EdTheDuck

I think this could reboot (some of) the North Juniors. If you still live in the NE, you’ll be aware the Juniors here are largely glorified amateurs and get very little in the way of local media coverage, pretty much because they are overshadowed by the HFL. However, there are clubs with significant potential: Ellon, Culter, Stonehaven, Dyce, Stoneywood-Parkvale and a few in Aberdeen City (not least Sunnybank FFS) who could definitely benefit from improved attention and an opportunity to climb the ladder, so to speak. However, that lack of media coverage has also meant almost no P&J/EE or local radio coverage of the pyramid and its implications/possibilities for the Juniors so…y’know.

I've read a lot of this thread but there is a helluva lot of it so I may have missed this but am I right in thinking the Highland League pyramid would consist of the North Juniors and the Tayside Juniors? And is there any indication which, if any, of said Juniors (other than Banks o' Dee) are interested in joining the pyramid in the immediate future? In the event the old boys in the HFL are persuaded to actually join the 21st century of course.

Seriously, the rest of the league, the SFA and fans of other HFL clubs should all contribute to keeping them going just for the setting.

Yuh, 4 points will likely do it, their goal difference is 100 compared to The Broch's mere 64... The fall off in quality is cliff face steep Playing 3/4 times in a pro league is one thing, money matters and all that, but in an essentially recreational league? Not so much. Maybe being part of the pyramid changes that but...y'know 12 team league? Play 3 times? ... meh...

Cove 2-0 up at half time vs Grantown

There is a Scottish Cup semi-final between these two in less than two weeks and but for the luck of the draw it could have been a cup final at the end of May. What is appropriate policing in that instance? If these howl-at-the-moon halfwits cannot behave even within the lax standards we allow them, then play the fucking games in front of empty stands until they do behave. Stop acquiescing to them.

I'm not sure if this tin-pot-ness applies to the SPFL or the Weeg/WoS. What an unadulterated piece of pathetic nonsense (the first story, although the Riordan story...y'know) https://stv.tv/sport/football/1411705-football-talk-old-firm-fixture-fears-riordan-goes-amateur/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=stvaberdeen

As Jebediah Aberdein stated at the founding of our great club European Success Embiggens The Smallest Club

Yuh. This is like a kid stating ‘your dad’s better than my dad but that other kids dad is better than your dad’. It’s almost dissociation, a detachment from reality. I said before, I genuinely think he may have a “want”

This one is a fucking doozy Can't count. Silly fucker ETA last 30 years Aberdeen 4 trophies, Hearts 3 trophies, Hibs 3 trophies (Dundee United 2) Seriously, what a loser

This is what pathological fixation looks like Next step is probably sending dickpics to Pittodrie

Pittodrie, 1953 apparently (courtesy of Picture This Scotland twitter feed)

Killie go top of the Clausura table...if we had a Clausura table...which we don't...but if we did

Auntie Balls Uncle The whole article is an exercise in speculative futility. He is. as you say, a tit.

Yup, a badly tarnished silver lining. What really hacks me off is the fact that The Rangers, from top to bottom honestly believed they were going to win the game and could and would mount a challenge to Celtic. You can call it arrogance or self-deception or whatever you like but it works like belief. Compare that to Aberdeen who almost routinely, also from top to bottom, state unequivocally, apparently earnestly believing, that they cannot mount such a challenge. I hope Hibs, if they are to be the new Best Of The Rest, have more self-belief. We all know that in the long run the OF will win the title almost every time but when it all comes together for one of the others, however briefly, they can’t handicap themselves even further by wallowing in defeatism.

The worst points total at this point since he arrived here, 53. Previously 55, 63, 62 & 58. However, first season of his reign when Rangers, Hearts & Hibs have been in the league with us. (It’s also the second lowest points total for Celtic at this point of the season during McInnes’ reign, so…y’know.) As I said previously what he’s achieving is about bang average for AFC and he is still not falling below that level, even if we go out tomorrow. What he’s achieved isn’t remarkable but it isn’t, by any measure, disastrous. If McInnes could turn around the results vs. the OF(RIP) and put us in a position where meeting them in a Cup isn’t seen as an auto-exit he’d still get my vote. Now, the boy Milne on the other hand…

A sort of Terrible Potential Journalism avoided Although a win for Celtic is never usually a positive for me, the fact is has resulted in the gin soaked jakies at our national media having to bin pre-prepared headlines in the stylee of "Scottish Football Gets Its Mojo Back" and "Long Wait Without A Title Challenge Is Over" is a positive of sorts I can take from the game.

