LongTimeLurker

....except for Luncarty on the local thing. Not clear why they would be in the south division, while Scone and Kinnoull are in the north division.

Agree to an extent but three leagues in parallel, if that's what the article implies, isn't so easy to put together given where the teams are distributed. West Lothian 9, Fife + Perth 11, Dundee, Angus + Tayport 16 would be how it fits into the three division regions that initially fed into the superleague.

Think the most interesting part of the article is actually this snippet: ...The format of the East Juniors for next season is still to be rubber-stamped by administrators, but the Evening News understands a regionalised structure of three leagues will be put in place...

If you want to make a big change in football administration it takes a long time to get the people involved to even understand it and you can't just spring it on them at a single meeting with no advance preparation. You need to use the approach Burnie_man had on the 16-16-[16 x 2] format for the east region and spend months in advance canvassing opinion and explaining the advantages of it. A lot of west region clubs will have to see the new expanded EoS working well in practice and see the excitement over who gets to be in the top 5 in each conference and how that will determine who is in tier 6 for 2019/20 before they are likely to be signing up for a WoSL but by early next year conditions will probably be ripe for it.

Am I right in thinking that the guy doing the tweeting there is standing to be west region secretary and could be in charge of their fixtures next season?

I'm a wee bit intrigued to see what insight someone called Hugo could provide over why Bo'ness joined and Whitburn didn't. Is there a way to access it without paying any money? I don't see a link on the front page of the website to anything related to Scotland and the story doesn't seem to show up yet when I try the search function.

Think there has been at least one Derry City vs Linfield game in the Setanta Cup and things did not go smoothly.

The SJFA is part of the SFA and is based at Hampden. The SFA handles player registration and referee appointments for junior football. Pretending they are rival organisations is beserk.

Suspect the only real issue on this is what happens when Linfield play there? If this works out OK, it will be interesting to see if there's any appetite for Derry City to play in NI football again.

Have you ever been actively involved in the game? Not surprising at all that many people on committees would be completely clueless and willing to believe whatever propaganda they are fed by those in authority during league meetings. Tom Johnston probably would have got away with it for many more years if it hadn't been for those meddling kids in Kelty.

Most relevant bit of Carnoustie's statement to this thread: “I am really disappointed that a large number of clubs have decided to leave the Juniors, we as a club voted in favour of the Juniors being part of the pyramid but never wanted it to lead to the mass departures that have occurred. We had been told at an early stage that because we were part of the East Region we would be able to follow the planned Junior pathway in to the pyramid. However, that would have needed the SFA to move the border between the Lowland League and Highland League at that isn’t going to happen so should we look to progress through the pyramid then we would have to follow the Highland League route, had we even considered the EOSL route like the defecting clubs it was never a viable option ” So they appear to have been led to believe by the SJFA that they could be part of the east superleague at tier 6 feeding into the LL by 2019/20, but now realise that was a mirage. Not engaging with the process five years ago when these issues were being decided has left the Tayside clubs in limbo.

Getting a bit like the independence referendum now when the zealots on both sides started to become deeply off-putting and a third option of end the careers of the entire political class would have been very welcome. Of course something similar to the junior cup needs to still be in place in the years ahead. It will be interesting to see if the South Challenge Cup takes off now in interest terms now the likes of Bo'ness, Lithgae and Bonnyrigg Rose are on board. That's probably going to be the nucleus to build on.

Suspect it will take a WoSL to emerge to get the second promotion place into the LL. It will take a decade or so for everything to sort itself out, because of the bizarre way in which the pyramid was launched and given the way self interest driven agendas will ensure that the LL clubs aren't going to easily give up the advantage they derived from being the first on board. Having said that I'm pleasantly surprised that the powers that be in senior football have been so open to a large influx of strong east region clubs and are expressing willingness to do the same in the west, because that is going to ultimately knock a lot of LL and some SPFL clubs down a tier or two and they will no doubt be fully aware of that. The good thing is that in time there is going to be a significantly better system than has been in place previously for all the clubs involved. Hopefully the west can get its pyramid entry sorted out over the next 12 months, so the whole process happens as quickly and as smoothly as possible under the circumstances.

Think they can do a penalty shootout at the end of each game to help minimize the risk of having to have an additional tiebreaker.

Turkeys don't vote for an early Christmas. It will be much more difficult not to make the change when there are more licensed tier 6 clubs and a WoSL in place.

Word is that it's only going to be one at least for now.

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/44408030?ns_source=twitter&ns_mchannel=social&ns_campaign=bbc_sportsound&ns_linkname=scotland ... West of Scotland junior clubs, who have dominated the Scottish Junior Cup in recent seasons, are watching with interest and Greenhorn expects there to be a similar move by some of the bigger outfits there. "It could well happen in the west," he told BBC Scotland. "We know there is a demand in the west because we had calls from the west and also further north of the Tay. "I don't think this is the end of the story. I think it may be the beginning." ...

Think it's clear they'll take whoever applies in the east region south of the Tay and there's nothing magical about 32 or 36 for that matter. I'd be amazed if there isn't a WoSL in 2019/20 now after the 12 months notice thing today.

These are the league cup groups.

It is but the Haddington guy only posted his own club's section.

A looks weaker than B and C to me. Not sure the seeding worked quite as well as intended.

Think the South Challenge Cup winner does as well?

From Dumfries I think. Maybe play at Palmerston.

Crossgates vs Hill of Beath is a bit boring compared to some of the previously impossible competitive fixtures this is throwing up.