It was half past midnight on Thursday night, and after 18 hours of work in his first full day as Ayr United manager, when Ian McCall finally got to read the concluding chapter of his latest George Pelecanos novel.

The writer and sometime producer of The Wire knows a drama or two, as does McCall in his own life and work.

Was it just me or were there many in football who openly enthused at McCall's return to management after a staggering three and a half seasons out of the ring? He is a talented, passionate coach who had reached the top in Scotland before falling away badly, his name, even at just 47, seemingly a thing of the past.

Well, Lachlan Cameron, Ayr United's America-based chairman, felt differently. There were quite a number of names in for the Ayr job, including Billy Stark and Jimmy Calderwood, but Cameron handed the reins to McCall after he apparently excelled in his interview. Those of us who know this engaging character could well believe it.

"I have to say I've felt pretty humbled in recent days," says McCall. "I've got no illusions about my reputation - I've got my detractors like anyone else. I've also taken some personal and professional flak over the years. But I've been inundated with best wishes and 'good lucks' from people since I got the Ayr job and I've been pretty touched by it. As I say, it's been humbling.

"I was out for three and a half seasons. The first two years, after doing it for 15 seasons, I didn't miss it and didn't really look to get back in. But then, over the last two seasons, I really began to miss not being in a dugout. As a broadcaster I remember covering an Aberdeen-Partick Thistle game and counting seven guys in either dugout whom I'd either signed or worked with. That day made me think, 'I really wanted to get back in.'"

Why so many missing years for McCall? I remember him in 2003 at Celtic Park: there was Martin O'Neill over there, there was McCall, manager of Dundee United, and here in their midst were 60,000 people. Back then he was the new young star of Scottish managers but his ascent was suddenly blocked - in part by himself.

McCall's ticket cooled, his personal life became difficult, and there were other things he had to cope with. In the interim he covered many football games as a broadcaster for Radio Clyde, and proved very good at it.

"Listen, I've loved my time - at Dundee United, at Partick Thistle, at Queen of the South and elsewhere," he says. "But I've also had some personal issues which I needed to sort out. I don't really want to go into much of that: I hate people simpering in the newspapers about 'things they needed to sort out.' I just had to sort some things - which affected me, affected my family, and which only I could fix - and I did.

"I had a couple of chances to go abroad but it would have taken me away from my son, Edson. So I didn't want to go. This is a great gig for me at Ayr and I'm really looking forward to it. In my life now I've got my job and my son - my son being the most important. To these two things I am going to devote myself."

With McCall, you labour the point about his fall from the football heights at your peril. Dundee United 10 years ago - his seeming passport to great things - suddenly turned sour. But McCall takes it all in his stride with an unexpected grace. He also - and this was always his key quality - has an unshakeable self-belief as a manager.

"There are a lot of managers out of work - look at guys now like Jimmy Calderwood and Billy Stark. So it's hard. The game has changed. The type of guys who are getting into management now - and maybe this is to do with finance - are relatively young kids. And some of them have done really well.

"Over the last four or five years I've seen the hot young things coming through - well I was one of those 10 or 12 years ago. So I've experienced that. Maybe people think I am a bit older than I am, simply because I came in to football management so early.

"I'm not going to labour the Dundee United thing - most managers I know have got a hard luck story from somewhere. Look what happened to Craig Levein at Leicester City - a whole stack of us have got such a story.

"I came through into management in a really tough environment at Clydebank in 1998 so it's not as if I've ever thought it was easy-street. I never felt I had a divine right to do it, or to manage at a high level. Back then quite a few older coaches and managers looked down on me and said, 'why's he a manager?' I don't think that is there now because I did it for a long time. You just take what comes to you. You bloody well get on with it."

Ayr United still has that cache about it. The club down on the Ayrshire coast plays at a ground, Somerset Park, much loved in the old days of the 1970s, and McCall is keen to start rebuilding the brand. No-one knows how this latest chapter will unfold, but he is a manager bristling with new energy and ideas.

"I'm excited about it, I can't wait to get going," he says. "It's weird, because I'm a manager now of 600, maybe 700 games, but I'm feeling nervous about giving my first team talk again away at Brechin tomorrow.

"There is great potential at the club. Historically, Ayr United would sit 13th, 14th, maybe 15th in Scotland. Now we are sitting 31st. So this is a good time to get the job. I only want to go one way. I feel ambitious for myself and I feel really ambitious for Ayr. We have plans to make it better than it is now.

"Some key things have not changed about football. I heard an Alex Neil interview recently and the simplicity of what he said was quite striking: in football you try to put the ball in the net, and you try to keep it out of your own net. That's it - not rocket science. I just want to go again."

There is a rumour that, of all people, Neil Lennon helped McCall get the Ayr job - or at least, that he commended him to the club. McCall is touched by this, too.

"If it's true, it was a really nice thing to do," he says. "I don't know Neil that well at all, but he seems a decent guy, and is doing really well at Bolton. I feel lucky and, after a lot of experiences, I feel far more disciplined about how I live my life now. I don't know, maybe Neil could relate to that.

"I just want to get out there, test myself once again, and try my very best for my club."