You don’t change it I’m afraid. You're right because 'most people' accept the clichés, including that hoary old chestnut 'American style gimmicks'. It’s bandied around as an insult, suggesting that these Americanisms simply wouldn't do in our game because we're above such crass manipulation. Jesus, just look at the hair-pulling, teeth-gnashing torment our wee split causes. At its worst; 'real' fans follow their team come Hell or high water and the need for adding incentives such as playoffs or splits is catering to glory hunters and part-timers, in fact ‘real fans’ are glad their teams don’t win titles because it would dilute the ‘realness’ of their support, they’d be as bad as Old Firm fans. IMO the short seasons, splits, playoffs and the like are a recognition of human nature. It’s natural for more fans to turn out for games that have something hanging on them rather than dead rubbers. As for Celtic, the Yanks have provided the ‘gimmick’ that would deal with their prime concern. The best team over the season in the MLS get a spot in the CONCACAF Champions League. Bingo! As long as they get their £30M I’m sure they would be happy enough to pass on something as minor as a trophy or a worthless label like champion. Anyway, it isn't going to happen. Even the split we have was no more than a pragmatic solution to a problem rather than an innovation. It was designed to allow enlargement to 12 teams but there was insufficient dates for 44 league games - the split was the compromise. If the big clubs get their way it would be gone, we'd have a top ten. If the smaller clubs get their way it will be gone , we'd have a top 16 or 18. The vast majority of football administrators, fans, journalists would dismiss playoffs, split seasons and the like without hesitation because our game "is too important"

European football is remarkabley conservative. Scottish football unbelievably so. There is an aceptance of, with apologies to Craig Levein, a ‘natural order’. The old clichés “the best team over the season wins the league” and “the league table doesn’t lie” are so instilled in European football thinking they are accepted not just as fact but a means to an end in themselves, in as much that it doesn’t matter if the traditional First-Past-The-Post is actually damaging the game as long as “the best team wins the league”. There is more chance of nailing a jelly to the ceiling than there is of the fuckwits involved in Scottish football ever introducing short-seasons, playoffs, revenue sharing or anything else of that ilk.

You have to remember these are the tools who celebrated a win at Firhill with a pitch invasion. If they finish second they'll be having bonfires and fireworks and laser shows and dancing until the wee small hours.

Applying a version of the Liga MX Apertura/Clausura (Winter/Spring) to our league, (where the top 4 playoff for the "titles") would see the following tables for Apertura (top) and the Clausura (bottom) which has just started. In this example, although Celtic won the top seeding spot for playoffs pretty comfortably, the race for 2nd/3rd went to the wire and the final place in the playoffs was decided on round 21 when Hibs drew at Tynecastle. Now much as an auld reekie derby is pretty tensa anyway this would have cranked it up a few notches, surely. Starting over from scratch completely changes the dynamic of the league as the bottom table demonstrates. Hibs & Kilmarnock fans, given their teams current form, would genuinely believe they have a chance of finishing top of the table. That, surely, would bring in extra fans? No?

Colombia introduced the same system in 2014. Their top 8 had previously gone into 2Xgroups of 4 teams and played each other home & away with group winners playing in a final. (Teams could play FIFTY games a season!?) The switch to Liga MX KO playoffs saw average attendances in the playoffs jump from about 14,000 to about 24,000. Please don’t go. Your ideas & suggestions may not be to everyone’s taste but at least you are offering up something different from the tedious ‘jist hae 18 teams playin’ twice, ken” without any logic or reasoning to support it beyond “it’s whit fans want, ken”.

This! This is how to make an 18 team league work! https://www.theguardian.com/football/the-agony-and-the-ecstasy/2017/feb/09/football-league-liga-mx-mexico-club-america-chivas

I told you. He's not a troll. He's defective. It would be cruel to poke him with sticks to get a rise, let him be.

He's trolling? I thought he was some sort of charity case on here as part of care in the community. Trolling, though...an Arab trolling anyone about a 7,000+ attendance? Really? Are you sure he isn't "needy"?