FairWeatherFan

Finished up 4-0 to Heston Rovers.

Thought for a while you guarantee licensed EoSL and SoSL champions automatic promotion. If a champion is unlicensed the promotion defaults to a licensed runners up play-off or sole licensed runners up. EoSL champion is basically assured promotion every year without worrying about a playoff. SoSL might attract West Juniors into the league looking to do a Kelty. The number of licensed clubs in the EoSL would sway it to two promotion slots working within the current league format constraints.

While the qualifying routes are going to have to be looked at. I don't think they will ever be gone completely now they've been established. The Amateur entrant is just one entrant and I doubt you'll see the EoS and SoS give support to depriving the majority of their members a chance at the Scottish Cup.

EoS First Division Conference B Coldstream 2-1 Dalkeith Thistle Stirling University (EoS) 1-5 Tynecastle Cup business has been the order of the day, only a couple of league games. Can only imagine the chat of Stirling playing their first XI turned out to just be that going by the scoreline.

There's a grand total of 8 qualifying routes into the Scottish Cup. 4x Junior, 3x Senior and ONE amateur. It's making a mountain out of mole hill. Restricting it to just license holders when floodlights are now required and the likes of BM suggesting covered seating might be a requirement seems unreasonable.

Well it wouldn't have been £15k as I don't think prize money for PR1-PR2-1st-2nd even goes that high even now. And i'm sure whatever they made they spent.

Remember how the West of Scotland doesn't have a proper league in the pyramid, guess where all those clubs come from. And the SFA aren't shoving prize money anywhere. They've earned it by qualifying and by winning any subsequent ties. With them entering in the Prelims as well it just means another club would of been given a bye and the SFA would of pocketed £4,000 to spend on lunch.

Now Noam Dar announced for both nights of Fear & Loathing

Hadn't noticed it that until you've pointed it out. May have only gone up this past week. Smart on their part. There's not only the Juniors to consider but we've seen Inverkiething, Musselburgh Windsor, Syngenta and Glenrothes Strollers with varying degrees of success.

Turn of the year. If there's no news, and right now there's no news of the PWG even meeting again. EoSFL usually put up their application information in January, so East Region clubs will start looking at that again. The West clubs will have to take it upon themselves to find their route into the pyramid.

If this was decided back in October the Highland League area might have decided how their set up was going to work. BoD may well have applied to the HL knowing it was inevitable for them and had spent the previous 8 months involved in the negotiations. The Highland League pyramid may very well be apply up until a certain point and then split into HL1 and HL2. So it is basically all in one step as the Highland area is forced to address what they're going to do.

Right now the SFA aren't running the disclipinary. The SJFA are trialling the SFA rules to show they can do it. If they were Tier 6 leagues and the SFA were doing all the work, i'm not sure how the SJFA could have their hand out to collect fines. Especially since their excuse for collecting fines is to finance their disclipinary operation.

BSC were the original people to attempt it for their reserves, they've since moved on. The Lowland League are looking into Lowland League 2. The EoSFL seem to be the ones that have proposed a West league but nobody has taken them up on it and everyone else is more focused on getting the West Region in. Since there's no formal proposal it has as much validity as all the other half baked ideas that don't go anywhere. As for the Tayside league there seems to be the idea that such a thing would feed into the Lowland League which is why no Tayside clubs have been included in the Highland League Pyramid discussion. It seems to be the compromise solution by the EoSFL to get the East Region clubs in the pyramid, the concession being it would feed the LL. And the sticking point is the SJFA don't want to split the East Region by telling half the clubs to join the EoSFL. 2019-20 there's a Lowland League play-off involving the EoS Premier champion, SoSFL champion, West Premiership champion and East Superleague champion. If licensed of course. All sitting at Tier 6 of the Scottish Football Pyramid with divisions below seeing promotion and relegation between them. 173 clubs in the Lowland League area alone. 10x as many in the Lowland area as in the Highland area. All of them putting pressure on the North Region, NCL and HFL to get something sorted. 157 of them saying one promotion place isn't enough to the Lowland League. Could have happened. That's not fantasy.

They finally got the concession from the SFA that they would run discliplinary for all Tier 6 leagues. Theoretically if that's 16-16-14 or 16 the SJFA is no longer taking fines from 46-48 clubs on top of having lost the previous 20+ to the EoSFL. With the Junior Cup forced to fit around league seasons that's two hefty hits to the SJFA pocket book. You'd also have the likes of Auchinleck, Cumnock, Petershill and Clydebank becoming SFA members, so the SJFA starts to seem more pointless as an entity as time goes on.

