Hillonearth

Depends where you're travelling from, but the X74 bus that goes to Dumfries from Glasgow and Hamilton has been a gamechanger in terms of being able to see the clubs down there compared to travelling by train which takes forever...sure, there are a wee knot of sides in the hinterland - Newton, Wigtown, St Cuthbert's, Creetown - that are difficult to get to, but the likes of Abbey Vale and Lochmaben are short local bus journeys away from Dumfries, while the bus literally stops at the end of the street Lochar play on and also in Moffat for Uppers. Mids and Nithsdale are also both easily do-able by train from Central.

LTTs are great fun to watch....I remember one frosty morning seeing a big load of them exiting a nest box we had set up where they'd obviously been sleeping....looked like one of those videos where you try to cram as many folk in a VW Beetle as possible....must have been 15 or 20 of them scrunched up in there for heat.

Somebody very audibly taking a shite during a work meeting was a highlight.

You do feel for the jurors - they're just normal punters who got a letter through telling them to show up and walked into that. I had to serve on one a while back for a noncing case and while it was nowhere near in the same ballpark as this one, there still were a couple of things that'll stay with me.

Oh, totally - I can remember one time not that long ago when we were slated for a 6.30pm kickoff over at Shotts and witnessed a carload of our players screeching into the car park at 6.25 and getting out in full kit. Hardly ideal preparation for the game. As I say, I'm not advocating a return to the old ways...just on a personal level I find myself less likely to take in a game at night when I'm not likely to make it home till closer to 11.

Another factor I don't think has been mentioned is the the fact that games are now starting at anything up to 8pm....I'm certainly not advocating we go back to the bad old "Satan's incandescence" days, but a lot of time you'd take a flyer on a random 6.30-7pm kickoff game on the way back from work or whatever. Once I'm back home - or indeed if I've been working from home that day - I find myself a lot more CBA about heading back out unless the game's mega-local.

This thread aged well.

Renfrew 0 Maryhill 2

Yeah, it seems to be one of the enduring myths around what transpired that all the West teams were entirely happy with the status quo when in many cases the opposite was the truth. I think I've said on here before that we were quite pro-change, but assumed we'd be in a minority before speaking to people from a few clubs I'd certainly previously thought of as being traditional "juniory" setups and finding they were just as up for change as we were. You can pretty much judge where the clubs were on the page regarding change by the order they declared they were applying for the WOS....I'd say the first few dozen were genuinely up for it, there would have been some more ambivalent ones after that, and the last 15-20 only applied reluctantly because they realised the kind of blasted hellscape they'd be left to play in after most of the other sides left. While picking over the bones of how we ended up so far behind the curve compared to the other side of the country won't retroactively fix that fact, it's at least useful to be aware of the reasons of how it came to pass...I'd said on the other thread that blame can be apportioned to a combination of the SJFA and at least some of the clubs who hadn't done due diligence. I attended both of those meetings just before the first lockdown that effectively ended the old West Region and set up the WOSFL, and for me the clincher of the SJFA one at Hampden was when one of the delegates present - from memory it was the guy from Pollok - effectively backed the SJFA into a corner where they had to admit they were now in the business of prioritising their own survival over the best interests of "their" clubs, which in itself I found interestingly proprietorial language. I wouldn't lump it all on them though...as I said, some of the clubs should shoulder at least some of the blame by the way they accepted what they were being told at face value and then buried their heads in the sand hoping it would all go away. Some of the club statements in the aftermath made it obvious that they didn't quite understand what was going on...we had quite a few thinking they'd been asked to join the LL, others thinking the new league would be under the auspices of the SJFA and so on.

Totally - I remember running into him when I was living in the west end and he was running for Glasgow Hillhead. At that point Labour would have got in there if they'd nominated a multipack of Wotsits with a red rosette pinned to it, but he still saw the need to play the sectarian card. I was in the Smiddy in Partick one night which is nominally a Celtic pub - not THAT kind of Celtic pub though - and there were a group of us in from both sides of the OF and neither side. At some point in the night, in walks a pre-Ronald Villiers tribute act GG, who proceeded to walk round the tables giving it the full Tiocfaidh ár lá routine and totally misreading the vibe of the place. Predictably a couple of dafties seemed to be lapping it up, but generally he was either being laughed at or told to f**k off. He still got back in though, but that was Labour in Scotland back then.

Of course there are - right from the start I don't think the LL has been the strongest group of non-league sides south of the Tay. That being said, it was never a case of joining the thing by invite...it was by application, and very few of the strongest non-league sides applied initially, partly because of the stalling tactics of the SJFA who were assuring clubs year after year that progress was being made when in reality it wasn't at all and they were hoping the whole issue would go away and they could carry on as they always had. Another important factor was that the set-up of the LL favoured new-build startup clubs who had very little to lose if the whole thing went tits up...in the west due to the lack of a pre-existing alternative senior league an East Kilbride or BSC could go all-in in the way that a long-standing club couldn't, especially considering the fact that anyone who jumped ship was being unequivocally told they'd need to start from scratch if they ever came back. The whole debacle has set the west of the country back a good five years behind the east. As for Tranent, they're a senior club who has elected to retain the word Junior in their name as a nod to their past...nothing more, nothing less. It's similar in the WOS league; some have kept the "Junior" in the name of the club, while others have ditched it and yet others never had it in their club name at all. Hamilton have chosen to keep "Academical" in their name for similar reasons, but they're as much a school team these days as Tranent are a junior one.

