mcruic

I discounted the reserve teams.

The main problem with the SoS, apart from the low level of football being played in comparison with other leagues at the same level, is the dearth of teams - 12 teams and nobody coming in from below. And if a Sunday amateur team wants to come in, they automatically find themselves just 2 promotions away from the SPFL. But as you pointed out, the SoS isn't the main problem: although it is certainly one of them. Among the other problems are the amount of time it will take the decent clubs to find their level due to the small number of promotion places to the Lowland League and beyond. In any case, the tables are not static, as you say, but even after teams have found their level, in the current structure you'd still have a vastly weaker SoS League at Tier 6 compared to the EoS and WoS equivalents. I don't see any problems with putting the SoS within the WoS structure. If Border teams can travel to Fife and Perthshire, then there isn't an issue. If an SoS team gets promoted to the LL, they will have much more travelling to do anyway. There's no travel issue until an SoS team accepts promotion anyway. And they'd have travel issues no matter what league they were promoted into. Putting the SoS in the WoS also doesn't take away a promotion opportunity - if the SoS team refused promotion, an extra team would be promoted from the other feeder league. Example: WoS North feeder 1. Rutherglen 2. Petershill 3. Shettleston WoS South feeder 1. Threave 2, Abbey Vale 3. Mid Annandale Threave refuses promotion, Petershill is promoted instead. Or if there were 3 feeders (Central, Ayrshire, SoS), there would be a play-off between the Central and Ayrshire runners-up to take the place vacated by the SoS team not accepting promotion.

Ach, in the name o the wee man. Nae point trying to explain anything. Suffice to say, your first statement is false. My point stands - SoS League should not be at tier 6 in any serious attempt to create a balanced pyramid. So, to reiterate: It's a problem if you think there should be a balanced pyramid. It's not a problem if you don't think there should be a balanced pyramid. You are in the latter group, and so don't see it as a problem. I am in the former group and see it as a problem. There's nothing more to be said about it.

Nothing is a problem compared with global inequality or the fate of this planet. If you want to see a decent and balanced pyramid structure, it is a problem. If you don't want to see that, then it isn't a problem. Simple.

The WoS League is already a fairly level playing field, and has been for years as the juniors, split into 4 divisions. The problem is that it's on the same level (Tier 6) as a league that would do well to beat Tier 9 teams. It's the equivalent, in England, of putting the Essex County League at the same level as the Conference South, and giving teams in both an equal chance of promotion to Tier 5. It will take more than 2 or 3 years - the WoS League is a Tier 5 league in terms of playing strength, and probably better than the Highland and Lowland leagues if you take average playing strength across the league into account. With only (possibly 1) club going up per year, depending on licensing requirements, it could be a full 10-15 years before the top clubs in the West reach their level.

Southwest (D&G) is part of West, just as Southeast (Borders) is part of East. There isn't any need for a Tier 6 league in the SW, except for ancient history. Their level of football doesn't merit it, and there are ample results to show this. It will probably continue though. At the end of the day, it doesn't make any difference, as it's very unlikely any team will ever get promoted unless they improve drastically. I can't see Threave or Abbey Vale beating the likes of Auchinleck or Hill of Beath in play offs.

Cheers for the "anorak" jibe, ya jobby. Get oot the thread if you want to ignore the person who started it, ya complete eejit! The sheer ignorance of people never ceases to amaze me...

Yeah - changed the title. Easy to forget what year it is at the moment... I'm not sure 2020-21 will even get completed to be honest.

The alternative would be to have splits at each level (so 2 leagues at Level 7 like the EoS is doing). That way 2 league wins could see you in the LL. The West could easily have a split at Tier 7, with 2 leagues, and then 2 leagues at Tier 8. 4 up 4 down between Tier 6 and Tier 7 would mean the Top 2 of each Tier 7 league could go up each year and would keep it all competitive. That way, nobody is more than 3 steps away from the Lowland League. The West used to have a split between Central and Ayrshire anyway below Level 2 - so it's not a new idea. South of Scotland League should really be in with the West as a regional division at Tier 8. If any club wants to go higher up, they can play in West Tier 7 (Where their travel would be less than if they went up to the LL).

I've changed the rankings slightly again after a few tests: STAYING THE SAME: 1: Weighting for league (2) and cup (1). - Am testing to see whether this is needed. Cup ties are taken seriously by many teams. 2: Weighting for tier (1 down to 9). Essentially this means the points available for matches further down is less. NEW: 3: Possibility of losing points when winning, or gaining points while losing. I felt point 3 was necessary - it prevents teams from rising up the rankings despite playing poorly (for example, a series of 1-0 wins by a table topping side against teams at the bottom of the league doesn't show that the gap between them is widening - if anything it shows the gap is reducing - so this should be reflected in the rankings. If Celtic only win 1-0 against Fort William, for example, they should really lose points and Fort William should be rewarded.

