LongTimeLurker

It's not clear that reverting to the old rules is enough to get them out of the woods on challenges to the validity of their champion for the Club 42 playoff (or in addition to that their ability to relegate clubs at the bottom at that point) because around a third of their league season has already been played under an unapproved set of rules. This will arguably have had an effect on non-OF games played as well because, for example, suspensions will have been applied based on yellow and red cards in games against the colt teams.

Looks like they are probably still trying to get Brechin into the LL for 2022-23. Don't underestimate the capacity of people in authority to keep pushing an issue they would normally not give a toss about simply as a way to display who wields the most power. Beyond that the three part-time SPFL clubs on Tayside all know they could easily be club 42 eventually.

Was moronic of the LL board to proceed without SFA approval, so no surprise it has come to this. Think the problem is whether all the games played under an unapproved set of rules would stand up to protest as valid if they revert to version 15. My understanding of what was said by Thomas Brown in the recent podcast was that they were not sure they would and that could mess up both promotion and relegation from the LL. That gives Petrie and co a lot of leverage.

Probably the latter. The SFA had to explain to him that the LL couldn't null and void their season then declare a champion. How dense do you have to be not to grasp that there has to be a season in the first place before you can have a champion? Odds on the SFA board's approach this time was aye that's fine on you go George so they could get their own back for Brechin not being shoehorned in. There were going to be consequences for that not happening after all.

Enough for licensing?

He was in that up to his eyeballs and appears to have misled the clubs into hastily approving it in a way that potentially jeopardises the Lowland League's Club 42 playoff participation this season because the validity of games played under an unapproved set of rules could easily be challenged. This might also get Vale of Leithen off the hook again on relegation.

Jumped before he was pushed in all likelihood. There have been so many fiascos (trying to make Selkirk the bottom club after their record was expunged, his alleged role on option Z, SFA vetoing the WoS conferences plan, not understanding the lockdown rules applied to the U20s, not understanding the LL couldn't nominate a champion for a null and void season, extra year of eligibility for U20 league vs SYFA saga) before the latest one on starting a season with the Colts teams before the rules were signed off by the SFA that the only surprise is that he had so many defenders on here for so long. Mainly the rabidly anti-SJFA rather than genuinely pro-pyramid types right enough who seem to think everything senior is automatically wonderful and above reproach. Judging from who has been appointed to the board things have swung over to the anti-Colts camp now. If Thomas Brown gets the chair job we'll know that process is complete and that Brechin City are unlikely to be appearing in the LL any time soon.

Rangers used to regularly send out an XI to do testimonial or centenary type games, ground opening fixtures etc against teams in their heartland areas (e.g. former coalfields, west Highlands and Lewis) so that won't necessarily be the case but definitely understand where you are coming from in terms of competitive fixtures. There's a certain irony to two of the clubs opposed to what happened on colt teams (Bonnyrigg and Bo'ness and rightly so IMO) being the most likely to actually benefit from a minor financial windfall out of it on crowds. The level of awareness of who Broomhill SC are and where they play their home games is probably still minimal in and around Alloa. Ditto with Caledonian Braves in Lanarkshire, unlike what would happen if Cambuslang Rangers, Blantyre Vics or Larkhall Thistle were involved. The 500+ crowds Bonnyrigg Rose are attracting right now demonstrate that there are clubs in the central belt outside the SPFL that won't need a sugar daddy to be able to sustain themselves in the lower two national divisions. Once clubs like Clydebank, Irvine Meadow and Pollok become part of the mix in LL terms it will be interesting to see what happens.

That won't fit some people's preferred narrative on colt teams but the reality is that Rangers B are likely to draw an unusually good crowd in most ex-mining towns across the central belt.

^^^

Don't you think it would have happened by now if it was that easy? 15 minutes is optimistic if there are also going to be stops at Clackmannan, Kincardine, the proposed train factory at Longannet, Culross/Valleyfield and Cairneyhill all on a meandering former goods line that wasn't designed with long stretches of straight track and broad curves for passenger express trains unlike the old Oakley route that could also have run onto Waverley with no reverse. My understanding is the experts who have looked at it don't think the travel time to Dunfermline would be competitive enough with express buses over the Kincardine Bridge. Even if more direct services to Glasgow from Fife via Dalmeny and Winchburgh don't get introduced, the long awaited Almond chord (if/when it finally happens) should make it easier for passengers from the Fife Circle to change for Glasgow Queen Street without having to go to Haymarket as some east west services would be redirected up towards Dalmeny and then back down to Winchburgh to make Edinburgh Gateway less of a white elephant than it is now and ease congestion issues on the lines into Haymarket.

There are a very limited number of services that already cater to a Fife to Glasgow commute via the Forth rail bridge and a chord after Dalmeny that goes west past Kirkliston to the Edinburgh to Glasgow Queen Street Line around Winchburgh. That service could be expanded and is much more direct than taking a magical mystery tour via Culross, Kincardine and Stirling.

