Junior football, what is the future?

[Sergeant Wilson]

13 minutes ago, Goalie Hamish said:

 

If this league happens it will probably be somewhere between 12-16 clubs, so having BSC Reserves and Rangers and Celtic Colts is only 3 clubs. The latter two would bring some support through the gate. I read yesterday that Kilwinning had a grand total of 40 fans at Talbot.

 

I'd like to see some projections on the support that youth/reserve teams in our structure would attract. I used to watch Celtic reserves play at Airdrie, admittedly usually midweek during the day, but attendances were poor and didn't go beyond reps from other clubs and families of players, despite some very strong sides being put out.

Edited December 31, 2017 by Sergeant Wilson

[Patches O'Houlihan]

58 minutes ago, theshed said:

Can only speak for myself and nothing to do with the club I support but when BSC are trying to lead the way I'm a bit sceptical, a club that doesn't have its own ground , that play up in alloa in front of 40 fans at most aren't a club that I hold in high regard one bit , they're a shambles to me .

I wasn’t aware there was a criteria for forward thinking??

I’ll treat your shambles comment with a degree of contempt as you obviously don’t know anything about the running of the club.

Edited December 31, 2017 by Patches O'Houlihan

[Sergeant Wilson]

39 minutes ago, Goalie Hamish said:

 

That's a fair point, but who cares who the messenger is as long as it pushes people to start discussions. As for the email, again who cares if it was written in crayon on the back of a fag packet.

 

Clubs will care about the credibility of the proposal and preparation and presentation help achieve that. The present non league format was thrown together, that error shouldn't be compounded by introducing an equally half baked feeder to it.

[Patches O'Houlihan]

5 minutes ago, Sergeant Wilson said:

Clubs will care about the credibility of the proposal and preparation and presentation help achieve that. The present non league format was thrown together, that error shouldn't be compounded by introducing an equally half baked feeder to it.

I think you’ll find that the proposal, when presented to those in power, will be comprehensive. However I am sure TJ will do all in his power to avoid that very scenario.

Edited December 31, 2017 by Patches O'Houlihan

[Sergeant Wilson]

Just now, Patches O'Houlihan said:

I think you’ll find that the proposal, when presented to those in power, will be comprehensive.

Why can't we see some more detail now? If it had some grass roots support, it could only strengthen the chances of success.

[tell_me_more]

59 minutes ago, Goalie Hamish said:

 

 

 

 

You're contradicting yourself somewhat, if a West of Scotland League is formed there will be some top Junior clubs go into it, therefore promotion/relegation to it from the Superleague is entirely natural, and pulls everything together ie integration.

 

 

 

 

Total speculation on your part,

 

[Harry's Corner]

I don't know if anyone else has remarked about this in today's Sunday Mail

[Patches O'Houlihan]

4 minutes ago, Sergeant Wilson said:

Why can't we see some more detail now? If it had some grass roots support, it could only strengthen the chances of success.

We are trying to do the right thing by allowing the process to take its course, which culminates with the meeting on the 5th. The result of that meeting will go a long way to determining the next steps.

If TJ does have his own plan, as he claims, then it would appear clubs will have a choice to make.

[Arthurlie1981]

Serious question for anyone from BSC. Would you still be putting forward this proposal if you had been accepted into the juniors? My reason for asking is to work out if this is not an attempt by some at BSC to undermine those who made the decision not to accept them.

 

Also could they provide details of the clubs that they contacted with this proposal?

 

Edited to add: I am all for a proposal to be put forward but the email that has been sent out should of contained more detail of what the proposal would be. I do believe that a proper fully functional pyramid is the way forward but I’m not sure this is as it is very light in detail. For BSC to make it public puts junior clubs in an awkward position as fans will want clubs to consult but at the moment there is nothing to really discuss as no firm proposal is yet available. It reminds me of the original SFA question on the lowland league which wanted a commitment without any detail.

