Today's Killie Fans Are Doing More Bleating Than Ruby And Angus Ever Managed (and some will not even know who Ruby and Angus were)

THE SQUEALING, bleating and sense of entitlement which has been coming from some Kilmarnock fans since Thursday night's disappointing early exit from Europe, at the hands of Connah's Quay Nomads has been disappointing to an old Rugby Park hand like me.

The way some of the Rugby Parkers are behaving confirms that for some Scots, the wind is always in their faces.

Angus the sheep photo-bombs a Jackie McInally

autograph-signing session - today, some Killie

fans are doing more bleating than Angus ever did 

Can I offer a modicum of perspective to those who are calling for the Manager's head, and saying they will not be back. Those saying: “How dare those Welsh part-timers beat us, the Mighty Killie – have a look at the club's history.

Now, I do not intend to go back to the very start, but, I had a look at how Killie have done since the end of World War II – 74 seasons-worth of performances in the Scottish League. I have not looked at cups, since there is an element of luck involved in cup progress. However, the league is a more-level playing field.

When football resumed at the end of WWII, in season1945-46, Killie finished the first season in 15th place in the 16-club First Division, but, with no relegation that year, they stayed put, only to again finish 15th in season 1946/47 and this time, they did go down.

In 47/8, they finished 6th in the Second Division, 22nd-best in Scotland, before slumping to 12th in that division the following season – leaving the club ranked 27th in Scotland. This is Killie's lowest post-war placing.

The club's average placing in the four post-war seasons of the 1940s, football's “golden Age” in terms of crowds, was 20th. Interestingly, the average attendance over the club's 15 home league games that season 1948-49, there worst in post-war history, was 8902.

In the 1950s, Killie saw the decade split equally – five seasons in each, between the First and Second Divisions, their average finishing place being 14th. Only twice in that decade, in 1956-7 and 1957-8, did they achieve a top six finish.

The 1960s were, of course, Golden Years for Kilmarnock – the decade capped by that League Championship in 1964-65. The club in those years from 1959-60 to 1968-69 finished: second, second, fifth, second, second, first, third, seventh, seventh and fourth for an average finishing position over the decade of third; regular forays into Europe and to the USA, Golden Years indeed.

After that, the only way was down, and the seventies were a turbulent decade for the club, with three relegations and three promotions during the ten years – although, one of the relegations was due to re-organisation, when the Premier Division was introduced in 1975.

Over the decade, however, after a high of seventh in 1969-70, Killie settled down to finish the decade in an average 13th spot, and back in the second tier in Scotland.

Mind you, these were good years, compared to what would follow in the 1980s, as Kilmarnock struggled. The decade began with them back in the top ten, finishing eighth in 1979-80. The next three seasons brought relegation, promotion and relegation again, before the club settled for mid-table mediocrity in the First Division, the middle one of the three senior divisions in Scotland at that time.

They had gone part-time, the board were seemingly short of cash and bereft of ideas and it all came tumbling down in 1988-89, with relegation to the Second Division, the bottom tier of Scottish football. Over the decade, Kilmarnock's average finishing position was as the 15^th best club in Scotland.

But, with the arrival of the Fleeting brothers, Bobby to galvanise the fans from the board room and Jim to bring stability in the dressing room, the long road back began. The immediate priority, getting promoted out of the basement division was achieved. The next two seasons were spent stabilising things before, in season 1993-94, Killie were back in the top flight, ten seasons after leaving it.

Getting established was tough, but, by the end of the decade, Killie were a top four club, they had won the Scottish Cup, got back into Europe and, over the decade, climbed back to being, on average, the 11th best team in Scotland.

The early 2000s saw Killie became Premiership regulars, ninth, fourth, seventh, fourth, tenth, fifth, firth, eleventh and eighth in the ten seasons, for an average placing of sixth, the best since the Golden Years of the 1960s.

There has been, it is true, a bit of slippage over the last decade, with a couple of flirtations with relegation via the end-of-season play-off. However, after Steve Clarke's first-season miracle of finishing fifth, followed by last season's third, expectations are high. Over the past decade, Kilmarnock has on average been the eighth-best team in Scotland.

I ask any Kilmarnock fan – can we reasonably expect much-better? The Bigot Brothers, the two Edinburgh sides, the two Dundee sides and Aberdeen can all surely, with their bigger catchment areas for both fans and sponsorships, can reasonably be expected to do better than us. It might be argued, St Mirren and Motherwell are as well set-up, if not better, than us.

I could probably live with a top eight finish every year, the occasional cup, or European campaign – that is probably as-much as we dare hope for.

So yes, over the past two years, Kilmarnock has punched above its weight category, and, naturally, there is disappointment when things do not go as we had hoped they might.

But, I ask those Killie fans who are fuming at Thursday's result: where would you rather be, where the club is now, or where it was in the 1940s, 1950s, 1970s and 1980s?

Study your club's history, then enjoy today's good days.