LongTimeLurker

A lot of people in EoS circles are keen on the Club 42 boundary because they didn't like travelling to Tayside in an east region context, but the HL, NCL and north region don't appear to have received the memo that they are supposed to be aligning themselves with it. That's probably because neither the SFA or SPFL have appeared to actually want things to be organised that way either in recent times.

Possibly, but changing regions has to go through the SJFA with a 12 month notice period and Montrose Roselea were viewed as being right on the boundary. Taking applications for a new senior grade North of Scotland league would be the way to do a combined Dundee and Aberdeen setup if the WoS was being used as the template, but that's not what is happening. Instead of doing it that way a pre-existing SJFA region with an already defined geography that doesn't neatly align with the Club42 boundary is being lined up to be one of two tier 6 feeders.

Truly bizarre stuff. The north region can negotiate with the HL, but the east region can't even though it now has split into two leagues that almost perfectly align with the Club 42 boundary line? In a PWG context with the LL, it was never the west and east superleagues that did the negotiating. It was always a larger junior association negotiating for both. Something to ponder then is why it isn't Tom Johnston that is doing the negotiating this time with the HL? Obvious answer is that nobody other than the usual suspects on P&B pyramid threads seriously expects Tayside to be a factor where HL tier 6 feeders are concerned, so the north region can fly solo this time.

Stormont is up and running again, so Westminster is only running England where COVID related health policy is concerned.

There is nothing fictional about the east region's Tayside league. If the SJFA's north region is already involved in the discussions with the NCL and the HL, there is no obvious reason why the other SJFA region with a division full of clubs north of the Club 42 boundary (plus Tayport) wouldn't be involved as well beyond there being zero interest amongst any of the parties involved in having Tayside teams on board in that context

...and as usual no mention whatsoever of Tayside.

...but really the main problem in a Scottish context is Boris and it's difficult to see what stops Remain voters drifting to Yes to a greater extent than Leave voters are drifting to No as long as he is around in Farage Lite mode generally acting like a buffoonish old Etonian upper class twit. Beyond that what COVID-19 has done of late is made the London media outlets have to acknowledge the full extent of Holyrood's powers and the limits of those of Westminster's and that has started to give Nicola Sturgeon the gravitas of a national leader on equal pegging a lot of the time with Boris in the absence of an English parliament. Somebody really needs to explain (or not I guess depending on which way you lean on independence) to people like Jacob Rees-Mogg just how corrosive their recent behaviour has been to the Union when they start outright ridiculing the idea that Holyrood can do its own thing. A sizable portion of No voters are pro-devolution and many if anything would like to see Holyrood's powers expanded rather than curtailed. The inability of people like Rees-Mogg to accept the reality of devolution is highly likely to push a significant portion of these people into the Yes camp. If it's OK for Queensland to stop people from New South Wales travelling across internal state borders during a pandemic in Australia, why is it so supposedly comically absurd to think that Scotland would have the ability to do that in a post-devolution UK context? The Tories could use a leader like Murdo Fraser who would articulate something along those lines and when necessary represent the interests of the Scottish electorate against Westminster in a federal politics sort of way, so they can distance themselves a bit from a deeply unpopular Westminster leader. They opted instead for Ruth Davidson's more rigid anti-devolution British centralism instead, and it's probably too late in the day for a U-turn on that now with the Leave wing of the Tory party calling the shots at Westminster.

Cronberry Eglinton? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cronberry_Eglinton_F.C.

The problem for the Tories and Labour is that anyone with any talent in leadership potential terms wants to be at Westminster and views Holyrood as a slightly souped up regional council, so they have local councilor level politicians there for the most part.

Did ye, aye?

You stopped supporting the Kelty Hearts first team because Barry Ferguson became the manager. Those are the actions of a small minded identity politics obsessed bigot.

It's a football board. Keep your bigotry over identity politics out of this thread.

Maybe the farmer is mowing it for hay. This ground is way out in banjo picking Deliverance sort of territory. gogsy's from the other side of the big hill in the background. The surprise is more that Steelend could ever have had a team for so long. Blink and you miss it, if you are driving past.

You used to make plenty of posts about how I shouldn't be posting on the LL subforum because I wasn't a supporter of any of the teams involved, so why not follow your own advise and stick to the EoS subforum from now on? I have posted plenty of time about the role of Cove Rangers and Alan McRae on the pyramid, but that isn't directly relevant to the mechanics of how the LL was formed. That was mainly in the hands of Spartans and to a lesser extent Threave Rovers and Preston Athletic.

