Saturday’s 0-0 draw between Sunbury United and Cairnlea ended with both teams belting out their club songs to celebrate promotion.
But the reality was that this was a match in which both teams had nothing to gain and everything to lose.
A forfeit situation in FFV state league 3 north-west left both teams playing out a nervous draw, knowing that if either team won the other would miss out on promotion.
A week earlier, both had celebrated what they thought was promotion and were gearing up for a no-holds-barred battle for the title.
But a midweek tribunal ruling changed everything, leaving the prospect of one team missing out on promotion if the result was anything but a draw.
Both teams got the result they needed. Cairnlea won the title on goal difference, tying on 43 points with Sunbury United.
North Sunshine Eagles have 39 points and a game yet to be played, but can move to 42 at the most.
How North Sunshine came to be in this position has left Sunbury club members seething. On June 29, North Sunshine and Sporting Whittlesea were involved in a brawl that police believe involved up to 60 people.
The fall-out was that Football Federation Victoria, in a July 26 tribunal decision, expelled North Sunshine until December 31, wiping all its points in the process.
In August, FFV allowed North Sunshine Eagles to play up until an appeal against the expulsion was heard.
On September 2, the appeals board downgraded North Sunshine’s penalty to nine competition points and a $7500 fine.
With a backlog of fixtures set to be played last week, including the Eagles’ return game against Sporting Whittlesea, both Moreland United (September 18) and Sporting Whittlesea (September 21) opted to forfeit.
With the pair of 3-0 forfeit wins in pocket, North Sunshine was suddenly back in the promotion picture in spite of the points deduction.
Next up was to get its July 27 match against Westvale replayed, after it had originally been awarded as a 3-0 forfeit win to Westvale due to North Sunshine being expelled at the time.
Sunbury and Cairnlea soon got word that Westvale had no intention of playing the match and would hand North Sunshine another 3-0 forfeit win.
That forfeit will take North Sunshine to 42 points and a league-leading plus-28 goal difference.
North Sunshine (16 wins, 3 draws, 3 losses) ended the season with the league’s best record, only denied the title by the nine-point deduction imposed by the appeals board’s revised sanction.
Even with the risk of losing out on promotion, Sunbury created a handful of chances in a bid to clinch the title on
Saturday.
Cairnlea goalkeeper Greg Lascaris nearly dropped a free kick into his own net after following a regulation save with a fumble.
A late header skimming off a Cairnlea player nearly flew in for an own goal in the dying seconds.
But at full time it was Cairnlea celebrating the title, and Sunbury settling for promotion – albeit without the champions tag.
