cmontheloknow

It's 3.5 miles as the crow flies from Dalkeith's park to Whitehill Welfare, they're hardly breaking new ground!

If any expansion was open to teams currently at tier 6 I don't get the problem. Are there enough teams at tier 6 to fill a West expansion? YES/NO . I think the answer is no so an expansion at tier 5 could legitimately include teams from outwith without too many knickers being in a twist.

There is no queue in the west as there is no queue at all.

Indeed. I only heard the first half hour or so (mostly chat about the Scotland job, which was fair enough although the pundits didn't add anything new other than Tom English claiming to know the details of Michael O'Neil's Norn Iron offer) then a little bit of the Falkirk fall-out and then the last half hour from 5 p.m. til Off the Ball and I fair enjoyed that section. Normally we'd have three pundits blether about Celtic for 15 minutes (even if they'd played at lunchtime) followed by an interview with Brendan Rodgers and a wee one which whichever manager was up against him, maybe 5 minutes of Aberdeen and/or Rangers and a brief round up of the other Premiership games. Yesterday we had a much more balanced programme with interviews, comments and discussion from Falkirk, St Mirren, Dumbarton and Brechin and quite a long discussion on the League One title race. It once again showed how easy it would be to make Sportsound a decent programme most weeks. As you say, the only grating bits were when McLeod (who is a commentator and not a host) messed it up a bit, like when he thought that Coutinho going to Barcelona was for a much bigger fee than Neymar going to PSG. If course it will all return to shit when then Premiership comes back and the likes of Bonner and Thomson get their chairs back. Like I say the stuff I picked up on was minor - describing Scott Shepherd as a 'former Falkirk player' - he's on loan to Edinburgh City. Leighton McIntosh stated as being on loan to Arbroath from Peterhead - got released in the summer to play in Iceland etc...

Liam McLeod anchored the Open All Mics show on Saturday, not great. Went off piste too often and tried to show his knowledge off but a few times came a cropper. Minor stuff but the old saying is apt - better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and prove it.

yes you'd need that sort of flexibility I think.

It can't be coincidental that the cut off is just north of Brechin (and therefore ties in with the edge of the Junior boundaries). Brechin Vics are the furthest north East side (Brechin is further north than Montrose, just).

I think the only Aberdeen-born 1st teamer currently is Redman, Dundee and Fife the rest mainly.

As things stand, you'd only need to include the EoS/SoS sides and of those, how many are actually *in* the pyramid, as in 'can go up and want to go up'? South: Threave, St. Cuthbert, Newton all licenced (but not all willing) plus Bonnyton likely to want to. Heston have the groujd but no licence. I wonder if Wigtown will come back in next season? In the East: Kelty, Preston.. . a few more aspiring I think - HWU building a stand (?), Peebles enclosing, LTHV desperate to sort Saughton etc...

Lowland League: 16 SoS: 13 (1st teams) EoS: 12 (1st teams) East/West SJFA: approx 128 Total: about 170 Highland: 18 North Caley: 9 North SJFA: 34 Total: approx 60 That's without muddying the water by including SAFA clubs who could compete at the same level.

Montrose are at present the likeliest Angus side to finish bottom of L2, although they are far stronger this year than in recent seasons. It's interesting that they would go into the Lowland league (I wonder if they could request the Highland league..?) while Montrose Roselea hopped over that boundary to play North Junior football last year and in the event of a pyramid forming involving Junior clubs, would need to move back (unless they could request dispensation to remain).

I think they may have changed it - it was the Tay at one point but looking at that latitude it does seem to be further north?

The river tay is definitely in writing in SPFL constitution for Lowland League, and as EoS feeds it... EDIT: In the event of Club 42 losing the Pyramid Play-Off Match, it will be relegated to the SHFL League if its Registered Ground is located North of Degree of Latitude 56,4513N or to the SLFL if its Registered Ground is located South of Degree of Latitude 56,4513N and it shall thereafter comply with the rules and regulations of the relevant league. A quick look on Google shows this to be around Blair Atholl...? (or in SPFL terms, north of Montrose...?) https://spfl.co.uk/docs/067_324__therulesofthescottishprofessionalfootballleagueasat24july201_1502440056.pdf p222

