LongTimeLurker

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.

If everybody had been fully on board and a pyramid had been put together properly based on footballing merit, the LL would have been mainly comprised of top junior superleague clubs rather than being hijacked by EoS premier clubs. The idea of Bo'ness United and Linlithgow Rose entering a pyramid at tier 8 would have been regarded as insane five to ten years ago. The fact that it has a chance of actually happening now shows the extent to which the lunatics are in control of the asylum in Scottish football.

Think that top junior clubs have no monopoly on being condescending and arrogant in all of this.

Burnie_man posted it on here, from what I remember. May have been deleted from twitter given the potentially controversial nature of the subject matter. Agree that the way that the pyramid has unfolded has been crazy. The west superleague clubs that get in early in the west in 2019/20 if this WoSFL thing happens should be able to minimise the pain involved in making the switch in a Kelty Hearts sort of way. The big problem is going to be for Bo'ness and Linlithgow and other east superleague clubs that might make the switch down the road, if as seems likely there is no possibility of tier 6 entry for them after this season. What I suspect/hope will happen is that if there are a lot of junior clubs joining the EoS around this time next year the multiple sections thing would happen again at tier 7 and it wouldn't be a case of needing to gain promotion from a new tier 8 in year one to play against the weaker existing EoS members in tier 7 the following season . Time will tell.

Dundonald Bluebell are the other likely suspects I would have thought, if there is official correspondence about the outcome of the PWG meeting that makes it clear that east region entry at tier 6 in 2019/20 is highly unlikely, and Duns and Kelso always seem to get mentioned as possible returning clubs but that might have to wait until more of the Borders clubs have been relegated out of the LL and found their natural level again.

Bo'ness United were at the forefront of trying to move at one point last season, so there were people involved until recently that wanted to be in the senior grade pyramid. As well as there being the pensioner generation that is always resistant to radical change unless it means going back to the way things used to be as with the Brexit vote, I suspect there is a bit of a "we're Bo'ness United and Lithgae Rose FFS" type of response going on to the whole idea of being expected to go through the EoS to reach the LL, because the publicity last season was all about Bo'ness United moving to the LL despite there being no more vacancies to be filled there and more recently Linlithgow Rose have talked about having SPFL aspirations with the EoS again not rating a mention.

The need for an enclosed ground is usually what makes it difficult to do. Think in the west Lochwinnoch has an amateur team that would be well suited that way, but most small towns and villages that have no junior team just have open public parks for their amateur clubs.

True, but what they see on P&B could motivate clubs to request the information from official channels well before said SJFA EGM in a manner similar to what happened immediately prior to the EoS membership application deadline so that they have the facts at their disposal that they need to make informed rational decisions about the way ahead. In the age of the internet officialdom has lost a lot of the ability they used to have to manage when information gets released to fit their own agendas.

Their chairman also downplayed their interest in being in the HL in its current format recently in the P&J, so it's more complicated than that.

Seems to be a WoS League likely to be started up with the help of the EoS and that's where Clydebank are likely to wind up.

Think what will be needed to break that particular logjam is another licensing application from a junior club from the old Tayside region that is based north of the midpoint of the Tay Road Bridge. That's rumoured to be likely over the next couple of years. Until then it's all about hypotheticals and there is no real onus on the powers that be to address the issue, if Banks o' Dee and Golspie Sutherland are happy where they are.

The tier 6 across the board scenario was going to upset the self-interest agendas of too many of the other parties (for example HL clubs are unlikely to actually want Broughty Athletic as an opponent any time soon for travel related reasons or to wind up in the north region juniors through relegation), so that was going to take careful negotiation rather than bombastic declarations about supposed verbal promises of what could happen as soon as season 2019/20. If Burnie_man's version of events is accurate, the moratorium on accepting new applications for licensing was clearly only aimed at clubs that choose to remain in the SJFA and joining the so-called pyramid means joining the EoS or this new WoS (...nobody seem s to care about north of the Tay, unfortunately, and that's not a good thing obviously). The existing full SFA members don't want a massive influx of up to 160 SJFA members into full membership, but do want something functional and fit for purpose to exist in both the east and the west below the SPFL south of the Tay, so we'll probably eventually see the scenario that garrelburn tends to peddle on here where the stronger junior clubs stay legitimately semi-pro in a revamped structure and the rest drift off over time towards an amateur sort of status.

That might actually happen in the Boreham Wood end given they have a very small regular support, but overall it's not a sensible parallel with anything junior clubs are likely to be involved in any time soon. National League to League Two in an English context is comparable to last year's Dundee United vs Hamilton Accies playoff in a Scottish context in terms of the size of club involved.

To be pedantic not all of the 15 were accepted, because Dundonald deferred their application to 2019/20 and one of the two amateur clubs withdrew their application.

daleboy1969 says one of their players told him that on Saturday when they played Armadale Thistle. There have also been rumblings on the junior subforum about Dunbar United in this regard.

That's what falls under the professional game board. People still talk about the senior grade, but it's dated terminology. The juniors, EoS and SoS all fall under the non-professional game board along with the amateur, welfare and youth FAs. https://www.scottishfa.co.uk/scottish-fa/organisation/strategy-structure/who-we-are/board-committees/