No, they'd be better than the rest of the teams in the division by dint of the fact they finished top. A tight league finish isn't indicative of the top team not being ready for promotion - more often it's indicative of it being a strong, competitive league where a whole group of sides are promotion-ready and have taken points off each other. I know in Scotland - especially in the Premier - we're inured to the scenario where the champions win at a twelve-point canter from second place who ends up another twenty points ahead of third, but it's not the norm. And the concept of being "worthy" of promotion other than ending up top on the final day is entirely subjective - the criteria are entirely in the hand of the beholder. Let's say SPFL 2 ends roughly the way it stands at the moment as pretty much a two-horse race with Stirling winning their game in hand....would mean Dumbarton win the league by a single point leaving Stirling with a better goal difference. Doesn't look that "worthy" to me TBH...I think you should both go in the playoffs because they did better in one of the metrics. See how ridiculous it looks? It's purely protectionism, putting as many roadblocks and second chances for redemption in the way because every team from the Championship downwards knows fine well they're only a couple of shite seasons away from doing a Cowdenbeath....and they were in the Championship themselves a decade ago.

Think you just answered your own question...Florida Man in action

With Linehan I suspect it wouldn't have taken much to tip him over the edge in the first place. I made the mistake once of having a half-hour to kill and turning on his commentary track on an IT Crowd DVD - I figured since he'd been at least partly responsible for that along with Black Books and Father Ted he'd actually be quite funny himself. I was obviously wrong...he came across as a dull, miserable, self-absorbed over-analytical weirdo. If you own any of his series, have a listen yourself...the guy was an accident waiting to happen.

Roger Waters is another one who seems to have embraced his inner moonhowler in recent years. A weird minor one is also universally-unloved former Rainbow singer Joe Lynn Turner - his tenure with the band was their shite AOR years - who also seems to have gone off the deep end. He covers most of the usual bases here:

In terms of what we could actually do, the most effective thing is for our clubs to keep beating theirs. Make it obvious that while there's a lip service pyramid in operation, the dice are currently loaded in favour of the teams currently sitting behind the two present bottlenecks of LL and SPFL entry...in both cases there are tranches of teams effectively hiding from assuming their real place in the pecking order. A lot of them are aware their time's almost up and are attempting to prolong the inevitable as long as possible. Turkeys will never vote for an early Christmas, so at the moment all our sides can do is beat them as often and as heavily as they can when they meet competitively. Bear in mind in the west we're five or more years behind schedule in terms of the pyramid anyway...sure, a lot of it can be blamed on the lack of a viable pre-existing league to join along with the intransigence and disinformation of the previous hierarchy, but quite a lot of blame also lies with at least some of the clubs who had to be faced with the reality of what was going to be left behind and had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the pyramid system....truth be told, very few pushed as hard as they could have done, so it's a bit rich if we get pissy two years in because it's not moving fast enough for our liking.

You're right of course - I had it in my mind those two games were in the same season. The Sunnybank one obviously stuck out more as it felt like there was a bigger shock there.

In the decade prior to 1893 Queens Park had twice been beaten finalists in the FA Cup...the only reason they refused to join a league was that they thought it would dilute their amateur status, preferring to play friendlies and cup competitions. They were still one of the biggest teams in Scottish - perhaps world - football at that point, and weren't some plucky no-hoper non-league side. I'm maybe in a minority in that I don't really see the Aberdeen/Darvel result as much of a shock...for all Darvel are in the sixth tier they're in a false position due to the pyramid project being in its infancy certainly in the west. There's always at least one sugar-daddy backed team in non-league who are financed at a level far higher than the level they're playing at who can consequently attract players to step down to play for them - at the moment it's Darvel and TBH they could probably hold their own in League 1. The actual result didn't feel like a shock last night...the only eyeopener was just how gutless and pish Aberdeen were. To me, the Drumchapel United v FC Edinburgh result earlier this season probably felt like a bigger upset, but again there were extenuating circumstances....Edinburgh clearly didn't fancy it on a quagmire of a pitch up at Lochburn on the day. Prior to that, maybe Sunnybank from Aberdeen being the first current junior side to beat a league side in the Scottish...it was obviously coming at some point, but with the North being by far the weakest of the old junior regions, it was a real surprise when it came from that direction.

