gwd440

Hmm. So in 2020-21the Tier 6 champions are: EOS Dundonald Bluebell WOS Pollok SOS Threave Who gets promoted to the LL?

I would be amazed if this happened. It would basically promote the West Region Premier en-masse to a level above their Eastern counterparts. More likely is that two Lowland League divisions of 12 or 14 are created, requiring an extra 8-12 teams. Applications are invited from the West Region and South of Scotland (maybe even the East Region juniors depending on the Tayside issue) and maybe more teams are promoted from the EoS Premier. New applicants are given 12 months to sort their licence out. The teams are then geographically divided into two leagues. Simples!

Yes, I missed out the NCL. Its all hypothetical at the moment as there are no clubs in NCL, NRJFA or Tayside (apart from BoD) that could be promoted. Maybe in the future these leagues would need to have some play-off system to decide who goes up. The way things currently stand, this would be a pyramid structure in name only, but can be in place for when it is needed. The East situation is the one that needs more urgent attention imo.

I agree with this. The South Super is obviously not the equal of the current East of Scotland Premier, having lost the bulk of their best teams 2 years ago, and should slot in at Tier 7. As a compromise/concession, I would offer them one or two places in the EOS Premier, run with 17/18 teams for one season and relegate one/two extra teams at the end of the season. The remainder of the South can run as a separate parallel entity alongside the current EOS Division One/Two, with one automatic promotion place each, plus a play-off between the runners up - similar to how this season will work with the Conferences. Tayside clubs have more of a case for coming in at Tier 6, so slot them in under the Highland League. Clubs will only qualify for promotion to the Highland League if they are licensed, so initially, this makes no difference to the Tayside clubs situation. The NRJFA can also be placed at Tier 6. Again, apart from BoD, no clubs will be eligible for promotion, so no real change.

I pointed this out to the administrators years ago. It should be Stranraer 'A', but apparently can't be corrected. There are a few mistakes in their archive tables - I remember seeing Forest Green Rovers at the top of the Conference years before they were promoted. It's a great resource, but requires a double check if you are going to use the info for anything.

In that case it would be simpler for the EoS to run the Premier with 15 clubs for 1 season. Tough on Leith though.

I agree about the strength of the West clubs. Just not so sure about how quickly many of them will be able to get their facilities etc up to scratch. Not trying to promote EoSL teams to return. Just suggesting a potential scenario. A similar thing happened a couple of times in the English pyramid years ago. Both Yeovil and Kettering Town, when relegated from the Conference, decided to drop into the Isthmian League (basically a London & Home Counties league, which neither club is near) instead of the stronger Southern League. Both clubs quickly won promotion back to the Conference. FWIW I would put the EosL at the top of the pyramid in the East, and have the ERJFA feed into the EoSL Premier, alongside Eosl Div1. More work to be done though.

This would still be easier imo. 1 or 2 contenders to win the ERJFA, then the WRJFA champions (but few licensed West clubs), so maybe a walkover, then probably the EoSL winners. The EoSL champions will have beaten off 5 or 6 contenders in their own league before still having to face the SoSL winners, then the West/East Junior representatives.

Well, hypothetically, let's say Bonnyrigg get promoted this season and Whitehill get reprieved. Next season's EOS Premier will have Penicuik, HoB, Dundonald, Linlithgow, Broxburn, Boness etc all battling for the single promotion play off spot. It will be a tough prospect. However, if the ERJFA joins the pyramid at the same level, then one or two of those clubs could be looking at moving back across for potentially easier route to the play offs (assuming they are allowed back). It's another reason why having two leagues in the East is problematic.

I believe only 1 of the top 15 in the EoSL are licensed, although that may change before the end of the season. So maybe nothing to worry about for 'Team 15'.

Assuming the embargo is lifted this season, how many more licences would you expect to be granted in time for next season? I'm guessing Bonnyrigg Rose, Dalkeith Thistle, Blackburn Utd, Hill O'Beath, Camelon, Newtongrange and Heriot Watt may be close. FWIW. If they had asked me to organise this seasons Scottish FA Cup, the format would have been: Preliminary Round - 10 HL, 8 LL plus all other licensed teams and qualifiers. 37 teams in total - 11 byes and 13 ties. Round 1 - 20 teams from Leagues 1 and 2, top 8 HL, top 8 LL and 24 teams from Prelim - 60 teams in total, 30 ties. Round 2 - 10 Championship teams + 30 teams from Round 1 - 40 teams, 20 ties Round 3 - 12 Premier teams + 20 teams from Round 2, 16 ties Round 4 - 8 ties Round 5 = 1/4 finals Semis Final So 11 spaces in the Preliminary Round for new licensed teams, before the need for a 2nd Preliminary Round. There are loads of alternative solutions, almost all of them would be better than the bottle-neck Preliminary rounds we have at the moment.