That's a different line from the one I am talking about. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirling_and_Dunfermline_Railway The issue with the Longannet line is that you can't reach Edinburgh from Alloa without a reverse at Dunfermline on the Fife Circle. That plus the less direct route along the coast via Kincardine and Culross means there's no obvious advantage over a route from Alloa to Waverley via Stirling and no new passengers are being catered to in Dunfermline. Fife to Glasgow can be serviced via the Forth Bridge so it's Edinburgh that's the key on this. If the Longannet line made sense for passengers it would have long since happened by now.

It probably would have been worthwhile to run suburban services out to Banchory on that line again by the 1990s to alleviate traffic congestion, if it had still been there. The problem is that in the mid-60s Beeching & Co only really saw a future for rail on intercity services and comutes into the largest cities. Many of the closures were justified but they pruned things back further than they should have by not mothballing some of the more marginal closures for possible future reinstatement. Although some of the worst closures have been reversed in a Scottish context, others like Cowdenbeath to Bridge of Earn via Kinross and Glenfarg, Alloa to Dunfermline via Oakley or East Kilbride to Hamilton that happened at various points from the 50s to the 80s can't easily be undone now because the alignments were not protected. The Buchan line from Dyce to Fraserburgh and Peterhead via Maud is one of the few old railway alignments that has been zealously protected for decades by the local council so it may be the last one that's arguably feasible after Levenmouth gets done. Hence why it's in the news a lot. Haddington and Penicuik might be long shot possibilities as well but there are issues with capacity at Waverley. Edit: checked on Google Maps and the possible old alignments to Penicuik are being actively built over so that's probably viewed as a lost cause now in planning terms.

That's for sure. If North Sea oil had been discovered a decade earlier different decisions might have been made but hindsight is 20/20. Beyond that there's the issue of whether the old alignments were sufficiently protected in planning terms. Suspect the more distant portions of Aberdeen to Banchory past Milltimber and especially the Ellon to Peterhead portions of that graphic were not to the extent that would have been necessary to make their reinstatement financially realistic at this point. It's difficult to make a case for doing Peterhead via Maud so it's probably only ever likely to reach Ellon, which may not be enough to make much of a difference on congestion and potentially competes with Inverurie as a terminating point for crossrail type services unless you can add a Deeside suburban angle to the mix. If there was a good business case for Dyce to Ellon, odds on it would have already happened when Alex Salmond was first minister and Gordon was a key SNP target. Probably just a case of being seen to do a feasibility study to keep the Greens happy in other words.

Was involved in a game in Canada where one of the opposing players from a Kurdish team (reputedly a former peshmerga) used a strategically prepositioned baseball bat to intimidate people when a bench clearing brawl was about to break out. Nothing in the referees report about the baseball bat angle meant nothing happened although I think that team did eventually get kicked out of the league in question after a referee got assaulted with a tire iron by a player who had been red carded.

All depends how dilligent the ref is with the report. If it's not in there it didn't happen so maybe best not to help jog their memory?

In reality I was one of the first posters on here that posted in favour of clubs defecting en masse to the EoS from the east region and was doing so back when Burnieman was still arguing that Kelty Hearts should stay in the east region and work for change through the SJFA.

Good luck finding systematic crowd data over a span of living memory for the EoS when many of the clubs involved were playing on public parks for a lot of that period and in some cases particularly in the Edinburgh area there would have been minimal interest from the local print media. A league with many more members than ever before (with most of the new arrivals having something resembling a conventional enclosed ground unlike most of the pre-existing membership) having larger aggregate attendences than ever before is the sort of development you would associate with this guy:

At some point are you going to acknowledge that the EoSL premier in particular is primarily a continuation of what happened in the east region of the SJFA now in de facto numerical terms and that the sensible comparison on this would also include the crowds that showed up previously for fixtures like Tranent vs Musselburgh in a junior context? What would actually be noteworthy in some way would be if EOSL attendance this year was bigger than EoSL + east region attendance would have been in years past. All that junior football history hasn't just disappeared into a black hole.

99% sure the next LL game is Caledonian Braves on the 25th the week after the Wick game. The Gretna game is in the East of Scotland Qualifying Cup or something like that? Edit: found it https://www.eosfl.com/gct/55/east-of-scotland-qualifying-cup?art=299

results elsewhere:

Think they run to Thurso first and then to Wick now. Train to Inverness then bus to Wick is likely to be the most sensible way by public transport as the train route after Inverness is nothing like as direct as the main road and is basically mainly for tourists after Easter Ross.

Culter win the north region, Carnoustie Panmure win the Midlands league and then GS as the only licensed champion beat FW in the playoff is not a particularly farfetched scenario this season.

Three wins on the bounce would no doubt do nicely regardless. Would be easier for a rivalry to develop if the Shire were a well supported club their community cares passionately about. I used to watch them quite a bit back in the 1980s and Denis Healey's phrase about being savaged by a dead sheep comes to mind on that score.