LongTimeLurker

Only team that's missing from what was expected a few days ago is Dundonald and they have explained their reasons on their website.

I strongly suspect that the moratorium only applies to junior clubs until the method of pyramid integration gets sorted out and teams that get accepted into the EoS tomorrow night would be treated like any other EoS or SoS team would be once they are members of one of those leagues, because they would be part of the senior grade pyramid at that point.

They are from Perth, so were always a Perthshire league team up until the late 60s when the Tayside region was formed. They are in the LL catchment so them, Kinnoull, Scone Thistle, Newburgh and Tayport could be the northernmost EoS members at some point down the road.

When the Stirlingshire junior league folded (1930s I think) clubs from Stirlingshire and Clackmannanshire were allowed to choose which neighbouring junior leagues to play in, so some went to what eventually became the east region setup (Camelon, Sauchie and various long gone Grangemouth teams), some went to leagues based in the west (Kilsyth, Dunipace and at one point a team from Alva ) and some went to Fife (the now defunct Clackmannan, but think a Grangemouth team might have done this as well at one point).

They always have been and clubs like Bonnyrigg Rose and Auchinleck Talbot are known to have engaged with the process. The only stumbling block has been that when Linlithgow Rose and Banks o' Dee proceeded to do it entry into the EoS or SoS was added as an extra requirement where junior clubs in the LL catchment were concerned and this put most clubs off from going all the way to entry level and full membership until Kelty Hearts broke the logjam last summer. It's not clear whether the moratorium applies to all clubs as it is being interpreted on here rather than just junior clubs. The last thing the existing SFA full members probably want is up to 160 SJFA members all trying to become full members simultaneously as the tier 6 entry that Tom Johnston implied was happening in 2018/19 would have made possible. I strongly suspect that the moratorium is only an issue for clubs that stay in the SJFA and that it won't affect non-licensed EoS and SoS members that are in the senior grade's pyramid next season.

Definitely implies that the tier 5 entry option is still on his agenda.

The statement from the SFA interim CEO definitely bears no correlation to what was being claimed on here in recent days. The pyramid group clearly still have to resolve how integration happens so there is no suggestion of the juniors being tier 6 next season because the goal is only to resolve matters in time for 2019-20, and there is nothing in there that implies that a club moving to the EoS this summer shouldn't be able to get their licence sorted out by March 2019 in time to be in the promotion playoff, if they have been working on it for years like Bonnyrigg and Haddington have been.

I think this post from the Junior subforum implies that LHTV got their membership application approved last week and are hence eligible for promotion?

Would be bizarre for a moratorium to suddenly be applied to EoS and SoS clubs given it is needed for promotion to the LL, so no obvious reason to believe that clubs that get accepted into EoS membership next week would be affected by this. What it possibly implies is that the east and west superleagues could be tier 6 on paper next season as negotiations on fuller integration take place for seasons after that but only Linlithgow and Girvan would be eligible for promotion until the i's are dotted and the t's are crossed and even that would probably be a moot point if a champion wasn't determined in time for the LL playoff. Reinstatement fees would be one obvious one. Think they also get a cut on junior cup admission takings.

There really is no obvious need for an SJFA as a national body if integration into the pyramid happens and that means there is no need for Tom Johnston's post because each region could more easily represent itself at that point the same way the EoSFA and SoSFA do given they would be interacting with different tier 5 feeders. Tom Johnston is desperately scrambling to keep his job, basically.

Why would he even send that out if he only has to wait until Monday to make contact with the Interim CEO? If the moratorium bit applies to junior clubs only all it basically means is that junior clubs won't be able to get licensed until integration with the pyramid actually happens which means nothing changes for now in terms of having to join either the EoS or SoS in order to get licensed.

The Lowland League's catchment area has a population in excess of 3 million in total, so the significance of that should be obvious. If the east and west superleagues are going to be at tier 6 in 2019/20 their winners would probably playoff against the EoSL and SoSL winners for one of the two promotion spots. Until there is a west division involved it makes sense to enable as many of the large junior clubs that are moving to the EoS a chance at promotion given most SoSL clubs for the most part want to stay where they are, if the goal behind adding a second promotion spot is to boost the quality and prestige of the Lowland League.

Because almost all of its teams are in a catchment area with a population of only 150,000.

There were posts on here from somebody involved with that club that hinted they are on board, but I've yet to see anything definitive.

An interesting snippet is that: http://www.camelonjuniors.co.uk/chairmans-update/ 2) Will attendance be affected? Currently the average attendance for this season is 95 so it’s hard to imagine how crowds could possible be smaller with several Junior Clubs moving over too. There are an estimated 14 Junior Clubs moving over – 4 of them we already play against and they have come to Carmuirs Park in good numbers this season. If the 4 they already play against implies superleague teams, Bonnyrigg, HoB and Dundonald are the other superleague teams that are usually listed as applicants in this regard, so this suggests there is another superleague club that have applied? Also worth noting the expectation of more applications for the following season from teams close to Falkirk: 5) Will we not have any local derby matches? I gather that some local Junior clubs have applied and also that others who didn’t apply for next season are submitting applications for the following season. We will have 2 competitions to compete in next season in which we can draw East Stirlingshire too. The first bit fits Dunipace being the club from the west, but who else would be described as local by somebody in Falkirk? I guess Bathgate and Blackburn more or less fit on that, but Sauchie would probably be a better fit for being viewed as local and a fourth superleague team that they already play against.

From the EoS subforum:

There was this a few pages back: and there is finally something to point to Bathgate being a possible applicant: so if there is a question mark over any team now I think it would be Haddington.

It is according to the traditional county boundaries.

Bo'ness is in West Lothian, so there have been two and that would have been up to 1939, so it will be 79 years.

Bathgate is the most questionable one on that as some seem to think it is Haddington. The other I would question somewhat is Hill of Beath. Have seen strong indications online that either officially state or heavily hint that all the others are happening one way or another, but nothing from anyone associated with them.

They also could leave a team in the amateurs as their reserves in which case there is no need for notice.

I suspect the way out of this predicament from an SFA standpoint is to mandate that all tier 6 clubs below the LL have to be licensed by the start of 2019-20 and in that way effectively control who gains access and how it gets operated thereafter rather than handing over the keys to an affiliated association with let's phrase this diplomatically a questionable track record in organizational terms. That would mean the EoS in the east continuing to do a "we are the Borg" where the east region juniors is concerned, and a new WoS being launched that the licensed SoS clubs, Glasgow Uni and Girvan would be expected to join along with whoever is ready for licensing from the west region juniors. Time will tell basically.

Bo'ness United could claim that history, but use 1945 as their founding date rather than claiming that of either Bo'ness or Bo'ness Cadora as their starting point. Think the Penicuik Athletic of today are a separate entity from the earlier team that eventually went defunct after being in both the EoS and the juniors at various points and there is no unbroken continuity there unlike in Bo'ness. Most pro-pyramid entry clubs especially in the west appear to be willing to give Tom Johnston a chance on securing tier 6 entry for an intact junior grade, but they'll soon change their tune if as I suspect is highly likely that can't be delivered, because the SFA are only interested in a smaller subset of clubs that will go through licensing.

...which is Bonnyrigg?

The Inverkeithing team have announced on their website that they have applied, so that's one of the ones that is 100% confirmed.