12 Angry Men

There have been several clear and concise - and very credible - suggestions on how, at a juncture where the SJFA at last want to emerge from the shadows and into the Pyramid, full and proper integration of our game can best take place and I've reproduced below a post from the end of October that I too would put forward as the most simple means of restructuring to accommodate this. Many have already said that the West and North Regions being placed directly into the Pyramid in their current form is a logical step and I would certainly endorse this. The much more difficult matter lies in the East. Here, a frank discussion between the ERSJFA (not the SJFA) and the EoSFL on the matter of full integration of their respective leagues is surely the only way to go to avoid what so many have correctly stated is the nonsense of two leagues overlapping in the same geographical area. It is even the contemplation of such a ridiculous overlap that further exemplifies why Scottish football has been so derided in its thinking over the years. Many have also highlighted the Highland/Lowland divide and the fact that its very existence calls into question the ERSJFA simply slotting in beside the EoSFL underneath the Lowland League due to the preponderance of Tayside clubs in it's top league who, as it currently stands and most likely will remain, are considered to be north of the Highland/Lowland dividing line. Discussion too must be had about these clubs moving north and balancing the lower tiers of the Pyramid. It is surely not beyond the wit of man for this to happen in a properly thought out and structured manner to avoid the crazy notion of overlap that some seem to entertain. I for one believe that the EoSFL showed sufficient leadership last year in absorbing so many east Junior sides to be entrusted again to ensure proper balance is brought to the PWG table and a proper merger in the east can be achieved under their auspices - whether that be by accepting applicants from the east Juniors again this coming close season or by partnering the ERSJFA in a properly negotiated merger. The EoSFL board are men who have earned the trust of many to make this work.

This seems to me to be eminently sensible. The top league of the ERSJFA is made up almost entirely of teams from in and around Tayside, with the exception of Fauldhouse United and Whitburn. It is these two West Lothian teams who have a decision to make - do they continue throwing in their lot with Tayside or do they, along with the South Division feeder league sides (some of whom refused promotion to avoid travelling regularly to Tayside), look to make the move to the EoSFL like so many of their previous Junior rivals did in the close season? Such an orderly merger, perhaps in much the same fashion as has been achieved this season, is by far and away the best method by which to get all sides into the Pyramid and the Scottish non-league game properly aligned.

83 committee and injured players etc - wow!! [emoji3]

The means of implementation may very well be fraught with challenges, but surely this is the way the PWG and those charged with growing and running our game should be aiming to go?

I’m going to try and be scrupulously honest. Last season I liked to try and get around the junior game. This season I’ve attended games mainly at the senior level because, as I stay local to Blackburn, I’m keen to support my local team. So.....today I was a Blackburn supporter as I have been, if not exclusively, then probably mostly. Unfortunately, if we were to take committee, parents and youth coaches out of the equation then I think I might very well have been one of very few Blackburn ‘supporters’ to have paid through the turnstiles. There seems to me to be no club more positively engaged within their community and with all that the SFA ask and none that really and truly want to advance their club within the game more than Blackburn - but sadly they appear to be doing it without the backing of the people within their town.

I counted 121 at Blackburn United v Bonnyrigg Rose. I would have to say that, disappointingly for the hosts, most of them were backing the visitors.

Pitched up at Pennypit Park last night and glad I did as it was a pretty decent game with two teams of contrasting styles going at it hammer and tong to try and secure all three points. Blackburn like to keep possession and knock it about while Preston like, ahem, a more direct approach and it was Blackburn's early insistence on trying to play out from the back that, for me, ultimately cost them the game, losing two goals in the opening twenty minutes or so that were entirely avoidable if they'd just moved the ball forward quicker. The second Preston goal in particular was a shocker from a Blackburn point of view, a short pass out of defence holding up in the grass - wow, people complain about 3G surfaces but are content to watch a game played out on a surface that probably hasn't seen a lawnmower in weeks. Get along to Preston to see this before they do eventually cut it (but don't tell Brendan Rodgers or he's sure to hyperventilate!) - before eventually finding it's way to the right of the area where a decent enough shot was made into a great shot when a wicked deflection took it past the wrong footed 'keeper. The real talking points, though, were all associated with the referee and his propensity to wave a yellow card at just about every Blackburn player that made a tackle - although there was one he missed that really should've resulted in a booking, go figure! It was all quite unbelievable and , from my vantage point near the stand, had plenty of heads shaking as well as a vocal few of the travelling support going "radio rental". His sending-off of a Blackburn player for kicking a loose ball into his own dugout in frustration after being substituted was right up there with the most genuinely unnecessary decisions I think I've ever seen. The player didn't even kick the ball particularly forcefully and the only person in the entire ground to take exception to it was the referee, displaying a supercilious attitude that riled all concerned still further. Amazing stuff from the guy from start to finish in all honesty. However, to be fair, I don't think any of his multitude of at least questionable decisions cost Blackburn the game - their own propensity for passing the ball around in defence on a surface that the long grasslands of the Serengeti would be proud to showcase did that. For Burnieclub78 the attendance according to my headcount was 82, but he was probably there to count himself - I just hope he didn't get lost in the grass on the way out!!

The motives of the likes of Dalkeith and Blackburn, and other of the early movers, have been consistently and patiently pointed out to you and you have consistently and, it would seem, purposefully ignored any and all of it to peddle your preferred line that these teams haven't, in fact, diligently assessed all matters pertinent to them and made a considered choice as to where best their future growth may be served but that they have merely looked to steal a short term march on those that you judge to have more kudos in the game than them. You have absolutely no idea of their motives but speak as if you do, simply and persistently claiming, with no evidence whatsoever, that they began the exodus with the very worst of reasons. Not every club operates with the same short term thinking that appears to continue to hamper the Junior game.

