LongTimeLurker

Dunipace beating Irvine Meadow 2-1 is not a bad result given what the arson attack must have done to their finances. Penicuik beating Glencairn 4-2 makes it a good day for the east against the west. Armadale Thistle managing to lose 3-1 to Hermes in the other Scottish Cup is a bit of an eyeopener but guess they are one of the very top north region junior clubs.

Elsewhere:

The British class system does that to some people basically. Unless you sound like Kate Adie you are only supposed to be interested in stuff like football, page 3 and the Grand National.

Nauseated that you would take a cheap shot at me like that.

Maybe the "six figure fee plus significant add ons" is what is helping to keep the club full-time? Looks like the future of the club is being gambled on that being the basis for a successful promotion push this season.

Also scope for some east vs west comparisons with the bolded fixtures.

Think Tokmak isn't as important as you maybe think it is on rail. Kerch to Melitopol to Nova Kakhovka or Enerhodar, and Kerch to Armiansk to Oleshky will still be doable for the Russians regardless of what happens at Tokmak. The sea drone only took out the Kerch road bridge not the railway. The reason the town of Vuhledar was such a big deal a few months back is that the Ukrainians have been able to cut the rail line west from Donetsk to Tokmak by artillery fire near there. Regardless of that though the Russians can still use a port at Berdiansk to hook into rail transport east of Tokmak. Don't think there is any sudden magic bullet until the Ukrainians can get a lot closer to Melitopol than they are now. The main reason for optimism appears to be more that they are slowly working their way through all the fortifications that the Russians painstakingly built to secure the land bridge so the pace of their advance might pick up if/when that's out of the way.

Would have thought it would be more Abbey Vale beating Newmains United and Lochar Thistle beating Larkhall Thistle and then Jeanfield Swifts that you would have wanted to bring up. Think you are talking up Carluke being favourites a bit too much given that backdrop.

Jeanfield have licensing and I suspect would be strong candidates for promotion to the Highland League if they ever moved over. They might have their sights set on the LL though. Other two have very basic grounds, especially in the case of Luncarty. Kinnoull have a disused set of training lights (?) so might be closer to licensing but no idea if they are trying to go for it.

Tayport and Letham were outside your supposed area as well.

What you are neglecting to mention is that the EoS also ran first division conferences in 21-22 after the 20-21 season got scrapped due to COVID. That means that when the last batch of junior clubs did join they easily could have been included in a rejigged set of first division conferences during their first season so that all EoS clubs found their appropriate level a lot more quickly than is currently happening. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021–22_East_of_Scotland_Football_League If that had been done clubs like Whitburn and Armadale potentially could have been in the EoS premier as quickly as last season. There were plenty of self-interest agendas that would have disrupted though so dump them in a Conference X and only let them in slowly was the name of the day.

Given Whitburn play in claret and amber watching them lose can be quite pleasing from an Accies fan perspective.

Persuading Jeanfield, Kinnoull and Luncarty to return would be one possible solution, but no idea how open those clubs would be to the concept. Cupar Hearts might be worth a look in amateur terms? Then there's Breadalbane...

Southern Ukraine needs plenty of irrigation from the Dnieper that won't be happening now the Kakhovka dam is gone and Crimea isn't exactly famed for its harsh winters so the mud season may not be so much of a factor in and around Tokmak as it is somewhere like Bakhmut. Guess we'll find out in a few weeks what the story is that way.

Where do you drawn the line on this stuff? Should I receive compensation because I am a descendant of coal miners who lived in serfdom in Scotland in the 1700s? Plenty of people had an atrocious life in the UK back when that was all unfolding. Thing is though they are not around to be directly compensated and the people who are didn't have those life experiences and only heard about those things as a folk memory. If you can show that specific families or institutions in the UK benefited in ways that became intergenerational down to the present day and suggest they should be dispossessed of some of their ill-gotten gains and that funds generated in that manner should be redirected towards deserving causes across the former Empire including some at home then I am definitely listening. The Royal Family might be a good place to start, but strangely King Charles is usually quite evasive on this subject:

There's also the angle of giving more clubs something to play for and keeping games meaningful though, given you can't get relegated out of the Midlands League. The main problem with 10-10 is likely more what happens if you have a couple of clubs go into abeyance and/or promoted to the HL. They need a few more clubs before a split into two divisions could be a stable arrangement that would endure from season to season.

