supporters Association, who says he is "sick and tired" of the Johnston regime. "It beggared belief the way Michael went about this business," Morrison says. "What club offers away fans cheaper tickets than home fans? But it was all too typical. Most Killie fans I speak to are totally disillusioned with the way Johnston is running the club. They feel completely saddened by what is happening."

Morrison, like Johnston, is a local solicitor in Ayrshire. The two men's paths have criss-crossed over the past 30 years, and might have found a happy affinity when, eight years ago, Johnston was handed his 86% stake in Kilmarnock, a club Morrison has loved since boyhood. Instead, a dream has turned sour for supporters such as Morrison. They dislike Johnston, they distrust him, and they want him out. And, says, Morrison, with good reason.

"It is an incredibly sad situation facing the club," he says. "The fans are totally fed-up with Michael. It is so bad some supporters feel that it might be best that we get relegated, go down a division and be rid of Johnston, and come back renewed again. That's how bad things are.

"Michael just cannot embrace the club's supporters. He cannot bring himself to engage with them. He cannot seem to understand that the supporters are, in fact, his customers. When he arrived, along with other fans I was open-minded about him. But over the years it has become incredibly frustrating."

Morrison and others, such as John Gall, who makes the "Killie Pie", and Marie Macklin, a local entrepreneur, would like Johnston to hand over his shares - which he received for nothing from the Moffat family - to an individual or group whom they believe could run the club with greater success. In 2003, Macklin was part of a group which offered £2m to buy Kilmarnock. She is still very much in the fray, and has handed nearly all of her 46,000 shares over to supporters.

However, many believe that Johnston would like a price for his 86% stake. "He appears to indicate that he would 'put a value' on his shares," says Morrison. "But the club is laden with debt and is effectively bankrupt. Michael, like me, is a solicitor. What I would like to ask him is, 'if you were advising a client, who was thinking of buying such a shareholding, would you encourage him to pay money for them?' I very much doubt that he would. Most people think Michael Johnston's shares are worthless."

Under Johnston's regime two other aspects have caused alarm around Rugby Park. First, the club's dwindling attendances. Second, the sacking of Kenny Shiels. This season has witnessed some of Kilmarnock's worst crowds in 30 years, with little over 3000 turning up for some games. Johnston himself cites local industrial decline and job losses as a reason, and there must be a degree of truth in this. But many fans have organised a NAPM campaign ("Not A Penny More") and are refusing to attend games, or pay any more money into the club's coffers, while Johnston remains in charge. A fresh protest is planned today.

The sacking of Shiels still rankles. Johnston removed the Northern Irishman from his post in June, but most supporters would have Shiels back in an instant. After two years in charge of the club, the former manager remains a popular figure.

Johnston told last week how Shiels' home record last season - "the worst in 30 years" - was a factor in his removal. But Kilmarnock fans queue up to tell of Shiels' many impressive feats at the club, not least his 2012 League Cup win over Celtic. Shiels actually guided the club to their best away record in over a decade last season; they won their first match in 57 years at Celtic Park, and did extremely elsewhere on their travels, beating Hibernian and Aberdeen among others.

In January 2013, five months before he was sacked, Shiels had to sell Matthew Kennedy, Liam Kelly, Michael Nelson and Gary Harkins, without replacing them. In his last match in charge, Shiels played nine youth-team graduates against St Mirren, partly out of necessity, but partly with an eye on Kilmarnock's future, which most supporters firmly entrusted to Shiels.

"The sacking of Kenny Shiels was another dire Michael Johnston moment," says Morrison. "To most fans it was like a death in the family. Kenny was an incredibly popular Killie manager, who had won us a cup, and who lived and breathed Kilmarnock FC 24/7.

"Kenny had a plan and a vision for the club, and he knew where he was taking Killie in terms of youth development. I actually watched Kenny Shiels meet Killie youngsters aged 10 or 11, and he knew their names, he remembered who they were. He was a terrific manager. But Michael, in sacking him, ripped all that away from the club."

Yesterday the Killie Trust supporters group issued a statement which captured the prevailing mood. It read: "The chairman of the club appears to be developing a new business model for football that requires no fans at all.

"Crowds at Rugby Park have been in decline for years and the current chairman seems incapable of reversing this trend; in fact his actions at times seem hellbent on chasing away as many home supporters as possible. Many Killie supporters this season have made the incredibly difficult decision to not attend home games as they refuse to prop up the current regime.

"The Killie Trust believes the only way to save our club is to urgently take it into true community ownership. As a great Scottish manger once said: 'Without fans football is nothing'. But, apparently, Michael Johnston knows better."

There appears no end in sight to this woeful saga at Rugby Park.