Spyro Posted April 27 Share Posted April 27 4 hours ago, searchers1963 said: The clubs refused them. Some with the usual you will play first team players. What do they bring to the league whether it had longevity to some people not wanting to play on Friday nights Fair enough. I said if they tightened the player registration rules and played a regular schedule (like Stirling Uni) it would be good, but if they are playing Friday night (when other teams have fringe players playing under 20's), not committed for more than 1 season and wanting to move players between teams when they want, then they need to find themselves a proper reserve league to play in 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kevsmart Posted April 27 Share Posted April 27 8 minutes ago, Spyro said: Fair enough. I said if they tightened the player registration rules and played a regular schedule (like Stirling Uni) it would be good, but if they are playing Friday night (when other teams have fringe players playing under 20's), not committed for more than 1 season and wanting to move players between teams when they want, then they need to find themselves a proper reserve league to play in Livingston already play in the SPFL Reserve League on a Tuesday afternoon. I thought they didn't have enough players to put two weekend sides out, plus they were short of money a while back 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spyro Posted April 27 Share Posted April 27 1 minute ago, kevsmart said: I thought they didn't have enough players to put two weekend sides out, plus they were short of money a while back So I feel entering a 2nd weekend team in a proper league is a bit of an insult to said league. It does scream of stability and probably a headache EoS teams could do without. Why should half the players in Division 3 have to be available for Friday night games just so some Premier League team can play a few kids in their league? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vikingTON Posted April 27 Share Posted April 27 Livingston will be struggling to field a team at tier 2 unless their legal saga about ownership somehow works in their favour. Absolutely no chance that their Walter Mitty model could be relied on to maintain a B team outside the top flight. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FairWeatherFan Posted April 27 Share Posted April 27 If Broxburn/Edinburgh University switch places and Rosyth going under. Am I right in thinking the divisions next year will now be: 16-16-15-11 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kevsmart Posted April 27 Share Posted April 27 12 minutes ago, FairWeatherFan said: If Broxburn/Edinburgh University switch places and Rosyth going under. Am I right in thinking the divisions next year will now be: 16-16-15-11 Could be 16-16-14-12, going by what is on the wiki page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023–24_East_of_Scotland_Football_League 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stanley Posted April 27 Share Posted April 27 (edited) 46 minutes ago, kevsmart said: Could be 16-16-14-12, going by what is on the wiki page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023–24_East_of_Scotland_Football_League It will be 16-16-15 and then the third division number will depend on if Broxburn are promoted or not (11 if Broxburn go up, 12 if Broxburn stay down). Edited April 27 by stanley 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ginaro Posted April 27 Share Posted April 27 (edited) Surely going to 16-16-16-11 if Broxburn go up is the sensible thing to do as that would match this season - otherwise you'd have a 28 game Second Division and 33 game Third Division... Edited April 27 by Ginaro 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FairWeatherFan Posted April 27 Share Posted April 27 5 minutes ago, Ginaro said: Surely going to 16-16-16-11 if Broxburn go up is the sensible thing to do as that would match this season - otherwise you'd have a 28 game Second Division and 33 game Third Division... Don't think it can be 16-16-16-11. It's either 4 down all the way or 4 up all the way depending on a deficit or surplus from the LL Play-off. Broxburn go up its 16-16-15-11 SoS/WoS go up it'd be 16-16-15-12. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lowenan Posted April 27 Share Posted April 27 A fifteen team league seems unnecessary. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FairWeatherFan Posted April 27 Share Posted April 27 22 minutes ago, lowenan said: A fifteen team league seems unnecessary. 30-30-28-30 or 30-30-30-27/36 Which seems unnecessary then? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lowenan Posted April 27 Share Posted April 27 Should be possible to do 16-16-16 and the rest in the bottom league. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
searchers1963 Posted April 27 Share Posted April 27 2 hours ago, lowenan said: A fifteen team league seems unnecessary. They r doing instead of having the squabbling about who would replace rosyth in 2nd division next season end of. It got decided months ago 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HibeeJibee Posted May 19 Share Posted May 19 If we assume that Broxburn aren't going to blow a 3 goal lead at home to Dalbeattie on Friday night then next season's divisions are now all known. With it being 5 seasons since the large-scale movement of clubs into the EOSL (allowing for 2020-21 having been abandoned!) it intrigued me to see how those clubs had got on compared to the previous 5 seasons in their old east region. This is a ranking of each of their average finishing positions during those 5 years (colour coded for super, premier, top halfs of districts and bottom halfs); and then their actual divisions for next season (similarly colour coded for Premier, First, Second and Third divisions): There are several clubs not on the chart who went defunct during initial 5yrs (being Bankfoot, Ballingry, Falkirk and Steelend). By far the biggest riser have been Tranent who've gone from being a top-end district side to ascending clean out of EOSL into Lowland... Dunbar and Whitburn have also risen into Premier... it's also interesting to note the top 5 in this ranking have also all ascended into Lowland at least, or SPFL2 in Bonnyrigg's case and SPFL1 in Kelty's... over in Fife the trio of Crossgates, Lochore and Kirkcaldy & Dysart have risen from bottom-end