Celebrations continued for Haddington Athletic at the weekend, as they were crowned South Division champions following their 4-2 win over Pumpherston Juniors.

The county club clinched promotion last weekend, but knew a victory over Pumpherston would be enough to confirm them as champions.

A big crowd turned out to see if the Hi Hi could clinch the title and they had to do it the hard way, coming from 2-1 down with less than quarter of an hour to go to score three late goals and claim the championship.

Despite president Drew Donaldson describing it as a “rollercoater of an afternoon”, the celebrations could begin in earnest on full-time, as the Hi Hi were confirmed champions.

Manager Johnny Harvey was delighted to have clinched the title.

He told Courier Sport: “I was absolutely delighted – that was the goal at the start of the season so to have finally done it is brilliant.

“We made hard work of it, but that’s the nature of these things – the final hurdle is always the hardest one – but it shows the character in our team, the character of champions, to come back from 1-2 down with 13 minutes to go and win the title.

“We wanted to do it at home and it’s good not having to go away from home on the final day of the season to win it.” Donaldson echoed the manager’s feelings.

He said: “We are absolutely delighted – it has been a great season.

“We never expected to do this, we’ve been knocking on the door for a few years now but in some respects it looked like we’d taken a step back this year, as when Johnny took over we only had one player on our books, but players from last season signed up again.” And the president was keen to pay tribute to the work of those behind the scenes, many of who are Hi Hi veterans.

He said: “I was really pleased for everyone on the committee too, because we’ve all stuck together and we must have about 300 years [age] between us, and there aren’t many junior clubs who will be able to say that, so it was nice to see them enjoying their day.” Players past and present took to Twitter post-match to post their congratulatory messages.

Michael Noble tweeted: “After 3 years of trying, finally won the league with @HaddAth. Cmaaaaaaaaaaaan!!!”, while former Hi Hi star Ross Ferguson said: “Congratulations to 1 of my old clubs @HaddAth on being crowned league champions today #MonTheHiHi” While county MSP Iain Gray tweeted: “Congratulations to @HaddAth league champions!” Manager Harvey was praised by Donaldson, who said: “I’ve never met such an ambitious guy.

“He is very professional and has a big future in the game. For him to have achieved back-to-back promotions [he won the league with Edinburgh United last season], I can’t sing his praises highly enough.” Harvey admits his attentions are already turning towards next season.

“The lifestyle of being a manager means that you’re always looking ahead. We enjoyed ourselves and I’ll probably have a couple of weeks to enjoy what we’ve done, but then you start looking forward to next season,” he said.