WoSFL Premier Division thread

[glensmad]

When does the 2020-21 season need to be ended by?
Are Bonnyton licensed? Say for example they won the League, when would it need to be finished by for them to have a play off with South/East/Lowland?

I'm not sure that there is a time limit, to be honest. As long as it ties in with the finish of the other two leagues, which I'm sure Kenny McLean will make sure happens.

[FairWeatherFan]

31 minutes ago, theesel1994 said:

When does the 2020-21 season need to be ended by?

Are Bonnyton licensed? Say for example they won the League, when would it need to be finished by for them to have a play off with South/East/Lowland?

They're likely going to want to finish in advance of Euro 2020 kicking off. Especially as Scotland does take on a hosting role. Which also means the SFA AGM is likely to be just before the Euros as well and most leagues try to have their AGMs done before the SFA one.

So you're looking at mid-June at the latest.

The SPFL, Highland and Lowland Leagues will all be finishing around the usual time. Regular season end of April/early May. With a couple of weeks of playoffs taking it to the middle of May. That's based on the SPFL Premiership's final weekend of games being on the May 15th weekend. The lower leagues will have finished a couple of weeks before then due to the way the formats work making all the leagues interlinked.

Fortunately that doesn't include the WoSFL, EoSFL, and SoSFL. As the Lowland League playoff is independent of that. Just you've got to time things for a similar finish between a 38 game season (WoSFL), 34 game season (EoSFL), and 26 game season (SoSFL).

[Ginaro]

34 minutes ago, theesel1994 said:

When does the 2020-21 season need to be ended by?

Are Bonnyton licensed? Say for example they won the League, when would it need to be finished by for them to have a play off with South/East/Lowland?

The play-off involves the East, South and West, not Lowland. Last season it was supposed to be the 10th/16th May - but presumably the season could be extended. If all three are licensed there it will be a three match round robin play-off, the question is whether the second match will be midweek or not otherwise it will extend the dates to three Saturdays.

Clubs meeting licensing criteria will be known at the February licensing meeting. The EOS champions will almost certainly be licensed, so in March the leagues will know whether a WOSFL club is licensed and thus whether they actually need to rush to finish for the play-off.

Edited July 14, 2020 by Ginaro

[FairWeatherFan]

 

1 minute ago, glensmad said:

32 minutes ago, theesel1994 said:

When does the 2020-21 season need to be ended by?
Are Bonnyton licensed? Say for example they won the League, when would it need to be finished by for them to have a play off with South/East/Lowland?

I'm not sure that there is a time limit, to be honest. As long as it ties in with the finish of the other two leagues, which I'm sure Kenny McLean will make sure happens.

They changed the SFA Licencing Committee schedule so there's now just a meeting in February and then its the SFA AGM in May/June. This only happened this year. Which basically meant you had to pass the February committee meeting and be forwarded for approval to the SFA Board ahead of the following season.

February is now seen as the deadline to get your licence ready. No idea how COVID19 will impact things.

[glensmad]

Auchinleck Talbot, Kilwinning Rangers, Clydebank, Cumnock Juniors and Rutherglen Glencairn are all known to be actively working towards getting their licence. Whether any of them will be ready for February's deadline remains to be seen.

[theesel1994]

23 minutes ago, Ginaro said:

The play-off involves the East, South and West, not Lowland.

I thought East, South and West had a play-off then the winners went against a team from Lowland to see who took the place in the Lowland League?

[FairWeatherFan]

Just now, theesel1994 said:

I thought East, South and West had a play-off then the winners went against a team from Lowland to see who took the place in the Lowland League?

The Lowland League play-off is for automatic promotion. It only involves the licenced champions of the WoSFL, EoSFL, and SoSFL.

 

 

 

[Ginaro]

16 minutes ago, theesel1994 said:

I thought East, South and West had a play-off then the winners went against a team from Lowland to see who took the place in the Lowland League?

Nope - fortunately it's not like the SPFL's format.

The SLFL rules detail promotion and relegation: http://slfl.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/SLFL-Rules-Version-13.pdf

And also the "lower pyramid" rules details the LL promotion play-off: http://slfl.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Lower-Pyramid-play-off-rules-2020.pdf

For this season, so long as one of the 13 licensed EOS clubs wins their league then there will be promotion to the LL and at least one club relegated to get back to 16.

Edited July 14, 2020 by Ginaro

[theesel1994]

Can we go back to the Juniors - things were easier back then.

(I'm only kidding - get that idea of going back into the garbage can as soon as possible).

[FairWeatherFan]

3 minutes ago, theesel1994 said:

Can we go back to the Juniors - things were easier back then.

(I'm only kidding - get that idea of going back into the garbage can as soon as possible).

It takes a bit of getting used to, all these same questions were asked back in 2018 when the EoSFL saw its increase in membership.

Some obvious new wrinkles this year due to COVID19. If this had been a normal year the fixture lists and cup draws would all be out by now making it easier to navigate.

[Ginaro]

10 minutes ago, theesel1994 said:

Can we go back to the Juniors - things were easier back then.

You won't be saying that when you finish 14th and get reprieved by a WOSFL club gaining promotion

[Aqy]

16 hours ago, Ginaro said:

The play-off involves the East, South and West, not Lowland. Last season it was supposed to be the 10th/16th May - but presumably the season could be extended. If all three are licensed there it will be a three match round robin play-off, the question is whether the second match will be midweek or not otherwise it will extend the dates to three Saturdays.

