vikingTON Posted June 19, 2022 Share Posted June 19, 2022 3 hours ago, FairWeatherFan said: We need a local league for local people, except the players. We need them to articificially inflate our standard of football so that we can carry on the pretence we deserve to be at the level we've found ourselves. No, there needs to be local leagues because it's £2 a litre for petrol and Dumfries and Galloway clubs don't have the M8 at their disposal. The location of the players is irrelevant - the ability of clubs to afford traveling to play each other on a weekly basis is vital. -1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vikingTON Posted June 19, 2022 Share Posted June 19, 2022 5 hours ago, stanley said: The gap between the SoS and the WoS is clearly massive. Based on what contest exactly between the best team in the SoS and the WoS leagues? -1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FairWeatherFan Posted June 19, 2022 Share Posted June 19, 2022 8 hours ago, virginton said: No, there needs to be local leagues because it's £2 a litre for petrol and Dumfries and Galloway clubs don't have the M8 at their disposal. The location of the players is irrelevant - the ability of clubs to afford traveling to play each other on a weekly basis is vital. Hadn't realised that players travelling from a more populous part of the country to somewhere more remote did it for the love of the game. Could have sworn they were bypassing more local options for a pay packet from Highlands, Borders, Angus & D&G clubs. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dev Posted June 19, 2022 Share Posted June 19, 2022 1 hour ago, FairWeatherFan said: Hadn't realised that players travelling from a more populous part of the country to somewhere more remote did it for the love of the game. Could have sworn they were bypassing more local options for a pay packet from Highlands, Borders, Angus & D&G clubs. It's the players who have the individual flexibility to choose who they play for, and where that club is located is part of that. Players find it easier to move around. A surplus of decent standard players in any geographical area e.g. Central Belt, also forces players from such areas to consider their playing options i.e if they wish to play at their best possible level. Also they travel for £ economic reasons and they do so if they figure out that it is worth the hassle. Clubs don't have that ability. They have more than that to consider. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluedragon Posted June 19, 2022 Share Posted June 19, 2022 You can draw a direct comparison with how the SPFL champion club qualifies for the UEFA Champions League each season alongside the champions from other European leagues. UEFA has exactly the same issue, i.e. how to rank clubs that are league champion clubs playing in different countries with leagues of different strengths. A Scottish club needs to: 1) Win the SPFL championship (read SoSL) 2) Hold a UEFA Club Licence (read SFA) In Europe what happens next is dependent on the performance of all Scottish clubs in Europe as measured by the UEFA Association Coefficient for the Scottish Football Association. The Coefficient will determine at what stage the Scottish champions will enter the Champions League. Could this be simply adapted for the Scottish Pyramid and be used to decide the promotion route to the Lowland League? It does not have to be a complicated calculation but along the lines of the post by Stanley, e.g. a simple league table of the matches between the three Lowland League (LL) feeder leagues in the Scottish Cup and South Challenge Cup. I think it also needs to reflect other non-playing standards of the three leagues and therefore the calculation should include an element to reflect the number of clubs in each league that hold an SFA Club Licence. I think this latter part would be important to gain SFA support. HOW COULD IT WORK? I have attached a fictitious example to show how it could work. AUTOMATIC PROMOTION/PLAY-OFF PLACE The champion from the highest rated league, subject to holding an SFA Club Licence, would get an automatic promotion place to the Lowland League while the two other league champions have to play-off against each other and then the winner plays the club in second-last place in the LL. LL clubs will still be faced with one automatic relegation place. However, there would now be an additional play-off relegation place. LL promotion and relegation numbers vary according to promotion/relegation to/from the SPFL. If an SPFL gets relegated to the LL but the LL champions do not go up to the SPFL the LL has 17 clubs the second-last club is relegated to bring the number back to 16. The club in that unfortunate position could enter the play-off competition to get a second chance. If the opposite happens and the LL has 15 clubs there would be no need for the second-last club to enter the play-offs and the 16th place would be taken by the winner of the play-offs between the two feeder leagues. It is not a major change but does open up another promotion place for the three feeder leagues but also gives LL clubs hovering near the bottom of the table a fairer chance of survival if they find themselves in second-last place. Going back to the original discussion, does this give the SoSL clubs an unfair advantage for promotion to the LL? I do not think so. The issue is as much about geography as playing ability but I think that this filter would bring the best clubs to the top for LL promotion but retain the SoSL providing football both within Dumfries & Galloway and the Pyramid. HIGHLAND LEAGUE The problem is how to replicate this for clubs in leagues in the North that feed into the Highland League. The North Challenge Cup went into abeyance in 2009 and with few potential matches in the Scottish Cup it would not be feasible to use the system suggested for the LL. So the current play-off system would need to continue and is consistent with the proposed system in the south, i.e. an automatic promotion place would only be given to a feeder league that could prove through competition it was better than the other two. However, this could be unfair for a league that could in the future have a significant proportion of clubs holding an SFA Club Licence but not the inter-league matches to replicate the proposed system in the south. So let’s assume that say 75% of Midland League clubs hold a licence then I think the league deserves an automatic promotion place to the Highland League. