There was hope, for a while, after striker Dale Hilson fired them into an early lead.
There was belief too, after cheers round Station Park brought the news rivals Morton were trailing to Peterhead.
However, footballing fortunes can change in the blink of an eye and hope and belief all too quickly turned to disappointment as Forfar Athletic’s title hopes were blown away by an Ayr United team who secured their own League One status and avoided the relegation play-offs.
That disappointment was palpable among everyone connected with the Loons, from all sporting sky blue in the hugely impressive 1,916 crowd, through the dejected players who have given so much in a hugely impressive season, to manager Dick Campbell and chairman Alasdair Donald.
The Forfar boss was clearly downbeat afterwards as he reflected on what might have been and looked forward to picking his team up for the promotion play-off showdown, starting with second-placed Stranraer on Wednesday.
“I don’t think we played well enough today to win any game. Maybe we went to the well too often. I have five players missing today,” said the veteran boss.
“We got a great start with the penalty kick. But how their goalkeeper stayed on the park I do not know.
“Then we were caught in a counter attack and they got a penalty which I thought was soft.
“I am really disappointed for my players. I thought we could have done a lot better than we did today.”
It was always the slimmest of chances the league-sponsored helicopter would have been making its way to Station Park rather than Cappielow. But for a while the footballing gods appeared to favour the Loons.
They enjoyed the best possible of starts when, after just six minutes, Hilson collected a ball from Michael Dunlop in the box only to be chopped down by keeper David Hutton.
The stopper was lucky to be shown just the yellow card before Hilson himself thumped home the resulting spot-kick.
The pace remained frenetic and there were huge cheers when news filtered through that Peterhead had gone ahead against Morton.
Those cheers from the home fans were subdued and replaced by those from the sizeable travelling support in the 34th minute when Dunlop brought down Adam Blakeman in the box after attempting to recover a mistake.
He, too, was booked and John Paul McGovern made no mistake from the penalty.
Worse followed two minutes later when Dunlop was shown a second yellow and sent off for a poor tackle on Robbie Crawford.
The game completely turned in the 41st minute when Jordan Preston headed Ayr ahead, dispatching a cross from the left.
And the Honest Men made sure they would avoid the play offs in the 64th minute when Alan Forrest dispatched a sweet strike low into the bottom corner from inside the box.
With four minutes left Loons captain Gavin Swankie clipped the cross bar, but it wasn’t to be and Campbell’s side need to now pick themselves up for a tough double-header against Stranraer.