GordonS

I hate how it's happened and I know it must look weird from the west, but the issue has dragged on for years with absolutely no progress from the SJFA. Five years ago we were hearing stories of integration with the pyramid from TJ, but he never actually did anything. This caused Kelty to lose their patience, then Dalkeith, then Bonnyrigg, and then after some recent PWG stuff and various emails, a lot of clubs lost faith in the SJFA entirely. The EoSFL have been very open and their offer for everyone to join at tier 6 initially was catnip for most. Once they went, the remaining bigger clubs were left with the prospect of being marooned in an inferior system, bleeding players and sponsors to the EoS and LL, and sliding into obscurity like those who eschewed the Superleague have. What those in the west need to understand more than anything is that you don't have a competitor on your doorstep like the east does. You've got your heartland all to yourself in the non-league, apart from a couple of poorly supported LL clubs at the fringes. Once it became clear that the LL/EoS would be stronger than the ERSJFA, it became no choice at all - it was move or accept a long and painful decline. Hopefully you'll be able to feed into the LL directly from the West Superleague, and the Junior Cup will become a non-league competition open to all, but my bet is that the SJFA will never allow it to happen. You've missed one of the key things here - one, the EoS are admitting everyone on equal terms to themselves. Things like this are why everything happened to quickly and it's important to know these details. I'll not lie, the prospect of limping in later to tier 8 for what ought to be a tier 5 club is why I shat it. Panic is the rational response here.

Yeah, I shouldn't have used the word "rule".

Pedants everywhere... I think most people would say Castle Douglas is west of Newcastle rather than north, but ok.

Bloody big-time Charlies.

It's the original EoS member who'll make the decision, and Dundee isn't much further for most of them than Perth.

Given the openness and ambition of the EoS so far, as seen in accepting an unlimited number of new members to form parallel divisions even after their own season has finished, I suspect they'll accept anybody south of Aberdeen, north of Newcastle and east of Canada. The sacrifice they were willing to make in setting up the LL in the interests of the pyramid suggests they'll not knock anyone back without a bloody good reason. Well that's a huge relief.

That's a huge relief.

I was referring to the last bit in that post - it's in the EoSFL Constitution that they cover Edinburgh, Lothians, Borders, Fife and Stirlingshire. So they've already accepted a club from outside the area in the own rules. The HL/LL line only relates to clubs relegated from the SPFL to the LL, btw, it's not strictly applicable to the EoS.

Do you think they'll knock back Jeanfield and St Andrew's? They're about the same length of journey as Dundee.

So are Clydebank, but they've already been accepted.

I don't think they'll be considered too far if Clydebank have been accepted.

I just meant this year. Kelty have already made it to the promised land.

St Andrew's United are holding one right this minute as we speak to decide there future They'd be breaking new ground if they move to the EoS - so far I don't think anyone north of Hill o Beath have jumped.

Twelve months ago the East of Scotland Football League had 11 members, having lost one along the way, and let's be honest, apart from one or two none were capable of causing much trouble for larger clubs. It has now almost completely consumed the East Region Scottish Junior Football Association south of the Tay. Regardless of what happens from here or whether you think it's a good or bad thing, that's absolutely extraordinary, and possibly without precedent in non-league Scottish football since 1945.

Is there a way of blocking someone from seeing your posts? Sometimes hiding isn't enough.

This melon farmer gives out more red dots than a plague victim.

Days Since a Heids-Gone Rangers Statement: 0 https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/44293870

It didn't frustrate me that you had a different opinion. It frustrated me that you dismissed my opinion by saying "well, you obviously don't know what you're talking about." Ask around. Few football fans are excited by the prospect of watching the adult section of a youth club play before family and friends in an all-seater stadium with 8,000 seats. The Colts may be great at what they do, and all teams started somewhere, but that's just how it is for now.

With no criticism to Spartans at all, I can easily name 20 Junior grounds off the top of my head I'd rather watch football at than Ainslie Park. It has one low tin seated stand set a fair distance back and nothing else at all. It has no terracing and no covered standing area. There's a bit of raised grass banking but it's quite low and shallow. Almost all spectators gather on 1.5 sides. It's also 3G, which is alright but still inferior to grass. Parking is tricky too, and public transport from outside of Edinburgh means a long bus journey to and from the centre. I've no idea what community stuff Spartans do so I'll have to take your word on that. A fair number of Junior clubs have Quality Mark Community Awards. Until their new stand is built, Kelty is behind Spartans. Falkirk??? Now you're just having a laugh.

You're not reading what I wrote. I said excluding the top clubs in L1. One-off cup games mean something when you put a lot of them together. Then they're not one-off. I picked Alloa because they're one of the two best part time clubs in the country in recent years, and got promoted this year. Hardly cherrypicking. And Airdrie's attendances are shocking for a town that size and a club that used to regularly be in the to division. They should be getting at least what QotS get, and arguably what Hamilton or Falkirk get.

It would have been a leap in the dark towards something that wasn't very appealing anyway, while the status quo was obviously and considerably a lot better. As for "a bigger club would have made it stronger", that's true for the rest of the league, but not for the bigger club! If the LL allows a decent number of promotion spots I think it'll be an improvement on the ER Superleague within a couple of years, and grow from there. I'd actually now prefer that there isn't a WoSL and we're all in the LL, but I don't see it happening soon. Maybe if the LL is a clear success it might lure a couple of bigger Junior teams from the west and that would start a similar tsunami to what we're seeing in the east. Sorry, I'm not clear what the point is here, but I suppose a base of 400 (though much less in the past two years) for a league team from an area of 17,000 people is par for the course.

True, although most of them were being talked about at the start. You can't deny though that the original 12 was a hugely lower standard league than the ER Superleague. It would have been madness for Linlithgow to move unless all the other bigger Junior clubs were going too, and hardly anyone was interested.

Cowdenbeath used to draw crowds well into the thousands. East Fife have won more major trophies than Rangers (2012). That kind of thing.

Oh, and in general this is a thing that really, really pisses me off. It's possible for someone to have a completely different perspective from you and not be ignorant.

My niece plays for them and my brother in law has coached there. It's a very good youth club with senior teams added on by players who wanted to stay together. In time it wouldn't surprise me if they passed Clyde, but for now, how many of the small number of people who go and watch them aren't friends or family of the players? It's just not what I'd consider fan-based football.