LongTimeLurker

If it was only the north region and NCL not a lot was likely to happen quickly beyond swapping BoD for Fort William assuming as appears to be implied that it is capped at 18. With the Midland League on board even the likes of Deveronvale and Keith should have some concerns about where they will be playing in another decade or so. Think the absence of any further official announcements or hissy fits from the Dundee area after the P&J story is good news as they probably need to wait for the SFA AGM for it to all be fully ratified.

How though because the bit at the end with the astral projection or whatever it's called was him redeeming himself as far as I could see? Would he have been able to become a force ghost if he hadn't finally got there as a jedi despite his limited training and retreat to being a hermit? To me the bigger problem throughout was that there was no hero's journey for Rey because she was too perfect too quickly in TFA.

OK, I have a very different thing in mind when I see the phrase young team.

Might be a case of waiting to see if they put in some sort of protest but definitely a bit strange. Hopefully the no Midland League mention angle is because they need to wait on the SFA ratifying it or the P&J journalist isn't fully up to speed. Time will tell. I am sure we will soon hear from certain posters based in Dundee if there was an issue at the HL AGM.

Guess if the management team knew they were leaving it makes sense. You also have to bear in mind that former top professional footballers like Barry F get to experience how three defeats in a row turns an adoring crowd chanting their name into a baying mob so they do tend to be a lot more standoffish than players are at junior sort of level.

Maybe the rationale is that a series of regional rounds can double up with those for a league cup competition to help address some of the fixture congestion that the WoS and EoS are facing with temporarily expanded premier divisions?

Looks like that gives them a shot at licensing: https://www.google.com/maps/@56.0377852,-3.3636813,201m/data=!3m1!1e3 Helps that the leisure centre building is so close to the cage with floodlights and there is space for covered spectator areas on two sides. Guess they should change their name now though?

The line has only ever been for the relegation of Club 42 and isn't some rigidly carved in stone edict for the rest of the pyramid. Luncarty are north, while Scone Thistle and Tayport are south and nobody is losing any sleep over them being in the EoS and Midland Leagues, respectively. Letham being in the Midland League might muddy the waters a step too far but if all the relevant parties were comfortable with it then it could theoretically happen.

Bo'ness, Lithgae and Broxburn(?) only part of the second wave at the very last minute after lots of furious cellphone activity between their commitee members when they realised that the superleague was about to be a lot less super. Tynieness leaves Bo'ness United after they were not part of the first wave after putting lots of work into a licensing application and eventually becomes Tynierose after a brief sojourn in Kelty. TJ alleged to be frantically calling clubs to warn them that the EoS could go no higher than 32 or 36 with the conference format and they could be left out in the cold only for a third conference to be added.

There are still some fair sized towns like Bannockburn, Dunblane, Alva/Hillfoots, Kinross and Cupar with no team above amateur so there's certainly scope for that on paper but I doubt there's many clubs that fit that description that would have a better home ground available than Letham on that timeline. If that application can't even make it to a vote by the membership because facilities are not viewed as sufficiently up to snuff it's difficult to see where these in greater numbers are going to come from in the short term. Hopefully the EoS keeps growing though.

Old enough to have watched Hamilton Accies when they were bottom of the old Second Division and featuring regularly in Rod cartoons in the Daily Record as the stereotypical no hope club so under no illusions on Tutankhamen's assessment. Doubt it will happen while Ronnie Macdonald and Allan Maitland are around though Nigerian banking scams notwithstanding and think the full-time or hybrid model type clubs in the Championship and League One with core home supports of 1200+ are unlikely to ever be in that predicament (might be a once every 200 years sort of event in most cases). There are around 20 part-time clubs as part of the 42 who can expect it to be a much more regular occurence. After six Club 42 playoffs 15% of them have already been displaced. They definitely were not expecting that sort of attrition rate and that's before the west became part of the equation. Think in another 20 years or so at least 50% will have been emptied even with the playoff bottleneck in place.

All fine and good but the SFA's west region doesn't cover Ayrshire or Lanarkshire: https://www.scottishfa.co.uk/football-development/regions/west-region/

Probably the latter with the boundary of D & G a rough guide everywhere except Kirkconnel.

Was in the Grampian TV area though. There are reasonable arguments both way on this.

Have seen it claimed that it was meant to be at the North Esk at one point during the negotiations. You had the chance to speak up vociferously when it was first being voted on but for whatever reason appear to have been complacent that it wouldn't apply to you. It was always going to be difficult to get the SFA, SPFL, HL and LL to all sign off on a change to the Club 42 rules after the fact and ultimately Ken Ferguson did not have the clout to make that happen probably because the full-time clubs that dominate in SPFL board terms quite simply don't care one way or the other what happens at the foot of League Two.

EoS and SoS clubs with little or no active support in most cases had much less to lose by doing something radical and were very much in control of the process. Tom Johnston and the SJFA have to take a large portion of the blame for how it all unfolded but EoS clubs like Spartans could have done more to make it easier for Clydebank and co to join. Anyway great to see Kelty get into the SPFL. What they did was a massive gamble and we could easily still be arguing furiously about the pyramid vs the holy grail and 100k toilet blocks if they hadn't taken the lead.

Highly debatable. There were a number of junior clubs that had expressed an interest (Clydebank are the obvious example) but the LL unfolded very quickly in a way that made it very difficult to sell at a general meeting.

Will be interesting to see what East Stirling (that will wind them up) shire's budget is like next season. Some small signs lately that the moneyman from Firs Street may be losing interest and if so they could have challenges ahead. Not clear how the parent BSC youth club ending their association with the Alloa Nomads will affect BSCG's finances but doubt it will help so think the two you mention plus East Kilbride are favourites at this point. Maybe Spartans as well? Are they not supposed to have had a bit of investment from somewhere? The time for LL clubs to push the boat out a bit and really go for it is probably next season before the likes of Auchinleck Talbot, Clydebank and Darvel arrive. Plenty more churn to come in the years ahead for League Two once the top west clubs start to crash the pyramid party.

That's kind of why there are going to be 4 or 5 divisions down the road. If you don't belong in with Pollok and Auchinleck you find your natural level and wind up in with Muirkirk, Lugar and Royal Albert instead.

Probably resigned in the huff when he realised he wasn't going to be able to get the playoffs cancelled. What followed with all the talk of legal challenges etc was clutching at straws. The rules were clear that it wasn't the SPFL's role to determine how the HL or LL arrived at a champion. He also wasn't able to get the Club 42 boundary shifted so people on here overestimated his level of influence.

It's 100% clear cut that it's the Highland League according to the rules that are in place.

There is no way they can change their fate. The rule involved is clear and can only be changed with the agreement of the HL and LL who recently agreed with the EoS and east region juniors on a new set of arrangements that places the Dundee area and Angus in the HL catchment at tier 6 level.

...and odds on it would have been in 3 seasons if Brechin City hadn't been able to use a technicality on stated timing to get the playoffs cancelled last season. Took a huge gamble to get the ball rolling on creating a genuine pyramid so very much deserved. Hopefully the first of many recent ex-juniors to follow down the trail they have blazed.

Nobody as 16 is fine for the league in numbers terms. They will probably be joined by the Old Firm colts to round things off at 18.