LongTimeLurker

Could you expand on why you think this is significant? Is there a particular group involved in all of this that you perceive as being in control of the banks?

It's not the DUP that are blocking power sharing at the moment it's SF. I seriously doubt that the Stormont assembly will ever function again if a hard Brexit happens. The cash for ash stuff and the Irish Language Act were just the excuse for collapsing it not the real reason. A hard Brexit fundamentally changes the way NI is governed in a way Irish nationalists are unlikely to ever accept as being reasonable.

That needs to be tested in practice before it will become clear what would happen.

Maybe Upper Annandale is a flag of convenience and it will really be a Glasgow youth team that is involved?

Anybody's guess because it's very difficult to predict how both Leave and Remain voters would react to that and a lot of the more marginal constituencies in England would have four possible winners. If I were Boris (involuntary shudder) I would find a way to suspend the sitting of parliament for a few months and run the clock down and hope the EU blinks.

Don't see how they can risk a GE right now, because they could just as easily get wiped out as a mainstream party of governance as win it. They need to get Brexit sorted when that's viewed in purely selfish party-political and career preservation terms as it no doubt will be.

Will be interesting to see what if anything can be done to stop Boris Johnson from using procedural measures to just run down the clock. He needs to deliver Brexit to keep his party activists happy and get Brexit Party types back into the fold so it is difficult to see what can be done to stop it at this point. The lunatics have taken over the asylum.

They are closest to the posh end of Bothwell which is more rugger and cricket sort of territory and everywhere else nearby already has plenty of junior and/or SPFL teams to follow locally as well as the Old Firm drawing a lot of support, so think that's going to be a struggle.

True as far as it goes but could also have been said about Formartine, Turriff United and Strathspey Thistle at one point.

Guess they would need to actually join the pyramid first. Do any NCL clubs actually want to progress if they won promotion? I suspect that's the main stumbling block. The NCL has a strange status when you look into it. It's basically a Highland League reserve league for NoSFA clubs that stopped being a reserve league because all the HL reserve teams dropped out but still is treated as if it were one.

And you still need to get a set of lights up for this to even be a relevant issue for you after June of next year, so maybe that should be the main focus for WW people at the moment? Very much hope you do manage it, BTW.

My follow up, if he had taken the bait, was going to be that you would never see Irish Gaels expanding beyond their island out into another people's land, oh wait a minute now how about Dalriada and the Picts whom they utterly destroyed if we are going to take the Declaration of Arbroath as the gospel truth? Maybe it's time for Scotland to reject this evil settler colonialist past as its founding myth and finally embrace its true Cumbric Welsh heritage. Down with Hamish Kenneth McAlpine! I wonder what the Welsh for something catchy like Ourselves Alone or Soldiers of Destiny would be? Let's be just like the RoI and all pretend we speak Welsh even though we really don't and add a couple of words at the end of any email we write in English and throw in a few garbled phrases into conversations every now and again as some sort of bizarre identity crisis.

Wee bit different having people from Ayrshire moving to Co Antrim than having people from Warsaw, Lodz and Lvov move to Tel Aviv. The dominant culture in the RoI is also that of the Pale rather than the Gaeltacht, so where exactly do you start on the settler colonialism?

The senior pyramid isn't a monolithic block. The SFA Board and IM were not in the least bit bothered about the boundary last season and had to have its existence explained to them when they met with the EoS and LL clubs by all accounts. The SFA Board wanted both the east and west superleagues in at tier 6 this season and were on the same side as the SJFA on that.

...which is why I said the LL are the party that would probably block a change and that a boundary shift would be difficult but not impossible. Are you even reading my posts?

You are fooling naebody. Bottom line is that there is no reason why the HL would be so mad keen on trips to Dundee for an ingin peh that they are likely to object to the boundary being shifted north to more closely fit their traditional catchment.

For much the same reason that your club probably wouldn't be too keen on travelling from Blackburn to Aberdeen for away games if they could avoid it.

It can be changed if the SPFL, HL, LL and SFA all agree. Which of those would be strongly opposed? I suspect the HL don't want any Tayside teams, so they would be no problem. RP not knowing is probably indicative that the SFA and SPFL won't really hugely care either way, so it probably all boils down to the attitude of the LL and there being an even larger population imbalance between the two feeders may tip it the other way. Probably difficult to change but not impossible.

They were in the same league a lot up from the end of WWI up until the early1930s given they were both in the Central League (which Bo'ness won both seasons) and then usually in the second division with the obvious exceptions of the seasons when Bo'ness were in the first division and the Shire were in the short-lived third division? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Football_League https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1921–22_Scottish_Football_League

Could you expand a bit because having just done so it isn't clear at all that gives the SFA carte blanche to impose whatever decision they see fit. All that makes clear is that a WoS league can't happen unilaterally without SFA approval.

Their argument is that they want all Scottish cup entrants to be able to host a midweek cup replay under lights. The Lochee United vs Ayr United saga from a few years back is an example of why that holds some water. SPFL clubs were clearly spooked at the prospect of having upwards of 17 new members joining all at once. Associate membership below tier 5 should limit the danger of ever more onerous requirements being added to keep numbers down.

You can always use the best-placed licensed club.

Agree in principle, but I think in practical terms that there is probably always going to be a licensed EoS champion for the foreseeable future. The main problem might be next season if clubs like Bo'ness United, Musselburgh or Camelon don't get licensed in time, but all the likely suspects on that are trying to get it done and the handling of Bonnyrigg Rose's application by the LL Board has set a useful precedent.

Looks a lot more sensible than what they had previously.

Certainly true of the LL, but the HL appear to have neglected to put that into their constitution.