Tara Murray
Whittlesea United will play in the Victorian Premier League 2 competition for the first time next season.
Whittlesea secured a top two spot and promotion with two rounds remaining. A win on Saturday against Westgate will seal the title.
Whittlesea’s Nabi Tuna said it was a pretty exciting time for the club.
“It’s the top two that get promoted,” he said. “FV congratulated us on going up which means we’re home and hosed and playing VPL2 next season.
“It’s the highest league the club will be in. We’ve been in state league 1 for the last five seasons.
“It’s really exciting and it’s a big buzz for the club and a big buzz around the community which is what we wanted.”
Tuna said it’s still to sink in that they have done enough to finish in the top two.
The club sits three points clear of second heading into the final two rounds. It has lost just two games for the season.
“It’s almost surreal,”he said. “We enjoyed the weekend after securing promotion,” he said.
“Our minds are on the championship now.We still have two weeks of hard work to go.
“We’ll then put our feet up and enjoy it.”
Tuna said the playing group was keen to add the championship to their cabinet as well and finish the season on a winning note.
He said while being promoted after finishing second is nice, winning the title is a different feeling.
The club finished second in state league 3 before being promoted, while they won a state league 2 title before going up.
“The motivation is still there,” he said. “Westgate is always a tough game, but we are still in Melbourne so hopefully we’ll have a lot of fans come to the game.”
Tuna said overall the club was in a really good position.
He said the coaching panel led by Andrew Marth, who joined the club early in the season, had put a lot of hard work into getting the club into the position it is in.
The work though is only just beginning.
“The local community is behind us,” he said. “We can not ask for any more.
“The next season starts in February, so as soon as the season ends we are back to the drawing board.
“We don’t want to be making up the numbers.”
