The Pyramid: A Proposed Structure

[ex-german exile]

Why r we different? Would be interesting 2 c how many junior clubs would favour this structure.
Mon the papers

We are different as we have three national cup competitions which are all extremely coveted.

[Sunrise]

8 minutes ago, ex-german exile said:

We are different as we have three national cup competitions which are all extremely coveted.

Junior cup contests - hardly coveted by sponsors these days...

[Burnie_man]

7 minutes ago, ex-german exile said:

We are different as we have three national cup competitions which are all extremely coveted.

England has the FA Cup, the FA Trophy and the FA Vase, all extremely coveted and all clubs are part of a Pyramid.

Everyone enters the FA Cup, and for non league clubs you enter one of the the non-league cups based on league status.

It works very well.

[rednblack]

We are different as we have three national cup competitions which are all extremely coveted.

Mate you won't talk some round. Some believe one thing, some believe the other. Neither will ever budge and that's that. You won't ever get any meaningful change as things will always be divided along lines of pro pyramid and both pyramid.

 

[Burnie_man]

2 minutes ago, rednblack said:

Mate you won't talk some round. Some believe one thing, some believe the other. Neither will ever budge and that's that. You won't ever get any meaningful change as things will always be divided along lines of pro pyramid and both pyramid.

 

Thing is though, you never explain your position, nobody can lay out the long term benefits of remaining outside the Pyramid in our own wee world.

It's the attitude of "its aye been" and nobody can argue coherently as to why it's best. More people are waking upto the fact that there's no future in it anymore.

[ex-german exile]

England has the FA Cup, the FA Trophy and the FA Vase, all extremely coveted and all clubs are part of a Pyramid.
Everyone enters the FA Cup, and for non league clubs you enter one of the the non-league cups based on league status.
It works very well.

Yes, but they all worked that way before the pyramid. So to avoid losing the history of the junior and amateur cups are you going to deem the middle of the pyramid is junior and the bottom is amateur? (rhetorical)

Still don't see the advantage, guess well have to agree to differ.

[Burnie_man]

Anyway, as far as a Pyramid is concerned, and as far as how to integrate the East Region with the EoSFL, I've attached how you can do it and it's fairly straightforward and for most clubs nothing much changes (hope the PDF works).  It would be fairly straightforward to do the same in the West with the SoSFL.

It plugs the East Region Superleague in below the LL, and integrates the EoSFL clubs into the structure.

East Pyramid.pdf

[Burnie_man]

Just now, ex-german exile said:

Yes, but they all worked that way before the pyramid. So to avoid losing the history of the junior and amateur cups are you going to deem the middle of the pyramid is junior and the bottom is amateur? (rhetorical)

Still don't see the advantage, guess well have to agree to differ.

Well the FA Amateur Cup was the English equivalent of our Junior Cup, the FA abolished the distinction between professional and amateur in 1974, and that was the last year they played the Amateur cup and the FA Vase was started in its place, the FA Trophy having been around for a couple of years before that.  A few years later the seeds of the Pyramid started.

As far as the future of the Junior Cup is concerned, I'd start now and invite any "Senior" non-league club to take part as they wish.

Anyway, what are the advantages of remaining as we are, in our own wee world? how do you see that panning out in 10 years time?

[Che Dail]

6 minutes ago, Burnie_man said:

Anyway, as far as a Pyramid is concerned, and as far as how to integrate the East Region with the EoSFL, I've attached how you can do it and it's fairly straightforward and for most clubs nothing much changes (hope the PDF works).  It would be fairly straightforward to do the same in the West with the SoSFL.

It plugs the East Region Superleague in below the LL, and integrates the EoSFL clubs into the structure.

East Pyramid.pdf

Looks good, and achievable.

3 up / 3 down between Lowland and Super?

