LongTimeLurker

Good to hear. His content is usually worth a watch especially when he teams up with Bald and Bankrupt, who was in Ukraine when the invasion started:

This was the link to the Kirkliston & South Queensferry stuff: https://www.pieandbovril.com/forum/index.php?/topic/243849-new-clubs-in-the-east-of-scotland/&do=findComment&comment=14814519

Dunblane would be another reasonably large town with no club. Think the now folded Sauchie junior team that ran in parallel with the EoS one was run by people from there. The one possibility that actually seemed to have something happening on this if you go back a few pages was in South Queensferry but the 3G sports hub involved would probably need quite a bit of work so that could take a while.

^^^again with the complete lack of basic social skills. Winding things back to what I actually posted about can anyone think of a potential applicant club other than Duns that have a ground available that is not currently being used by an EoS club that would meet the EoS ground requirements in time for next season?

^^^lacks the social skills to be able to deal with people who disagree with him in a reasonable manner without becoming personally abusive. Blackburn United's ground is a prime example of how you can combine a 3G community sports hub with an EoS ground. Letham appear to have aspirations to do something similar.

Not sure it's actually ultimately up to the West to decide that. The strength of Ukrainian resolve even in the more Russified east and south has been surprising and that's something that's coming from them. Germany has just arranged a long term contract with Qatar for liquified natural gas and is talking about fast tracking the construction of two LNG terminals and phasing out Russian gas imports by the end of the year. Not a course of action we would be seeing unfolding if the expectation was that a peace deal will be reached along with a rapid return to normality on trade links.

^^^Blackburn United have shown how a 3G cage type setup can be brought up to entry level licensing standards. I will reiterate that my original point was only that if grounds now need to be acceptable at time of entry new clubs are likely to be few and far between.

Bathgate Thistle also have floodlights FWIW.

Think St Andrews United didn't get their licence last season because the lux levels measured narrowly missed the recommendations in some way, so although what you state fits the wording, in practice it is probably closer to a requirement.

Think it all depends on average lux levels? https://www.scottishfa.co.uk/media/7460/scottish-fa-club-licensing-manual-2021.pdf Clubs are required to have a floodlight system at the ground. It is recommended that the following minimum levels apply: Average – 200 lux Min/Max – 0.25 Clubs must be able to evidence that matches have been played under the floodlights, to the satisfaction of match officials, within the last year. Where a relevant body or league raises concerns regarding the suitability of a floodlight system, it will be a matter for the Licensing Committee to determine whether the system meets the terms of the Entry level criteria.

The phrase "somehow cobble together" was supposed to convey how likely I think that is to happen. The combined overtly Unionist vote is still likely to be around 40% minimum and probably a bit higher so under STV a lot depends on how efficiently those votes transfer to the largest Unionist party. Think what sinks the DUP as the largest party this time is that the crypto-Unionist component of Alliance & Green support and the ability of those parties to attract UUP transfers will be large/strong enough to take a few MLAs out of the Unionist camp this time. A bit like FF and FG in an RoI context, the UUP and DUP are probably going to have to merge soon to be able to stop SF from being the largest party.

You should maybe read up a bit more about the Wagner Group.

Just noticed that the DUP have moved Edwin Poots to South Belfast. Interesting constituency to parachute the Agriculture minister and a homophobic young earth creationist into (not too many open fields and a bit like sending him to Brighton) but if they only field one candidate he'll probably get in. Guess that deals with their internal split so all they need to do now is go mental over the Irish Sea customs checks to squeeze TUV well below the STV quota, pick up their transfers in and around Belfast and plenty of UUP ones west of the River Bann and hope they can somehow cobble together more MLAs than the SFers.

Think Coupar Angus now have the Lochee Harp team and management from earlier this season on board who had applied to join the league as Menzieshill but got rejected.

Darvel are going to be playing Mon-Wed-Sat over the next few weeks to clear their league fixture backlog, so may not have been prioritising this competition. They still have a shot at promotion to the LL and the Killie pie man appears to be keen to do another Kelty type rise into the SPFL with them.

Good confidence boost for the Petershill game on Wednesday.

The only point that was being made was that if facilities need to be acceptable at the time of entry in an EoS context, successful applicants could be few and far between over the next few years. Duns are the only obvious one at the moment but that would be a case of a club returning to the league who had done all that work previously rather than a new one that still needs to do so.

...says the Blackburn United fan and former official. The grounds of Thornton Hibs, Kirkcaldy YM, Rosyth and Inverkeithing HS didn't meet regulations either. The difference is they were given a grace period after entry to get it fixed.

Letham was the strangest case of an applicant being rejected in recent times. They landed on their feet OK, but if concerns over their ground rather than distance from the Lothians was the reason for the knock back, successful applicants are likely to be few and far between from now on.

The EoS and LL were able to use changes to the tier 6 promotion playoff rule needing to be signed off by all parties involved to block SJFA entry into the pyramid. The SFA wanted their fellow Hampden based blazers from the SJFA to be able to enter the pyramid pretty much as is. That whole saga created a lot of bad blood between the officials involved. If the Club 42 rule change doesn't help Brechin change leagues for 2022-23 (it appears this is the case but we'll see what gets tabled at the next LL AGM), it was probably mainly about putting upstarts in their place and showing who is the real boss in Scottish fitba terms. Bureaucrats can be very petty sometimes. One last wrinkle to the emergence of the Midlands League was the rumour that a joint superleague would be formed between the north region and Tayside. In retrospect, I wonder whether that was a plan B scenario if the HL and NCL had objected to the emergence of a third Tayside feeder.

Thought it was Little Kerse in Grangemouth that they used? That way they are or were about the same distance away on a weeknight for players from Edinburgh and Glasgow and just off a motorway so it's easy to recruit from right across the central belt.

The US and the UK are now sending switchblade drones and starstreak missiles apparently so it isn't going to get any easier for Vlad's army and airforce. Guess the cynical take would be that there are future weapons sales to be secured by demonstrating what they can do against Russian armaments at this point now it looks like Ukraine will be able to hold as it's not clear why they wouldn't have been made available initially otherwise. This could also be significant:

If it isn't agreed amicably between the parties concerned it goes to the SFA board to decide, so no league can outright reject Club 42. Seriously doubt Cowdenbeath would wind up anywhere other than the LL though. It's easy to come up with bizarre hypotheticals on this but that rule change revolves around what happened to Brechin, and what might happen in future to Montrose, Forfar and Arbroath. The SFA were pushing for that change right through the PWG process and definitely appeared to be backing the notion of the east region complete with Tayside clubs as an LL rather than an HL feeder in the minutes that were linked on here. That's water under the bridge now because they were only able to engineer the removal of the line of latitude rule after the Midlands League had already emerged as an HL feeder. If the sequence of events had gone the other way the EoS would probably have had to bite the bullet and expand out to Brechin Vics.

On the hook for it now and theoretically at least there's even scope for a further southward drift of the HL catchment depending on who the Midland League choose to admit as new members in future. Timing was everything on Midlands League entry and Lochee United & co giving up on the notion of the east region being a second east feeder to the LL just as the details of the north pyramid were being finalised. Forfar West End's EoS application appeared to help break the logjam in that regard. Brechin City are the most likely possible complication on having reasonably neatly defined feeder league geography in future but they need to get promoted again and subsequently relegated for that scenario to unfold according to the rulebook that is now in place.