I don't think it's time for automatic promotion/relegation yet. When promotion was granted to non-league teams in England, there were at least a dozen sides that were more than capable of stepping up, and most promoted sides went on to gain another promotion within 2 or 3 years. In Scotland, only 1 out of 4 non-league sides has proved to be better than Team 42 so far. As the Lowland League becomes stronger in the next few years and HL/LL teams start to win the play offs, then they can justifiably claim for an automatic place. The Scottish non-league sides are still in the process of closing the gap between league and non-league. But the pyramid still works, because the mechanism for promotion/relegation is there.

I thought the Juniors were so powerful that they are entitled to join the Pyramid at Tier 5. There are half a dozen Super League teams moving over. Are you saying only Bonnyrigg are good enough to move up?

OK, LTHV and Tynecastle were the main crammers, but there were quite a few games played after the Lowland League Play-off. If any of those teams had been involved in the title chase, then there may have been more cramming. However, as you say, hopefully the pitch issues won't be a factor next season. LTHV's 5 Scottish Cup matches didn't help. Are they definitely not in the Cup next season? I thought the rumour was that they had gained their licence.

Teams only played each other twice this season with 13 teams, and some teams were struggling to cram their fixtures in at the end. By my reckoning LTHV played 44 matches this season and Kelty have played 38 with 1 to go. In comparison, Tweedmouth played 32 matches. If we got to 36 teams, 3x12 might be the way to go (except that determining the overall champion would be a bit fiddly). If membership stays at 30, giving us 2 leagues of 15 - teams will have 28 league matches plus anything between 7 and 25 cup matches. Realistically, the stronger teams with decent cup runs could expect to play 10-12 cup matches, so a total of about 38-40 for the season. Maybe time to rest the Qualifying League Cup?

I think that's pretty close to what the PWG should come up with. The only things I would change would be: Top 5 in each EoS section plus top 5 Lothian/Fife Juniors. Extra place can be filled depending on number of teams relegated from LL - maybe a playoff between next eligible clubs. Top EoS division will probably be called the Premier Division. There are some Junior clubs who want nothing to do with the pyramid. Could these remain in a much reduced ERJFA, along with the Tayside & Perthshire clubs until the 'northern question' is resolved. If they decide to join the pyramid at a later date, it would be at the bottom. I reckon there would be about 30 clubs below the new EoS Premier. These could be split into 2 equal leagues for one season with a view to creating Divs 1 & 2 for the following season. It would be a shame to lose the Junior Cup, or have a devalued version of it. It would definitely make sense to invite the ex-Juniors and their new Senior colleagues to enter.

Well if they had delayed the start of the LL by one year, my guess is that the deadline would a shifted a year too. I've just lifted a top 8 junior clubs by league position, but if not those 8, I'm sure there were 8 clubs in a position to be licensed by May 2016, as long as they avoided the £100K toilet blocks.

Nobody was leapfrogging anyone. There was no pyramid then and the Lowland League was open to all Senior non-league and Junior clubs. I agree that Dalbeattie and Threave would have struggled, and probably Whitehall too, so they would have been replaced quite quickly, but as a starting point, I think that wouldn't have been too bad. Fair point about the Ayrshire clubs though.

So, if we were to rewind 5 years and create an alternative reality using a bit of hindsight, could we have ended up with something like: SFA: We want to create a Lowland League with promotion to SFL2. We'll accept applications from the EoS, SoS, SJFA and anyone else who can satisfy various criteria. The league will start in 2013-14. SJFA: That's a bit soon for us. Leave it a year and we'll get back to you. SFA: Fair enough, we'll start in 2014-15 Knowing the mess we have now, could it have been that simple? - 4 teams from the EoS, ERJFA, WRJFA and a couple from the SoS. The initial line up could have been (using the 2013-14 league tables): Spartans, University of Stirling, Whitehall Welfare, Edinburgh City, Dalbeattie Star, Threave Rovers, Auchinleck Talbot, Irvine Meadow, Hurlford Utd, Clydebank, Bo'ness Utd, Linlithgow Rose, Bonnyrigg Rose, Newtongrange Star. Then a re-alignment in the West, with the SoS feeding into the Juniors somewhere, and some sort of merger in the East. Wow, there's your pyramid! But then, we would have missed out on the hours of good humoured banter and debating in this thread....

This is correct. But joining the EoSFL is a big step toward becoming licensed, as you can't now become licensed without being in the pyramid. There are also two chances for unlicensed EoSFL teams to qualify for the next season's Scottish Cup: a) win the EoSFL b) win the Alex Jack Cup, then beat the SoSFL representatives in the South & East Cup Winners Shield, as Tynecastle have done this season.

I was meaning Lochee could qualify by winning the Junior Cup, so there could possibly be 3 East Junior clubs in the Scottish Cup next season

And possibly Lochee Utd.