ShrimpLok

A North of Scotland league covering Tayside and Aberdeenshire would certainly work at Tier 6 if that’s what clubs wanted. But equally I see no reason you couldn’t have separate Tier 6 Leagues for Tayside, Grampian and even NCL if that option was club’s preferences. Less travelling and no need to worry about promotion to Highland League for 95% of teams.

Given the Lowland League currently has two tier six feeder leagues and there are proposals to create a third one it strikes me that there is no necessity for the Tayside teams to merge with the north region. If they decided they wanted into the Pyramid system then there is nothing stopping them from setting up a new Tier 6 Tayside league and declaring that any licensed champions with floodlights will make an application to the Highland League. They could then get licensed if they wished for Scottish Cup entry and avoid promotion by failing to install Floodlights. Not suggesting it will happen immediately but if that were preferred to a merger with Aberdeenshire teams I don’t see how either SFA or Highland League could complain about them as a stand-alone Tier 6 League.

They'll be dancing on the streets of Threave tonight.

The EoS have had a member club from south of Newcastle as recently as 2003-04 season. Castle Douglas is located a good two miles south of Newcastle City Centre, being about as far south as Gateshead.

If 40 I'd like to see 4 x 10 and then split into groups of 4 for a further 6 matches to determine placings over the entire 40 team division.

Can't imagine the SFA would want to actively force clubs to fold in order to keep TJ in a job.

Assuming that Lithgae, Sauchie and Oakley were the only leavers then that would suggest a 3 x 12 league setup with Superleague, North and South divisions. You'd presumably need to move at least Lochore and Newburgh into the South league. I'm also assuming you'd relegate the bottom two from the East Premier and promote at least one of the district champions. If so the Superleague would be something like this: Lochee United Broughty Athletic Carnoustie Panmure Kennoway Star Hearts Forfar West End Fauldhouse United Tayport Thornton Hibs Glenrothes Juniors Downfield Juniors Bathgate Thistle / Whitburn Juniors - depending on Whitburn's result against Haddington on Saturday. Dundee North End / Pumpherston Juniors - Would probably need a playoff but can't see any other easy option to decide who to promote. If Pumpherston did beat Dundee NE in a playoff and you were determined to have 12 in each league then you'd have the slightly odd situation of having to put Kinnoull in the South league. Might be better to have a 14 team Superleague with both district champions promoted and Bathgate and Whitburn both staying up (but still relegating Kirriemuir). You could then have a 12 team North district and a 10 team South district. Would still need Newburgh to be in the South district though.

True. It’s a slightly odd mission statement really with the mixture of defunct counties (Stirlingshire, though obviously also a historic SFA / cup region) but the modern Borders rather than Berwickshire, Roxburghshire, Selkirkshire, Peeblesshire etc. It equally excludes Sauchie as a Clackmannanshire based club from the EOS region but in theory includes Kilsyth Rangers a team historically located in Stirlingshire.

38 is 2 x 19 which is awkward as you’d have blank weekends while trying to fit in 36 games. Might actually be easier to schedule a 20 team and an 18 team league though obviously not ideal from a sporting integrity point of view. Once you get to 39 teams 3 x 13 is almost certainly the best option.

Though Tweedmouth isn’t in any of those areas either to be fair.

Dundonald Bluebell have jumped now and are further than Hill o Beath was expected to join next season but brought forward there application today Kelty are obviously further north than Hill o Beath too. Looking at the grounds it seems that Kelty are probably about 100m or so further north than Dundonald Bluebell but it’s a tight one.

With it looking increasingly likely to be three parallel leagues needed there is also the question of how to deal with a situation where the three leagues have unequal numbers of participants. For a fair decision on who forms the EOS Premier in 2019-20 there may well need to be some form of playoffs at the end of the season between 5th and 6th place in each League, especially if they each have a different number of teams.

I can’t see any justification for the EOS to turn down St Andrew’s, Tayport or Newburgh. They are all south of the HL line and the EOS mission statement specifically mentions Fife. Jeanfield, Kinnoull and Scone are trickier to predict. EOS don’t have Perthshire listed in their mission statement but given they have had Threave as members previously and Clydebank mentioned for next year it seems unfair to turn away clubs south of the HL line. As for Luncarty or the Tayside clubs I don’t see them wanting to take any HL zoned clubs without SPFL agreement on changing the boundary first. Luncarty could always relocate to the other side of the village and then they’d be in LL territory!

My maths suggests that is a tipping point reached with the EOSL now having 30 members and the ERJFA having 29 members south of the LL Tay divide.

