LongTimeLurker

Kello are out of the SJC apparently:

Colin Boyd's reply tells us that if sane rational actors were involved in this a merger of the SCC and SJC should easily be achieved in time for next season since both initiatives appear to have much the same goal in mind. It's Scottish football so...

Not really disagreeing with you on this in any way but expanding on that it's worth bearing in mind that in 2006-07 Kelty lost a junior cup final at East End Park in front of 9000+ (the identity of the opponents escapes me for some reason) and were promoted to the east superleague. They probably would have got to where things are now more quickly if a full pyramid had always been in place. Where Glenrothes would be now if there had been a pyramid in the 1970s and who their main rivals would be in the present day under different circumstances points to how football in Fife was kept frozen where it had been pre-WWII by the prevailing league structure.

Quite a few clubs will be very keen to see Elgin City as Club 42 now to avoid the HL champion replaces Berwick Rangers scenario that automatically relegated a fifteenth placed Whitehill Welfare even after Selkirk folded midseason.

The reason for the legislation was basically to make it understood to the polis that loud and obnoxoius behaviour at the football that would constitute a BotP in other social contexts was only to be viewed as a major social problem to be dealt with through the courts when it is Billy fae Whitburn or Declan fae Carfin daein it, but to be treated as all perfectly acceptable light hearted banter when it is Torcuil from Bearsden sending folk homeward to think again while mooning passerbys in his kilt and projectile vomiting all over the place in pedestrian areas. The main reason the last piece of legislation got campaigned against is that the SNP shifted the goalposts a bit from Joke McConnell's sectarian summit era by targeting Declan fae Carfin as well as Billy fae Whitburn. The MSPs of the main governing party had moved from being disproportionately Celtic minded types droning on about something most of modern secular Scotland is oblivious to in 2021 being Scotland's shame as a subtle way to undermine Scottish nationalism to mainly being OFGTF diddy team types that view the Old Firm collectively as being Scotland's shame for waving the wrong set of national flags.

Nothing happening in any of this that couldn't always easily have been handled under the pre-existing breach of the peace legislation.

There's a strand of opinion emerging (not saying I necessarily agree with it as I would file it under too early to tell yet) that argues that because no deal was avoided the NI protocol actually gives NI the best of both worlds in UK and EU market access terms along with an ongoing sizable subsidy from Westminster that funds a level of public services that would not be available post-UI providing a strong pragmatic case for NI's ongoing existance: and that Ulster Unionism (the three parties mentioned above plus the sizable portion of Alliance 13% that would vote No in any border poll) has yet to grasp that it is actually in a stronger position again than it realises.

Tim Pat Coogan was telling us that twenty years ago as well and lots of people were getting all excited about UI being just around the corner. Twenty years on and NI is still around. The census usually fails to live up to the hype because the difference in birthrates has slowly been dropping over time and has always been partially balanced out by a difference in emigration rates that the Tim Pat Coogan types have never included in their projections. An added wrinkle this time is that the Brexit vote won't have helped boost RC numbers any if lots of Poles, Lithuanians and Portuguese people have been leaving in its aftermath.

Yes, Linlithgow Rose are not the same as they used to be and have stagnated in a big way. Were asleep at the switch when they could easily have entered the Lowland League by application and made a big push for the SPFL after getting licensed while still in the juniors before obstacles were placed in the way of that by the SFA in the Regan/MacRae era. Bo'ness United now likely to be the dominant club at that end of West Lothian for many years to come after being promoted into tier 5 before the WoS clubs arrived to make the playoff out of tier 6 much more challenging.

Nothing like a 4-1 gubbing off a recent former junior club from a wee ex-mining town to bring home the reality that their SPFL status is in dead man walking territory now given there are plenty of other wee ex-mining town clubs potentially following the same trajectory.

A little known piece of trivia about East European politics is that Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus moonlights as a kafana singer in Belgrade when he isn't advocating a vodka and sauna approach to dealing with COVID-19:

Have read speculation elsewhere that any LL2 proposal may involve colt teams from other full-time clubs besides the Old Firm.

That's always been there to some extent. There were Marxist parties that were anti-Zionist and still had a sizable number of Jewish voters as late as the 1960s.

Do left and right really mean anything in the context of perceived existential threats to national security? The Israeli Labour party were central to the Zionist project and discretely pushed for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian Arab populations that happened in 1948. Unfortunately the Israeli electorate subsequently favoured them over other parties of the left that wanted co-existance and a return of the expelled Arab population (intransigence on issues like that didn't start with Likud), and ethnic cleansing was reciprocated in the Arab world where Mizrahi Jewish populations were concerned.

The Taliban appeared to have advanced knowledge of an imminent threat. Looks like it could be a none too subtle message to the Americans that time is up and it is time to start moving the troops out now.

True, but if this is being handled at the professional game board level rather than through the pyramid working group it will only be about the Club 42 playoff. Why would two LL board members give up their blazers and lie about this and why would it take so long for the SFA to approve this season's LL rules if it hasn't been linked to the Club 42 playoff issue? Think it's pretty clear which party is telling the truth and which is being compelled to toe the party line.

Was told said chairman was also telling some people in the west that he was supportive of option Z and the split into LL East and LL West as a way to facilitate full SJFA pyramid entry for 2020-21 but then wasn't able to deliver the approval from the LL clubs.

Apparently approval of new rules to allow OF colts was directly linked to the HL-LL boundary shift in correspondence to the LL from the PGB/SFA. Resignations related to whether the LL board would tell the clubs about this. Some discussion that the LL might want automatic promotion in exchange. HL have agreed the boundary shift apparently while LL rejected (draw your own conclusions on whether that means the HL really want Brechin City on board and the Midlands League as a feeder if there is a way to reverse it). Lot of chat about how playing so many games with unapproved rules affects the Club 42 playoff and relegation from the LL. Could potentially be a problem apparently (which is no doubt why the SFA thought they had enough leverage to force the boundary shift through). No serious chat of extra relegation from the LL internally in response to the arrival of the WoS apparently. Mention of turkeys voting for Christmas and some chat about an LL2 being a potential solution.

With no rule changes approved presumably the OF colt games simply turn into friendlies at that point?

we should have more info soon:

Not explicitly stated but appeared to be the intended meaning.

No dude with the cash. Maybe the poster stating that on nonleaguematters (prorege) didn't realise the chairman wasn't where the money was coming from.

Draft the rule as follows and find a way to get the SPFL, HL and LL to sign off on it (this is the tricky part where the LL is concerned) and it can be retrospective easily enough: Clubs who are or have been members of the SPFL who are or have been relegated through the Club 42 playoff and are still participating in a league affiliated with the professional game board will have the right to specify whether they will participate in the HL or LL.

All depends on how it is drafted I would have thought.

This is straying off topic in a big way but will be interesting to see how many north region clubs ever do licensing. A large portion of it is also closer to an ammies league in central belt terms.