LongTimeLurker

Think you are leaving something important out. Up to late January of this year, the SJFA was trying to get into the pyramid with the SJFA fully intact, so it's an over-simplification to say they fought tooth and nail against the pyramid. That's only accurate up to 2018 before they did the survey that showed most members wanted pyramid entry. In the south, it's only the LL and EoS that had an issue with SJFA pyramid entry not the SFA and SoS. In the north, it's far from impossible that the north region will still enter the pyramid as the north region of the SJFA.

The ball skills level that very top players had back then was a step up from now but fitness levels and tactical systems were not as advanced as they nowadays. My response on seeing the title of the thread is yes of course why is that even a question. Teams now would piss all over teams from back then but based on a collective effort from 11 rather than the special skills of just1.

Think what is being lost in some of these narratives is that the interests of smaller clubs like St Anthony's and Royal Albert on the one hand and those of Pollok and Talbot on the other were not going to be the same on the question of four conferences vs keeping the 2019-20 west region superleague more or less intact. Think what is most important though is that the SFA's agenda on that could be driven completely by an internal SFA set of politics. It's possible that the WoS has just got caught in the crossfire of that with no dark ulterior motives being involved on the part of people who negotiated the emergence of the league. Beyond that it's only natural that former junior clubs and their officialdom are going to want to influence decision making moving forward. That's what democracy in all of this leads to and that's not something to be automatically feared. If the LL gets it written into the south pyramid rules that the WoS and SCC must always take priority over the SJC on fixtures in a way that can't easily be changed without consensus between all the leagues involved then that's about as much as they can reasonably expect to achieve in influence terms at this point.

Was the meeting on March 10th, the one at the EK hotel? If so St Anthony's and some others may not have been there to hear it. Edit: sounds like it would have been a west region meeting instead

...by the last minute the EoS was clearly no longer going to be a jumped up amateur league, so not clear what his point is. Also important to bear in mind that the league management committee members in question could easily be overruled by other members of their clubs at a club AGM on that issue. Maybe the problem at the likes of Armadale and Whitburn is that the club isn't functioning properly where a constituted general meeting is concerned and an entrenched committee calls all the shots so it really is about what the main officeholders want.

Only the junior cup, and it remains to be seen how many top WoS clubs are still going to take that as seriously as they used to even if they do participate. It's mind boggling that the stronger West Lothian clubs still steered clear this season. Fauldhouse was maybe the domino that needed to fall first.

It's definitely not ideal but the number of clubs getting that far will be limited. I'm more worried about the bottleneck between the LL and the three tier 6 feeders. Hope that gets expanded out to two automatic relegation places in the not too distant future.

We'll see what happen on the pyramid. My guess would be that no reconstruction can make it through an SPFL general meeting and reach the vote requirements, so the team 42 playoff stays as is for the foreseeable future.

What there will almost certainly be is something for the WoS clubs that don't do the SJC, so nobody sits idle when the first SJC game is played as that would be awkward to explain otherwise. Think a West of Scotland Cup type competition is the one that lost out when the SJC entered the picture.

Yes, only SCC and a league cup for WoS teams confirmed so far.

SC, SJC and SCC in Talbot's case.

Having floodlights in and being both allowed and expected to actually use them to clear backlogs will make a big difference for Talbot.

Go with the premier teams regardless plus Bonnyton.

That's not the SFA's problem and it only means 4 extra dates from a fixture list standpoint as you need to factor in the two bye weeks for each of the clubs at 17 as well. That's why binning participation in a 67 team WoS league cup (suspect it's still going to be there for the tier 7 conference teams) that would probably have required 6 fixture dates plus a prelim can be viewed as solving the issue of moving from 17 to 20 teams (if COVID19 doesn't delay the season obviously).

All quite tame so far given there have been no threats of violence so far from any club officials over posts on here as happened in the east a couple of years back when clubs were leaving the juniors. The hate for Talbot is due only to the way they have hogged the silverware for a very long time now. Nothing like the Old Firm going on in any of this.

Check out what the EoS did to get Lothian Thistle's games played the season Kelty joined. The groundshare between LTHV and Tynecastle led to a massive fixture backlog that had implications for determining a champion in time for a promotion playoff. Games can always get shifted elsewhere to plastic pitches with devil's illuminations. That already seemed to be happening quite a bit in the west region this season with Cumnock's park.

They were already going to allow 17 rather than 16 for one season only, so it would be kind of petty of them not to.

EoS conference teams were doing 34 league games this season + SCC + FNQC + LC + KC + AJC/SC. If the League Cup gets binned 38 is challenging but feasible for tier 6 WoS.

Because the LL told west region clubs that would happen subject to certain conditions being met by the SJFA. The LL didn't have to do that but did, so you have to live with the SJC being part of the equation, if the SJFA ratifies the necessary rule changes.

Is the 20 club thing that was mentioned earlier happening?

It's important to remember that 15 spectators worth of admission money for two linesmen becomes a highly significant expense item if there are only 40 or so paying spectators at a game, which can easily happen at this level.

Maybe the vote on SJFA rule changes didn't go as expected in some way? Definitely looks like the actions of an old man who is desperate to keep his blazer. Getting into such a state over the conferences seems like an overreaction.

Looks more like a counterreformation to me and kind of ironic they could wind up playing Harthill, Whitburn and Armadale regularly as a consequence of it.

Makes things awkward for St Cadoc's, unfortunately.

Whose AGM is being referred to here? The SFA's?