LongTimeLurker

The weird thing is that we have a few members of junior blazerdom claiming on here that the east and west superleagues will be in the pyramid at tier 6 by next season, while we have a few diehard fans of the grade that still seem to think it's going to carry on business as usual. No matter who is right on what is happening on tier 6, the latter group of posters are not going to get what they want because the clubs have already decided overwhelmingly (only 4 still dissenting on that at the last SJFA AGM?) that they want to be in the pyramid. The only issue still to be determined is which set of blazers get to run the leagues in question. Hence the wildly differing versions of what happened at last week's EoS meeting.

The second sentence is a roundabout way of saying it's not going to be a junior league that's involved in either of those localities without being explicit about it, so if that's an accurate description of what was explained at the meeting I have no idea how John Greenhorn could have been trying to persuade the former Lothian junior clubs that the SFA still wants them in the EoS.

The other thing that seems a bit off about the narrative being spun from Lochee United is the whole idea that Stewart Regan set SFA policy on the pyramid rather than implemented decisions made either by the clubs at AGMs or by the professional game board. His departure is unlikely to have made much difference as he was a paid employee rather than a benevolent dictator.

Not according to the Lowland League's constitution that has a line of latitude mentioned set at the centre point of the Tay road bridge. http://slfl.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Scottish-Lowland-Football-League-Rules-Version-8.pdf In the event of Club 42 losing the Pyramid Play-Off Match, it will be relegated to the SHFL League if its Registered Ground is located North of Degree of Latitude 56,4513N or to the SLFL if its Registered Ground is located South of Degree of Latitude 56,4513N and it shall thereafter comply with the rules and regulations of the relevant league.

Guess it's a sign of how the debate has moved on drastically since the start of the year that a Lochee United poster is now telling us how the juniors will be hooking up to the LL and HL in the pyramid next season. Wouldn't necessarily be bad if it happened that way, but what's obvious is that somebody at the top of one of the leagues/associations involved with the PWG appears to be giving their member clubs a highly misleading picture of where things have reached and we'll no doubt find out who that was soon enough.

To be fair I think Whitburn and Fauldhouse would probably annihilate Tweedmouth and Hawick RA but those are outliers. If the EoS run with a conference format again at tier 7 beneath the new top 16 division at tier 6 I don't think any newly arriving east region clubs from south of the Tay bridge boundary line could sensibly feel aggrieved.

So I guess the next step now would be for the SFA board to give their OK? The EoS appeared to be gearing up last season to help in the launch of a WoS division judging from the info that emerged from Kilwinning at one point. The bid by the SJFA to enter the pyramid intact after the survey results were released probably put a stop to that last year, but wouldn't this year if the PWG rejected what the SJFA was proposing:

In which case I think we can trust the circulated minutes.

So that would be the meeting Blackburn weren't represented at?

Were Dundonald Bluebell at the meeting in question because of the problem with player eligibility in the cup game, and if they were would Tom Johnston have been the source for the info being relayed here?

Think the LL2 thing might be part of the Plan A as it's a way to keep the early adopters where the LL was concerned happy and more amenable to voting for two relegation spots. Doubt there would be much problem attracting teams to a WoS league after what happened last season in the east.

Three way split centred on Dundee, Aberdeen and Inverness. The misleadingly named Forfarshire FA would be the senior football body that could run the new Tayside league. Right now I think they only have a local cup competition unlike the North of Scotland and Aberdeenshire FAs.

Same sort of idea but with some east superleague clubs like Lochee United starting to threaten the top half of the HL. If there was ever relegation from the HL a lot of rural clubs would drop out over time to be replaced by more clubs from the immediate Dundee and Aberdeen areas. That's why the HL likes its 18 team closed shop arrangement and had to be dragged kicking screaming into the pyramid by Stewart Regan.

Yes, most of the north region superleague clubs would hold their own OK in the bottom half of the HL. NCL clubs would be more Fort William and Strathspey sort of level.

The conspiracy theory would be that there is no huge expectation that they actually will, but the offer to accommodate them in this manner still has to be made. If this latest info is accurate though, how many east region clubs are there going to be south of the Tay this time next year that aren't from the old Tayside setup? Either way things are probably going to have much the same end point.

Golspie Sutherland is the only other licensed club north of the Tay boundary and outside the SPFL and HL. They are in the North Caledonian league which would probably be a third feeder for teams in the NoSFA catchment, while most of the north region falls into the Aberdeenshire FA area. Having Tayside, Aberdeenshire and North Caledonian feeders would mirror having EoS, WoS and a very weak SoS in the LL catchment. Banks o Dee are already in an Aberdeenshire and District League that runs with a U-21 format at the moment: https://www.aberdeenshireanddistrictfa.com/league Maybe a revamped version of that would be where most of the north region clubs would go meaning there is only one new senior league needed to cover all of the HL catchment?

Misread that when I responded to it. That's a good way to get LL clubs to vote for changes and address the imbalance between east and west. Also makes a statement about what should be happening in the not too distant future at the bottom of the SPFL.

Permission for a Tayside senior league to be formed isn't necessarily the same thing as it happening straight away. It gives the 16 clubs concerned a viable way forward, basically. The HL is not keen on relegation and would probably not be heartbroken if those clubs stayed in the SJFA outside the pyramid. Ditto with the north region. If Burnieman is correct and his track record has been good on this then the SJFA's bid to enter intact has been knocked back and the next thing to happen next season will probably be the WoS senior league with the rump of the SJFA continuing outside the pyramid. Once that is cleared up the embargo probably gets lifted. Time will tell.

Then there's the issue of the 16 east region Tayside clubs that are north of the LL:HL boundary that Burnieman's version of events addresses while Bluebell's doesn't. The east superleague can't simply hook up to the LL, because about half of its current clubs are not eligible to play in it.

The LL clubs decided against 2 up 2 down at their last AGM with there being no appetite for change on that according to what I read elsewhere. Turkeys don't vote for an early Christmas etc It will be interesting to see which of Burnieman and Bluebell has the correct insider info on what is happening next season according to the PWG. Odds on that's the EoS and SJFA version of events, respectively. The EoS version was usually more accurate last season. Time will tell.

Presumably the north region clubs get to form a new senior league as well to provide two feeders to the HL?

No more parachute payments and by no means the best supported team with rental payments for a 7000 seat stadium. No reason to expect them to be at the top, but at the same time would expect to see them above the likes of the remaining two Borders teams and the Uni sides in mid-table. Think absolute dross is wide of the mark as the quality is strengthening year after year and the top few LL teams would probably adjust to being in the SPFL a lot more quickly than Edinburgh City did. If/when the best supported junior clubs from the west get involved there will be plenty more smaller SPFL clubs finding out how they would fare at this level.

Think he's right about what the pro-Brexit Tories are doing in terms of not negotiating in good faith and deliberately running down the clock to engineer a no deal Brexit and agree it is sensible to put in a stock of food over the next few months for that scenario if you can afford it, but some of the rest about using emergency powers is a bit too Alex Jones to be worth taking seriously.

Wouldn't count on it. The EU needs the example of a relatively painless exit like it needs a hole in the head right now with the rise of cranky right wing populism.

Only six more months until all the rhetoric and lies from the Leave camp finally collides with reality. Once the dust settles will the UK finally move on from its post-imperial identity crisis or is there going to be a few more decades of this lunacy until people finally grasp that they live in a moderately large European state that needs to trade freely with its immediate European neighbours to remain prosperous rather than a global maritime empire that can still set the rules on world trade through gunboat diplomacy?