It’s a little ironic that this Friday night Macarthur FC will draw one of the biggest home crowds in their short history even though they cannot play finals football.
The Bulls will host Wellington Phoenix in the last round of the 2025-26 A-League season.
Thousands of Campbelltown residents are expected to take advantage of their Council’s generosity in agreeing to pay for up to 7500 of them to attend the game.
Despite the failure of the Bulls to make the finals once again, a big crowd will be in attendance at Campbelltown Stadium to see them play the final game of the season.
It has been a real roller-coaster season for Macarthur FC, who also made the knockout stage of the Asian Champions League 2 competition.
Indeed, that was the precise moment when the wheels fell off in the A-League.
Bulls had been travelling very well in the first 10 or so rounds of the competition and were high up on the ladder for most of that period.
But after being knocked out of the ACL2, the Bulls A-League form also went missing in action for the next 10 rounds and they failed to win a match.
They got back on track four weeks ago when they knocked off the teams coming first and second, Newcastle and Auckland.
Suddenly they had a sniff of a finals spot, maybe even finishing high enough to get a home final if they could win their final three regular season games.
Bulls then had two crucial games on the road, first to Perth and then Adelaide.
Unfortunately, they fell short in both, losing with the same score, 3-1, to Glory and United.
The second loss, in Adelaide, was the final blow to their finals hopes, so it will just be pride they will be playing for on Friday night at Campbelltown Stadium.
Hopefully they will put on a good performance to ensure that some of those people attending off the back of a council “freebie’’ ticket return to support them next season.
Bulls v Phoenix, Campbelltown Stadium, Friday, April 24, 7.35pm kick-off.