LongTimeLurker

Losing to Gartcairn in the South Challenge Cup suggests they are not quite LL calibre. Some soft goals to concede amongst these ones:

Should have done some googling before posting that obviously. Are you sure on Stalingrad and Grozny? The Tiger tanks appear to have entered service in 1942. The angle I find more interesting is they would still use the Panther name if there's a WWII angle. Have sometimes seen it argued there was more continuity between the Third Reich and the Federal Republic of Germany in "deep state" sort of terms than is usually acknowledged.

It was Tiger tanks that trundled their way to Leningrad, Moscow, Stalingrad and Grozny back in WWII. Would have thought they would have avoided the big cat angle given that backdrop but looks like they are no longer bothered about that sort of thing and changing defence ministers recently has completely changed the German approach on sending their panzers across the Dnieper. Massive German rearmament, what could possibly go wrong.

Russian wunderwaffe turns out not to be as indestructable as claimed, if this guy is to be believed:

Your team to play Spartans FC 1. Dibaga (GK) 2. Hawkins 3. Mcarthur 4. McCormack 5. Todd 6. Gemmell (C) 7. Jones 8. Johnston 9. Miller 10. Walker 11. Locke Subs 12. Murdoch 14. French 15 Ward 16. Coll 17. Stevenson 18. Grant 21. Thomson (GK)

Maybe the portion of the SoS that doesn't want to do licensing and/or has zero ambition on ever progressing should simply form a local amateur league and do their own thing that way? The reason there is no local Saturday amateur league in that part of the world is no doubt basically that the SoS has hoovered up all the clubs that would otherwise be playing at that level. Then those that want something more could simply join the WoS? Not something the SoS league can be forced to do but something that might unfold naturally if a few more clubs do what Threave Rovers did.

Yesterday doesn't appear to have been a good day for Vlad if Ukrainian updates are to be believed:

Something to ponder maybe is whether being around the same level as Berwick Rangers in the table and well ahead of Cowdenbeath on points is really so terrible? Some of the posts from Cowdenbeath fans in this thread appear to have resulted from being a bit dumbstruck that being well ahead of their club isn't seen as in any way surprising on here by fans of a former junior club. It was arguably easier to be near the top of the east superleage than it is with the LL especially when the OF colt teams are around so maybe there is a need to adjust expectations slightly? If Beith win the WoS because Darvel become too distracted with their Scottish Cup escapades (think they might beat Falkirk), a certain team in maroon would almost certainly be automatically promoted with no playoff. Having local derbies in the league would likely be no bad thing from a fan interest standpoint. Think it's easy to forget that later round junior cup games were what also used to drive a lot of interest as well and the South Challenge Cup doesn't really cut it yet in comparison and likely never will. On younger people getting involved with the committee it's unfortunate that the people involved with Bo'ness Athletic felt a need for whatever reason to pursue their own ego trip and joined the EoS when West Lothian wing of the east juniors finally collapsed.

twitter and facebook messages posted today still have 1:30pm on the graphic so looks like somebody forgot to update that

Interesting times ahead given Russian logistics are reported to now revolve around staying out of the 84 km range of conventional HIMARS munitions:

Guess this will probably be good news for whoever is fourth bottom of the EoS second division this year although that could also be further complicated depending on what happens with LL related pro/rel issues.

Something to watch is if Bonnyrigg Rose get relegated and Brechin City are promoted that will almost certainly mean that both Edinburgh Uni and Dalbeattie Star are relegated from the LL at the end of this season (you'll remember what the implications of Cove Rangers up and Berwick Rangers down were obviously), which could have interesting implications on the numbers balance on issues like the pro/rel playoff and OF colts because a league officeholder from Bonnyrigg Rose was very strongly pushing for change on the playoff format before they got promoted.

^^^this. It's basically just modern urban sprawl. The thing I remember most about Osaka is taking an internal Japanese flight from the old airport at Osaka which involved a takeoff directly into a mountain that had to be avoided by planes quickly banking away from it. There's a reason why they needed to build an island off the coast for Kansai international airport. Vaguely remember that one of Osaka's other claims to fame is that the locals stand on the other side of escalators to let people pass from what happens in Tokyo. The rail pass mentioned gets you places quickly on the shinkansen. The budget way to do it by the slower local trains would have been one of these guys: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seishun_18_Ticket but it's only available at certain times of year, unfortunately.

Tranent have strong financial backing and are currently top of the LL. After Linlithgow Rose who's left in the east at this point that could be expected to compete with the likes of Darvel, Pollok and Auchinleck Talbot financially and potentially challenge for promotion to the SPFL the following season in an LL context?

Entropy would point in the other direction I would have thought.

Before the mass exodus started to gather steam both them and Blackburn who were the next to announce they were doing it AFAIR would probably have fancied their chances of reaching the LL not long after becoming licensed and having regular first round Scottish Cup access through that.

As long as it's quick and it's clean no problem. Something long and painful I'd definitely rather avoid. Was in the affected part of Japan for the 2011 earthquake ten stories up in a rather old office building and definitely thought I was soon to be a goner. The violence with which the room was moving about had to be experienced to be believed and it went on for what seemed like over a minute. Once I came to terms with what was unfolding I just relaxed and felt serene about it. This is where it ends, bring it on. Hopefully I'll be like that again when the time actually comes. After it was all over I found all the Japanese knew the drill a lot better than I did and were sitting on the floor in the corridor with their backs against the wall. One of them asked "Are you OK?" and I said with a smile "you see me walking don't you" and then this wee lassie from Tokyo just started screaming her lungs out as they all seemed to snap out of a trance at the same time and we all slowly started figuring out how to get the hell out of there...

That's probably what the infamous Canadian volunteer twitter handle was really all about as well. He just wasn't able to stay credible with it after the bike ride through mine fields into Kherson stuff. All kinds of chancers are always likely to be looking to take advantage. That's just how life works basically. The Ukrainians were expected to have lost by now or signed some sort of armistice giving Vlad the Crimean land bridge. If they are not going to roll over then it's best for the west to give them what they need to win and hope for the best where the future of the Russian Federation is concerned. Having this war drag on for years doesn't help anybody other than maybe Vlad and his inner circle.

TJ was a useful idiot for clubs like Spartans and Cove Rangers who were driving the whole thing when Alan McRae was SFA president. The fix was in when they had no plan to accomodate all applicants similar to what happened with the launch of the WoS and telling clubs in the west later on that they had to join the SoS league to get licensed was taking the piss. Says something about how the process unfolded that even Clydebank baulked at making the switch. If Kelty hadn't done what they did by joining the EoS league to get licensed we might still be arguing about this stuff on here.

...no doubt true but if Beith don't have floodlights yet and no plans to install them along with any other necessary ground improvements any time soon that's all academic anyway in this particular case and the big winners from that would probably wind up being Lithgae Rose in the east. Why the EoS and SoS signed off on the idea that only league champions can ever qualify for the playoff is mindboggling. It wasn't going to be that way initially. The original plan was highest placed licensed club from each feeder would qualify.

BSC Glasgow vs Threave Rovers

Now Putin clearly isn't going to do anything mental in response to supposed red lines hopefully Leopards and Abrams tanks were only the first step to giving the Ukrainians what they need to win: