LongTimeLurker

This needed to happen 5 years ago with the EoS and SoS factored in as well somehow, so that everything semi-professional being played in enclosed grounds below tier 5 would fall under the SJFA with the amateurs sliding in further down the pyramid after that. Arguing for a "superduper" league under the direct control of the SJFA alongside the EoS and SoS at tier 6 this late in the day after years of ignoring/ridiculing the LL looks more like the desperate flailings of somebody trying to keep their job than anything else given the logical outcome of collective junior entry into an all encompassing pyramid that contains other leagues and associations at tier 6 at this point would be the end of the SJFA as a separate national body.

Think it's Dunbar that have announced it via an approved twitter account and Craigroyston are the second that are pretty much 100% known to be doing it but haven't formally announced it.

My tuppence worth would be that the pretense that Gaelic is a national language across all of Scotland should be dropped, but there's no harm targeting substantial resources at the areas where it is still a living language.

Downfield, St Andrews and Kirriemuir are all in the east premier rather than the north division, so maybe they simply forgot to add them along with the clubs that are already there?

Downfield are also missing from the North Division and EoS entry is almost certainly not the explanation in their case.

That depends on what the impasse is with the HL and LL on "Registrations, Discipline, Fixture Lists being resolved" and whether Tom Johnston's assessment that the issues are not insurmountable is a perspective shared by those leagues. The potentially tricky one is fixture lists if it means that the three junior superleague champions need to be determined by late April. I suspect the changes that would be needed to how junior football operates to achieve that would be too drastic for a lot of people and that makes an agreement in time for 2019/20 unlikely, but time will tell. Registrations would presumably mean that reinstatement has to be binned and that should be relatively straightfoward. Not sure what the Discipline angle could be beyond being stricter on how the stereotypical 15 player brawl gets dealt with? Overall, we should have a much clearer picture by next month and waiting that long is not a problem in the north and west, but definitely is in the east. Think the top east superleague clubs would be better off taking the plunge and getting in at tier 6 in the EoS when the opportunity is there, but can understand why Bo'ness United and Dundonald Bluebell would adopt a wait a year and see approach with a deferred application.

A comment better addressed to Tom Johnston given tier 5 entry was an option in his survey and nothing I wrote implied support for it or an expectation that it could happen.

Are you sure the superduper isn't meant to be at tier 5 given what was in the survey that got sent out to member clubs?

From the EoS subforum:

The junior cup is a great competition and having something that is like it and can be viewed as a continuation of it would greatly enhance the EoS and any future WoS in the years ahead.

Think the reasons should be obvious to the non-zealots on here.

Making sure there's still something that is effectively a continuation of the traditions of the junior cup if not it's exact same format would be the obvious one.

Agree that only one will be left standing over most of the LL's catchment south of the Tay in five years or so and what will be left will effectively be the old Tayside region maybe plus some Fife clubs that are closer to Dundee and Perth than Edinburgh like St Andrews and Newburgh. Could have gone either way because the EoS was in a very bad way before Kelty's arrival. Given it will be mainly junior clubs involved either way and EoS clubs get full voting rights after a year, the EoS and any new WoS can still be retrofitted to suit junior football traditions a bit better down the road. Surprised more people don't see that as an opportunity rather than a threat.

Concerned that Blackburn could wind up in tier 7 in 2019/20 if more move? Think Bo'ness is a potential tipping point and a lot could still happen over the next couple of weeks. If and it's still very much an if they move because the collective junior entry scenario that should have happened is now viewed as a non-starter due to the approach of the SFA in allowing the senior nonleagues to call the tune, Lithgae almost inevitably won't be far behind given the importance of the derby to both clubs and at that point there really isn't much left that whets the appetite in superleague terms for the remaining stronger Fife and Lothians clubs (plus Sauchie) to make all the extra long distance trips to Tayside that will inevitably be involved worthwhile.

Even if it went past 32, I seriously doubt that they would turn any south of the Tay east region junior club away at this point. If they don't want to accept having the east superleague as a fellow tier 6 they pretty much have to take any credible club that applies.

Titanic sinks stuff basically as we saw the tweet from your club about it earlier, but you have to wonder where this leaves Arniston Rangers and Newtongrange Star now as the Last of the Mohicans in East and Midlothian (cue pedantry about West Calder) terms, assuming the info on here about Penicuik and Craigroyston is legit.

So Dunbar, Craigroyston, Bo'ness? and Penicuik? is the current state of play on this?

Hopefully that doesn't happen and sanity prevails with the west and north superleagues becoming tier 6 feeders, but it sounds like the LL and HL have other ideas and that they can effectively dictate what takes shape below them, unfortunately.

Think the recent stuff from them about being pro-pyramid and having SPFL aspirations was probably genuine, so I suspect they won't be too far behind if Bo'ness do decide to make the move and the implications of the PWG meeting really are as reported on here. The east superleague should have entered the pyramid collectively at tier 6 and regardless of what some people post on here it wasn't completely ridiculous for people to expect that it could still happen, but if it's not going to be allowed to unfold that way by the SFA there's no point fiddling while Rome burns and allowing your club to be the next fallen giant like Whitburn. The ability to try to engineer a collective approach still exists in the west, but it simply isn't there any more in the east.

...and that fits with the guy on here who was claiming the boundary was originally supposed to be north of Montrose when it was being discussed in meetings.

That sort of information was being plastered all over this subforum by a Haddington Athletic committee member at the time, so not sure it was ever in any way secret. Turning things around another way if tier 6 entry for the three junior superleagues was doable back then why would it not be now? Was it only ever on offer because there was a strong expectation that it would be knocked back?

SoS is tier 6. Having six leagues (the three junior superleagues, SoS, EoS and maybe the North Caley league) feeding into two at the first regionalised step would be nothing out of the ordinary, if you look at other country's pyramid systems around Europe. There are examples elsewhere that show that everything doesn't need to be neatly split on geography. In Holland, for example, the semi-pro and amateur leagues at the lower levels are split based on whether home games are played on Saturdays (Dutch Reformed leaning teams as Holland has a Calvinist bible belt that still keeps the Sabbath the way Scotland used to) or Sundays (RC and socialist leaning teams) as much as they are on geography. Will be interesting to see what happens with the SJFA's EGM and how the SFA will handle this issue publicly in the months ahead.

For the same reason that the Isthmian League was allowed to join the English pyramid when the Southern League was already there covering the same area geographically. It was the common sense solution to bring everybody on board.

Because who gets to keep their blazer is what's most important for the lunatics that are in charge of Scottish football.

The people who if your version of events is accurate would not accept the entry of the three junior superleagues at tier 6 in 2019/20 are as much a part of the problem as Tom Johnston who was no doubt well aware in advance that there was zero chance of that actually happening.