Given that the Premier league is doing a 7 out, 3 in to reduce itself to 16 teams, where does that leave the other 51 teams? 3 more tiers of 17 teams? Split Tier 8 into 2? I think the East of Scotland clubs have it a bit easier to progress through the pyramid as they only go down to Tier 7 at the moment - some clubs in the WoS could find themselves at Tier 9, even though they are probably better than some of the East teams at Tier 7 (and South teams at Tier 6).

Blairgowrie 0-2 Dundee United Sports Club (Dundee Saturday Morning Amateur League).

I've got all of the other Senior/junior/reserve and U20 results from all of Scotland's leagues and cups from the 2014-15 season onwards, apart from 2 years of the NoSFA U20 league - it seems like it's not well reported online. The Highland League website only covers the league results from 2017-18 on, but there were at least 2 previous seasons. Most of the results I've found from these 2 previous seasons have come from Nairn County's website. Clachnacuddin, Lossiemouth and Forres don't seem to have mentioned the matches much until recently, and Alness didn't have a website. If anybody can help with any results from the 2015-16 and 2016-17 seasons, I'd be very grateful. At the moment, I've managed to dig up 26 of the 50 scores over the 2 seasons. http://scotscores.theroonba.com/nsfau20.htm

Just thinking that the enthusiasm must have dampened somewhat given that most of the top teams have moved on. Half of the draw of playing in any competition is the ability to test yourself against the better teams. Fauldhouse, Whitburn, Livingston United, Pumpherston and Armadale are now the "better teams" in the league. In the final season before the East juniors mostly moved to the EoS League, none of the remaining Lothian league teams were in the top league of 16 teams. 3 were in the 2nd level Premier League, and the other 6 were in the bottom regional division. Based on 2017/18 league positions, the clubs were ranked 18-45 in the East Juniors overall. 18 Fauldhouse United 29 Bathgate Thistle 31 Whitburn 33 Pumpherston Juniors 34 Armadale Thistle 37 West Calder United 40 Harthill Royal 44 Livingston United 45 Stoneyburn

Aye - I tried my best to be clear, but as you say it was late! So, apologies from me as well for not being a bit better in communicating my intentions. That's 1-1 now in apologies, is it straight to penalties?

Are the 3 that's been in the conversations 3 of the better teams in the league?

Comparison of current strengths of all 21 senior leagues in Scotland based on database of 33,000+ matches:

Using my database of matches from 2014-15 until the present day (33,000 matches), I've managed to come up with a strength comparison for all the leagues, along with a variation factor (how variable the strength is within that league). You can see that the Lowland League now appears to be stronger than the Highland League overall (the Highland League being let down by not having any new blood coming in, and having lots of teams finishing perennially near the bottom). In fact the EoS and WoS Premier are also stronger than the Highland League overall (EoS Premier being on a par with the Lowland League, with the WoS Premier being the best outside the SPFL, not too far behind League 2). This would suggest that the SCC Cup might have a winner from the WoS Premier. South of Scotland League doesn't belong at Tier 6. Ranking of individual leagues would be: 1: SPFL Premiership 2: SPFL Championship 3: SPFL League 1 4: SPFL League 2 5: WoS Premier 6: Lowland League 7: EoS Premier 8: Highland League 9: WoS Conference C 10: WoS Conference B 11: WoS Conference A 12: East Juniors (North/Tayside) 13: North Juniors Superleague 14. EoS 1st Division, Conference A 15: East Juniors (South/Lothian) 16: EoS 1st Division, Conference B 17: North Juniors 1st Division 18: South of Scotland League 19: North Caledonian League 1st Division 20: North Juniors 2nd Division 21: North Caledonian League 2nd Division

