FairWeatherFan

2008-09 only got one draw in the league.

If the Highland League had relegation to worry about I can understand the annoyance that some seem to have over this move. It's not something to worry about though. End of the day it's a bunch of teens not considered good enough for Championship level football and ICT aren't interested in the SPFL Reserve League(s) like quite a few clubs. The people that signed up to run Fort William are doing their best to keep the club going and found a source of players that have the potential to make them more competitive after arguably their worst season in history. It's certainly a far better situation for Fort William to be in than they were in say December 2017 and it's a way for ICT to keep their development system ticking over when other clubs are cutting the development/reserve aspect to balance their budgets.

This year's ranking won't be used for qualifying places until 2021-22 when the 3rd UEFA competition begins. Anywhere from 18th-28th would represent the same number of qualifying games. 16th and 17th only benefits the league champion by starting the CL at a later round. Which would be 2pts or 0.5 overall missing at most if the champion can avoid a Red Imps type situation. So a good season won't make much difference. The bigger issue with getting to the supposed promised land of 15th and two CL spots again isn't the loss of qualifers to pick up easy points. It's the addition of a 5th European side that would see the ranking points divided by 5 instead of 4.

They've won league games before. Not many admittedly 2018-19 = 1 out of 24 games 2017-18 = 1 out of 24 games 2016-17 = 3 out of 20 games There's a decent mix of clubs in the Conferences this year. I'm sure everyone will pick up a few wins at least.

EoS First Division Conference A Burntisland Shipyard P-P Oakley United Craigroyston 1-5 Kinnoull Haddington Athletic 4-1 Peebles Rovers Ormison 1-2 Dunipace St Andrews United 3-0 Heriot-Watt Univeristy Leith Athletic 1-1 Lothian Thistle Hutchison Vale

EoS First Division Conference B Coldstream 4-0 Stirling University (EoS) Dalkeith Thistle 5-0 Arniston Rangers Edinburgh United P-P Easthouses Lily MW Inverkeithing Hillfield Swifts 4-3 Glenrothes Preston Athletic P-P Tynecastle Tweedmouth Rangers 4-3 Hawick Royal Albert United

EoS Premier Division Blackburn United 2-4 Linlithgow Rose Broxburn Athletic 1-1 Bo'ness United Dunbar United 3-2 Musselburgh Athletic Dundonald Bluebell P-P Crossgates Primrose Jeanfield Swifts 7-2 Camelon Juniors Newtongrange Star 0-3 Tranent Juniors Sauchie Juniors 2-2 Hill of Beath Hawthorn Whitehill Welfare P-P Penicuik Athletic

They've set up their new twitter for Caledonian Braves https://twitter.com/JoinTheBrave/ Which also shows what i'm assuming to be the new club badge which erases all the Edusport Academy history by saying they were established in 2019

Hasn't this pretty much happened before? When Fort William had their last decent spell. Don't quite see the fuss. I'd rather Fort being supplemented by loan signings than struggle to put out a team.

Isn't that one side of it? Arrival of weaker sides = Departure of stronger sides. Caledonian, Thistle, Ross County, Peterhead and Elgin City total 48 titles. Their replacements Wick, Inverurie, Formartine, Turriff and Strathspey have 0.

This was news to me, but Picard will be on Amazon Prime.

The TNT show premiere has been announced for Wednesday 2nd October 8pm-10pm ET. Which has roughly been known for a while. Perhaps the more interesting tidbit is they also announced the venue as the Capital One Arena in Washington DC which has a 20,000+ capacity.

I don't really mind how it goes as long as it's a good match. A win or loss could work as well for Polo. With the loss being the motivation to drop the Just Justice schtick.

I wouldn't compare Polo to Echo and Girvan though. He's a former World Champion & multi time Tag Champion. Getting a win, especially through nefarious means, over someone in for a single show seems perfectly acceptable to me. KUSHIDA could always get some heat back post match.

I believe the original 13 accepted were Blackburn United, Bonnyrigg Rose, Camelon Juniors, Crossgates Primrose, Dalkeith Thistle, Dunipace, Easthouses Lily, Edinburgh United, Haddington Athletic, Hill of Beath Hawthorn, Inverkeithing Hillfield Swifts, Musselburgh Athletic and Tranent Juniors. With Dundonald Bluebell withdrawing/deferring their application when the "news" about SJFA being accepted at Tier 6. And i'm not downplaying their decisions. It's just Dalkeith and Clydebank announced publicly in early January decisions related to the pyramid, Dalkeith applying for the EoS and Clydebank setting up a vote to go senior. While Dalkeith saw some discussion, it was Clydebanks vote on going senior, figuring out their options that led to a far greater public profile on the pros and cons of joining the pyramid. The majority of clubs that would end up being accepted in the first 13 for 2018-19 made those decisions within their own circle and didn't announce anything until after March 31st.

As important as Dalkeith were, I believe they were sandwiched in the middle of two decisions that brought greater attention on the matter of moving in to the pyramid. Kelty having left the summer before and Clydebank announcing to go senior. Kelty got people thinking about it and Clydebank got them talking about it.

Yes. In early 2014 a proposal to go to 2 divisions was voted on in advance of the SPFL pyramid coming into effect from 2014-15. It was meant to be 2x Divisions of 10 playing each other twice. With the League Cup adding groups to bulk up the number of games with Championship & Promotion play-offs and another cup. Then there was also the idea of playing each other three times a season instead. This early attempt is usually called the "Stables Plan". It got shot down in a vote. Then the basic idea has been revived a couple of times. While the HFL have voted to split into 2x Divisions if they exceed 20 clubs, the idea of two small divisions isn't a popular enough idea for them to pursue under their own steam.

It's not really a new stance for them. It's basically what they've been saying since the moves to the EoS back in early 2018. We want to remain Junior but everything's moving around us so we'll make the best of it March 2018 https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/43574188 July 2019

This only seems to be an issue for the Amateur Cup winners. All the other qualifiers are going to be part of league structures with enough ground criteria to cover the preliminary rounds of the Scottish Cup. Having a single ground nominated in the middle of July that's capable of covering the 4 dates it might have to cover (PR1 or the replay, PR2 or the replay) would surely limit their options considerably.

Shake up in the format sure. Amateur qualifier having to do anything differently, probably not. There's been times when clubs with home parks have moved their designated venue in the competition. EK v Celtic and Albion Rivers v Celtic being two I'm pretty sure.

College Football at FBS level and the NFL go hand in hand. It's one of the reasons why there's never been a sustained professional league below the NFL. The two systems swallow up all the media and don't leave much breathing space for anyone else. All the while avoiding competing against each other. And what I was going for in my original post is more that the CL elite are the ones that more likely to take inspiration from the NFL's methods than for Scottish Football to do the same.

A 32 team closed shop spread across a continent

Apparently they're in it as the qualifiers double up as the qualifiers for the Asian Cup.

Sad to see Alness sitting out the season. Hopefully they can get something sorted for next year.

Going by all the good news on the return to a 10 team league, there seems to be something important overlooked. Anyone know what's going on with Alness for them to be in doubt this year?