Bonnyton Thistle

Kilmarnock is a town built around one professional club, and Bonnyton Thistle has spent most of its life in a different register entirely, tending the district's own boys before they ever got near a first team. The Bonnyton area gave its name to a youth and amateur setup that only became a senior club in 2017, the same year it moved into The Synergy Arena on Harriet Road, a hundred of them seated.

The academy did the early talking. That production line is still the strongest argument for Bonnyton Thistle's place in Ayrshire football: Craig Conway came through the same Bonnyton Babes ranks before winning seven caps for Scotland and playing for Dundee United and Cardiff City, while Derek Stillie , once a goalkeeper at Aberdeen and Wigan Athletic, returned to coach goalkeepers at the club.

Senior football brought its own reward quickly. In 2018-19 the club won the Southern Counties Cup, the Alba Cup and the Detroit Trophy in the same season, and the following year it joined the West of Scotland Football League. There is no derby to speak of; Kilmarnock's real rivalry belongs to Kilmarnock FC and Ayr United, which leaves the town's junior game to carry on quietly in blue and white, in a small stand on Harriet Road, watched by whoever the academy sent out that week.