FairWeatherFan

What exactly do you think the "good junior football men" would of been doing for 2020-21? A 16 team league half season where teams get relegated or promoted after 15 games? Actually, maybe you are alright with that. Since 14 games was good enough for Johnstone Burgh and 16 good enough for Auchinleck to win titles. Simple fact is 2020-21 was going to be a out of the ordinary regardless of the "grade". Unless of course Junior football mothballed everything for a year until March 2021 and start playing Summer football instead.

I don't know if its a good or a bad thing that there hasn't been many (if any?) stories that have came out around the holiday camp circuit. Especially when you have had some accusations against Brian Dixon that ran some of those bookings. I don't know if that's because the dynamic of wrestler & camp guest that isn't necessarily a wrestling fan, wouldn't have been caught up in this kind of disclosure from within the industry this past week.

I think we'll have an idea of how seriously the HL are treating this by the number they set themselves. 16 they're showing Fort William the door pretty much. 18 they're given they're existing members a chance. 20 they're not expecting to reach that high but want a system in place that allows for flexibility.

Once its in the pyramid its basically a name change. That's the only difference. Rules and regulations will be in line to the Highland League/SFA's standards. Access to SFA Licencing. That's it really. Being called NoSFL or NRSJFA doesn't matter much at that point.

They're not holding anyone back. There isn't the same conflict in the North that there is in the South. Junior Cup has already been amended to fit within the Senior calendar. There's no cup competition like the South Challenge Cup that requires their participation. They'd gain access to SFA licencing to make this work. Majority of North Juniors would probably roll out the red carpet for Banks O'Dee to get them into the Highland League, so they stop hoovering up titles. The issue isn't from the North Region. It would have been a Highland League side(s) not wanting to get relegated into a Junior League that could have been the problem. That doesn't seem to be the case though. Of the 17 in the league 4 came from the Juniors (Inverurie, Strathspey, Formartine, and Turriff). So maybe that's why they're not that bothered by it.

Macleod & MacCallum North Caledonian League Division 1 Golspie Sutherland, Halkirk United, Invergordon, Orkney, St. Duthus, Thurso Macleod & MacCallum North Caledonian League Division 2 Alness United, Bonar Bridge, Bunillidh Thistle, Inverness Athletic, Loch Ness, Nairn County 'A', Scourie

Not this year. Looks like its done for now. It was just involved in a couple of SPFL reconstruction proposals. None of which gained any traction.

As you will have seen from the EoSFL experience there's going to be quite a few, and perhaps some surprises along the way. In terms of the promotion play-off: Cumnock Juniors are meant to have an ongoing licencing application. Then Auchinleckt Talbot, Kilwinning Rangers, and Darvel are known to be installing floodlights (as the big ticket item) and other ground/infrastructure improvements with licencing as the end goal. The likes of Clydebank, Rutherglen Glencairn, Benburb (and Rossvale through Benburg groundshare) have floodlights so probably have other ground/infrastructure improvements to make. That's 8/20 that might be in for a shout of getting licenced. Out of former West Superleague or Premiership champions not mentioned:Kilwinning Rangers are raising funds for licencing but describe themselves as a couple of seasons away. Pollok are usually noted as having some issues to resolve to get into licencing shape. Haven't heard much about Beith and Glenafton, but i'm sure they won't want to be left behind however long it might take.

All of the playoffs i've seen resumed have involved automatic promotion as the prize. So you can understand why the clubs have pushed for them, even in altered formats.

@Bestsinceslicebread this was the best explanation I ever saw how it came to be:

I don't believe he was saying Benburb were using Upper Annandale. Since it became known that Upper Annandale had a development team playing out of New Tinto Park there was a rumour that an unknown'youth club from the Glasgow area were using the Upper Annandale name to access the Lowland Development League. Since it seems strange for a team from the D&G area to have their u20s operate in Glasgow. The rumour had nothing to do with Benburb.

That's the way its always been since licencing was introduced.

None of what's come out is hardly surprising. Over the years there have been a few instances that have popped up around domestic abuse and even paedos/grooming.

The Euros seem to have gotten a mention and not wanting to clash with them. They kick off on the 11th June 2021. The full calendar for the EoSFL this year ran until the 31st May. With the lower leagues of the SPFL restricting themselves to what looks like 27 game league seasons, do you still see the EoSFL setting themselves up for 34 and 30 league games?

They had already pushed back all shows to next year. So as a company they've got time to figure out what's next.

Do you mean 2020-21? Because anyone can apply for 2021-22.

I imagine the Conferences weren't set because they don't know when the season will start. With 30+ teams, they might prefer 3x smaller Conferences say where you get a double round robin, instead of a 16 team playing each other once. Things like that.

We'll have to see how that goes. Last night at the EoS AGM it doesn't sound like they set Conferences due to COVID19. So it doesn't quite fit the Kinnoull replacing Eyemouth model last season.

I see the season is officially well and truly over after last night's AGM. Doesn't seem like much happened beyond what is already known. The EoS twitter feed did provide a few tweets that mentioned some of the financial numbers involved that you don't normally see in the public domain.

I don't think they will. They'll get rid of those accused and try to float under the radar. Especially if they can say none of this happened under their watch (i've not kept up with everything so don't know the time scales).

In terms of testing UEFA don't have to worry about that. As the clubs are already doing it themselves.

The English National League are going to hold their playoff. If they can hold it between July 18-30 and the clubs cover the cost of testing, staffing and staging the games. The Guardian noted the cost of testing to be around £100k with it involving 6 teams.

Thanks for that! All the Highland League documents are stored in their history subsection of the website. http://www.highlandfootballleague.com/History/LeagueDocuments.aspx

http://www.highlandfootballleague.com/history/item/constitution and rules.pdf

You mentioned Robert James sometimes presents his opinion as fact over the issue of the SFA wanting the Highland League to be reduced to 16 teams. Which is a commonly heard rumour dating back to discussions around introducing the pyramid to Scottish Football. A rumour that has now public documentation to support it. You're now on here saying you have to be licenced to compete at Tier 5. Where does it actually say that? Or has this been another rumour that has grown arms and legs over the years. Which I myself believed up until last year when there was genuine discussion over the introduction of ICT colts to the Highland League.