[Patches O'Houlihan]

2 minutes ago, Arthurlie1981 said:

Serious question for anyone from BSC. Would you still be putting forward this proposal if you had been accepted into the juniors? My reason for asking is to work out if this is not an attempt by some at BSC to undermine those who made the decision not to accept them.

Also could they provide details of the clubs that they contacted with this proposal?

As previously stated, our intention is to have a team at every level to allow people to play to a level comparable with their ability. These proposals have certainly been accelerated by the refusal to allow us into the Juniors, however there is no doubt that they would have been presented regardless.

[Monalie]

14 minutes ago, Arthurlie1981 said:

Also could they provide details of the clubs that they contacted with this proposal?

This part is interesting as it seems that a number of clubs were unaware of the proposal. It would help if this question was answered.

[Hillonearth]

41 minutes ago, Sergeant Wilson said:

I'd like to see some projections on the support that youth/reserve teams in our structure would attract. I used to watch Celtic reserves play at Airdrie, admittedly usually midweek during the day, but attendances were poor and didn't go beyond reps from other clubs and families of players, despite some very strong sides being put out.

You only need to look at the attendances for the Challenge Cup to see firstly that SPFL top tier fans aren't going to travel the length of themselves to watch second string football and secondly that colt teams aren't any sort of draw for fans of the lower division sides they're drawn against.

Aside from the odd slightly obsessed uber-fan like a Rangers-supporting guy I used to know who spent a disproportionate amount of his spare time watching age-group football up at Murray Park, your average SPFL fan is probably only interested once young players actually feed through to the first team. By comparison with the non-league game they're already shelling out a lot to watch their first team and have little to no interest in paying out even more to watch something that doesn't tally with their essential sense of actually being Celtic, Rangers, Aberdeen or whoever...just a bunch of young boys wearing the kit.

I can understand why the larger clubs want to replace the development league with something else - a young player isn't likely to develop meaningfully when all he's playing against are kids on almost exactly the same page as he is largely coached in the same cookie-cutter way...that's not development, that's flatlining.

Without hard evidence of people being willing to turn up to watch colt teams though it'll be a difficult sell to convince the lower division or nonleague teams they'd potentially be playing of the benefits to them.

Simply pointing out it may help half a dozen or so already rich and successful clubs to become even more rich and successful in future won't cut it, I suspect.

 

[Goalie Hamish]

Clubs will care about the credibility of the proposal and preparation and presentation help achieve that. The present non league format was thrown together, that error shouldn't be compounded by introducing an equally half baked feeder to it.

How do you deduce it will be half baked because an email has a few grammatical errors? Cmon.

[Goalie Hamish]

Total speculation on your part,
 

Indeed, but I think I'll be proved correct. How's your list getting along?

[FairWeatherFan]

Auchinleck Talbot were put off going for their SFA Licence by having to joing the SoSFL, maybe they'd reconsider for a WoSFL, Kilwinning Rangers are currently top of the West Premier and are listening to what's going on. Then you've got Clydebank, who are meant to be getting things in place so that they could acheive an SFA Licence . Those seem like top clubs in the Junior grade to me.

I don't think anyone expected Kelty Hearts to make the move to the EoSFL this year. Who knows how this will pan out.

[Burnie_man]

I'm sure Junior Clubs remaining would have no objections with the relegated teams going straight into the bottom league, they never won promotion to begin with so are in a false position so why should they be relegated into the top junior leagues that they were never promoted from?

The draft from BSc or whoever is embarassing with the errors, and I don't mean grammatical.

 

For the pyramid to have any form of credibility whatsoever the whole junior set up would have to be integrated. The wos premier league is far superior to the sos so again levels would need reviewed carefully, for a supposed better more professional set up its been a bit of a dogs breakfast so far.

 

Hamish appears to have pointed out the obvious, this nonsense about clubs being relegated to the bottom of the pile is the same pish spouted 5 years ago.

 

WoSFL is formed, applications invited, and once in place promotion and relegation should take place between that and the West Superleague.

 

I'm fairly sure there will be a number of current Superleague clubs who will be very interested in joining, which in turn would mean a few clubs in the East applying to move over to the EoSFL.

