AFTER being presented with the trophy and medals last Saturday, Old Newton will surely have their Kingsley Healthcare SIL championship win confirmed at tonight’s league management committee.

If not league officials will be left with very red faces.

Newton have done exceedingly well and I have no gripe at all with them taking the trophy.

But to have played a player last season and then this who was officially banned for life from the game does put a big dampener on their achievement.

I accept that they were completely innocent having no knowledge of the offence, but the player should have passed on information when he signed that he had been banned sine die in Norfolk after a Sunday club he was playing for failed to pay its debts.

This is the least he should have done so that his situation could have been checked.

The FA has found them guilty of the offence, and a sceptic would suggest that they should not even have been in the Senior Division this season after promotion last term. Let alone win the title this time around.

But it looks as though they are not going to receive any points penalty as is the right of the league with each case decided independently.

Compare this to the case of Ipswich Athletic, who had six points deducted for playing an ineligible player at a time when they were in the hunt for the title – while Newton were still playing someone banned for life!

Leiston St Margarets also lost points for the same offence, and ultimately Felixstowe United have as well – paving the way for Newton to overtake them by courtesy of the fours points Felixstowe lost last week.

Okay, Felixstowe’s - and Ipswich Athletic’s and Leiston St Margarets’ - case is perhaps a more severe one, but they all centre around ignorance rather than an attempt to blatantly cheat.

Well done Old Newton – a great club with great people and great players.

But I can’t help but be left feeling dreadfully sorry for Felixstowe United as they look at pictures of the Newton players celebrating.