LongTimeLurker

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.

Think it would make more sense to try to be geographical on the divisions. There might be a bit of an imbalance with something like this, but it wouldn't be drastic. Section A Blackburn Utd, Burntisland, Camelon, Crossgates Primrose, Dundonald Bluebell, Dunipace, Edinburgh Utd, Hill of Beath, Inverkeithing HS, Leith Ath, LTHV, St.Bernards, Tynecastle, Stirling Uni Res Section B Bonnyrigg Rose, Coldstream, Dalkeith Th, Easthouses Lily, Eyemouth Utd, Hawick RA, Herriot Watt, Haddington Ath, Musselburgh Ath, Ormiston, Peebles Rovers, Preston Ath, Tranent, Tweedmouth Rangers

Is there any evidence that's a dialogue rather than a monologue from Tom Johnston aimed at heading off EoS defections at the pass? If the EoS were talking about starting a west division if there was sufficient interest I suspect they would have checked it was OK to do so with the SFA first and only junior clubs that are actively in the process of getting licensed and move to one of the LL's feeders as part of that process are welcome in the SFA's pyramid. Things will be a lot clearer in a few months.

All the SJFA does in concrete terms is run the junior cup and a semi-pro level national team. There are associations of senior clubs within the SFA to run things like the Fife Cup or Arberdeenshire Shield. It's not completely impossible that the SJFA could continue in a similar sort of way in other words, but somewhat unlikely unless there is a major revamp to how the junior cup operates given it is one of the major contributing factors to fixture backlogs and tier 5 and 6 leagues are expected to wrap up by April.

St Bernards is the other name getting mentioned a lot.

Potential bad news for Sauchie. People tend to forget Clackmannanshire is a separate entity from Stirlingshire.

Being in the old Central League setup would have made sense back in the 1970s when it was viewed as the strongest of the junior regions, but why would they want to miss out on things like their natural local derby with Camelon nowadays? Think the only surprise is that it has taken this long for them to look east (assuming the info is correct).

15 junior applicants fits what's in the Edinburgh News if two amateur clubs have also applied and the possibility of two being relegated from the LL is factored: https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/sport/football/lower-leagues/substantial-number-of-teams-apply-for-eos-league-1-4717330 ...While admitting his committee have quite a process in establishing a new EoS set-up for next term, a shake-up that could see the number of clubs in the league rise from its current 13 to 32, Greenhorn says he has been blown away by the level of interest shown...

Tynieness is on the Bo'ness committee and has stated they didn't:

As a licensed club in the LL entering the Scottish Cup automatically you would have been looking at around 15K this season fom the SFA minimum from what I understand. Make it to midtable SPFL L2 and the various handouts probably total 60K or so. Good runs in the Scottish or League Cups make large financial windfalls like the one you would have got from the Tynecastle game possible as well.

Now confirmed to have been a wind up.

McKenna's a nasty piece of work as well. What he doesn't seem to grasp with the paranoid bit at the end is that the survey results were a break with tradition not a reinforcement of it.

If the above is legit and neither poster is the type to wind people up on something like this, it could be related to Linlithgow Rose coming out in favour of pyramid entry and a push to get into the SPFL in their local paper:

Here's why the SFA would need to take out a loan from the Bank of Scotland at the moment: https://www.scotsman.com/sport/football/teams/scotland/queen-s-park-agree-deal-to-sell-hampden-to-sfa-reports-1-4716180 Not sure what buying Hampden has to do with the pyramid. The pressure to open up the national divisions to entry from below came from the need to comply with UEFA statutes more than anything else.

The ball is in the SFA's court at the moment. The easy fix is all three regions in as is at tier 6 and slowly reconfigure from there and that would be in line with what would have happened if the SJFA had been on board at the outset according to the rhetoric at the time. The financial implications of 160 new clubs trying to get licensed over the next few years to secure automatic Scottish Cup entry is the other angle that makes the easy fix unlikely to be viewed favourably at Hampden, because from the SFA blazers' standpoint the SJFA were never expected to engage with the process and that could reasonably have been expected to prevent anything too radical from ever happening. If east region clubs are gung ho about licensing best to proceed with EoS applications before some new obstacle to progress can be dreamed up by the powers that be basically, but it might be difficult to persuade a club EGM of that right now, because on the surface it looks like all is rosy and 160 SJFA clubs will all be in the pyramid after next season. Time will tell.

Overlapping east feeders was the plan only a few years ago, if the SJFA had wanted to participate from the outset. I have no idea how you can state that so definitively and on what basis. The east region feeder scenario is actually the relatively easy bit for them given there are so many clubs showing a willingness to switch grades and do something different and the tier six feeder is happy to oblige. The bigger problem for the SFA is going to be what happens in the Highland League catchment given the tier five feeder in that part of the country doesn't appear to really want to be part of the pyramid and doesn't want to open itself up to new clubs and hence is likely to go apoplectic when the prospect of having to admit any newly licensed Tayside junior teams enters the discourse. Interesting times ahead with issues that are unlikely to be fixed neatly by 2019-20, which is when the mass migration scenario of central belt clubs able to get licensed might become the path of least resistance approach to break the logjam.

Suspect some/many/most of the 12 applications may even be withdrawn this season due to that and what will be sorted out next will be how an EoS merger with the ERSJFA is going to be engineered and under whose control. That's not straightforward if 16 Tayside clubs are really in the HL rather than LL catchment, so I suspect a mass migration of Fife & Lothians clubs to the EoS could still happen eventually. The optimal time to negotiate getting everything semi-pro under tier 5 to be under the auspices of the SJFA was when the LL was being launched. It's a bit late in the day to try to do it now.