This. As the weeks have moved on and more teams were rumoured to be moving, most all of whom were then confirmed as accepted applicants by the EoSFL, I perhaps unrealistically and, as it turns out, naively assumed that Linlithgow Rose and Bo’ness United committees would see and understand the inevitable and would take the logical step of calling members meetings, if and where required, with leadership recommendations of moving to the EoSFL and the Pyramid. I’m simply astounded that this hasn’t happened, although I probably shouldn’t be if some of the inarticulate and petty Pyramid negativity that abounds on here is in any way representative of some committees. Perhaps it’s not too late, but I fear that for these two great clubs it just might be - for this coming season at any rate. Tier 6 being open to them thereafter should the inevitable consequences dawn is far from a given.

No, I wasn't in the room.....thanks, though, for your clarification and I think I understand your position a bit better now. As you have subsequently said, the money question has now been asked by cmontheloknow - was the 'promise' made by the SJFA re the east Super League moving in its entirety to become a rival Tier6 league to the EoSFL time specific, delivered in writing or minuted? I'm guessing the answer will prove to be no as that provides for traceability and accountability and I suspect the SJFA will not want to be accountable for making a promise that - in the face of all the 'evidence' outlined earlier and the logic of what currently exists - they may, in all likelihood, fail to deliver on.

I think as someone mentioned a few pages back, you definitely seem, particularly since the East Juniors meeting on Tuesday, to have drifted into viewing everything through the prism of what you would like to see happen rather than what is likely to happen. The EoSFL are an organisation already within the Pyramid who, I would assume, have built up strong and lasting relationships with the SFA, with the Lowland League and with the SPFL, working with them in a progressive way to formulate and to agree many aspects of the governance of the game in the lower tiers. Such close working relationships will build trust and will build support for each other and each others viewpoints. The SJFA, on the other hand, have been reluctant to the point of intransigence to involve themselves in any of the structuring of the game at these lower levels. The EoSFL are, I'd imagine, almost certain to use the relationships they have nurtured and the influence they have accordingly built up to state simply that Tier 6 already exists in the east and that a rival Tier 6 coexisting in exactly the same region of the country is entirely unacceptable to them. Who, then, are the decision makers likely to listen to in this scenario? Using the same analogy as above, are we really to expect that, like a drunk storming into the party several hours after the birthday cake has been cut to demand that the music be changed, the SJFA will turn up late with all sorts of demands and be listened to with a sympathetic ear?

Wow. This is some real puerile stuff. When presented with fact, reason and no little sense on matters relating to why clubs are deciding to move on from an increasingly archaic organisation, for the most part all presented in a respectful and coherent way, your ridiculous retorts as exemplified above do you no favours. Isa is another poster who isn’t enamoured with the gathering momentum of clubs hoping to leave the Juniors behind but lays out her case in a manner which broadly respects who she is arguing with and that is how any proper exchange of opinions should go. You should try it yourself and leave behind the truly embarrassing nature of some of your previous rants.

This is an excellent post that very succinctly sums up exactly what would seem to be the ambitions of those Junior clubs hoping to move into the Pyramid and the EoSFL. It would do many who are posting on a similar thread in the Juniors pages of P&B the world of good to read and understand it. Just one wee point though, Blackburn sit in fourth place in the sixteen team ERSJFA Premier League. The second of the three tiers in the east Juniors. Granted, not exactly competitors of, say, Super League champions in waiting Bonnyrigg should they also be one of the teams who have applied to move, or of another Super League side Camelon who we know have, but certainly not a team who will be weakening the standard of the current EoSFL rather, I imagine, one who will be augmenting it.

It's only continuing to be batted back and forth because you refuse to understand a simple rule - when the ball bounces twice on your side of the net the point is lost, you can't just pick the ball back up and hit it over the net again and expect the point to continue.

As has already been pointed out by several, this is pretty poor stuff. Contradiction off the scale for lauding the Juniors early in the article for having a 'robust' approach to the game but near the end of the piece criticising a coaching approach that, from the journalists own inference, mirrors such robustness. Dearie me.

This is where it becomes tough. I’m more an SPFL man but also a local Junior fan, but a Junior fan who is beyond delighted that clubs from the ERSJFA are looking above the horizon and seeing the EoSFL as a natural home. But if there are a lot of applicants - and I hope there are - then how indeed are they fitted in? My local team, Blackburn United, appear to be a progressive club who are ticking most boxes in relation to ground criteria and off-field structure and who are also progressing playing wise given that they won promotion last season and are competing in the top half of the next league up this season.....but how would they face up against a good EoSFL side? It’s a real difficult judgement call and I hope that all clubs, current and prospective, understand that whatever decision the EoSFA guys have to make it’s a tough one and one that they can only make based on what they believe to be right for all the members of their league at that particular time.

I can’t help but feel that Mr. Johnstone has tried to do what he felt was best for the Junior game and misjudged it so completely. There are those who would wish things to remain the same forever and those who see that everything evolves to something better. I say this with no criticism, but TJ resides firmly in the camp of the former and truly believes he’s protecting our game. Sadly, today or perhaps tomorrow but certainly sometime soon he will come to realise he’s failed to grasp the inevitability of progress. We all become dinosaurs.

So, you didn't see the earlier post in this thread then?; This might not mean that they are about to join the EOSFL next season, but at the very least it does suggest they might.