The Beauty of the Final Day

Triumph, anxiety, excitement, relief, disappointment, joy, sadness. Find me an emotion that the final day of the league season doesn't involve.

Kilmarnock fans pack out the East Stand at Rugby Park.

I'll admit it, I was a stunningly uneducated football fan before last Sunday. Of course, I had attended concluding matches to the league season beforehand, but seemingly those occasions lacked all that raw emotion. And you can watch Jeff Stelling and the guys on Sky Sports all you want, because (almost) nothing can quite compare to the drama of seeing the final day live.

When Kilmarnock striker Eamonn Brophy's 89th minute, Europa League-clinching penalty hit the back of the net on Sunday 19th May 2019, I turned around to see my grandad, typically grumpy, being almost hauled to the ground by a man who has sat next to him for around 5 years, in the sheer pandemonium of the celebrations at Rugby Park. It was a goal that sparked a wild sea of blue and white "limbs" in the East Stand, but what set that feeling apart from any other league victory over Rangers was the overawing family and community pride during the aftermath of the penalty. Rather than typically giving the Rangers supporters the two fingers and a number of other gestures, the Kilmarnock public embraced their loved ones. These are, for the most part, fans who had been turning up to Rugby Park out of duty rather than actually wanting to go along to watch Killie for far too many years, and what followed Brophy's goal, which clinched European football for Kilmarnock for the first time since 2001-02, was an undeniable release of emotion for the whole town. People with nothing but a common interest in Kilmarnock FC, sat beside one another for 5, 10, 20 years or more, suddenly rushed to hug, high-five or simply scream in union as the proud people of Ayrshire realised that no matter what Aberdeen did at Easter Road in the capital, Kilmarnock were going into Europe.

The title-race in England may have come down to a nail-biting, tense final day, but I challenge you to find one reason why the fans in those stadiums felt the drama more than in a sun-kissed East Ayrshire on the final day of the Scottish Premiership season. Personally, I don't recall Manchester City or Liverpool fans having a particularly hard time in the last 5 years. Killie's success, or failure, often reflects the mood of the whole town. When referee Willie Collum blew the final whistle at Rugby Park, the town of Kilmarnock had their team back. It just goes to show, the final day of the league season can often entirely alter the atmosphere of a whole town, from the pain of relegation to the sheer delirium of success. And what is success, without years of suffering?