LongTimeLurker

Declan Hughes was playing quite a bit for Stenny before Christmas but fell out of favour after that by the looks of things: https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/declan-hughes/leistungsdaten/spieler/193111 Looks like Dan Watt had a couple of substitute appearances for Berwick Rangers in League Two before moving to Hill of Beath: https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/daniel-watt/profil/spieler/406802 Must be rated quite highly by Max Christie if a transfer fee was paid.

Lots of talk of who is leaving lately so maybe this part should be emphasised: The Newtown Park gaffer has snapped up midfielder Declan Hughes from Stenhousemuir, ex-Hill of Beath striker Dan Watt and former Clydebank under-20s captain Dylan Coll, all on one-year contracts. In another boost, striker Jack Smith has re-signed for another year...

The powers that be in SFA board terms probably want a yes vote if Ian Maxwell was there so why would they do that?

I don't get this fixation with Glencairn playing Clyde. They left Rutherglen 36 years ago. ...and they were only ever half in Rutherglen anyway because the boundary ran through Shawfield, they preferred the Glasgow Cup to the Lanarkshire Cup back in the day, and were not able to use the Rutherglen angle to get into the Fairs Cup because UEFA viewed them as a Glasgow team. Might as well get the other obvious talking points out of the way. Rent money from them would probably come in handy though? I doubt they'll be at New Douglas Park permamently from now on.

...but but Tay Bridge etc. Hopefully Lochee United got it as well to maximise the probability of a Midlands League club going into the playoffs next season. Maybe Carnoustie Panmure, Broughty and North End can do it over the next 12 months?

I wouldn't necessarily read anything into that. Sometimes clubs don't announce it at this point and wait for the SFA's AGM.

Biden seems to suddenly be losing his reticence about giving our pierogi eating opponents from this evening the weapons they need: Given the timing maybe this is mainly about providing the coordinates for MLRS missiles to strike deep behind enemy lines?

The seasons will soon pass and most of the West Lothian clubs will move onto bigger and better things. The wailing and gnashing of teeth will then no doubt be about who wants to drive to Hawick and Tweedmouth multiple times per season, but local derbies and scope for licensing may attract the likes of Duns and Eyemouth back eventually.

This could be significant:

The weird Elgin United group don't seem to be in yet:

Wasn't that angle I was thinking about so much. More what happened when they moved to the EoS for a few seasons about 20 years back.

Old post that helps on remembering the order it happened in: Probably got Tranent mixed up with Newtongrange. Thornton eventually didn't that year and entered the following year with a number of other Fife clubs.

Vaguely remember that there were a couple of East and Midlothian clubs that were slower to apply than the others and probably only did do because all their neighbours had. Think it might have been Tranent and Arniston but would need to wade through old threads with the search function, which I might do at some point.

Mildly surprising that they didn't want to keep an SoS reserve team in a Stranraer and Caledonian Braves sort of way but maybe they were told to take a hike on that.

Kamenica (Stoney place) and Novo Selo (New Village) cropped up a lot during the Yugoslav wars in a similar sort of way. Slavic languages seem to be more limited on placename variety sometimes. Think a Ukrainian minister may have talked too much to the press about going after Belgorod from Kharkiv with the MLRS that were about to be supplied and that's why Biden felt the need to dial things back for a bit.

Suspect it's actually the latter and the Americans weren't keen on having the Ukrainians taking potshots at the Kerch Bridge or airfields deep within Russian territory rather than going after targets in the Donbas so are not going to supply the longer range missiles that are compatable with the MLRS systems. If the Ukrainians get the 70 km range stuff sounds like it could still make a significant difference.

Some of the stuff that gets posted on twitter is comic: Odds on the Mykolaivka being referred to is actually here at the very northern end of the area shown as being under Russian control: https://www.google.com/maps/@47.4886734,33.4009754,12123m/data=!3m1!1e3 but let's fire off a tweet that defies common sense rather than spending a minute or two looking for other Mykolaivkas.

Don't think Tranent's recent run of games has been anything like as hectic but Darvel could have spent more money getting the drainage properly sorted on their pitch so arguably they were the authors of their own misfortune in that context.

Think that may have been one of the options the LL would have looked at if the initial vote hadn't been 9-7 against changing the pro-rel format at all. Hopefully Tranent & Cowdenbeath in and Bonnyrigg & VoL out has shifted the numbers balance on this issue to 8-8 and another season or two will be the tipping point.

The EoS membership chose to do what it chose to do, so Whitburn need to focus their energies on obtaining an entry level licence and securing two more promotions and not worry about decisions they can't undo. If they get themselves sorted out they should be able to operate at the same sort of level as Linlithgow Rose as was the case 20 years back.

Where Robert the Bruce had his encounter with the spider and very much part of Dalriada so central to key portions of Scottish history.

East Kilbride are also financially doped although probably not to the same extent as Darvel would have been. Hopefully they get off to a bad start again.

Guess it depends on the state of their bank balance and whether they ran at a loss in recent seasons. Doubt the parachute payment goes far for Club 42 when there are debts to cover. Hopefully unlike last season they'll experience being the second best club in their division that play in blue and have a ground that sits on old mine workings. If Shire fans are anything to go by they'll soon adjust and enjoy following their club at this level.

On the bright side at least they didn't blow it over a goal celebration in their own half. It will take longer than it should have (making no statement as to who is to blame for that) but think it can be confidently stated that they will in time get back to their natural habitat at tier 6 sort of level and eventually displace the likes of Crossgates, Inverkeithing and Blackburn from there. Things don't look so rosy for Bathgate and Fauldhouse though...

Talbot repeatedly losing the playoffs deliberately will be the scenario that Clydebank & co dread right now but who is to say what the next 5 years hold now that clubs like that have the SPFL in their sights? Might be easier for them to get new sponsors on board and draw larger crowds again now that Scottish Cup runs are happening and the glass ceiling has been at least partially removed. Talbot arguably dominated the west region in recent times mainly because their wee town still got excited about winning that plus the SJC in a way people from communities in and around Glasgow no longer did. The dynamic could be different now and the notion that Talbot wouldn't go for it could easily just be based on paranoia anyway.