LongTimeLurker

I have nothing against WW. I'm just describing how the landscape of the senior grade is changing and why. People should check out the 2017-18 LL table if they think last season was an aberration rather than part of an ongoing trend: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017–18_Lowland_Football_League You are likely to soon be followed out of the LL by the clubs that had a similar number of points two seasons ago (i.e. Vale of Leithen, Dalbeattie Star, Gretna, Gala, Edinburgh Uni and Edusport) because better supported and hence better funded former junior clubs are going to filter their way in over the five years or so. You will find your level as will they. That's how a pyramid works. When/if the west superleague hooks up as a west feeder to the LL even the likes of Bo'ness United and Lithgae Rose will have their work cut out in the years ahead establishing themselves as a fixture at tier 5. As Burnieman pointed out this could be the last season when it's easy for the EoS winner in terms of the end of season promotion playoff. The Lowland League is going to be much stronger than it is now in a decade's time.

Dunbar and Sauchie are another two that you would expect to be able to do it based on what they already have in place.

I thought the east and west superleagues should have been in at tier 6 and was disappointed that there was no such thing as a "board directive" in the SFA constitution to break the logjam. Unless Tom Johnston is a drooling moron (and he clearly isn't to have reached where he has and stay there) he must have been aware that it wasn't a done deal, because he has been involved with the SFA at a high level for a long time.

...or Tom Johnston played everybody on this by getting an inexperienced CEO who didn't understand the limits of his role yet to push an agenda that the EoS and LL were always going to ultimately block. End result SJFA still doing its own thing and he still gets a regular pay cheque. If the associate membership thing had been more restrictive he could have said, "look they don't even want us", and it probably would have looked reasonable to most SJFA members. They could have retreated back into a juniorfitba forum cocoon and lived happily ever after at that point. Think the SFA Board are very much wise to him now after meeting directly with the ex-junior EoS clubs and hearing their perspective and the timing of yesterday's new full memberships and Bonnyrigg's promotion makes it very difficult for the SJFA blazers to spin that narrative.

The landscape of senior football has changed drastically and they are no longer up against a collection of Borders clubs who have fallen on hard times and are using local players and Edinburgh clubs with very few supporters. In that environment they were able to use SFA full membership to their advantage to be a regular title challenger and regular success like that helps to attract players. Since the LL came in and they ceased to be a regular trophy winner they have been on a downward trajectory. I think their natural habitat right now would probably be as a yo-yo club between the sixth and seventh tiers at least until a few more relatively large West Lothian junior clubs like Whitburn, Fauldhouse, Armadale and Bathgate arrive on the scene, which hopefully isn't too far off in the future.

Now Civil Service Strollers have floodlights sorted out and just finished near the top of the LL table it will be interesting to see if they are still so keen to drive the discussion on having an LL2. Their motivation on that might have been self-serving.

Yes to the second question on Clydebank. Late last year junior clubs were told by Tom Johnston that the west and east superleagues were going to be in at tier six for 2019-20, but it turned out not to be the case because the EoS and LL were opposed to having a second feeder in the east and the SJFA only want to enter the pyramid as a fully intact association rather than on a region by region basis. Changes to the pyramid can only happen by consensus, so it won't be easy to break that logjam.

Turning it around the other way Blackburn, WW, Dunbar and Crossgates are probably the prime candidates for relegation on last season's form and/or past stature in the game. Sauchie and Newtongrange Star might be helped a bit relative to Camelon, Musselburgh and Tranent by not having to spend a sizable chunk of available funds on floodlights to chase after licensing.

There are still plenty of clubs that you could almost guarantee won't be in the LL 5-10 years from now as more recently or soon to be licensed ex-junior clubs slowly filter their way in. The rushed floodlight installation would have had to put a drastic dent into their finances before Bonnyrigg Rose wouldn't be expected to be in the top half.

Nothing I suspect given the lopsided nature of the outcome. Having the SJFA AGM in Perth shortly after Kinnoull defected to the EoS and the day after Jeanfield Swifts got full SFA membership along with Bonnyrigg Rose and Dundonald Bluebell should prompt some questions from his member clubs as to precisely what the #%$^ is going on.

Lowland league have made it official now: http://slfl.co.uk/statement-promotion-and-relegation/#more-12227 The Board of the Scottish Lowland Football League can today confirm that Bonnyrigg Rose have been granted membership to the Scottish FA and as a result of this they will be promoted to the Lowland League for season 2019/20...

This is definitely going to complicate Tom Johnston's narrative at the SJFA AGM tomorrow. No disrespect to Jeanfield Swifts, but if they can do something like this so can at least half of the WRSJFA.

Looks like WW will be relegated and play in the EoS premier next season:

with immediate effect: which should mean they get promoted.

Bearing in mind that there is no indication so far that associate membership has any effect other than having no vote at AGMs, how accurate is that last bit? Bonnyrigg Rose, Jeanfield Swifts and Dundonald Bluebell have all got floodlights up at relatively short notice at the end of a season where they were among the top teams in the EoS. Almost all of the clubs that are likely to make it to tier 5 from the EoS are either licensed already or are not that far away from being ready to tick the various boxes on licensing requirements and the west superleague clubs that would be most likely to get promoted to the LL after pyramid entry have the financial capacity to do something similar with two of last season's clubs having applications in already.

They are easily accessed on the LL website and he's right about there having to be 16 clubs.

They have to go through the whole process of doing what it takes to get Bonnyrigg licensed because the LL Board agreed to provide a waiver (as they have the power to do in the LL constitution) to EoS licensing applicants to give the SFA time to get it done rather than sticking to the original March 31st deadline. The SFA Board meeting next week will no doubt be the culmination of that one way or the other. Should result in Bonnyrigg's promotion but there seemed to be some question from Bonnyrigg posters last night as to whether the date that licensing kicks in for them will happen in time. Suspect no news this week points to good news from their standpoint. We'll find out soon enough.

You got relegated under the rules of the competition when Berwick lost the playoff regardless of whether Selkirk were there or not. Your club should be proceeding on the basis of it being EoS next season unless told otherwise. Now that Bonnyrigg have a functional set of lights there should only be one outcome where this season is concerned and I seriously doubt it would be getting dragged out this long if any other outcome was likely.

The counter argument would be that the smaller clubs still can table motions and makes themselves heard collectively through bodies like the EoSFA as was already the case over the many decades before club licensing when new SFA full members were few and far between. The old way of doing things was untenable moving forward in an environment where dozens of extra clubs have membership aspirations, so making floodlights mandatory and limiting full membership to the top five tiers looks like changes that badly needed to be made to be able to move the pyramid forward without generating a massive backlash against it from SPFL clubs.

Where do you draw the line? Eventually amateur clubs are probably going to be in the pyramid. Should they all get an equal vote as well? Sometimes you have to make the effort to try to understand the issue from the other person's perspective. Blackburn United don't have the same clout within the game as Hearts given they attract less than 1% of the number of spectators of a typical Tynecastle crowd and have no full time employees, so it shouldn't be a huge shock that clubs like Hearts expect to have more of a say inside the SFA than clubs like Blackburn do and would have taken active measure to ensure it stays that way in future if, for example, all 64 WRSJFA clubs join the pyramid en masse at the end of next season and floodlights start sprouting up very quickly like they did with Dundonald and Bonnyrigg.

The counter argument may have been that it evens out over time and it's simply not worth the hassle of having to monitor whether the home club are at the fiddle where the number of spectators paying admission is concerned.

Think that's a massive over-reaction. Is it a really shock that SPFL clubs don't want Auchenshuggle Jubejubes to have the same voting rights that they do in an association they have dominated for many decades, if there is a possibility that there will eventually be more community game board level clubs in membership than those covered by the professional game board? It looks more like a way to accommodate a mass influx of new members in a manner that doesn't ruffle the feathers of the existing membership than an attempt to kill off the pyramid.

Think too much of a fuss is being kicked up over this, if associate members can still be promoted and still get Scottish cup entry and access to membership related cash handouts. If all that is involved is voting rights at the AGM, this looks like a way to facilitate a large membership influx without running into opposition from SPFL clubs worried about losing their control over the SFA's future direction. The existing membership were never going to allow a situation to develop where PGB board level clubs might ultimately wind up being outvoted if the SJFA's entire membership were able to gate crash the party.