district sides into First Division (and indeed Crossgates were Premier until now)... Haddington and Glenrothes have also made noticeable rises. By far the biggest faller have been Fauldhouse who've gone from being a bottom-end superleague side to Third Division... there have actually been few other noticeable fallers though Dalkeith and Armadale have gone from top-half premier sides to Second Division... and Edinburgh Utd have gone from top-end district to Third Division (albeit only this year). Certainly comparison of Fauldhouse and Tranent is the starkest: 9yrs ago Fauldhouse finished 10th in super while Tranent came 3rd bottom of south district a couple of levels below them; this year Fauldhouse are 5th bottom of Third Division (with 1 game left) while Tranent came 5th in Lowland a quartet of tiers above them. 18 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HibeeJibee Posted May 19 Share Posted May 19 (edited) For sake of completeness this is an equivalent ranking of the 'original' EOSL clubs, with the same colour coding - except since the league itself and the divisions were that much smaller both are split into top halfs and bottom halfs: Duns, Eyemouth and Kelso went defunct/etc. during initial 5yrs. In relation to each other there has been comparatively little rising or falling (though in real terms of course they are now spread across 4 tiers rather than 1 or 2)... CSS notable having gone into LL and thusfar stayed there. Whitehill and Vale of Leithen descended from longer LL stays; Dunipace came from west; Bo'ness Athletic, Edinburgh College, Edinburgh South, Inverkeithing and Linton originated from amateur football/etc. Edited May 19 by HibeeJibee 13 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy groundhopper Posted May 20 Share Posted May 20 Brilliant work Hibee, interesting to see some of the movements over the years. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ginaro Posted May 20 Share Posted May 20 On 19/05/2024 at 16:05, HibeeJibee said: By far the biggest faller have been Fauldhouse who've gone from being a bottom-end superleague side to Third Division... there have actually been few other noticeable fallers though Dalkeith and Armadale have gone from top-half premier sides to Second Division... Their manager was on here in the big Junior thread but along with the other staunch West Lothian juniors couldn't be persuaded to leave, wonder how different things could've been for them and the league in general if they'd jumped ship and also brought the rest with them at the first time of asking... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Burnieman Posted May 20 Share Posted May 20 7 minutes ago, Ginaro said: Their manager was on here in the big Junior thread but along with the other staunch West Lothian juniors couldn't be persuaded to leave, wonder how different things could've been for them and the league in general if they'd jumped ship and also brought the rest with them at the first time of asking... Fauldhouse would likely have been EoS Premier now if they hadn't backed a loser and remained. Them, West Calder, Stoneyburn, Bathgate, Whitburn, Armadale, Pumpherston all had a wee pact to carry on Junior because the "traitors" would come running back eventually. How wrong they were. It's littered across "that" thread. Whitburn have managed to drag themselves back to where they should have been a decade ago, the rest are all having various struggles, Armadale chucking money at it but faltering, although Bathgate are showing signs of recovery. Hoose are just a mess, badly run for a number of years. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GordonS Posted May 21 Share Posted May 21 15 hours ago, Burnieman said: Fauldhouse would likely have been EoS Premier now if they hadn't backed a loser and remained. Them, West Calder, Stoneyburn, Bathgate, Whitburn, Armadale, Pumpherston all had a wee pact to carry on Junior because the "traitors" would come running back eventually. How wrong they were. It's littered across "that" thread. Whitburn have managed to drag themselves back to where they should have been a decade ago, the rest are all having various struggles, Armadale chucking money at it but faltering, although Bathgate are showing signs of recovery. Hoose are just a mess, badly run for a number of years. One thing that leapt out at me from @HibeeJibee's brilliant piece of work is that the declines at some of those clubs happened earlier than I had remembered. In my memory Whitburn, Armadale and Bathgate were still relatively successful until the pyramid came along and it was their decision not to join that caused their decline. I see now that the rot had already set in. Presumably the people who presided over their declines were the same people who didn't realise the pyramid was the only show in town. I don't know about Bathgate but certainly Armadale and Whitburn are in better shape now. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Burnieman Posted May 21 Share Posted May 21 9 minutes ago, GordonS said: One thing that leapt out at me from @HibeeJibee's brilliant piece of work is that the declines at some of those clubs happened earlier than I had remembered. In my memory Whitburn, Armadale and Bathgate were still relatively successful until the pyramid came along and it was their decision not to join that caused their decline. I see now that the rot had already set in. Presumably the people who presided over their declines were the same people who didn't realise the pyramid was the only show in town. I don't know about Bathgate but certainly Armadale and Whitburn are in better shape now. In the final season (2017-18) before the exodus began; Fauldhouse were runners-up in the ERJFA Premier and would have been promoted to Superleague Bathgate and Whitburn would have been relegated to the South Pumpherston and Armadale would have been promoted to the Premier The remainder were bumping around the South, In the re-vamped 2018-19 season which basically saw the Premier disappear, Fauldhouse (10th) and Whitburn (4th) entered the truncated 12 team Superleague, everyone else in the "Premier South". Whitburn and Fauldhouse were the biggest losers out of refusing to move with most others. Whitburn has recovered, Hoose have had a disaster, Armadale still grappling with it all. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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