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Tommy Sloan insists there will be no celebrations at Auchinleck Talbot after being gifted the West Region Premiership title.

The Bot boss admits he’s been left bemused by the Scottish Junior FA’s decision to declare his side as champions despite sitting in third place with an astonishing nine games in hand behind Kilwinning Rangers, who were no fewer than 12 points clear in the table.

It’s a move which has triggered derision across all levels of the game with a points per game ratio being applied to come to a conclusion which Sloan is adamant won’t see any champagne corks being popped down in Ayrshire.

League sponsors McBookie have also been left in a state of confusion and will weigh up the ruling before deciding whether to pay out bets on all junior leagues.

He said: “There won’t be any celebrating and nobody is jumping up and down with joy at Auchinleck.

“A decision has been taken and it’s a surprising one from my point of view as I’d have preferred the season to have been declared null and void. What we have to accept is that it’s been an independent decision and none of the clubs involved have had any say in it.

“The people who made the decision did so by themselves and we as a club now have to move on.

“I’ve had no communication with other clubs but I would imagine Kilwinning won’t be happy.

“They have come out on the wrong side of this and we are the club which has benefited from this decision.

“We’ve been given the league in an average points system so there is an anti-climax.

“But I can assure you, there will be no celebrating down here. We are more interested in whether football will restart next season.

“If the season was declared null and void we would just have moved on and looked towards next season.

“It’s a strange feeling to have been given this league title but all we can do is accept the decision.”

Talbot’s average points per game ratio of 2.56 comfortably outstrips Kilwinning’s 2.12 and the SJFA decided Darvel and Blanytre Vics will share the Championship title despite Darvel sitting top of the table on 53 points but Blantyre, in third on 46 points, had three games in hand.

Sloan is adamant his side are not alone in being handed titles prematurely in the midst of a pandemic which is now all about looking ahead to trying to get a return to action next season.

He said: “It’s a unique situation and there will be reasons who these decisions have been taken and we are not the first side to benefit from this recently.

"There have been other teams in other leagues who have been awarded things. We were in a strong position to win the league even though we still had a lot of games left to play but in football you aren’t there until you are there. That’s why it’s been a bit of a surprise to me.

“We want to look forward now to next season when we are hopefully all back playing football again even if that looks a long way away at the moment.

“The big question is how are we going to get over this health crisis?

“Are we even going to have football at our level or at any level?

“I just don’t get how you are going to be able to social distance when you are playing football as this virus doesn’t look as though it’s going to go away.

“Let’s hope some solution can be found but it’s hard to see what that may be.

“What pleased me was the consistency my team had shown this season up until it stopped.

“We had a decent run in the senior Scottish Cup where we had some great games and lost out in a replay against Arbroath. We had put ourselves into a strong position in the league, we were in the quarter-finals of the Junior Scottish Cup and were still in the West of Scotland Cup so we had loads to play for and we haven’t been able to fulfil any of those goals.”

It’s a farcical end to the season before a major re-organisation of the Scottish game is set to take place with the formation of the West of Scotland league within the Scottish senior football pyramid and Kilwinning chairman Colin Boyd insists he’s washed his hands of a debacle which leaves a sour taste when it comes to sporting integrity.

He said: “Junior football is over for us so we don’t really care. As a club we are moving forward to the West of Scotland League. The season in our eyes is null and void.

“This is maybe one of the reasons we are leaving. There is no rule to end the season but the SJFA have managed to make one but they haven’t told us how they have come to that conclusion.

“We now accept it and move on. In our eyes nobody should have benefited from this season but now Auchinleck have access to next season’s senior Scottish Cup. That is the only benefit. If we won it, would we have handed the trophy and medals back? I don’t know.

“I’m certainly not going to comment on Auchinleck winning it but it does seem that the winner in every league has played the least amount of games.

“Talbot played 16 games and Johnstone Burgh played 14 so they have rewarded clubs for not fulfilling their fixtures. In our eyes nobody should be benefiting from this season but there’s no prize money so that’s fine.

“We won’t be looking at this season as having won it or not having won it as there are no winners.

“It’s about the survival of clubs just now and trying to make sure as many of them return when this is all over.”

Shettleston have been declared League One champions while Johnstone Burgh take the League Two honours.