LongTimeLurker

...and the midpoint of the Tay Bridge is all important because a few posters on P&B with maps with lines of latitude on them know better than the top SFA officeholders how the SFA rulebook works so Tayport, Letham and Scone can't possibly wind up in an HL feeder. Sure bud whatever. Maybe try to give your hatred of Rangers and Unionism a rest for five minutes so some of us who actually do care about the fortunes of a Lowland League club (in my case a club that did actually do the right thing by voting against colt team entry) can use this subforum to focus on the football.

They didn't and there is zero chance they ever would so your entire line of argument is a complete red herring. If any other party involved with the Club 42 playoff wanted to challenge the validity of the rules the LL implemented to accomodate the colt teams the time to take it up with the SFA was immediately after the LL AGM. Nobody did and the 2021-22 season has commenced with them very much in place with all the other parties fully aware of their implications.

^^^In reality what the SFA actually told them was that they couldn't choose a champion after null and voiding a season which is what George Fraser and co in their infinite wisdom were about to try and do in an LL context. There had to be an actual season to base it upon as there will have been when the outcome of the 2021-22 season is determined. Basing the identity of the champion on a rule voted through at the 2021 LL AGM is on more solid ground than PPG was.

They don't have to convince League Two clubs of anything for the playoff to happen. As Ken Ferguson and Brechin City found out a few months back when lots of barroom lawyer types on here were convinced the playoff wouldn't happen all that ultimately matters is what is actually stated in the rulebook not what people think is right or wrong based on notions of fair play or common sense. It simply didn't matter that neither Kelty nor Brora had even been able to complete half their season because there was nothing in the rules that required that to have happened for a champion to be declared by the HL and LL. Rightly or wrongly Bonnyrigg Rose would be the LL champions under the scenario outlined according to the LL constitution that is in place so all that's open to the SPFL at that point under the Club 42 rule is to determine whether Bonyrigg Rose (or whoever, hopefully Bo'ness United despite the slow start) meet SPFL membership requirements. Somebody might decide to waste their money again by trying to launch a legal challenge but the outcome would almost certainly be the same this time around as well.

Crazy money bit is the interesting snippet. If true, the committee would definitely have a right to question whether it had been spent wisely.

The LL will almost certainly get away with it though as there is nothing in the Club 42 playoff rule that states clearly that the league champion has to have been the top placed team over a full 34 game season. The role of the SPFL, as was the case with Kelty Hearts and Brora Rangers last season, is only to determine if the clubs that have been put forward as champions by the LL and HL meet their league membership requirements.

Denies an obvious goalscoring opportunity is supposed to be the yardstick on that. That's most likely to apply in or around the box.

A cartel of former EoS and SoS clubs plus some previously obscure west coast youth clubs took full advantage of Tom Johnston and co's obstinate stupidity over the pyramid to rig the system in their favour. But for Kelty it could have taken much longer to get where we are now. The cartel are going to have to be dragged screaming one at a time to the exit for several more years. Don't hold your breath on anything sensible happening soon.

Forfar West End's EoS application (followed by Broughty and North End apparently but that's not fully in the public domain) appears to have got certain east region officials to finally focus on what they needed to do ASAP to keep their blazers rather than continuing to push the LL feeder scenario despite the EoS having an effective power of veto. Perfect timing for that HL feeder outcome with the agreement between the HL, NCL and north region about to be sorted and Brechin City being firmly told to get tae by the tier 5 level about the LL after Ken Ferguson's various playoff related shenanigans had seriously antagonised a lot of influential people. What subsequently happened with Old Firm colts shows how the LL were potentially open to accepting a bung on the latter part of the equation on taking extra teams as had been claimed on here previously by a Kelty Hearts poster and as was still being attempted by Brechin City after the playoff defeat with support from the SFA board.

Which begs the question how they would have been able to prove that but definitely out of order if true. Maybe the only surprise is that they were able to work together again as long as they did if that's the back story and it's probably time to turn the page and move on now.

That's what I thought would be the case but because there is overlap between SJC and Scottish Cup entrants (e.g. Auchinleck Talbot, BoD etc) fixture dates used initially for the SJC are not lining up neatly with the Alex Jack cup ones so it is not at all clear at this point how the 7 out of 59 are going to resolve fixture clashes with EoS related commitments. It's basically lunatic stuff that two out of six tier 6 feeders are still in a separate affiliated national assoiation and the SJC is being run in parallel with the SCC in a ma cup is bigger than your cup, ma cup can batter your cup sort of way, but it's Scottish football so...

...which is why I added "or whatever" if that was a sticking point for some people.

One thing I have always found a bit surprising is that there is no U-20 team to help provide extra cover for when injuries and suspensions start to build up.

Seven of this season's new EoS clubs retained their SJFA membership and entered the SJC along with 53 WoS ones. The senior vs junior blazer politics are not over yet.

Suggesting that two cups be merged is not hanging onto one of them. An all in Scottish Junior Challenge Cup or whatever would be the final step in burying the whole junior vs senior concept once and for all.

Which is literally what I suggested should happen five posts up. At some point people need to finally let go of this senior vs junior thing and move on.

The final of the SJC still draws up to 5000 or so and is an event that resonates well beyond hardcore regulars. Having South rather than Scottish in the name of this cup competition is not a recipe for success for doing something similar.

The central region sectional league cup they won in the late 80s was probably quite a big deal at the time as well. Finals for that drew reasonably big crowds (2000 or so) at Fir Park in Motherwell in that era from what I remember. The SCC final hasn't developed into that sort of scale of event yet. Best thing that could happen to do that in as short a timeframe as possible would be a merger with the SJC.

You are no longer in a league that has armchair fan interest in Old Firm derbies subsidising everything. It's more that SPFL League 2 is inflated up beyond what it would be if it had to stand on its own two feet than the HL being the diddy league that time forgot.

They are working towards licensing so may obtain that anyway. Hopefully the SJC and SCC will be merged soon and the Strathclyde Demolition Cup will have many more entrants moving forward. Some people on both sides of that equation can't let go of the whole junior vs senior issue though...

Finally got around to a binge viewing session of 89 via vimeo this weekend. Really not sure this is the last season we will see of this series. The ending that I won't spoil was hinting quite heavily at the possibility of a future return IMO and there was also a deliberate echo of the Edel household cliffhanger from 83. Found the start of 89 even more difficult to get through than 86 but eventually it picked up steam again. Like 86 some portions come across as too far-fetched to take seriously so not as good as 83 in terms of building tension. Fairly obvious also that one character in particular was shoehorned in because one of the main original cast was wanting too much money or busy elsewhere with another project. Fortunately that wasn't the actor that played Walter Schweppenstette.

That sort of thing happened right across Croatia and Croatian areas in Bosnia in the early 1990s. Croatian politics is still basically split down the middle between ethnic nationalists with overt Ustase sympathies very much on display on the wilder fringes vs moderate people who can be viewed as the legacy of the Partizan side in WWII. Croatia took a more violent swing towards the former camp than it needed to initially because Tito had fallen out with a large portion of active Croatian communists in the late 60s and early 70s and purged them en masse in a process comparable to the aftermath of the Prague spring. That meant a lot of moderate liberal reformers voted for no hope third parties rather than the former communists in the first free elections in 1990 in a FPTP type format allowing the ethnic nationalists in on a minority of the vote. After that competing ethnic nationalisms fed off each other, the Knin Serbs had their log revolution and...

An obvious question on how far they are pushing the boat out would be what the loss would have been with no pandemic related lockdowns?

Lower budget now because the new stand has to be paid for?