oldandround

You raise excellent points - here's my take The refs issue is a strange one. I actually blame the referee association for this one. I'll explain, from an east perspective. Dont know if this is the same in the west! The East ref association run 2 classes a year (normally) Each of those trains 20 - 40 new refs. On these courses the trainers are all grade 1, former grade 1 or wannabe grade one refs. Thus all that matters is creating the next generation of grade 1 refs. So, they sell the dream to the young lads. 16-20 year olds are sent up to Hibs / hearts training grounds on a Saturday morning to ref the 9s in a sanitised arena. After a couple of games there they might do some u13/u14/u15 academy games. From there is on to the u20's league for "development" etc. If they're not quite ready for u20s, then they end up doing the line at EOSFL games. These get half fee (£27.50) + expenses (25 a mile) so end up close to the same fee as an amateur game, for much less stress and lets be honest, a bit of glamour for being part of a "real" game. Ref trainers even tell new recruits to avoid amateur football and even youth football as not worth it for progression. Progression is all that matters. Get your face known. do the circuit. Make masonic like connections. Get up the ladder...... If the new ref is 28+ then they are pretty much ignored and told to go their own way. These refs might, just might try out ams, but wont stay long as they dont have the experience or maybe life skills for it just yet. So they do the youths for a few years, maybe. Get scunnered with nippy mums and leave. So, all thats left at ams is the old guys who have been around for 20+ years. There is limited new blood coming through. The solution is (sorry) higher fees. Pay the ams refs more that EOSFL/WOSFL and compete for those after the cash ITs what semi pro clubs do for players after all. This needs the SAFA to remove the fee ceiling. Scrap that and allow league to set their own level and allow the market to settle it. Guarantee that there will be more and better refs willing to referee amateur if its worth it to them. Leagues can then cherry pick those they want and "thanks for your service" to the nightmares. Most leagues and even the SAFA are pretty solvent. Drop league and SAFA fees to nil for a few years to compensate for the higher ref fees. THat is something tangible the SAFA can do to help. Part 2 - pitches. Councils are utterly and totally skint. The cost to run a football pitch is not usually covered by the letting fees. So, they are neglected. Summer is thus essential to allow them to recover organically as there is no money to actually maintain them. 3G's can cost a million to build and with the cost of lights and jannies etc, can be hard to recoup. Especially with a max 10 year life and a 350k relay cost. Not too sure what the answer is to this one, but I'm going to have a punt. I think that sports scotland should take ownership of all council owned 3g's (this eliminates schools so its got flaws I'll grant you) and run them from the grant they get from government. Sport Scotland loves to virtue signal grants and could do so much more to help the real grass roots. I also think that there should be a 1% levy on all TV contracts for professional football, given directly to this sports body to run grassroots pitches. (this is actually in place in england, but the FA have so far refused to pay it out!) Hey, I know its pie in the sky stuff, but I can dream........

Im not too sure that the reduction of amateur football is down to the actions of any governing body. That's just blame game stuff. For many's a decade there was a extremely thriving u21s league all over the country. Lads played u21 and then moved into junior or amateur football. I think its not the case that 19/20 year olds played much amateur football. a few did of course, not not the majority. they played u21! In the east there never was dual registration between u21 and junior. that was a west thing. never made any difference. Still loads of u21 teams. The u21 leagues died out in the east before the dev u20s even started. primarily due to changing priorities. less boys wanted to play football. Mostly, I reckon due to either the need to work, or (I accept this one is controversial) the rise of drug culture. With the launch of u20's there is now a direct link from youth to senior clubs. This is massively to the detriment of amateur football. To suggest that semi pro's link up with amateur teams is fanciful. The semi pro teams dont give a shit. They would rather have 30 players registered with them, than 5 leave and play ams. In any case, its extremely unlikely the players would go. They like having the tracksuit.... Another issue is that the lads at u20's see themselves as pro's. So when they age out, they expect to find a wosfl/eosfl team no bother. Some do, especially as these semi pro teams are affected by the very same issues as ams do in finding players. Thus, any lads who is fit and reasonably decent, will find a club to allow him to sit on their bench. The rest are encumbered with delusions of grandeur. They see amateur football as beneath them, so they decide to "take a year out" and never actually return as work, women and life get in the way. Then the lure of sunday morning football grabs them and they play there. Those few who do want to play on a saturday, join the increasingly small number of saturday amateur teams left and make a go of it. We are currently at a point of massive change in the grassroots game in scotland. It will settle as the u20s and increasingly professional nature of wosfl/eosfl kicks in. But that will take at least a decade. Its just that at the moment, it all looks very bleak. It will never return to the halcyon days of old, but there will be amateur football forever. What shape it takes is uncertain. Personally, I think that sunday morning football is where the growth is. LEAFA in the East is already chock full on a sunday and has not entertained any new applications for 2 years for sunday morning teams and will not again this summer. This is down to lack of refs, not interest! I do think having multiple organisations in the west is silly though. Each area should just have the one league body. That is where the associations can help out the teams. Amalgamate. Leafa / borders in the east. Stirling in the central area. Greater Glasgow and ayrshire leagues in the west. All with saturday and sunday sections. League names can be whatever you want them to be (should there be a desire to retain the cally name eg). Everyone needs to swallow their pride and combine. just too many separate leagues now.