Agreed but it’s sorting out the East West South boundary lines that might predicate change in the north. Annan is further East than all the West Lothian clubs plus half the Fife clubs up to Kelty and Lochgelly. Forth is further West than all the Stirlingshire clubs and Dunipace are further East than Shotts, Carluke, Lesmahagow etc So the new West and South areas can’t be based on lines of Latitude and Longitude but will have to be mainly based on Local Authority areas, especially now Dunipace have self sorted to the East. Even using LAs there will remain anomalies like Kello Rovers so some flexibility may be needed to draw new boundaries. Once you have defined East, West and South regions by Local Authority with a tweak for Kello it becomes logical to do the same for the HL / LL boundary as well.

Not heard anything but you can see it might make sense to think about changing the boundary. At the moment it sort of works to divide Dundee and Fife but the line chosen isn’t really logical elsewhere in Scotland. There’s no teams currently but things like Oban being south of the line but Connel being north of the line. Bankfoot or Dunkeld being in a different league from Perth teams makes little sense too. Basically there are three alternative approaches you could take: Local Authority based. Argyll & Bute, Stirling, Fife, Perth & Kinross in LL. Dundee, Angus in HL. Perth and Kinross could also be aligned with Highland League. Would leave Coupar Angus and Blairgowrie slightly isolated if P&K in LL. Would Tayport or St Andrews Utd prefer to be in with Dundee clubs as well? Geographical feature based. South of River Earn or Tay or South Esk or North Esk. Effectively the Esk is what SJFA have now albeit with Brechin and Montrose able to choose either side. South of Tay might work but Scone Thistle might prefer to be in the same region as Perth clubs. Just draw a line after speaking to relevant clubs. Straight line from An Scarsgoch to the Tay north of Newburgh would leave Perth clubs, Scone Thistle and Luncarty in one division, Blairgowrie and Coupar Angus in the other. Same as now for all existing clubs but avoids weird anomalies like an Invergowrie team being placed in LL or a Bankfoot team in HL. Could draw a new line to keep Tayport in HL area too if they prefer.

Shows how far north the centre of gravity is that Glenrothes are in the south division. Also the North division has 10 out of 15 members north of the LL / HL dividing line. Not far off being a stand-alone north of Tay league.

I’m happy to agree West Calder is now firmly in West Lothian. I’d have to be an insufferable pedant to point out that as well as West Calder there is another former Midlothian team still in the Junior ranks in the form of Pumpherston Juniors.

Yes Harthill Royal play in Greenrigg, where several hundred houses form the West Lothian part of Harthill. This anomaly was identified for correction in 1976 with the Local Government Boundary Commission for Scotland proposing to put all of Harthill into Motherwell district and Strathclyde region. The plan was “prayed against” in the House of Commons by the late Tam Dalyell, MP for West Lothian and so the transfer was dropped.

I still come back to the fact that there is something more special about a nationwide cup, beating all comers, especially one with a history, than a purely regional cup competition. If there is one bit of the Juniors worth saving it is the Junior Cup and opening it up to all non league teams. Preserving the cup may even be the way to keep Tom Johnston in a blazer and thus facilitate a smoother transition of the rest of the Juniors into the EoS, WoS and NoS.

A few other cross border teams: Tayport from Fife play in the Midland AFA. Shotts, Carluke and Carnwath play in Lothians and Edinburgh AFA If we're saying Falkirk, Stirling and Clacks are in the East region then Doune Castle, Callander Thistle and Stenhousemuir in the Caledonian, Bannockburn, Dunblane, Stirling, Falkirk & Tullibody in the Central Scottish are cross border as well. All very much edge cases though rather than any huge overlap.

Presumably if they got up to 36 teams then they could just run 3 conferences of 12. 33-35 teams would be more awkward to deal with but not impossible. Don’t see them turning anyone down.

If there are more new entrants in 2019-20 then having two divisions at Tier 7 avoids clubs like Bo’ness and Linlithgow having to be placed at Tier 8 which is good. A geographic split seems like the best long term solution to keep travelling down and maximise local derbies.

Plus no one disagrees that North and West region could still join at Tier 6 if they wanted to and put a serious proposal to PWG. The questions are about whether East region could join as a parallel league and the answer at the recent PWG appears to have been a firm No.

Would be interesting what might have happened had the SJFA sat down this time last year with the PWG and formally asked for all three Superleagues to be added at Tier 6, with some sort of compromise proposal for merging with the EOS in the East. If they’d proposed something like: Top 6 from EOS with top 10 from East Superleague. Bottom 6 East Superleague, 7-10 EOS, Top 6 East Premier Bottom 10 East Premier, 11-13 EOS, 3 extra promotions from the North and South Can’t see anyone having too many problems with that, you’d have a few teams a league too high or low but it would sort itself out within a year or two. Too late for that now though.