LongTimeLurker

There was a Falkirk Herald article recently in which the Bo'ness United chairman was quoted as saying that he was expecting notification from the SFA on licensing after an SFA board meeting on June 18th.

Discussing when games are likely to restart is always likely to lead to mission creep where this thread is concerned. There's reason for optimism at the moment. If you want to know why:

Thanks for clearing that up before grand theories started to be built on the back of it in a similar way to what happened on here with the Club 42 Tay bridge boundary. The clue that something was amiss should have been in the history part of the url.

Worth a look: https://eaststirlingshirefc.co.uk/archives/731

...and on and on as always.

^^^just so this post doesn't derail the thread because FWF always has to find some petty pedantic way to point score over my posts. Clubs will need to be licensed to play at tier 5 at the professional game board level under the single division format the HL is currently using.

The other important angle is that a club would have to be licensed to be eligible for promotion, so in the short term this looks likely to be a case of dropping Fort William to the NCL and adding BoD from the north juniors depending on the number of clubs the HL wants to operate at. Think Golspie are likely to lose their licence over having no floodlights?

I fully expect the Chairmen of the teams in the three tier 5 leagues to keep banging that drum until there is automatic promotion/relegation between tiers 4 and 5. Hope so. Bo'ness have a five year plan to fulfill. Still only two at tier 5 BTW. The WoS is tier 6.

Reserve leagues made more sense back when there were only two subs. The reverse fixture would happen for the reserves on a Saturday to keep the rest of the first team squad active. Different story now there are seven subs including a goalie.

Some people on here need to read the relevant rules: https://spfl.co.uk/admin/filemanager/files/shares/SPFL Rules and Regulations 1-Jun-20 (MASTER COPY) CLEAN.pdf The SPFL runs the Club 42 vs HL/LL winner playoff on dates and venues determined by the SPFL board and it's supposed to happen at the end of the season. The SFA only run the playoff between the HL and LL and that couldn't take place this year at the end of the season so Club 42 had noone to play against and hence kept their place. It's over, deal with it and move on.

You can also look at other countries on that. Not much sign of second waves so far. The politicians were spooked into overly drastic responses by computer modelling predictions that now appear to have been flawed because they assumed a mortality rate that was at least an order of magnitude higher than reality. Good luck getting anyone in a position of authority to admit something like that.

On hospitalisation for severe cases maybe but symptoms typically start to kick in after 5 days or so and for most people are relatively mild.

RJ has a track record of posting what he thinks should happen or wants to happen as fact. Lewis (as in the island) being eager to enter the pyramid was a recent one.

That was clearly the expected outcome, but Cove Rangers annihilating Berwick Rangers with League One level talent over two legs last year threw the cat in amongst the pigeons in a big way. The League Two clubs knocked back a temporary 14-10-10-10 and insisted on 14-14-14 because they knew Kelty and Brora would be too hot to handle. There will be more clubs like that following in their footsteps. Darvel and Hurlford come to mind in the west, before you get into the Bonnyrigg and Talbot type clubs that will be able to do it based on significant fan support and lucrative cup runs.

Brechin has a train line, FWIW. Problem is it's one of the steam train preservation type ones and isn't hooked up to the main network.

The Club 42 playoff will remain in place, but it's going to be very difficult to ever change that to an automatic relegation format because of the SPFL's voting rules.

There is wording in the rules about the Kelty Brora games being held at the end of the preceding season, so it's difficult to justify doing it several months later if somebody, for the sake of the argument lets call them Brechin, wanted to get pedantic about it, unfortunately.

A U20 team is not the same concept as a reserve team. Colt teams are used to give young players experience playing against more experienced players in a normal league setup rather than having them playing in an age specific youth league against players their own age. That is what Nairn County have been doing in NCL cup competitions and now appear to want to do in league games as well.

Serbia can always be relied upon to take a vodka and sauna approach:

Looks like they anticipate having a second division at tier 6 because registered members can't play at tier 5 which is professional game board level. At the very least they are future proofing their rules with that possibility in mind.

No shit, Sherlock.

Unfortunately the SPFL is off the hook in terms of the rules as written because they run the final set of games involving Club 42 and the Kelty Brora games organised by the SFA couldn't be played when the season ended as they are supposed to be.

Cumnock makes sense given the 3G and floodlights. Should be easier for them than many other clubs.

It has been pointed out to me that I could be wrong about ICT being the most likely first colt team in the pyramid. It might be Nairn County U20 as soon as next weekend as they may have applied to join the North Caledonian League and that league is on the verge of becoming a tier 6 feeder to the Highland League next season: https://www.inverness-courier.co.uk/sport/nairn-youngsters-could-enter-ncl-195457/ Now back to the usual bile.

Kelty and Brora not getting a shot at SPFL entry will not be good for the pyramid if/when it happens. What the whole reconstruction debacle shows is that the chances of ever changing the Club 42 playoff format to something more progressive are somewhere between exceedingly slim and none. Having a pyramid is better than not having a pyramid, but it's myopic in the extreme to pretend that there aren't severe flaws with the one we now have.