I didn't realise the immense power of the PnB posters in organising semi professional leagues. Next stop Highland League 2, or Lowland League 2, or the Tayside League, or wasn't there a North/Central and South leagues, or the North/West/East Leagues at Tier 5. Or are we waiting on the Scottish Premiership and Championship becoming 16 team leagues with everything else being regionalised? I'm I missing something like Apetura/Clausura set ups? Ah, so the first step in the entirely based in reality and in no way plucked out of thin air league is for clubs to apply to it. Hmmm? is this still PnB organising it? Because BSC gave up on their WoSFL for their reserves league plan since they're in the SPFL Reserve League 2 and the LL u20s has been beefed up. The Lowland League moved into LL2 territory since it strengthens their position. The SFA is trying to mediate the SJFA entry. The SJFA are trying to negotiate their entry. The EoSFL had their offer to assist West clubs summer 2018 and presumably summer 2019 and no one took it up. So that kind of only leaves the clubs themselves. Are they applying to be in their own league? Except that still leaves the East Region trying to negotiate their entry into the pyramid. And some of the parties involved in this seem okay with the concept of the HL/LL boundary being moved. Yeah for the 38 members of the SJFA East Region to negotiate their entry into the Lowland League catchment area. They do still have that option because you never bothered to deal with that issue. Also known as "I got what I wanted so I don't care about an all inclusive pyramid set up for semi-professional clubs playing in predominantly enclosed grounds." Are we sure it's not a fantasy assumption? I have. Still don't see a place for the SJFA in the pyramid. Still think the HL/LL boundary is perfectly acceptable and should be enforced. Still think a Lowland League 2 or Lowland League 2 West/East will solve most of these problems pretty quickly. As for my involvement in the game, that seems like a weird question to be asking after all these years and previous agreements and disagreements. I live up to my name that's why I picked it, i'm just a football fan. Shook the Old Firm duopoly by primary school's end. Moved around so no fixed team and usually pop around to whoever's local. Miss the days of the Dumbarton/Clydebank Boghead groundshare so I would be guaranteed a home game basically every week of the season.

That's exactly what you've done with your WoS league conjured out of thin air followed by another series of if, buts and maybes.

Pyramid was started in 2013. Not last year or next year. The time to get it right was in its inception. We're years down the road now and saying "let's get it right to begin with" is bull. Junior all in approach had its flaws. However, another 100+ clubs would be in the pyramid by now and potentially saw the NCL is as well. The Junior Cup would have been streamlined to fit the senior calendar and the need for at least two weeks at the end of the season for the LL playoff. By the end of the PWG meetings you had the SFA confirming it would oversee all tier 6 leagues. You also had Cumnock, Petershill and probably Clydebank at the very least applying for SFA membership. Those 3 things knock the standing and relevance of the SJFA and brings all the clubs closer together without the grade divide. A merged East of Scotland league set up seems more likely at that point. Same for the West and North of Scotland. Now boundaries, LL2, Tayside are still sat waiting to be resolved. Your way and the all in way both take years to get right and none do it right from the start.

Right to begin with was 2013 but let's not let facts get in the way.

And yet it has been a point open to discussion and can't be continually fobbed off as a misunderstanding of Iain Maxwell's. September PWG, Maxwell's first, everyone discussed the issue of juniors entering all in with the EoS suggesting West & Tayside as the don't want a competitor East league. October Professional Game Board presented with the Junior all in model as done deal. November first and last Highland PWG meeting with no Tayside representation. April(?) Maxwell sends out his Lowland pyramid playoff proposal with the East Region included intact.

Right now the only league structure in Scotland being asked to change is the Junior East Region. The only boundary that exists is the HL/LL. Everyone else gets to pick and choose, making up the rules to suit them.

Nobody knows what any imagined WoSFL would look like and nobody is organising one right now. The only proposals even attempted are Juniors all in and the West Region in now on its own. So the idea that these SoSFL anomalies are just going to disappear into a new league is as hypothetical as saying the SoSFL will step down a tier. In terms of travel Bonnyton pretty much have to go past 6 Junior sides before they play their nearest SoSFL club Nithsdale. The last of the 6 being Kello. For Tayside having the SoS and West Region exist with overlapping clubs opens up the argument over how significant the HL/LL boundary really should be and the issue over the two East leagues. Why should they be the only region impacted by a boundary, especially as the concentration of clubs makes it look more sensiible for them to be playing in the East.

You've got teams out of Ayr and Lanarkshire in the SoSFL and Kello Rovers in the West Region. If the West Region gets in as it is there has to be a look at the boundaries between the SoSFL and West Region. Otherwise a new team could just apply for the SoSFL and get a step ahead on the pyramid. Not having boundaries and just having Bonnyton, Caledonian and Kello grandfathered in keeps up the arugment that some Tayside clubs should be allowed in the East.

Nobody is suggesting it will automatically happen. In fact the two ideas on the board juniors all in a tier 6 and the West region/WOSFL on its own all respect the SOSFL at tier 6. However, to think the pyramid in 2020 will be the same in 2030 is foolish.

You've already had two clubs try to start the licensing process. There are those that are obviously taking it seriously. If there's no movement and they stay locked out of access to licensing, unlike LL and East clubs, it might be enough to breakaway.

I think they would have been happy to let it go. It was only the ref saying something on twitter that raised the issue a week after it had happened.