LongTimeLurker

Think there are 108 possible votes once extras like regional FAs and affiliated national FAs are factored in but forget where I saw that.

Even if their board appears to want a Yes, suspect there's a good chance their members will still vote the right way. Non-SPFL full members are around half the potential votes. If they vote overwhelmingly No, this can definitely be defeated even with only the SPFL clubs to publicly come out as No voters so far.

At least the final wasn't in Berwick unlike the Lowland League Cup. If this competition actually meant something to people you would likely be able to draw in 1000+ neutrals in a similar way to Spartans home playoff games. As long as there is South rather than Scottish branding attached to it, good luck with that basically.

Really? Name one former Lanarkshire (traditional boundaries minus Glasgow) ex-junior club people are screaming that about at the moment. Beyond Clydebank and Pollok, the former west region clubs that are by far the most likely to be heading towards the SPFL in the years are pretty much all in Ayrshire. There was a time when Cambuslang Rangers, Baillieston, Blantyre Vics and Larkhall Thistle would probably have been part of that sort of conversation if the pyramid had been introduced a few decades earlier but not nowadays. I doubt it would have been any different for Albion Rovers, if they had been a junior club. Just way too easy to get to Ibrox and Parkhead.

On the bright side, at least half a squad is already there as a foundation to build from. Even possibly the ex-Falkirk player mentioned on the last page if he signed a pre-contract. There's no shortage of Lowland League players looking for clubs after EK dumped all but two of their squad from last season and I doubt Broomhill will be holding onto all the podcast gang's signings.

This seems to be gathering steam amongst lower division SPFL clubs now, who were alleged to be generally in favour at one point. Annan Athletic are said to be a No as well: https://twitter.com/Colin_Paterson_/status/1662132437210546176

Played on loan for Broomhill of late by the looks of things: https://www.transfermarkt.com/fin-malcolm/profil/spieler/743562 and was a youth player with Dundee United before that. Potentially fills the obvious gap in the squad at centre foward.

Think the reason transfers between the strongly and mildly pro-Union parties were not as efficient as those between SF and the SDLP etc is that they are not on the same page on how to deal with the Windsor Framework. TUV and DUP want to keep boycotting Stormont over it until some unlikely scenario unfolds (TUV more dogmatically than the DUP), the UUP are still opposed but want to start power sharing up again because they can live with it, and Alliance never had much of a problem with the Northern Ireland Protocol. The vehemence with which these views are held probably leads to more of an unwillingness to keep selecting candidates down the ballot paper until you reach the former balaclava wearers than was the case previously and that means SF hoovers up a few more councillors. If that divide among pro-Union voters continues, is there still a niche for TUV now the DUP is arguably more hardline than it was previously and do you need the UUP if Alliance does the moderate voter block evolving from Faulknerite Unionism angle better than they do? Beyond all that I think it should be remembered that Ulster Unionists were far from a homogenous entity historically and 1912-72 when one size fitted all was the aberration in some ways. Presbyterians were not part of the Anglican Ascendancy and the legacy of that is still there even if it isn't talked up that much. The Rev. Ian Paisley was basically a case of a late 1600s Scottish Covenanter leader who sincerely believed that the Pope was the Antichrist stepping out of the pages of a history book and entering the fray politically on an island that was still in large measure one of the most devoutly Roman Catholic parts of western Europe. The rest as they say is history, but the political influence of the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster was never going to appeal universally across the entire Ulster Unionist population given a sizable chunk of them are still Anglican.

Eriskay I take it?

Meanwhile, Coatbridge is actually only around 50% Roman Catholic and only slightly more tilted in that direction than other nearby towns like Airdrie, Motherwell, and Hamilton rather than a Scottish version of the Falls Road, and Celtic are right on the doorstep for anyone who wants to link a plastic Irish identity to their football support. File this one under M for moronic...

If the Old Firm are so committed to developing their own youth players how come it was Hamilton Accies that just won the U-18 league? Ajax and PSV have their B teams playing full-time clubs in the Dutch second tier, but the quality of Scottish football is going to be revolutionised by having four B teams playing in an otherwise part-time fifth tier. Aye right, a cosmetic measure that doesn't do anything to genuinely match what happens elsewhere in Europe on this but instead just messes up the pyramid.

Are Peebles Rovers not supposed to be on thin ice in an EoS context? Agree with your general point though.

One of them is known to be near Kyiv because that's where the hypersonic missiles have been shot down a lot of late, but given a lot of the incoming missiles come from the Black Sea fleet based in Crimea I would have thought somewhere near the Black Sea coast that could cover both Odesa and Kherson would make a lot of sense for one of those as well. Some of the missiles that have wound up hitting deep into western Ukraine have been reported to pass over Moldova on their way from Russian navy vessels that sail out of Sevastopol. Have seen it argued that the Patriot system severely embarrassed Putin recently because the trip of a Chinese peace envoy to Kyiv had been expected to happen in the immediate aftermath of a devastating missile and drone raid but unexpectedly from a Russian and Chinese perspective they all got shot down. That made it easy for Zelensky to say the equivalent of "Naw, do one..." in Ukrainian to the visiting Chinese diplomats when the subject of trading land for peace was broached in a way that made the visitors look a little foolish.

Seems to be mainly for athletics but that's also true for Edinburgh City in League One: https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/local-news/new-athletics-venue-dumbartons-posties-29147153

This is all getting a wee bit mental:

Ukrainians mysteriously shoot down a Russian fighter jet over the Black Sea: some chat online that it might have been a Patriot air defence system that was involved.

Bit of a downer but I guess reaching a cup final and taking it to penalties wasn't a bad way to end a season after how things were going at certain points.

The wildly optimistic take would be that they think the vote might not go their way at the SFA AGM and this is a preemptive we didnae want that anyway as a way of saving face.

The gravy train appears to have ended where Kelty Hearts and Edinburgh City are concerned and I doubt Annan are going to be much of a factor (famous last words) so hopefully that helps avoid a second consecutive relegation if the club goes fully part-time at this point as must surely be necessary from a financial standpoint? Accies are not Partick Thistle or Dunfermline Athletic in support terms so people need to be realistic on their expectations now that the club is no longer Ronnie MacDonald's plaything. The club did well in recent times because he was unusually astute for a football director rather than because the club had the financial backing from the fans that would usually be necessary to be making regular appearances in the top flight. A more poorly run Accies is likely to be much the same as a club like Stirling Albion with no sugar daddy behind them and that means anything from desperately attempting to avoid the Club 42 playoff to the occasional jaunt back into the Championship is very much possible in the years ahead.

Top former west region junior clubs have not been a factor yet but there are a lot more Bonnyrigg Rose type clubs that can potentially emerge in that context. What lower division SPFL fans maybe don't grasp is that a lot of WoS premier fans look at what you have and aren't exactly falling over themselves to be part of it because they are happy enough with what they have where they are right now and don't view it as some bleak wasteland abyss.

If what was posted elsewhere earlier is accurate Bonnyrigg Rose have more season ticket holders than Accies. Think the key is accepting that the last decade or two were the club over-performing in a big way and being comfortable with being part-time if that's what finances dictate.

Until very recently there was no pyramid in the west. Not at all clear that the bottom of League Two was better than the top of the West Superleague pre-pyramid or that back in the day the bottom of the old Second Division was better than the top of the old Central League. The idea that moving into that sort of scene is bleak just seems a bit bizarre to me. Think Rovers fans might be pleasantly surprised and will soon realise that getting relegated out of the SPFL is not the end of the world.

FC City of Edinburgh just around the corner then? Mon the FCCEs.