I think the whole process would be much simpler in the East where the LEAFA is pretty much the only game in town (although even there there's a Sunday section to complicate things), but in the West the situation's a complete mess; there's the CSAFL, the SAFL, the Caledonian and the GGPAFL for starters playing Saturday afternoons, along with the Saturday morning setups: the SSMAFL, the churches league and the colleges league (both historically named - there are very few colleges or churches actually playing in them), not to mention another three full league systems playing on Sundays around greater Glasgow....and I haven't even mentioned either Ayrshire or the other leagues not currently affiliated to the SAFA...things like the Co-operative League or the Glasgow Chinese League! Even if they started straight away it would probably take decades to sort that lot out into some kind of merit based order, and to what end? As I said before, I'm not sure the appetite even exists to formally link up with the pyramid as it stands...at some point there has to be a recognition that we've reached a level where the players and coaches are doing what they do recreationally; more or less purely for the fun and camaraderie...even at non-league level, how many times has a talented player signed on from amateurs, really looked the part and disappeared back there after a few months because "I want tae play with ma pals..?." As I previously said the option to turn semi-pro should never be denied to the trace element of amateur sides that want to do so, but I feel the idea of reorganising the whole ammy game under the pyramid would be a lot of hassle and would be more driven by enthusiasm for reorganisation than driven by the end product it would actually deliver. The odd ambitious ammy side that wants to join the pyramid leagues should always be able to apply - the sides already involved should never pull up the ladder behind them as has happened so many times before in Scottish football - but as I said before, there weren't exactly a flood of amateur applications when they were open the last couple of years. If we get any more than one or two every couple of years henceforth, I'd genuinely be surprised.

In terms of future development of the pyramid, I think it would be the biggest and most indigestible chunk yet to absorb - compared to the amateurs, the juniors moving across would comparatively speaking look like a walk in the park as there existed an appetite for change amongst the clubs (if not the hierarchy!) that I doubt exists at amateur level. I honestly don't see where the chunks of three or four clubs at a time would come from...they certainly didn't when applications were open previously. I know a lot of people were salivating at the idea of Oban or whoever applying, but the applications simply didn't materialise. And for me as I said the most crucial part of transitioning from an amateur to non-league setup is the consideration that spectators henceforth would now have to be catered for....a requirement which shouldn't be handwaved. Security of tenure of an enclosed ground which can be incrementally done up - in slow time, no need to run before you can walk - into something that resembles an actual football ground and provides a half-decent spectator experience. That instantly rules out 95%+ of current amateur clubs in this part of the world.

Couple of short notice friendlies on; Neilston v BSC @ Glasgow Green noon Cumbernauld v Kilsyth @ Crownpoint 2pm

For me there are too many cultural and organisational differences to overcome for the ammies to become part of the pyramid in the short to medium term...it's easy enough on the face of it to pretend apples and oranges are the same thing, but I'm fairly sure those toffee oranges aren't going to work out. I completely agree that we shouldn't create another closed shop in the way that the SPFL did for so many years, but until there's some sort of root and branch reorganisation of the amateur grade - which I'm not sure there's an appetite for - ambitious ammy clubs probably need to proceed by application. It's notable so few did when the WOS Division 4 began though...it was never easier to apply than at that point. There's an inherent stability issue at amateur level, even at the top end of the game...I think seven out of the last ten amateur cup winners have since folded....indeed BOTH of last season's finalists folded in the summer! We can point to the odd non-league team which has gone into abeyance, but relatively speaking it's a rarity....when you hit a level where your club infrastructure is a group of players and a bag of strips though it's much easier to do. I'm not even sure that anything other than Saturday afternoon ammies are being discussed here...what about the other two large tranches of amateur clubs operating at Saturday morning or Sunday level? Are they to be incorporated or in their case have we finally reached a level where it's accepted that what they're doing is purely recreational in nature? If they're all incorporated playing at the same time there's instantly going to be a shortage of grounds to play at. Grounds are a huge issue, certainly around the Glasgow area. Very few teams have first call on one, and the reality is that clubs can flit from park to park depending on what's playable and/or available at short or no notice...one club local to me has already used six home grounds so far this season and I'm sure they'll use more before it finishes. As things stand all they need to do is inform the ref, the other team and fire up a quick tweet on the off chance anyone's going to watch the game. Job done as things stand, but that kind of peripatetic informal approch would no longer be an option. And I think that touches on the most important aspect. The most fundamental difference between non-league and amateur levels is that one is spectator-facing and one isn't. There has to be some minimum level of provision of facilities for spectators, and TBH I think we're already stretching it beyond the limits of what should be being charged for in the case of some of the newer sides already admitted...since my own team played last Friday, I went to see one of the new Div 4 sides on Saturday as not much else was on....a 3G cage with absolutely no cover with catering that extended to a vending machine. Given the weather, I didn't make it much past half-time and I wasn't alone. It's something important that any amateur side looking to make the move will have to address.

Literally just finished decorating one of the bedrooms, so paint drying.

Something being a carbon copy of something else. I remember someone in my office asking if anybody had any carbon paper a few years ago and being roundly laughed at: "Why don't you fax it instead?"

Silly c**t. His army's still present in a decent swathe of another country, and as it's being won back it's becoming abundantly clear what's going on in the parts still occupied. He's made it an existential fight for Ukrainians. How out of touch must he be that he thinks he's got the ability to shout "keysies" and the two armies will come out of the trenches at Bakhmut and have a game of Shakhtar Donetsk v Spartak Moscow...actually, more likely Yenesei Krasnoyarsk given who's actually doing the fighting for him?