Should you not be on the EoS subforum now? Your club is never going to get anywhere near tier 5 again now that ex-junior clubs are belatedly in the pyramid. According to FWF's info that you quoted "20+ Juniors clubs were noted to say they were interested in the pyramid". If a different approach had been used on how the LL was setup there could easily have been a mass defection from the SJFA similar to what happened later in the EoS when conferences were provided to accomodate all interested clubs at tier 6. That would probably have made it more difficult for Spartans to reach the Club 42 playoff though...

Limiting the LL's initial numbers to16 maximum selected by application made any junior defection very difficult to argue for in the context of a club AGM and that pretty much guaranteed that the LL was going to be dominated initially by former EoS premier clubs, along with some SoS clubs and boys clubs in the west. If there had been a willingness to accomodate all credible applicants in a new Lowlands pyramid structure in a similar manner to what just happened with the WoS things may have unfolded very differently. This flaw in the process was pointed out by people (particularly by Clydebank fans) on here at the time it was all unfolding. Tom Johnston has a lot to answer for, but he wasn't the only person involved that was playing a cynical game. Spartans were heavily involved in the blazer politics and were in it primarily to provide a platform for Spartans to be promoted to the SPFL rather than to create an all-encompassing pyramid.

That was voted on so it became official league policy. If that's still in place, it would explain why the HL can implement tier six feeders with no apparent backlash from clubs fearing relegation.

Also Jim Kean who played for Clyde, Ayr United and Hamilton Accies back in the 1980s. Arguably, the best time to really push the boat out financially is this season before Talbot and co start to arrive.

One already has been, for what it's worth. Preston Athletic were in the east region up to the mid-1990s.

...oops. I regret using the phrase "official thread" now when encouraging you to start one to replace gogsy's. Would anyone seriously have thought that though?

The trip to Dunbar was the one they tended to highlight at the time. They were one of the clubs that benefited least from the east region's switch to 16-16-16/16 as it placed them in a division with lots of travel but with few teams that would bring much in the way of an away support. It was somewhat ironic that after complaining about the trip to Dunbar their first season in the North Region had them playing league games in Grantown-on-Spey, because they were based further west than Aberdeen and were placed in a west division mainly containing clubs from Nairnshire, Moray and Banffshire.

The east region were claiming on their website that they were in at tier 6 as an LL feeder with SFA approval as recently as the end of 2018-19 season, so it's obvious where they saw their future at that point. In a pyramid feeder to the LL rather than the HL. The problem for them was that the EoS held a veto over any change to the playoff format into the LL, so the east region couldn't get in and the WoS had to be formed earlier this year before the west region could gain entry. As things stand now the east region have a Tayside league and a West Lothian League. The former would be a good fit as an HL tier 6 feeder, if the Club 42 boundary was being enforced (only slight outlier would be Tayport), but the east region Tayside League is not participating in the working group on the north pyramid with the HL, NCL and north region and never rates a mention in media coverage of what is happening with the north pyramid. There has been some talk of a Midland League on a podcast (by locheeboy who posts on here), but they would need to get all of the SFA, LL, WoS, EoS and SoS to sign off to get in as an LL feeder, which looks unlikely. As things stand at the moment if the Highland League pathway isn't being actively pursued, it looks like the only viable way in is to do what Luncarty did despite being north of the Club 42 boundary and apply to the EoS and hope the membership approves their application.

There is still only one promotion place available for the WoS, EoS and SoS champions to be determined through a playoff. All of the SFA, LL, WoS, EoS and SoS have to sign off on any changes on that, so that could last for a while because the LL turkeys won't be voting for an early Christamas. With the likes of Auchinleck Talbot, Kilwinning Rangers, Darvel and Irvine Meadow getting floodlights installed with a view to getting licensing approval by February it was vital to get promoted this past season. Kelty, Bonnyrigg and Bo'ness made it in by promotion while it was still relatively smooth sailing with only the SoS to worry about. Ironic that the east region club that got licensed before anyone else wasn't able to take advantage of their head start. With a bit of foresight they could have got into the Lowland League by application, but it's too late for that now.

A question probably best asked on Fitba North where most Highland League people post rather than on here. As things stand at the moment, you never see Tayside mentioned in articles like this: https://www.northern-times.co.uk/sport/promotion-and-relegation-could-be-introduced-to-the-highland-league-196481/ even as a future possibility in addition to the NCL and north region.

There has been zero interest from Tayside juniors in getting licensed and joining the Highland League despite plenty of floodlights having been installed over the years (Dundee junior clubs helped to pioneer floodlight use in Scotland post-WWII) along with more than adequate covered enclosures. The Highland League kent fine well that would be the case when they agreed to the Club 42 boundary. We have moved on from there to a point where all of what used to be junior football is gradually aligning itself in tier 6 terms with either the LL or HL. That was never expected to happen and there is no indication that the HL have any intention of catering to Tayside in that context now there is a serious possibility of actually having to do so.