The confetti, when it finally fell, seemed to surprise even the stadium. For seventy-one years this franchise had been the league's most reliable punch line — a byword for noble failure, for the kind of loyalty that outlives its own justification.
On Saturday night, with a 3–1 victory sealed in the 89th minute on a goal by a 19-year-old academy product who grew up nine blocks from the stadium, the drought ended. The final whistle set off a celebration that the police later estimated drew 300,000 people into the streets.
“My grandfather took my father. My father took me,” said Helen Marsh, 68, who was seated in the same section the family has held since 1974. “I told my granddaughter tonight: you will never understand what this cost us. And I hope you never have to.”
The turnaround is already a case study in patience. The club's ownership resisted five years of pressure to sell its young core, kept faith with a manager through two relegation battles and built its squad largely from its own academy — an approach the sporting director, in the champagne-soaked locker room, described with a single word: “stubbornness.”
“Everybody wanted a shortcut,” he said. “There isn't one. There never was.”
Parade route details are expected Monday. The city, which has waited longer for this than for anything in its modern history, is not expected to object to the traffic.