Team this year is mostly made up from middling leafa amateurs and some former whitehill u20s players. long season ahead. like most borders teams, they’re a smashing well run club that really struggle to attract quality players.

THanks for the clarification. Wasnt aware of that. Its fair to say, its not common knowledge. I'll update those that dont know this.

Ok. In another example of edinburgh being nuts, Craigroyston boys club play in muirhouse and have very little, if anything to do with Craigroyston seniors who play in trinity. In fact the boys club is about 100 yards from civil service strollers ground. Edinburgh north AFC have played under different names and at a number of locations in North edinburgh over the years as they can be difficult tenants (allegedly) In the past few years they have been saughton sounders, lauriston thistle, st bernards and civil service strollers (sundays) They played at craigroyston boys club last season and have been asked (aka telt) if they want to stay there this season, they need to change their name.... So they have. This one is nothing to do with the Edin city stuff that is ongoing.

Yep. Its a shambles. The team calling itself Edinburgh city this season is a rebrand of an EOS team called Postal United. Its really got hee haw to do with the real Edinburgh City who play out of Forrester's high school / Broomhouse area of Edinburgh. The 'senior side' has a name that is nothing but a badge of convenience. They should have stuck with FC Edinburgh. Sooner they get relegated back out the league the better. Im as bitter as sour lemons. Unless of course that the leaders of the boys club have kissed and made up with the imposter senior side in which case I'm really chuffed (who says football fans are a fickle bunch )

The Edinburgh City Whites amateur side are the remnants of the 2004 teams. Same coaching staff. The Fc Edinburgh / Edinburgh city seniors decided they did not want any of the edinburgh city 2004s / 2005s into the FC edinburgh / edinburgh city u20s when the 2004 side finished under 18s. So they felt compelled to go amateur. Couple of the same players but mostly new players came in as in the main, the 2004 boys joined other non Edinburgh city u20s teams. This cause a further breakdown in relations between the two (ok, there was nothing left) The boys club felt that they were (correctly as it transpired) a unrelated entity to the senior team that shared their name but no part of the larger group. The seniors change of name just confirmed this. The take over of Craigroyston was primarily a vehicle for Edinburgh city boys to have a route forward into u20s and senior football that FC Edinburgh denied them. This is something that Edinburgh city youth felt they needed as otherwise lads at 14/15 will play for teams that do. Like tynecastle, hutchie vale, spartans etc. Those three are all heavily linked into the boys teams. Thats they way it should be, as thats how you get free access to replacement players who have affinity to the badge. What is the unknown in all this is the effect the total and utter back pedalling of FC Edinburgh / Edinburgh City will have here. Will there now be relations between the two Edinburgh city's again? Or will the boys club fold their tend and go the Craigroyston route? Time will tell......

they lie.... Going for the money. Along with other new signings to be announced shortly. Tranent making a push next season.

AS weird as it may sound, I think its more related to getting a pay rise at tranent......

Paddy martin and Mikey Andrews have signed new contracts. So thats the goalies sorted I think that gives Mikey a testimonial too

They are (or were) both actually amateur teams. Syngenta were Pennies AFC and Boness utd were Linlithgow Thistle AFC. Both played from 3g cages. Linton hotspur are a far more organised club that either of those 2 were when they joined the juniors / EOSFL. The other two had better teams mind you!

That was only the 1st season. doesn't apply this year. Although to be honest, who really has the slightest clue about what rules do and dont apply to these B teams. Farse. Get them launched!

Its an outstanding venue. Very much a "football ground". Decent committee. Great clubhouse. nice pies, nice beer. Really, really struggle to get players to go there. Thus they bumble along at the bottom of the 3rd division in Leafa Amateurs. I wish them well and hope the EOS can help them attract players. Cant see any reason for EOS to decline their membership. Rubber stamp job.