...and that might encourage Eyemouth, Selkirk, Kelso and Duns to return or give it another go as the case may be turning the third division into a heavily Borders one rather than a West Lothian skewed one. Not having the last of the junior clubs to join participate in the last year of the conference format two seasons ago was petty and vindictive but eventually clubs will find their natural level. Suspect Whitburn, Syngenta (in the guise of Camelon), Armadale and the club formerly known as Linlithgow Thistle are all headed for the EoS premier in the not too distant future. Far from impossible Bathgate and Fauldhouse could do likewise further down the road if they are able to get their act together again. If West Lothian and Stirlingshire clubs are heading up somebody has to be heading down and I don't see why anyone who isn't from Innerleithen should be losing any sleep over that if it's Vale of Leithen. Nothing wrong with local derbies against Peebles Rovers and Linton Hotspur, if that turns out to be your natural level in the game.

Think this is important because it means they are through the main Russian defence line:

Had to check where Iwaki is. If you are based in Sendai there's not much reason to go down the Joban line rather than take the shinkansen to Tokyo. Suspect I must have been there at some point though because I did occasionally do that and stop along the way to do some sightseeing but don't have any memories of it. I know the Fukushima city side of that prefecture much better. I knew the perenially underachieving Mito Hollyhock were from down the Joban line, but didn't know Fukushima prefecture had more than one J league club now. Interesting to see how Iwaki FC have shot up through the divisions so quickly and that J3 now has pro-rel going with the JFL, at least if Honda FC or a club like Sony Sendai don't get in the way. Never understood how JFL clubs can sustain travel across Japan on crowds of 500 but guess some of them do have corporate sponsors like those two. Only got to Vegalta games a few times because it was a bit of a trek by public transport from where I lived. Quite high up and well away from the coast fortunately, but it felt like I almost would have been quicker taking the train over to see Montedio Yamagata. Think a lot of Scottish people would get a bit of an eyeopener from the playing standards and how Japanese fans can generate an atmosphere without being antisocial and trying to start some aggro

Thought that was on Rathlin Island? Definitely wouldn't be much of an advert for the SoS League, if Dalbeattie can't beat a Fourth Division club.

They were losing clubs like Craigroyston and Easthouses to the east region juniors and clubs like Kelso and Duns were falling by the wayside so there were serious questions how much longer the EoS was going to be able to keep going. Then clubs in Ayrshire (mainly) turned down the Superduperleague proposal and Kelty (with Bonnyrigg and Bo'ness also exploring the idea) decided they had had enough of the juniors and wanted to give the pyramid a go. If the EoS had been in better shape in numbers terms maybe they wouldn't have been quite so accomodating.

Never been but always heard that about Fetlar being the garden of Shetland and stuff like that. Most of Yell is one big peat bog basically. Guess the bits around where the ferrys arrive at either end are not that bad when the weather's behaving itself to be fair but definitely not a recommended holiday destination. The picture of Sandwick makes me homesick for some crew biscuits from there topped with butter and salt and some milk straight fae the byre wi nane o that pasteurisation nonsense.

Was in Sendai for 3/11 so a bit of a blast from the past to see Fukushima as a poster's location. Nothing quite like watching Japanese television really late at night when you can tell that there is close to complete panic at a press conference over a nuclear power station fairly close to where you are but your Japanese language skills are not up to diciphering what is being said. Fun times. See Vegalta are in J2 now. Too bad. Big support who know how to really get behind their team but the club never seems to get anywhere.

Robert Clift doesn't sound like the sort of name you would expect for the secretary of an Irish emigrant club, and how big an Irish RC community could there have been in Brechin at that time anyway? Brechin isn't exactly a huge place even today and it's well away from the old coalfields. Suspect it may not be a safe assumption that every club called Harp back then was automatically Irish any more than it would be safe to assume that having a junior club called Brechin Matrix later on was a tribute to the film career of Keanu Reeves. What we associate with a name nowadays may not be how people in rural Angus would have viewed it over a century ago.