Footballfirst

Hearts included six players with B Team experience in their U18 youth cup tie this afternoon, so will likely field a weaker side this evening, or a least a sparse bench. Surprisingly, they lost 1-0 to Rangers U18s despite fielding a strong side.

Similarly with Hearts and Rangers v 4th tier sides, no Scottish youngsters in their starting line ups. Meanwhile, Barcelona started a 16 year old centre back tonight, in their La Liga game away to Real Betis.

Following on from Hearts B's top striker Makenzie Kirk going on loan to Hamilton, their best centre back Callum Flatman is going on loan to Edinburgh City (good luck to him with that ). With midfielders Macaulay Tait and Finlay Pollock also likely to spend more time with the first team, we may well see that Hearts B find it more difficult to maintain the levels achieved in the first half of the season. There may also be more loan deals in the pipeline. They will of course bring in more younger players (U18s) so it will be a good test for them going forward.

He's a big unit and will score goals at Tier 4/5, but there's not a lot of quality in his play. Similar is some ways to McGachie at Bonnyrigg and Henderson at Spartans.

Hand raised, a push around the throat area, then crumple to the ground holding his face. Typical footballer reaction.

I did a headcount from some photos I took and came up with a figure of 906.

Worst game I've been at all season. Plenty of huff and puff but, absolutely no quality on show from either side.

Kirk's hat trick came from a combined distance of about 9 yards, although I wouldn't have described any of the goals as scrappy, particularly the first.

The cynic in me thinks that the SFA's decision to stick with a 16 team league was designed to encourage clubs like Cowdenbeath to vote for B teams in order to create more games. Had they said 18 was Ok, then there would be no need to invite B teams.

The only rationale for the LL Board and the clubs to vote yes was £50k per guest club. It's as simple as that. There is no other means that the League could raise that sort of money.

So it would only have taken a single "Yes" voter to have voted "No" and the proposal would have been defeated. No wonder the Yes voters have been quiet.

AR response

League Statement: Future of B Teams News 18/12/2023 By Lowland League Board The Scottish Lowland Football League can confirm that the majority of our members have voted in favour of continuing with B Teams for at least the next 2 seasons. Following a process which began in October, a democratic vote was held in line with our rules at a General Meeting tonight. The Board would like to thank all our members for their contributions to the discussions in recent weeks.

AR statement

Is this tweet correct? I thought that B Teams were limited to U20s, with an U21 goalkeeper and one U21 outfielder.

I heard something similar a couple of weeks ago, certainly that Hearts had already received a tacit approval from both the Lowland League and the clubs. My source was less clear about Celtic and Rangers who were understood to be still looking at other avenues with the SPFL.

Fair comment. It's perhaps because of the compressed nature of the competition (16 teams) and the possibility/likelihood of postponements due to weather or other competitions that the league has gone down the route it has.

Ultimately all knock-out cup competitions will conform to the layout above, whether or not a single draw is made or draws are made between rounds, i.e. there would always be one team who could have been at home in every round (had they kept winning), similarly one team could also have been away in every round (had they kept winning).

Nice to see Michael recovering and responding as he has done.

I hope that the Strollers' coach who collapsed in the dugout late in tonight's game against Hearts B is ok. The game was abandoned with around 5 mins left, although it had been stopped 10 minutes earlier, with Hearts 3-0 up. At least the ambulance was coming into the car park as I left, so the response time of the emergency services was good. Hearts physios also were also providing assistance along with the first aid staff.

A thread on Berwick's accounts.

I don't support either side. It was a shocking decision. A yellow card for what referees term "stopping a promising attack", but nothing more.

I was there as a neutral and felt that Dunbar played well enough to take the game to ET, if not win it in the 90 mins. They could have been 3-0 up before Alloa got their equaliser. A couple of great chances were also spurned in the second half. One of them by Michael Barfoot, who otherwise put in an outstanding performance.