 

 

[Hillonearth]

10 minutes ago, Burnie_man said:

Anyway, as far as a Pyramid is concerned, and as far as how to integrate the East Region with the EoSFL, I've attached how you can do it and it's fairly straightforward and for most clubs nothing much changes (hope the PDF works).  It would be fairly straightforward to do the same in the West with the SoSFL.

It plugs the East Region Superleague in below the LL, and integrates the EoSFL clubs into the structure.

East Pyramid.pdf

Kelty:

 

[Burnie_man]

1 minute ago, Hillonearth said:

Kelty:

 

[Burnie_man]

5 minutes ago, Che Dail said:

Looks good, and achievable.

3 up / 3 down between Lowland and Super?

 

 

Well no as I guess you'd still have the West Region as well to consider if they wanted involved, or at the very least the SoSFL.

I'd see it as the Super winners qualifying for promotion or a play-off, maybe even give the option of taking it down to third place if the top 2 aren't licenced. Bottom two in the LL relegated.

[Hillonearth]

Just now, Burnie_man said:

Well no as I guess you'd still have the West Region as well to consider if they wanted involved, or at the very least the SoSFL.

I'd see it as the Super winners qualifying for promotion or a play-off, maybe even give the option of taking it down to third place if the top 2 aren't licenced. Bottom two in the LL relegated.

The West as ever is the sticking point - the East looks achievable, and even quite attractive. Over this end of the M8, the only workable structure to plug in that pre-exists is the SJFA West Region.

Using the SoSL as the west feeder was always ill-conceived and shows just how much of an afterthought it was from those who instituted the current pyramid - which is essentially the old EoSL Premier rebranded as the LL. Treating it as on par with the West Premier shows just how little understanding there is of the relative strengths of the setups, and the likes of a Pollok would have little enthusiasm for making 150-mile round trips to hump say Dumfries YM on a school 3G.

As things stand, the only long-term potentially workable solution would be to move "as is" and fit the SoSL into the West Region as a bottom tier division like the current ADL - it appears most of the sides there are content to largely stay there due to travel and financial issues.

[AlanCamelonfan]

31 minutes ago, Burnie_man said:

Anyway, as far as a Pyramid is concerned, and as far as how to integrate the East Region with the EoSFL, I've attached how you can do it and it's fairly straightforward and for most clubs nothing much changes (hope the PDF works).  It would be fairly straightforward to do the same in the West with the SoSFL.

It plugs the East Region Superleague in below the LL, and integrates the EoSFL clubs into the structure.

East Pyramid.pdf

We are joining their pyramid so why would we take the places of the burnt island shipyard other than you think the junior teams are better than them.  I agree we are by the way but just raising the point you wouldn;t like lothian thistle joining the juniors for arguments sake and going into the east super league in a non pyramid era

[Burnie_man]

2 minutes ago, AlanCamelonfan said:

We are joining their pyramid so why would we take the places of the burnt island shipyard other than you think the junior teams are better than them.  I agree we are by the way but just raising the point you wouldn;t like lothian thistle joining the juniors for arguments sake and going into the east super league in a non pyramid era

Well if you're integrating both leagues you have to set out some form of criteria.  eg. top two EoSFL finishers into the Superleague, third and fourth into the Premier and so on, you need to try and match ability with where they go in the structure.

I'm sure Burntisland wouldn't want to be in the Superleague and get utterly humped every week, they're quite happy being Licenced and playing in the Scottish, I'm sure they know that they're never going to get to the LL without major investment, same with most EoSFL clubs.

[Burnie_man]

5 minutes ago, Hillonearth said:

The West as ever is the sticking point - the East looks achievable, and even quite attractive. Over this end of the M8, the only workable structure to plug in that pre-exists is the SJFA West Region.

Using the SoSL as the west feeder was always ill-conceived and shows just how much of an afterthought it was from those who instituted the current pyramid - which is essentially the old EoSL Premier rebranded as the LL. Treating it as on par with the West Premier shows just how little understanding there is of the relative strengths of the setups, and the likes of a Pollok would have little enthusiasm for making 150-mile round trips to hump say Dumfries YM on a school 3G.

