Basile Boli

Wonder if Pather will manage to retain their Sunday squad for Saturdays. I’m sure the £100 a week may sway that decision.

Not the Lurker making an arse of himself as usual!

Out of genuine interest, can you give any examples of this?

Can’t see it. Any half decent team remaining will be quickly left behind competitively. Once St Pats moved my personal feeling was the rest of the decent sides in league wouldn’t be far behind. it’s reminiscent of the exodus from the East Juniors to the EoS a few years back now. Just took a couple teams acting as a catalyst for the rest to follow.

Greenock High School Former Pupil’s Amateur Football Club? That’s a very big name.

Seems there’s no real loyalty to any specific league setup now. I think the best thing for the standard of Saturday afternoon amateur football to thrive without constant upheaval is to have as many top teams (in the traditional strongest areas of Glasgow, Lanarkshire and Stirlingshire) as possible playing in one organisation. Right now that looks like the Caledonian League although ideally my preference would be to have a new league formed encompassing the current 2. I’d be interested to find out why the two teams have decided to move. Looking at the Central Prem in the short-term I wouldn’t be surprised to hear about Gartcosh and Bannockburn looking to go back to the Caley. Speaking from experience back in my playing days I enjoyed football a lot more when competition was fierce between a good number of teams. I don’t think they’d get that staying in the Central with reduced quality. Maybe not imminently, but I could see Steins trying their luck in the East of Scotland senior leagues. They have the facilities and a very good location to attract players.

I don’t see why the vast majority of West Premier/East Premier teams can maintain decent grass surfaces but we must make excuses for full-time clubs who can’t.

Doesn’t struggling to pay costs for parks etc go hand in hand with lack of players? If you’ve only got 11/12 most weeks instead of 18 you’re missing out on £240 worth of fees over the course of a month. Does that make up the difference? I genuinely don’t know. Basing these figures off a tenner a week as that’s what I believe most teams charge players these days. For what it’s worth I believe a dwindling player pool is by far the biggest problem.

At this point I don’t think amateur football as we know it can be saved. The more I think about it I think the SFA need to bring the SAFA into the fold as a type of sub-division to the bottom teams in the pyramid. Just have an all-in pyramid where the amateur leagues feed into WoS Division 4/Eos Division 3 for example. Promotion from the old amateur leagues into the WOS can be optional. Relax the ground criteria rules at the very bottom and let the bigger established sides with good facilities find their way up. Imagine a scenario in 10 years where teams who have been treading water for as long as I can remember - Royal Albert, EK Thistle for example - are replaced by teams like EKYM or Glasgow Harp. Thorn Athletic have been ahead of the curve for this and put in the hard graft to become a WOS team and will probably find themselves miles ahead of their old amateur peers in the next decade. This would also involve a lot of work like regionalising leagues and abolishing existing setups which will undoubtedly have opposition but hopefully in this scenario the presence of the SFA could help overcome.

Expansion of the Juniors leagues east/west has taken players from the amateur game. Every side in those leagues with matchday squads of 18. Most sides now running U20’s sides - majority of young players are now looking at the U20 route as being much more attractive than amateur. Consider this with a reduced player base in the first place and it quickly becomes an issue. The lower east/west leagues have improved in quality v the amateur game over the last few years with the exodus of players in that direction - what was the motivation for players? Better organisation, better facilities, pitch quality? Vast majority won’t be getting anything more than expenses. Is it the “prestige”? Everyone will have differing opinions on why but it’s increasingly looking like the game is in terminal decline and the more established clubs should be looking to position themselves for moves into the junior leagues to avoid becoming an irrelevance and afterthought.

For the 2nd year in a row.

A lot of words to say not a lot.

If they’ve achieved a license, why not?

In a league full of absolute jokers it’s some achievement for Lee Johnson to be the biggest of the lot.

Absolute nonsense from start to finish as usual from you.

Did DG rape that woman? Clearly without any full idea of what happened on the night, on the balance of probabilities, and in my own personal opinion, yes. Was DG found guilty in a civil court of rape? Absolutely. Should the Government and Local Councils (hand-in-hand in Scotland) be threatening football clubs with who they can and cannot employ? Absolutely not and it’s verging on scandalous that they are.

Something unclear? Assuming your son is an adult, ”I will be instructing”, is a laughable way to approach the subject to someone who is clearly old enough to make their own decisions. “I will be instructing” jesus wept. He’d be well within his rights to pish himself laughing in your face.

And what if your son (correctly) tells you to ram it?

Again in English?

Bathgate not got floodlights? 2 in Division 3 then.

Probably the most well-placed team in the West to apply for the WOSFL, surprised they haven’t already. Would be a far greater addition to that league than Knightswood or St Pats.

Whitburn and Syn..sorry, Camelon, will reignite their competitive rivalry from the last 2 seasons again this year.

Feel like this will be a very competitive division, no outright favourite but I’d say West Calder and Bathgate may be the early contenders.

What a laughable post. I’m surprised that you find it within you to even leave the house when you’re under constant danger such as that. I think you’ll find that Police attitudes towards football fans are generally standard throughout the country and you are not just singled out on your visits to Ibrox and Parkhead. Easter Road especially is an absolute shambles to try and access, through a combination of inept stewarding and policing and poor stadium design - insufficient turnstiles for one. And who thought it was a safe idea to have sets of steps leading up to turnstiles? I’ve also seen plenty of flashpoints in my time visiting Easter Road so don’t start your sanctimonious pish about running the gauntlet in Glasgow.

Pollok have 9/10 new signings this season too. Will be another middling season for the BU’s I think.