If all three teams are licensed and in the running for promotion, presumably they'd have everything in place to hold a midweek game?

[FairWeatherFan]

6 minutes ago, Aqy said:

If all three teams are licensed and in the running for promotion, presumably they'd have everything in place to hold a midweek game?

As its likely to be set aside for the middle of May (in a usual year). It probably will be Sat-Wed-Sat. All the leagues will have finished. Weather should be hopefully be decent. Should be enough casual interest to keep the numbers high even though its a midweek. 

That way they only have to set aside the same dates for a two legged playoff between just two licenced champions.

[Ginaro]

9 minutes ago, Aqy said:

If all three teams are licensed and in the running for promotion, presumably they'd have everything in place to hold a midweek game?

It was more about the midweek travel - three matches means a D&G team is involved so either it's travel to/from there or an east/west game midweek.

But I suppose since it's for promotion into a semi-national league they should be prepared for the travel.

[FairWeatherFan]

13 minutes ago, Ginaro said:

It was more about the midweek travel - three matches means a D&G team is involved so either it's travel to/from there or an east/west game midweek.

But I suppose since it's for promotion into a semi-national league they should be prepared for the travel.

If I remember right from the EoS Championship. The round robin draw for Conference champions was done a decent bit in advance. Its entirely possible they could do the random draw for the LL playoff at the start of the season. That way they know which league champions would be playing midweek which gives a little bit of notice to plan for it, if its even required.

[glensmad]

If I remember right from the EoS Championship. The round robin draw for Conference champions was done a decent bit in advance. Its entirely possible they could do the random draw for the LL playoff at the start of the season. That way they know which league champions would be playing midweek which gives a little bit of notice to plan for it, if its even required.

The problem with that is that we won't know whether one, two, three or none of the champions will be licensed. So it's pointless making a draw and setting fixtures when there are so many unknown factors.

[FairWeatherFan]

25 minutes ago, glensmad said:

56 minutes ago, FairWeatherFan said:

If I remember right from the EoS Championship. The round robin draw for Conference champions was done a decent bit in advance. Its entirely possible they could do the random draw for the LL playoff at the start of the season. That way they know which league champions would be playing midweek which gives a little bit of notice to plan for it, if its even required.

The problem with that is that we won't know whether one, two, three or none of the champions will be licensed. So it's pointless making a draw and setting fixtures when there are so many unknown factors.

The dates for the Lowland League playoff already get set at the start of the season. It's just instead of having it titled as Lowland League Playoff: EoSFL/SoSFL/WoSFL Champion v. EoSFL/SoSFL/WoSFL Champion it could have EoSFL v. SoSFL, WoSFL v. EoSFL, SoSFL v. WoSFL as an example.

Looking back on the the EoS Championship round robin they did they random draw in February to give potential winners time to plan.

[Andy groundhopper]

Seems like the season starts ok, the SFA meet in February and then the finish to the season can be finalised. Hopefully loads of clubs will want to get licensed asap, really be a boost to the non lge game - really strong clubs licensed and ready to push upwards. Must be an improvement from the juniors, surely, imagine one non lge club getting into the spfl every year, frightening for the big boys

[craigkillie]

On 13/07/2020 at 09:44, glensmad said:

On 13/07/2020 at 09:27, Marshmallo said:

Any idea on when fixtures are likely to be released? Appreciate there isn't a concrete start date yet.

A start date is required before a fixtures plan can be worked out (including how many games the Premier Division will play). However I'm sure Kenny and Kennie are working on options at the moment.

It will be interesting to see what they come up with, but if anyone can make it work it's Kenny McLean. I suppose they have five main options:

 

A) 20 team league with no split. Either playing each other either once [19 games] or twice [38 games]. The former might be too few games and the latter might be too many.

B) 20 team league with 1x playing + split. The split could be 10-10 [28 games] or 8-12 [26/30 games]. The former gives everyone the same number of games, but the latter perhaps reduces fixture congestion for the top teams (also more likely to progress in the cups) and also makes for a more exciting run-in given that there are 7 relegation places. The split means that everyone has to reach 19 games at roughly the same time, which could be problematic if there are postponements due to bad weather or cup runs.

C) 2 x 10 team conferences as standalone leagues. Either playing each other twice [18 games] or three times [27 games], followed by play-offs for the title and final relegation place. The former is probably too few games, while the latter is unbalanced.

D) 2 x 10 team conferences with interconference play. Play each team in your own conference twice + each team in the other conference once [28 games], followed by play-offs for the title and final relegation places.

E) 2 x 10 team conferences followed by a "split". Play each team in your conference twice, before the top X clubs from each conference go into to a title group and the bottom Y clubs go into a relegation group. Again, could be 10-10 [27 games] or 8-12 [25/29 games]. Would likely mean wiping the results from the first part of the season, which is probably not appealing. Alternatively, all results from the meetings between clubs in the same conference could be retained, with those clubs not playing each other after the "split".

 

I think option A) is a bit of a Goldilocks situation because it's either too short or too long, and option E) is far too convoluted and confusing. I'd say option B) is my preference, but it depends on whether they think it's possible to get everyone up to 19 games at the same time so that the split can be implemented. There might be issues with giving everyone an equal number of home and away games too. I'd say if there are conferences then option D) is better than option C), because it ensures that everyone still plays everyone.

 

Edited July 15, 2020 by craigkillie

[glensmad]

Option D would be my choice, if Option A (38 games) is not possible.