In the amateur football rule book its allowed to have multiple clubs under the same banner. Eg in the east there are Edinburgh Uni2s and 4s along with Corstorphine dynamo and dynamo colts. A player just signs for the one team and he can play for either in any match. However once he's played in a cup, he's cup tied in that cup. So what'll be happening is that these teams will have a top team and a "colts" team with dual registrations between them. There will be nothing in the Scot ams rule book to limit to U19 or u21. If they do that it'll be a "local rule" But this is a step forward.

hmm. not too sure I agree with this. you make it sound like someone, somewhere has regrets. who. name them. Best thing thats ever happened to lower league scottish football.

Clubs in certain counties are given the option. Take east lothian. It drags right down to near eyemouth. But a lot is because in the "olden days" the east lothian teams actually played in the borders. Teams like west barns and pencaitland won borders titles. Thus the SAFA lets them choose. Some go south, some east. The same applies with west teams. Pretty sure the ayrshire teams could play in the south if they wanted to. Law play south. wishaw west. right beside each other. The SAFA takes a wholly pragmatic view here. If you're on the border, then you can choose. If you're firmly in an area. Eg edinburgh or glasgow. you cant

I'm led to believe that the SLFL has given notice that it is no longer willing to run the entirety of the U20s going forward. The proposal is that there will be a SLFL u20s run by them, consisting of the u20s teams from teams playing in the SLFL. The WOS will run an u20s league for its teams and the EOS for its. Its up to the EOS/WOS how they spilt their league / conferences up, but they need to run it in totality from next season.

Got the facilities and committee, but not really the team unfortunately. For years their team has got some borders players but increasingly has been made up of Penicuik and loanhead laddies that dont, for one reason or another, want to play with the penicuik or loanhead teams. Getting a EOS standard team, would be a serious stretch. But if thats the plan, good luck to them.

With Paul Montgomery leaving Preston last week and Jack having been manager there for the past 5 years, I would expect to see a raft of announcements shortly from Whitehill regarding them signing former and current Preston players.

I know its hard for some people to understand, but there is a whole wide country called "scotland" that plays in the Scottish cup. Not everything revolves around the ugly sisters from the west.

Dunbar are certainly on their uppers. struggled a bit over the years with the "ross county" effect where they had to over pay wages to get players to go down there. The proper (at last) tie up with the youth sides and the launch this year of the u20s will go a long way to fixing that. If you cant get good players to move down there, simply make your own! Great coaching set up at u20s. 2 good u17 and u18 sides merging to form it. Maybe not next season or even the next, but I expect decent things from dunbar from 2024 onwards. (unless they fall out with the council again!) THe east lothian sides are really buying into the u20s as feeders for their teams. (even Tranent are dabbling this year!) Its a great resource for cheap loyal local players that the fans can get behind. Off on a tangent but See preston for a great example. u20s team exclusively from PAns, port seton, longniddry. Winning their league at a canter. almost 100% Local players in the 1st team. Crowds double as a result (from next to no-one to hardly anyone, but still ) Would have won the league if not for some strange manager decisions that cost him his job (IMHO - no insider knowledge!)

wont be 19s league. They're finished now. Oldest at SYFA is u18s. so 2005 lads next year. Haddington I believe, are back next year?

Its utterly disgraceful what the Lowland league are doing. shameful. However, its not the "pyramid" that's the problem, just one or two sections of it. It'll work its way through in the next decade as one by one the big teams replace the smaller ones. However bad the growing pains are at the moment, its still many many times better that the dead in the water old junior system with its glass ceilings and closed shop, blazers for the boys mentality.

Form them into an amateur side. Leafa is running conferences this year, but next year your lads would enter div 4. there are 3 last year under 19 sides (well would have been if not for covid) who just went into the leafa ranks with mostly 19 and 20 year olds. Dalkeith Longniddry Bonnyrigg doing mostly ok. also 2 university sides of young lads too. Your lads will do fine and at least you will be able to keep them all together!

Theres an amateur team in North berwick - get them on twitter at https://twitter.com/nbamateurs If that doesnt work out; Also a team at East linton. Theyre a young side and scoring for fun, so you might not find much opportunity there. But you could ask https://twitter.com/EAmatuers Longniddry are a well run side that have no strikers and cant score goals, so might be a good fit. https://twitter.com/Longniddryafc Pencaitland are the erm "fun" side in the county if you want a socially active, riotous and boisterous party team. Thats the mob for you https://twitter.com/pencaitlandfc Next up is TRanent AFC. They're the premier team in East lothian but bizarrely are toiling for players. Might be on the way out, but would be very keen to get you along. https://twitter.com/TranentAFC LAstly its Musselburgh windsor. Smashing bunch of lads up there. Pitch is dreadful though https://twitter.com/MWAFC THere are also a couple of Sunday sides if you just want the social aspect and not interested in serious football anymore.