It was a 36-hour roller coaster ride that eventually led to a happy resolution.

Early last week, Albury City thought their season was over before it began after Albury-Wodonga Football Association pulled the pin on 2020.

But after being granted a lifeline by Football Wagga, they gave every indication they'll be in the mix this year with a 4-0 trial win over Lake Albert on Sunday.

Both teams weren't at full strength but City's organisation and ability to keep possession against last year's grand finalists was impressive in their first hit-out under new coach Ricky Piltz.

It is understood a handful of Albury clubs made enquiries with Football Wagga about joining the Pascoe Cup for this year only, but Albury FC won the race to be the competition's tenth team.

Griffith club Hanwood won last year's grand final 2-1 over Lake Albert in their return to the Wagga association.

Albury City finished fourth in AWFA last year and while their inclusion removes byes and gives each team an extra game, they know Wagga teams won't want their trophy cabinet raided again.

"Every team is going to come out and bring it to us and I wouldn't expect anything less, I'd do the same thing if they came to our league," Piltz said.

"That's part of the enjoyment as well. It's going to be really good coming up against different teams playing different styles we haven't seen yet.

"It's a benefit to all the people who have worked really hard behind the scenes, because it hasn't been an easy task to get approved to come up here.

"I've got phones full of different comments and pages and pages of correspondence, but having such a good turnout (crowd) here today is fantastic.

"We had a couple of points we raised we really wanted to focus on today (Sunday's trial). It's a different game plan to what they're used to, but seeing the blokes taking it under their wing is awesome."

Albury City captain David Samiec also expects inter-town rivalry to be prevalent.

"I don't blame them, if the shoe was on the other foot I wouldn't want them to be taking our silverware either," Samiec said.

"We're not even thinking about that, we'll play each game and see how we go at the end.

"It was a roller coaster of emotions (before being granted Pascoe Cup entry), but we'd been training for a long time in the hope our season would kick off and to get some reward is a bonus."

Lake Albert goalkeeper Hayden Callander was impressed with the displays of some young talent expected to play plenty of first grade this year, including forward Moses Redamwang and defender Jackson Manton.

"They (Albury City) are well drilled and it was good for our boys because it shows us where we're at," he said.

"We had a couple out and they probably did too. We certainly approached it as a trial but it showed us a thing or two."

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