When it comes to grand final despair, it doesn’t come any worse than being beaten by the barest of margins.

Just ask Charlton and St Arnaud – the two combatants for this Saturday’s North Central Football League grand final at Wedderburn.

The last time these two clubs had the chance to win a premiership, they both suffered agonising one-point losses.

One lousy point, both at the hands of Wedderburn during the Redbacks’ run of four-straight flags between 2011 and 2014.

St Arnaud suffered the ill-fated fortune in 2012 when it almost pulled off the remarkable fairytale story of winless in 2011 to premiers the following season.

Billed as David v Goliath, the Saints were given little chance in the 2012 grand final – they had twice lost to the Redbacks by more than 100 points during the home and away season and had only just scraped into the finals.

But the Saints threw everything at the Redbacks in the final term as they rallied from a 26-point three quarter-time deficit, and had the chance to win when in one of the last passages of play, a shot at goal from Nick Coghlan missed and soon after, the siren sounded on a 16.12 (108) to 15.17 (107) win to Wedderburn.

And then last year there was double despair for Charlton – beaten by one point in EXTRA TIME in what was another grand final where Wedderburn was a raging flag favourite and only just snuck over the line.

Scores were locked together at 80 apiece at the final siren and unlike years gone by when such a result, such as 1973, would mean the combatants come back again the following week to do it all over again, the premiership was decided in extra time, where the Redbacks kicked three behinds to the Navy Blues’ two to snatch a fourth flag in a row.

As Divinyls sang in 1985, indeed, “it’s a fine line between pleasure and pain.”

Last year was a second tight grand final loss in a row for the Navy Blues, who 12 months earlier had lost to Wedderburn by 12 points, meaning there’s back-to-back years of disappointment helping fuel Charlton this Saturday, while St Arnaud since emerging from the doldrums has spent four years under coach James McNamee building towards the premiership.

For those impartial watchers on Saturday simply hoping to watch another entertaining NCFL grand final tussle like recent years – six of the past seven have been decided by 15 points or less – these two clubs have a history of putting on grand finals to remember.

In 1973 they played out a 110-all draw, before the Navy Blues prevailed in the replay the following week by 20 points to win the first of back-to-back flags.

And in 1990 the Navy Blues completed another set of back-to-back premierships by defeating the Saints by one point, 9.16 (70) to 9.15 (69), in the first of three-consecutive grand final losses in a row for St Arnaud.

Hopefully, another beauty awaits on Saturday... perhaps even another one-pointer.

Luke West is a sports reporter at the Bendigo Advertiser and his column, Way out West, appears each week online and in the newspaper.