 

This is the ideal way to move the Juniors into the Pyramid without major change. Who knows what TJ has up his sleeve, if anything. At a guess another stab at the already rejected East/West Superleague to sit alongside the LL. It will never fly.

 

[tell_me_more]

16 minutes ago, Burnie_man said:

WoSFL is formed, applications invited, and once in place promotion and relegation should take place between that and the West Superleague.

 

I'm fairly sure there will be a number of current Superleague clubs who will be very interested in joining, which in turn would mean a few clubs in the East applying to move over to the EoSFL.

 

This is the ideal way to move the Juniors into the Pyramid without major change. Who knows what TJ has up his sleeve, if anything. At a guess another stab at the already rejected East/West Superleague to sit alongside the LL. It will never fly.

Totally disagree thats another hamfisted half hearted attempt, so a team from league 2 or further down the Junior league  volunteers for the new league and in theory jumps two / three leagues, this team is subsequently relegated and goes into the top west Superleague what a shambolic attempt that would be at developing a pyramid. If the Juniors are to be involved at least give them their place West and East Superleague go in at Tier 5 problem solved, paperwork exercise minimum disruption no brainer.

[Burnie_man]

14 minutes ago, tell_me_more said:

Totally disagree thats another hamfisted half hearted attempt, so a team from league 2 or further down the Junior league  volunteers for the new league and in theory jumps two / three leagues, this team is subsequently relegated and goes into the top west Superleague what a shambolic attempt that would be at developing a pyramid. If the Juniors are to be involved at least give them their place West and East Superleague go in at Tier 5 problem solved, paperwork exercise minimum disruption no brainer.

Of course they would, if the clubs further up the Junior ladder have no interest but clubs below them do, why should they be penalised for showing some ambition? It's the same old pish from the same old dinosaurs that have been bad mouthing the Pyramid for the last 5 years and bad mouthed Kelty at this years AGM.

Junior Superleagues at tier 5 isn't going to happen, that ship sailed 5 years ago and there is no way LL and HFL will accept that. If this is what TJ is going into this meeting with, it's a complete waste of time, and he's not even consulted clubs on the matter so what mandate he has for these discussions I don't know.

[tell_me_more]

11 minutes ago, Burnie_man said:

Junior Superleagues at tier 5 isn't going to happen, that ship sailed 5 years ago and there is no way LL and HFL will accept that.

Equally I would argue that West Super premier are not going to accept the scenario I quoted in my previous post .

You are a big advocate of the pyramid yet the system you are supportive of is a ham hearted attempt that is supportive of a few teams with supposed "ambition" I can't get my head round that, if its to be done do it properly the SFA need to show some proper leadership and management and put the system in place that is all inclusive and fair to all, obviously being a junior fan I would shout for them to be included at a level I think merits their ability if thats to be debated so be it.

Nothing more to say on this for the time being all the best.

 

6 hours ago, archieb said:

Quote from the SJFA Management Committee minutes for November:

"PYRAMID

As previously reported, there had been no recent discussions on the structure below the SPFL.  To date, the discussions had centred round how Junior Football might participate in the Pyramid, namely :

(i)    Joint East / West Superleague heading the Junior Pyramid.
(ii)    Existing Junior structure, i.e. East and West integrating to Pyramid.
(iii)    Existing East and West Juniors feeding in to Lowland League.
(iv)    North Pyramid, i.e. above Tay – no discussions of note to date on this point.

A date for a further meeting was awaited."

 

[LongTimeLurker]

Difficult part is when it has to be voted through by members at an AGM. Think it is Clydebank, Girvan, Rossvale and Gartcairn that are most likely to go for it as they are not traditional junior clubs and it might be the smaller ones that have little regular support and are more under the control of direct participants that might be willing to give it a go if they are not too far off on licensing. At the very least the clubs should be able to use this to demand that the fixture list gets sorted out or else as Kilwinning Rangers appear to be doing at the moment.

Edited December 31, 2017 by LongTimeLurker