I'm not sure what the smallest number of teams in a junior league was historically, but they might be able to hang on right down to 6 teams remaining, if they're desperate. So - apart from the tributes and Syngenta, there are 9 teams: Livingston United have already said they want to go (they missed the deadline for 2020/21 or they'd be gone already) - they'd be at the top end of the Tier 7 conferences. On current form, Whitburn, Fauldhouse, Armadale, Pumpherston are decent quality and should be near the top of the EoS League conferences, Bathgate would be a mid-table team, Harthill and Stoneyburn would be mid-bottom table in the conferences, and West Calder would be a bottom feeder (as they were last season). Not sure who the 3 teams are that have shown interest in leaving, but if it's any 3 of the top 4, it's going to be not much of a League left, bereft of any quality teams. The merging of the SJC and SCC into something bigger would be contingent on the North/Tayside teams getting on board, as well as maybe the West Juniors (53 of them) who have retained SJFA membership giving that up. With those 53 clubs retaining membership, it gives the SJC some decent strength. Without them, I think the SJC might hold less appeal (unless a Lothian club wants to hang on in the hope they might win it before it goes). In terms of the SCC, most of the best teams are already there. You've only really got the 9 or 10 Lothian clubs and maybe Scone Thistle from the Tayside division who would be south of the dividing line. It's not really a big loss to the SCC region as a whole if they don't join, but it's damaging to the remaining junior clubs if they want to progress as clubs.

Nice cop out - why not just admit you made a mistake in thinking I was someone else who was pro-juniors, when in fact I'm not? I even went to the bother of trying to clear up the misunderstanding in my subsequent post. Nice of you to tell us you "can't be bothered with this". Just think before you speak and you won't have to bother with anything instead of throwing yourself into a hissy fit.

Hmm. Seems you've confused me with someone else. Anyway, my personal opinion is that there should be no division between senior/junior. If you check out my other posts, you will see that. I have posted many times on proposed pyramid structure, for example. I may have worded the previous post ambiguously, but I can assure you I have no other profile.

Just to be clear, I think the juniors should all join the senior setup. My point was simply that some junior teams are acting like they are moving to a foreign country, when in reality they'll be playing much the same teams they are already playing, and a few new ones, which surely freshens things up a bit (that's what I meant by senior non-league football being essentially the same thing as what they are already playing in - "the juniors"). The biggest problem so far seems to be the north - there doesn't seem to be an avenue to "make a move" like Kelty and then the rest did in the EoS League. So I think we could see the junior continuing in the North, and maybe Tayside for a wee while yet.

Some people don't understand that senior non-league is essentially now "the juniors" anyway. Highland League - 4 of 17 teams are ex-juniors Lowland League - 3 of 17 teams are ex-juniors West of Scotland League - 63 of 67 teams are ex-juniors East of Scotland League - 37 of 48 teams are ex-juniors (including 14 of the 18 Tier 6 clubs) Exceptions: areas where junior football didn't take off: South of Scotland League - 0 of 12 teams are ex juniors North Caledonian League - 0 of 12 teams are ex juniors So, of the 149 "senior" non-league clubs (discounting the South of Scotland and North Caledonian), 107 are really juniors - that's 72% - with the numbers being almost 9 in 10 in Tiers 6 and 7. A couple of other teams are ex-amateurs, leaving fewer than 40 traditionally senior clubs. Tier 5 has 7 of 34 ex-juniors (21%) Tier 6 has 33 of 38 ex-juniors (87%) Tier 7 has 67 of 77 ex-juniors (87%)

144 teams in the South - 142 entered the cup this year due to 2 (Cumbernauld Colts and Arniston Rangers) infringing rules in last season's competition. For the North - there's no pyramid beyond the Highland League's 17 clubs. If you were to include the North Caledonian League, you'd get an extra 12 clubs- so 29 max. The top North Caledonian clubs are approximately equal to the bottom Highland League clubs. If all junior clubs eventually join the pyramid (and Tayside clubs move North) - you'd have: 157 in the South (17 Lowland, 48 East of Scotland, 12 South of Scotland, 67 West of Scotland, 13 Lothian/Falkirk juniors) 79 in the north (17 Highland, 12 North Caledonian, 17 Tayside Juniors, 33 North Juniors) 4 reserve teams that play in senior leagues (Stranraer, Caledonian Braves, University of Stirling, Nairn County) would be ineligible. A national competition would have 236 teams and would be an 8 round affair (same as the current South competition, but with more matches in the first round). If/when some of the remaining Lothian/Falkirk junior teams "jump ship" (Livingston United should be the first), the Lothian League might become too small in size and the rest might join the EoS League just to get some competition. It would be hard to justify an 8-10 team competition isolated from everything else in the immediate area. The top teams among what's left would do well in the current EoS setup, and would probably be challenging for promotion from the conferences at Tier 7.

Broughty has a good chance against Darvel given that they're at home, after having drawn in Ayrshire. They're one of the top 5 teams left in the juniors. However, it seems Darvel has strengthened for the WoS Premier, so they might be a better team now. I think fitting these games in should be relatively straightforward, as you say, and I imagine the clubs would want to play these matches.