mcruic

1st Round: Scores will be updated as matches are played. 1 Nairn Saint Ninian 1-1 Dyce AET, Dyce 4-2 on pens 2 Newmachar United 1-2 Maud 3 Rossvale 4-2 Irvine Meadow 4 Banks o' Dee 2-2 Tynecastle AET, Banks o' Dee 4-3 on pens 5 Lanark United 1-4 Pollok 6 Bo'ness United Community 0-2 Saint Andrews United 7 Upper Annandale 3-1 Newton Stewart 8 Harthill Royal 4-5 Scone Thistle 9 Whitehill Welfare 2-0 Crossgates Primrose 10 Abbey Vale 3-1 Threave Rovers 11 Edinburgh United 1-2 Dunbar United 12 Girvan 0-2 Pumpherston 13 Lesmahagow 1-0 Saint Roch's 14 Camelon 4-0 Thurso 15 Saltcoats Victoria 0-4 Broughty Athletic 16 Hall Russell United 1-3 Dalry Thistle 17 Lochmaben 3-2 Eyemouth United 18 Bathgate Thistle 2-0 Glasgow Perthshire 19 Kilbirnie Ladeside 7-0 Forres Thistle 20 Lochee United 6-0 West Calder United 21 Yoker Athletic 2-1 Broxburn Athletic AET 22 Coupar Angus 0-6 Beith 23 Lothian Thistle Hutchison Vale 3-0 Tweedmouth Rangers 24 Tranent 3-1 Oakley United 25 Blairgowrie 1-1 Clydebank AET, Clydebank 5-4 on pens 26 Muirkirk 5-0 Forfar West End 27 Golspie Sutherland 1-0 Ardrossan Winton Rovers 28 East Craigie 1-0 Haddington Athletic 29 Hawick Royal Albert United 0-2 Livingston United 30 Bridge of Don Thistle 0-7 Kilwinning Rangers 31 Sunnybank 1-3 Jeanfield Swifts 32 East End 3-1 Easthouses Lily Miners Welfare 33 Spey Valley United 0-3 Montrose Roselea 34 Wigtown & Bladnoch 1-5 Cumnock 35 Rosyth 1-3 Petershill 36 Halkirk United 0-2 Darvel 37 Saint Cuthbert Wanderers 2-4 Ashfield 38 Auchinleck Talbot 9-0 Creetown 39 Burghead Thistle 1-3 Culter 40 Colony Park 2-1 Loch Ness 41 Inverness Athletic 0-1 Fraserburgh United 42 Kirkcaldy & Dysart 0-2 Largs Thistle 43 Ardeer Thistle 1-2 Armadale Thistle 44 Stoneywood Parkvale 2-0 Bunillidh Thistle 45 Larkhall Thistle 1-0 Deveronside 46 New Elgin 1-0 Sauchie Community 47 Musselburgh Athletic 3-2 Kirkintilloch Rob Roy 48 Carnoustie Panmure 2-0 Mid-Annandale 49 Heston Rovers 6-1 Newmains United 50 Orkney 0-1 Kirriemuir Thistle 51 Kello Rovers 3-1 Scourie 52 Lochar Thistle 2-2 Nithsdale Wanderers AET, Lochar Thistle 4-1 on pens 53 Aberdeen University 3-2 Stoneyburn 54 Cruden Bay 0-4 Hermes 55 Glentanar 0-6 Heriot-Watt University 56 Drumchapel United 2-0 Forth Wanderers AET

As there's no football at the moment, I thought it might be fun to simulate a Scottish Cup with all the senior and junior clubs of Scotland (278 clubs). Using Excel, and a wee program that calculates strength based on last season's final league tables and simulates matches with some random variables so there's the possibility of some shocks. I'll post results here as the rounds are played. Straight knockout. 1st Round: Entries: All Tier 6 and below. 202 clubs. 90 clubs bye to 2nd Round. 56 ties 2nd Round: Entries: 90 byes, 56 winners from 1st Round, 17 LL clubs, 17 HL clubs. 180 clubs 90 ties 3rd Round Entries: 90 winners from 2nd Round + 10 League 2 clubs. 100 clubs 50 ties 4th Round Entries: 50 winners from 3rd Round + 10 League 1 clubs. 60 clubs 30 ties 5th Round Entries: 30 winners from 4th Round + 10 Championship clubs. 40 clubs 20 ties 6th Round Entries: 20 winners from 5th Round + 12 Premiership clubs. 32 clubs 16 ties Then straight knockout to the final. 7th Round Quarter-Finals Semi-Finals Final

I know there is no Superleague - they'd be comfortably mid-table if there was one now based on current membership. Likewise, Tier 6 could be a Tayside league in the South or a merged Tayside/Fife league.

