[Junior football, what is the future?]

That pic must have been taken about 25 years ago now

That's what I said, the pics from a while back, I think it's 1994

[Junior football, what is the future?]

Armadale have always been able to draw in decent crowds for big matches, but they have never really been amongst the big hitters on the pitch in modern times ie post 1950's, in fact they have rarely featured in the top division since 1997-98 when they were relegated from the old East Region Division One.
The potential is still there though if they get their act together, but they're kinda at a low ebb at the moment.

The Dale can still pull a crowd, this pic was a while back, hopefully the strategy is in place to take the club back up the way

[Junior football, what is the future?]

I reckon that's an important point - the simple fact is that eventual accession to the SPFL isn't all that appealing. Everyone harps on about Ross County as the touchstone of what can be achieved, but no-one ever mentions your Elgins, Annans and Peterheads who have achieved league status and have morphed into just what Scotland needed...yet more wee provincial sides seemingly destined to be permanent fixtures in the bottom league.
Barring a Mileson-esque sugar daddy writing the cheques - and remember how that ended - I reckon that's the level any junior side could hope to reach; the village and small-town teams like Talbot or Linlithgow just don't have the catchment areas to kick on to the next level - you can extend that to most of the current non-league seniors too; the likes of Innerleithen, Dalbeattie or Rosewell are way too small be able to support an SPFL side, and the likes of the Uni sides and boys' club offshoots are also unlikely to do so.
As for city teams, forget it - does Glasgow need another League side? Unlikely. Did Edinburgh? Ditto.
Probably the best placed current non-league side to potentially reach the next level are East Kilbride, coming as they do from a town of 75,000. Even they will be ultimately limited by the nature of the place though; EK's firmly a commuter town for Glasgow where people move to with allegiances already in place.
Scotland's a very different place from the likes of the USA where people tend to move somewhere and immediately go "Whoo! Go (insert name of local sports franchise) Maybe we should be more like them - it would make things a lot easier. [emoji4]

I'm not talking about franchise teams as per NFL I'm talking about small town teams that have been playing for decades and how they evolved to survive

[Junior football, what is the future?]

It's hard to see where the next generation of the traditional junior fan is coming from, the way football is being consumed is changing the world over, I think that the junior club in the traditional sense, the pie, the bovril, the half time draw etc will change over the next ten or so years, I also think that the financial changes in the game will also move the current set up to one with no player wages, no transfer / retention fees and eventually no admission fees, the clubs will become essentially elite amateur sides, I think that there is enough tradition and small town sentiment to keep our clubs going but i also believe they need to change the entire format to bring a new generation of fans, new revenues and higher attendances in the short to medium term, the senior game also needs to scale down to be more competitive (this is a whole other issues but there are 3 times as many professional clubs in Scotland than there are NFL teams in the United States, just think about that for a minute in terms of market size, fan base etc crazy) there are however some similarities we can use to boost the image an attendance of our junior game, for instance the USA has vast areas of rural / small medium size towns with local 'football' teams all trying to make a living, they excel, they thrive and the pull big crowds and big sponsors, how?, they clubs are intrinsically linked to their community via school teams, kids teams, local businesses , bars, churches, competitions, local media, free tickets for high schools, family tickets etc, now junior clubs in our towns and villages already do a lot of that stuff so I wouldn't be a million miles for many to push a little further on that score, but there are two other major factors why these small town teams excel, they realised 25 years ago that the family dynamic was changing and work an family stuff was preventing the 'typical fan' from attending games at the typical times and that the glamour of the senior/ professional game was dragging fans away also, they implemented three things;
- make the club more family/ community/ town centred
- don't play matches on the same days as the professional leagues
-alter the season start n end to bring in more summer matches and thus the Friday night match became a staple of small town America,

For years we've heard people say you get a better crowd with good weather an no senior games, so it's nothing new, sorry for rambling on and I'm no saying it would all work but surely some of those concepts would work in junior football,

[Armadale thistle]

Across the board attendance is falling at junior games, the 'Dale used to attract massive home gates, that's reduced in line with most junior clubs, the only team in SJF to buck that trend is Bathgate, naebody went to their games years gone by and that remains the case today, there Av gate of 23 has stood season after season from 1954