This is a very valid point, there is such a wide range of clubs within the membership that to get consensus on something like this is almost impossible. The clubs in the North region are almost all amateur and do not have support bases in a number of instances. A significant proportion of the SJFA membership will be using players that are on amateur or non contract forms and will be reliant on local sponsors to keep the wheels turning, rather than gate receipts. When I was still involved on committee, Lok played an away cup tie at a Central Region side who told us their previous attendance had been 8. I will never deny these clubs the right to play football at the level they can sustain (they manage in the SJFA hence why they're not going bust) but they will have a different outlook to the clubs who are paying players, who do have a support base and who do have aspirations to be competitive at the top end. It's a long-said point on here that the Junior Cup costs clubs money - a home game will see half the gate revenue given up as the guarantee, and away tie will have travel costs which are likely not offset by the half gate. I spoke to a treasurer about this and he quipped that the only team that makes money from the Junior Cup is the eventual runner up (as the winner will no doubt be tied up in paying out win bonuses to the players). Junior clubs are small businesses. They cannot (normally) run at a loss because in most cases they don't have a wealthy individual backing them, so they have to try and turn a profit. Some clubs will be fortunate enough to have people that do sustain them beyond their revenue streams, perhaps even at the lowest level if a club with a small fanbase and limited revenue wants to pay players more than expenses and get players on to contracts rather than using amateur and non-contract forms. Are senior clubs subsidised? Are junior clubs expected to run on fumes? The lack of commercial nous at the SJFA worries me greatly. In terms of its long-term prospects, some new clubs have come into the West Region recently - Gartcairn and Rossvale. Both ex boys clubs expanding, being competitive on the pitch, and both playing at a 4G cage. Is that the future for a semi pro spectator sport? The East region gained Kennoway Star Hearts and they have proved an asset onfield. The North has been the one with the most new blood this century I think, with various amateur clubs stepping up. There seems less of a desire to do that in the southern regions. I do believe the SJFA has a future, as the organisation to administer regional football in Scotland. But it has to tie into pathways up and down, connecting up the more nationwide leagues and connecting down to the regional amateurs. For most clubs little would be changing. Pollok haven't won a top league title in years. I think I'm right in saying clubs like Larkhall and Port Glasgow haven't finished bottom of the Central League Div 2 of late either. I said up the thread that we have a number of clubs playing in set-ups that overlap. Fife's a good example. Burntisland Shipyard and Kelty in the East of Scotland League, Rosyth and Hill of Beath in the Juniors, Leven United and Cupar Hearts in the amateurs. A pathway that would allow the best and worst of these individual groups to mix would encourage competition and revitalise football in these areas. But also, whatever happens, keeping the name Junior is something else. Anyone that works in marketing will know that if you have to explain a product, the product's marketing does not work. There are people that have an interest in football, and perhaps even in sponsoring a football club that will be confused by the name Junior. It implies inferiority. To a non-Scot it probably says 'children's football' as that is what they call children's football elsewhere. And the below is a good thing to associate to our clubs? Really? https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/junior

Wha's like us?

And that's it - what we have just now has clubs in different set-ups overlapping in terms of ability and locale. Team X could have a game vs Wishaw or Colville Park, Team Y vs Lochgelly or Leven United. It's football, 11 vs 11, winner gets the points and might even go up a level to play a higher standard of opposition. It's how it works in virtually all other parts of this universe. And it's not rocket science. It is however a wee bit complicated!

Perhaps the clubs themselves when they bleat about travelling beyond the cosy confines of their own locality?

Unless the standard magically changes, youre still faced with the reality that most players in an SPFL Premier U20 side will not go on to have full-time football careers, let alone be making up international sides. An extension of the loan system would seem, to me anyway, just as effective as having these guys playing L2 football week in, week out out for a Colt outfit. JUst as a random selection, of Dundee Utd's U20s in 13-14 (who did not play a 1st team game that season), I can see 3 still playing full-time.

Straight question: were Pollok (largest fanbase at this level in Glasgow) emailed? YES/NO. I ask as an interested club member.

On referees, they use a number of refs that are not on the senior list, but it could be down to a lack of officials up there as much as anything. The EOS and SOS are always able to grab other refs from higher categories if required (Lloyd Wilson is one of the higher category refs the SOS gets). Refs in league games this year (in order of games): Cat 4: Graham John, John Nicolson, Stephen McDade, Molly Alexander. Off list: Chris MacLeod, Gordon Seago, Gavin Leask, Ivan Leslie, Gordon Morrison.

Who did he play for in Juniors? Leven Utd haven't been for years.

yes and no. Not sure if (all) shinty teams charge? If not, it's more akin to the amateurs.

I wandered by a shinty game up at Fort William earlier in the year - head count of about 150. It would seem to be a participation sport rather than something hundreds flock to (ok the televised cup finals are busy). The smaller shinty clubs seem to have almost no one watching. Then again, a top of the table clash here looks very healthy:

Junior stadiums are usually awful - there are some exceptions of course. 'Senior' is a label which doesn't mean that much anymore as there are 'Senior' clubs that are not licenced, cannot get automatic Scottish Cup entry and cannot be promoted into the LL therefore are in theory as much in the pyramid as the Junior clubs. The Senior clubs you refer to are probably not investing in facilities as they are not going anywhere. But there is a major issue with the pyramid just now - that clubs are in Level 6 of it without being big enough to sustain the costs and need to widen recruitment to survive in the LL. Wigtown's decision to sit this season out was a crying shame - a club that had invested in its ground and was decent on the pitch, but was not able to go up a level after its own 'amateur-in-all-but-name' league was ill-advisedly shoehorned into the pyramid. Wigtown should not be in a league that feeds the LL directly. Whether Junior clubs gravitate towards the pyramid or not has no bearing on what is there already. As I see it, the feeders are weak because the Juniors are absent. If Junior football gets destroyed, it will have been because, like a fish, it has rotted from the head down. The problem is that it's hard to see the rot when that head is also buried in the sand!

The Guardian one does a bit (though I prefer it when they don't!). Their focus is the Premiership and the Euro leagues in the main though. https://www.theguardian.com/football/series/footballweekly https://audioboom.com/channel/the-totally-football-show-with-james-richardson There are other ways to listen to both. I think both out Mon/Thurs.