As things stand, the only long-term potentially workable solution would be to move "as is" and fit the SoSL into the West Region as a bottom tier division like the current ADL - it appears most of the sides there are content to largely stay there due to travel and financial issues.

For the reasons you state, the East is much easier to integrate, particularly with Kelty starting and probably Bo'ness and maybe others following. At some point a decision is going to be made, either a bloc of clubs moving en-masse to the EoSFL or the Region as a whole leaving the SJFA.  A little unlikely perhaps, but then so was the Superleague Champs going to the EoSFL.

West is slightly different, they've never had anything like another grade of non-league sitting in their own backyard for the last 100 years, so not everyone understands just how daft it is to have clubs a few miles apart unable to play each other eg Musselburgh/Preston, Bonnyrigg/Dalkeith/Whitehill, Spartans/Edinburgh Utd and such like.

[marconi]

this unhealthy obsession with a pyramid system seems to be an east of scotland  thing. the west juniors and s o s league have  no interest in a pyramid system  so it will not happen any time in the near future.  there is no obvious advantage in either the competetive or financial projections  to make them change their posotion. so could we please have a rest from this topic until something  changes

[Hillonearth]

6 minutes ago, Burnie_man said:

For the reasons you state, the East is much easier to integrate, particularly with Kelty starting and probably Bo'ness and maybe others following. At some point a decision is going to be made, either a bloc of clubs moving en-masse to the EoSFL or the Region as a whole leaving the SJFA.  A little unlikely perhaps, but then so was the Superleague Champs going to the EoSFL.

West is slightly different, they've never had anything like another grade of non-league sitting in their own backyard for the last 100 years, so not everyone understands just how daft it is to have clubs a few miles apart unable to play each other eg Musselburgh/Preston, Bonnyrigg/Dalkeith/Whitehill, Spartans/Edinburgh Utd and such like.

No, I absolutely get it. Out east, there's the nonsense of Preston being in a completely different setup from Tranent two miles up the road, or Bonnyrigg/Newtongrange not being able to play Whitehill the same distance away. It makes sense.

By the same token aside from Glasgow Uni being ritually humiliated in the early rounds of the Scottish Cup, there's no recent tradition of nonleague senior football in the West Central belt, so conflating the West Region with an essentially amateur league based knocking on 100 miles away makes absolutely none.

[Burnie_man]

7 minutes ago, Hillonearth said:

No, I absolutely get it. Out east, there's the nonsense of Preston being in a completely different setup from Tranent two miles up the road, or Bonnyrigg/Newtongrange not being able to play Whitehill the same distance away. It makes sense.

By the same token aside from Glasgow Uni being ritually humiliated in the early rounds of the Scottish Cup, there's no recent tradition of nonleague senior football in the West Central belt, so conflating the West Region with an essentially amateur league based knocking on 100 miles away makes absolutely none.

Absolutely, but as long as TJ is paid a healthy salary to move pencils around a desk at Hampden then nothing will change.

Maybe it will take the likes of Bo'ness to follow Kelty the season after next to make him sit up and take notice because if they do then more clubs in the East are certain to follow, and I for one would rather this issue was dealt with in a constructive manner rather than a slow drip into the EoSFL. However as I said, I can see a scenario where the East eventually breaks away, or at least a significant percentage of clubs in 3-5 years time once the precedent has been set.

 

[Daleboys forever]

29 minutes ago, marconi said:

this unhealthy obsession with a pyramid system seems to be an east of scotland  thing. the west juniors and s o s league have  no interest in a pyramid system  so it will not happen any time in the near future.  there is no obvious advantage in either the competetive or financial projections  to make them change their posotion. so could we please have a rest from this topic until something  changes

What's the chance of a boundary move from the west guys . Just to the east side off Armadale .get the dale away from all these dafties . I'll give the fat controller at the volley a call hopefully he will get his pensioners to get the dale playing wi real junior clubs in a good league set up .