LongTimeLurker

Armadale are out of luck if they are doing cup draws.

The use of the word allegedly could save you some bother.

They won't have resigned from the SJFA yet. Given the EoS AGM is before the SJFA's, there should be no problem that way.

You can add the 12 on March 31st to that given they have already been accepted by the EoS and have informed the SJFA that they are leaving two months ago. The reason that there was no challenge on 12 month thing at that point was probably that the collective tier 6 entry move and licensing application moratorium was supposed to stop any other departures, so this is all Tom Johnston has left at this point now the tier 6 entry thing has been shown to be wishful thinking at best and a charade at worst.

Just joining in general.

Think Truthteller has made some claims previously that turned out not to be the case, so wouldn't take it as gospel.

Have seen it claimed that he is a paid employee rather than an elected official and can't easily be got rid of.

They tried that 12 month thing with Kelty last year by all accounts, but it relates to changing region apparently.

Bear in mind though that Lithgae's committee were dead set against as well until very late in the day. Would be interesting to see what would happen, if they allowed one last narrow window of opportunity for clubs to apply, get accepted and hand their resignation in before the SJFA AGM, which in practical terms is the limit that they could reasonably extend it out to. West Lothian must be close to the tipping point now that happened in East and Midlothian that led to all the remaining clubs defecting.

Agree it's suprising they didn't decide to change leagues with the rest, but they are from Fife rather than West Lothian. Think it's most likely to be a club with a recent history of playing Lithgae and Bo'ness in superleague derby games, so Bathgate and maybe Fauldhouse are the prime suspects.

Beyond the 42 thing, I suspect a club like Bathgate might be listened to with a bit more interest than a club like Stoneyburn. Time will tell.

Maybe they are providing the year's notice as a contingency plan, given there may be another exodus to the EoS next season?

The word from Bo'ness United supporters on this is that Bo'ness found out that Newtongrange were leaving when they arrived to play them about 10 days back. After a series of phonecalls the committees of Bo'ness, Lithgae and Broxburn all decided it was time to leave and had the meetings required to ratify the applications. Lithgae's was the last meeting to be held on that yesterday. Jeanfield stated they were keen to keep playing at a superleague sort of standard rather than what they would get in a Tayside format.

Sauchie, Oakley, St Andrews, Dundonald, Newtongrange, Lithgae, Bo'ness, Broxburn and Jeanfield are the ones that put in applications after Dunbar, Arniston, Craigroyson and Penicuik.

ye ken fine...

Looks like it, unless the open things up for more applications for a few days after their AGM to try to get up over 40.

...and judging by a "better together" rant on here from what appeared to be a committee member the latter was their preferred option (understandably IMO) until it later became clear to most that the PWG wasn't in agreement with that strategy and that it was a non-starter for teams in the EoS catchment.

Think it's the SFA that would need to run a national non-league cup and it's easy enough to do the very limited range of things that the SJFA actually does at the moment by setting up a committee with representatives from the various tier 6 and below feeders. If the SFA had been serious about setting up a pyramid rather than having the shambolic mess that has unfolded, direct affiliation of the three juniors regions to place them on par with the EoS and SoS would have been the first order of business.

Don't think the boundary necessarily needs to be moved, all they really need to do is give clubs that are in easy walking distance of the boundary line and can be viewed as catering to a catchment area that straddles the line a choice based on local circumstances.

They are not on the spreadsheet of licensed clubs yet on the SFA website, but it may just be a case of still being subject to rubber stamping at the next meeting.

Can't see this being stable moving forward because most of the clubs are now clustered at two geographical extremes well over an hour apart that are not natural rivals and most of the teams involved don't have much in the way of a regular support with close to half being what are effectively amateur clubs in all but name that are unlikely to actually really want to be promoted into a superleague format minus the bigger clubs that left. Assuming it doesn't get opened up again to another round of applications, which could further complicate what works in numbers terms, I think they might be better off having a Tayside league and a Fife/West Lothian (minus Tayport and Newburgh) one, and binning the east superleague completely. That might be difficult in terms of their constitution though, if most of the 16 best placed clubs insist otherwise.

That's kind of what having floodlights is for. If teams have those and have a small ground with relatively limited cover as is the case with most junior grounds there usually won't be all that much to do beyond that on the lighting angle.

Top teams have always been comparable. The difference is that the west has more strength in depth, so teams like Wishaw and Dalry can reach the semis of the junior cup in a way you don't see so often with smaller clubs from the east.

Careful, Glenconner's about. Think the "deadlines" have really just been a way to focus people's minds and get clubs to have meetings and reach a decision and haven't really been meaningful in any way in terms of the practicalities of when the decision really needed to be made before it started to have an impact in logistical terms. The ultimate end game for the benefit of participants and spectators should be all clubs in the east with enclosed grounds that are south of the Tay in one all-embracing well run league system and if another "deadline" would help push things further along towards that goal then it's worth doing.

Obviously not in some cases. It can't get dragged out forever but think they could provide another week long window without it getting in the way of organizing next season's fixtures and 39 is an awkward number they would probably prefer not to have.