A longstanding cup competition (with only 2 or 3 inter-region games a season average for most clubs) is not a good reason - Tayside clubs also competed in a cup competition with Fife clubs, being located geographically between the North and Fife. Likewise, the Lowland League/EoS League has now taken out most of the strength of the East Juniors. So Montrose Roselea would also be a comfortable mid-table Superleague side in the East Juniors now. North Juniors were always the weakest of the 3 (and before that 6) regions, so it's not really a surprise if a Tayside club plays in that league and does well. And the "attempted" merger was exactly that - it didn't happen. Travel is highlighted simply because leagues should be organised with this in mind (especially at tiers 6 and below, but even at tier 5). There is nobody disputing that (some) Tayside clubs would improve the Highland League. But they'd also improve the EoS and Lowland Leagues. We can't just shove teams into the North because they don't have many teams there. The main reason I'd put them in the South (I'd prefer North/West/East like the juniors) is because they are not in the North of the country. Tayside is below the north-south midline of Scotland.

Only 4 of them - Wick, Brora, Fort William and Clachnacuddin. They'd face more travel than all the rest. As I said, Hawick would face less travel than Wick. Just because Dundee would have less travel than 25% of the current HL, that is not a compelling reason to put them in as "North".

Clubs at Tier 5 only have to travel half the country. They get at least a year of that to try it out before they have the chance to go up to Tier 4. Many clubs will be at Tier 5 for the foreseeable future - at least half of the Lowland and Highland League clubs are not going to win the league in the foreseeable future, so they will never need to travel Scotland-wide. The "current structures" you talk about weren't there less than 10 years ago (Lowland League, West of Scotland League, for example) - That's about 2/3 of all the Tier 5 and Tier 6 clubs in Scotland who find themselves in leagues and structures that did not exist until 2013. Your last sentence smacks of condescension and also a let's-make-do-with-the-crap-we-have attitude. Neither are particularly helpful or forward-looking, and this type of attitude is what's held back the pyramid for so long.

Thanks - I realise people can probably get results and league tables if they look at all the individual websites of the associations - but having them all in one place seemed like a good idea! I've added a "run" column to the league table (which gives the current streak of a team - x matches unbeaten or winless). The last "empty" column in the league table is for adjustments /(- or + points deductions/additions).

Take 4-5 and replace it with "however long it takes for leagues to stabilise" (Stabilise meaning the teams who are Tier 5 strength now actually reaching that level). That might be 10 years - that's not the point I'm trying to make. The point I'm making is that the top Tayside teams as a whole would have less travel in ANY Lowland structure compared with a similar Highland structure.

There's Forfar (2 clubs), Kirriemuir, Brechin, Arbroath, Carnoustie. Brechin, the furthest north, is only half an hour from Dundee. There's also Blairgowrie and Coupar Angus in Perthshire. Blair is only about 25 mins from Perth. Apart from those 8 clubs, the other 9 are in or just outside Dundee. If you drew a line through the middle of mainland Scotland from West to East, Brechin, the most northerly town in the East Region juniors, would be on the South side of that line. It's latitude is closer to Gretna than it is to Thurso.

Hawick is closer to Aberdeen than Wick, so that's not really saying anything... If Wick can do it so can Hawick - so Hawick can join the HL... There is 10-15 miles extra travel north of the HL-LL boundary for Tayside clubs, even without Brora, Wick and Fort William. That's given my example, which shows a possible lineup in 4-5 years, and with 3 extremely local derbies contributing almost nothing to the average milegae. At first, the travel for Tayside clubs stepping up would be even greater, as there would only be the 1 Tayside club at Tier 5 to begin with if they accepted promotion.

I'm aware possibly the bottom half of the Highland League would eventually be at Tier 6, and there would be a lot of movement - possibly only 4 or 5 Tayside clubs would ever actually be at Tier 5. If we take as an example, the Top 4 Tayside clubs from last year (Broughty, Carnoustie, Lochee Utd, Downfield), and put them into a putative "Future Highland League" (Top 10 Highland + 4 North Juniors + 4 Tayside Juniors) or put them into the equivalent Lowland structure (Top 6 Lowland + 4 West of Scotland + 4 East of Scotland + 4 Tayside). Average travel distances are as follows: HIGHLAND Carnoustie - 93 miles Lochee Utd/Downfield - 94 miles Broughty - 98 miles LOWLAND Lochee Utd/Downfield - 60 miles Broughty - 62 miles Carnoustie - 73 miles Even if we take Brora and Wick out and replace them with Aberdeen teams, all 4 clubs have shorter travel distances in the Lowland structure.

The reason I included Tayside in the EoS rather than Highland setup is that they've historically played as part of the East setup (not the North). Also some people seem to think that Dundee is in the Far North. Most clubs in Tayside are closer to Edinburgh than they are to the nearest HL club (Inverurie Loco Works). In fact, Dundee to Glasgow is only 2 miles more than Dundee to Inverurie, and Dundee is closer to Hawick than it is to Rothes.

