LongTimeLurker

So at that point is it automatically at odds with options 1 or 2? Let the west in at tier 6 either way (and possibly the east at tier 7 should option 2 be OK with the EoS and the HL:LL boundary is lifted) for 2020/21 then split the LL for 2021/22 after clubs have had time to get licensed.

The City of London has used trusts set up in non-EU tax havens within what's left of the Empire like Jersey and the Cayman Islands to attract vast amounts of money from all kinds of shady characters and maintain London's role as the dominant financial services centre globally. If anything, Brexit probably makes that easier to do. It's more manufacturing and agriculture that potentially have major problems ahead.

They could use the format the EoS used with the three conferences last season with each champion getting a home game and an away game. At a push, you could do it in the space of a week with the east vs west game getting played on the Wednesday most years for travel distance reasons. Then tier 6 champion vs team 42 home and away.

As things stand there is no reason to believe it would change from 0.5, because of the way the rules are drafted in the SPFL constitution.

Think an LL west is viable if they do it by application and give clubs two years to get their licence sorted out. It also makes it easy to get the top licensed EoS premier clubs into the mix at tier 5 as quickly as possible. The issue that comes clambering over the horizon though is colt teams, so there may be another agenda behind option 4.

He knows exactly what he is doing with that. The DUP could not allow this guy anywhere near 10 Downing Street and that could have led us over the cliff edge into no deal hard Brexit given ERG also had lots of leverage. Boris Johnson is a boorish clown but with a large majority for five years things should start to gravitate towards a reasonably rational outcome again.

The HL:LL boundary was always going to be up for discussion after what happened last season. Not sure why we needed a few more pages arguing over that. Option 2 was something I suggested in this thread at one point. Maybe Rod Petrie is reading the posts. Think Option 4 is the most sensible one in terms of balancing out the pyramid long term at tier 5 if Tayside clubs are no longer going to be in the HL catchment. The ERSJFA would need to be the Tayside north section only for it to be viable, however. The ERSJFA clearly can't sustain a 16 team tier 6 feeder covering Fauldhouse to Brechin. I doubt the SPFL would care that much about having three feeders because team 42 would still be playing the pyramid champion and identifying that champion is supposed to be an SFA matter.

It's more the final free trade deal I have in mind that determines what happens after the transition period expires at the end of next year.

Doubt he will, but with no Euro elections life becomes more difficult for that brand of politics.

Now Boris has a large majority the ERG faction has a lot less leverage. Labour will probably soon have a leader who is pro-Remain rather than Corbyn who has always been eurosceptic. That changes the whole dynamic and should tip things away from the hardline no deal scenarios that would drive moderate NI opinion towards UI. Given Boris was pro-EU until relatively recently and now has full executive control, the eventual exit deal could wind up being a relatively soft Brexit with a relatively frictionless border between Newry and Dundalk. It will be another couple of years before the dust will settle and it will be clear whether Brexit was the beginning of the end for the Union.

The age-dependent attitude towards Brexit is a bit more complex than that and people who are dependent on state benefits and the NHS are likely to swing towards whoever keeps them most secure, if access to them comes starts to come under threat in any way.

You are aware that the Alliance Party is basically the pro-Sunningdale faction of the UUP in historical terms?

I'd take those graphics with a pinch of salt. How can they possibly have the information needed to break that down accurately to the constituency level?

Les didi-clubs Angusois is the phrase that is normally used in French. Given the HL and NRSJFA are happy puttering along doing their own thing and a lot of HL clubs tend to see the pyramid as something that happens south of Stonehaven and Fort William that has nothing much to do with them, I doubt they would be heartbroken not to have to deal with Brechin City down the road. The only fly in the ointment on a boundary line shift would be Montrose Roselea.

Bit of an ironic response to the article Jackgranda just posted, if you take the time to read its contents.

Confusion over the boundary was specifically mentioned as being an issue by the SFA when the PWG wrapped up its activities last season with no resolution.

She grew up in Glasgow.

Have to wonder what would have happened if one Labour MP (forget who it was) hadn't signed Corbyn's nomination papers so he could stand for the Labour leadership in the interests of Corinthian fair play and broadening debate within the party. Another Blairite clone would almost certainly have been acceptable to the Lib Dems and Tory rebels as a caretaker PM a few weeks back, might have won against Theresa May back in 2017 and would almost certainly have made an effort to galvanise support for Remain during the referendum. There's also a good chance that the DUP wouldn't have been quite so hell bent on propping up the Tories if the main alternative for PM wasn't somebody who appeared to many people to strongly sympathize with the Provos back in the 80s.

Hector Brocklebank wants his fash back from the Common Fisheries Policy. Maybe once that's settled one way or the other over the next year or two, the Tories won't look quite so appealing again.

Except there was the claim made that Brechin, Forfar, Montrose and Arbroath are actively lobbying for this, which appears to hint at inside knowledge and Prorege has had a decent track record from what I remember of being in the know ahead of time on issues like this in the past. Burnie_man doesn't appear to know the contents of the four proposals, which if anything is probably a sign that things are going quite amicably, if none of the parties directly involved are eager to leak the info all over P&B at this point to try to drive opinion on the matter within the game in line with their preferred spin as happened last season. It's not clear how if he doesn't know the specifics, he can be so sure that the boundary line didn't feature.

It was the Highland Boundary Fault line that was mentioned in the guys post:

There are currently no clubs to the north and west of Helensburgh and south of the Tay Bridge line that are likely to ever be a factor on this unless an Oban team gets involved above amateur level, so the only real difference it would make is that some Angus and Perthshire clubs would now fall under the LL and its still to be fully resolved east feeder setup.

The LL2 and reconfigured HL:LL boundary line scenarios may explain how there can be four possible models for league structures up for discussion, and why the SFA board representatives at these meetings never seem to see the Tay Bridge boundary as being carved in stone. Time will tell. I've always been skeptical that the SPFL, SFA and HL would care enough over whether Tayside clubs were in the LL or not to oppose a move to shift that line if both junior and senior Tayside clubs expressed a strong preference for the LL.

According to a poster called Prorege on Nonleague matters: https://nonleaguematters.co.uk/forum/gforum.cgi?post=957825#957825 Things are moving and it seems certain that there will be a West League in the pyramid system, probably in 2020/1 but certainly in 2021/2. Either the SJFA have abandoned their all or nobody approach, or the West Region Juniors have told them they'll go it alone. Other matters still simmering are Lowland League 2, and the re-alignment of the Highland / Lowland border to the natural Stonehaven / Helensburgh line. https://nonleaguematters.co.uk/forum/gforum.cgi?post=957829#957829 If the line moves to the Helensburgh / Stonehaven HBF then Brechin is south of it. Brechin, supported by Forfar, Montrose and Arbroath are lobbying for the line to be moved so they fall into LL territory. They argue that all 4 clubs train in the central belt and their playing squads are primarily based in the Forth-Clyde valley. The players only go to the home ground for home games. The location of the towns would be peripheral to the HL and recruiting players to commit to the daunting HL schedule would be difficult. They believe sending them to the HL would be counter-intuitive. Furthermore, they feel, there are several HL clubs who would invest heavily for the glory of winning the HL but have no interest in moving up to the SPFL. The LL would be more of a level playing field with all likely winners committed to promotion. Scottish football bodies respond to what their member clubs want rather than what spreadsheets and calculators suggest. The SPFL could easily withdraw from the relegation play off if the pyramid arrangements do not suit them.

Any fitba fan that was attracted to P&B for reasons related to sport rather than politics will be able to fully understand that reaction and I suspect most will find it amusing more than anything else.