The Final Word on Spring 2010

From an email sent Friday, July 2, 2010 at 5:50 a.m. from Manager Sean to FC77 Rangers:

Gentlemen,

As a follow-up to my email(s) yesterday regarding whether or not Rangers qualified for the championship match, I was in contact with GPSD via email for most of the morning to determine our post-season status. There is a section in the Rules of Competition that talks about forfeits and their effect on final standings. I’m sure many/most of you have looked this up already. It reads:

“Wins by forfeit. Teams will not receive credit for any "goals scored" in a forfeit win. No team may break a tie in the standings if they have a better goal differential caused by a regulation win with "goals scored" against an opponent, while the team they are tied with was required to take a forfeit win against the same opponent, with no credit for "goals scored".”

I read this a couple of different ways, so I emailed Terry and asked him to give me a ruling as to what this means. Here is his response:

“Sean I am sorry your team did not make the final it was very close between the three teams. I want you to know that the rules state that if teams are tied at the end of the season and a team won by forfeit and received no goal differential then the other teas/teams receive no goal differential. I did go over the scores and this is what I came up with.

Game 3220 FC Hut 4 – 2 Hawks

Game 3254 FC Hut 1 – 0 FC PFA Less 3 gives them a +13 goal differential

Game 3205 Lagers 2 – 0 Hawks

Game 3233 Lagers 3 – 0 FC PFA Less 5 gives them a +14 goal differential

I know if you could have won these two games 3 – 0 then you would have had 6 more goals and you would have had a +18.”

Unfortunately, his calculations matched the numbers I also determined. Rangers final goal differential at the end of the season was +12. I am very sorry, guys, but we missed the championship by a single goal.

Hut and Lagers do get promoted to the O-30 First. I believe FC Rogue and Goodfoot FC get the drop. I know I’m supposed to end on a big “Rah! Rah! Rah!” note, but I’m too bummed right now and I just don’t have it in me. Again, I’m really sorry. You guys totally deserved the post-season for the fourth time in five seasons.

Sean

Rangers...Fall season kicks off in just over two months.

We have something to prove.

We have some hardware to reclaim.

And we have some serious ass to kick.

See you in September.