Just a note - the proposed "one place for all results/tables" has now been set up (senior/junior/amateur/welfare/women). I've set up spreadsheets for each association, and I've written the code in Python to pull results from spreadsheets once they are entered, and make webpages with tables/results for each league. I've also put in an automatically generated "form guide" showing results of last 6 games (most recent first), and a value between 0 and 100 based on this, along with a points per game column. There's a randomly generated "example" league at the bottom to show how things would look when the results are entered. Hopefully once the season starts I'll be able to keep this updated. http://scotscores.theroonba.com/

I think anything that reduces travel at lower tiers is more sensible than what we have. A true pyramid should have more parallel leagues the further we go down, not vertical divisions. If the EoS has a single division at Tier 7, it will then have a single division at Tier 8 also. And if the West ends up with 4 single division tiers, we have a very crap looking pyramid.

So call it what you want. Call it Premier 2, call it Division 2. Call it "jist aboot bit no quite". Structure is a sensible one. Better than what is (or isn't there at the moment.

That's not what I said. Read what I said - this is an EXAMPLE of how it MAY look - not straight away. It's a possible structure, and I've put clubs in positions in some cases where I think they belong, based on nothing but playing strength. I don't give two hoots if anyone wants to call it "fantasy" - a couple of years ago, the Lowland League was a fantasy. So again - nobody is advocating bringing in juniors and putting them ahead of senior clubs. But if you bring in the juniors, they WILL leapfrog the shitty senior clubs. So stopping them from doing so in the first season will make no difference at all in the long run. Kelty started from the bottom - they could have been in the SPFL next year. Made no difference to them except it took a year longer. In summary - WE ALL KNOW that there are current agendas for how the EoS and Lowland League want to do things - but if and when the juniors join, they will have to adapt (those who join AND the leagues they join). Things can and do change. So ffs, would all the naysayers stop attacking people that come up with sensible solutions and saying "oh that's just fantasy, that'll never happen", and stop getting all offended that your crappy senior teams are worse at playing football than some junior teams. It's a fact. Get used to it. The structure I came up with is a very workable solution IF all current senior and junior teams in the East region (+Tayside) come together and agree to be part of one structure. That's all. Nothing to get your knickers in a twist about.

Arniston and Easthouses are at a playing level below many current junior clubs - I am not advocating putting them there straight away, but if all the current junior teams joined the pyramid, Arniston would end up below them on current strength...

So have a 16-team Premiership, a 16-team Championship, and split it at Tier 8... Hey presto - single-division Tier 6 and Tier 7 of 16 teams, and 3 Tier 8 leagues of 14-16 teams. Seems like a sensible structure to me. Essentially, it replicates the old East Juniors structure, with a region-wide Super and Premier League, and regional divisions below.

True - my point was that there are a similar number of teams in Tayside that are more than a couple of miles further north than Dundee or Perth, which are roughly at the same latitude as the North of Fife. St. Andrews and Newburgh would be closer to most clubs than they are now. Most of the other Fife clubs are located close to the main Fife-Dundee road (the A92). An alternative would be a 3-way Tier 7. Tier 6 - EoS Premier - 16 clubs Tier 7/8 - EoS North (Tayside+North Fife), EoS Central (rest of Fife, West Lothian, Falkirk, Stirling), EoS South (Edinburgh, Midlothian, East Lothian, Borders) With the current clubs, this would result in something like this:

It's a shame that Tayside seems to be seen as a "problem" for travel, even by teams in the East Juniors. There has to be a sensible way to include Tayside teams in the Pyramid that doesn't involve throwing them in below the Highland League. I'd quite like to see the EoS League regionalise at Tier 7 into Tayside/Fife and Lothian/Borders. Fife clubs don't seem to mind travelling to the Borders, so surely wouldn't object to travelling to Tayside...

Going to be quite a spread - Lochee United v Forfar Albion, Whitburn v West Calder United, etc. seem like huge mismatches. 32-match season is quite a lot at junior level as well.

Has there been any word on setups for next season? Or will this be decided at the SJFA AGM? North seems to be 14-9-10 (with Rothie Rovers coming in) East will be divided into North and South. 17 clubs in the North lends itself to a 9-8 division, but what about the South, with only 13 clubs - 2 divisions of 7 and 6, or a single division of 13? No possibility of any teams joining the East Region for next season?

I notice there are only 17 teams in the table on the EoS League website - is this an error? Inverkeithing are missing.

Not sure, but I noticed that Inverkeithing are not in the Premier Division table on the EoS League website - only 17 clubs.

The important thing is to move on. At a certain point in time, people were (and still are) unsure of the pyramid, for various reasons. It doesn't matter now. Once more clubs join, word will get around that it's not the Black Lagoon.