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stanley Posted June 19, 2022 Share Posted June 19, 2022 (edited) 10 hours ago, virginton said: Based on what contest exactly between the best team in the SoS and the WoS leagues? Do you only compare the top team in a league if comparing the league as a whole? I don't think St Cuthbert Wanderers losing 3-1 and 7-0 in the playoffs shows that there's a small gap between the SoS and WoS. With Threave leaving the SoS, do we ignore the quality of all other teams in the league and their losses against some of the weakest teams in the WoS conferences? If you're going to argue that the SoS should be at tier 6 then trying to do it on the basis of the quality of the teams in the league is a strange argument. Edited June 19, 2022 by stanley 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vikingTON Posted June 20, 2022 Share Posted June 20, 2022 21 hours ago, stanley said: Do you only compare the top team in a league if comparing the league as a whole? I don't think St Cuthbert Wanderers losing 3-1 and 7-0 in the playoffs shows that there's a small gap between the SoS and WoS. St Cuthbert's didn't lose 7-0 to a WoS side though. -1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vikingTON Posted June 20, 2022 Share Posted June 20, 2022 21 hours ago, bluedragon said: Going back to the original discussion, does this give the SoSL clubs an unfair advantage for promotion to the LL? I do not think so. The issue is as much about geography as playing ability but I think that this filter would bring the best clubs to the top for LL promotion but retain the SoSL providing football both within Dumfries & Galloway and the Pyramid. The current system already brings the best clubs to the top for LL promotion, without any need for this ultimately highly convoluted system. -1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bad Wolf Posted June 20, 2022 Share Posted June 20, 2022 8 hours ago, virginton said: St Cuthbert's didn't lose 7-0 to a WoS side though. Aye, but the joonyur specialness is worth another four goals! Apparently. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Burnieman Posted June 20, 2022 Share Posted June 20, 2022 (edited) If you're starting with a blank sheet of paper, the last thing you would do is place a D&G league at tier 6 with direct access to the LL play-off. Therefore, the aim should be to sort this anomaly. Regional tier 8 or 9 on par with that level of the WoS with promotion for the Champions to the next level in the WoS would appear to be a sensible way forward. I'm not even that convinced that any SoS clubs want the burden of promotion to the LL. Threave clearly wanted a more competitive environment to play in week in-week out, and the last thing on their mind is the LL. Edited June 20, 2022 by Burnieman 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stanley Posted June 20, 2022 Share Posted June 20, 2022 (edited) St. Cuthbert Wanderers did not lose 7-0 to a WoS side but they did to an EoS side who play at the same level of the pyramid. Your argument seems to be that them losing 3-1 at home to Darvel shows that there's not a big gap between the SoS and WoS. I've shown you the South Challenge Cup results from last season. Not one of the sides was able to beat a WoS side other than St Cuthbert Wanderers (who beat Bonnyton who had recently played in the SoS and were only in the Premier because they'd moved from the SoS - their points tally shows that they are nowhere near a WoS Premier level). Many of them lost to a WoS side which finished very low in the conferences and will be in the fourth tier of WoS football next season. When playing anyone above fourth tier level, they got absolutely hammered (other than St. Cuthbert/Threave). St. Cuthbert Wanderers, last season, finished first and were clearly miles better than most of the SoS sides. They don't always win the league and last season seems to have been a very good one. Despite that, they still lost to Darvel and were hammered by Tranent. They lost 3-1 to Gala Fairydean in the Scottish Cup and 3-2 to Linlithgow in the South Challenge Cup. These represent excellent results for an SoS side but also back up the point that even the best SoS side would struggle in the WoS or Lowland League. Threave have consistently been one of the better SoS teams and have chosen to leave the league, further weakening it. This also clearly shows Threave do not have Lowland League ambitions and I'd be hugely surprised if any SoS side is aiming for the Lowland League. As burnieman said, there's no chance that you'd put a D & G league at tier 6 if you were to start the pyramid from scratch. We need to move away from these historical quirks and have a properly functioning pyramid. Too many things in Scottish football are done because it's the way things have always been done. The WoS and EoS cover populations of around 2 million people each and the Premier divisions sit at tier 6. D & G covers 150k people and sits alongside them. The SoS will never be able to compete with those leagues. Edited June 20, 2022 by stanley 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FairWeatherFan Posted June 20, 2022 Share Posted June 20, 2022 The South is the one part of the pyramid that's going to resolve itself over time. As seen by Threave Rovers departing. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stanley Posted June 20, 2022 Share Posted June 20, 2022 2 minutes ago, FairWeatherFan said: The South is the one part of the pyramid that's going to resolve itself over time. As seen by Threave Rovers departing. Definitely possible but Threave have moved to the EoS and LL in the past so have shown they are willing to give it a shot. Bonnyton left but are an Ayrshire side and were only in the league as it was the only pyramid option. Will take another one leaving to show that it might be the way the entire SoS goes. They are down to ten first teams with no real source of new clubs though so losing two or three more will start causing them problems. I'm not sure how many of them would be willing to go into a region-wide WoS bottom tier division. More likely if they regionalise the lower tiers. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FairWeatherFan Posted June 20, 2022 Share Posted June 20, 2022 Just now, stanley said: Definitely possible but Threave have moved to the EoS and LL in the past so have shown they are willing to give it a shot. Bonnyton left but are an Ayrshire side and were only in the league as it was the only pyramid option. Will take another one leaving to show that it might be the way the entire SoS goes. They are down to ten first teams with no real source of new clubs though so losing two or three more will start causing them problems. I'm not sure how many of them would be willing to go into a region-wide WoS bottom tier division. More likely if they regionalise the lower tiers. I'm not expecting the South to get merged into the West at this point. If anything I could see it drop to a quasi feeder below it. In the same way the WoS Division 4 wasn't actually a part of the WoSFL promotion/relegation structure. I can see SCW leaving for the WoSFL at the end of next season. If you're doing 2hr round trips 5-6 times a season why not 15. At that point the South is struggling for licenced champions. Gretna 2008 & Dalbeattie Star will probably opt for the WoSFL and be allowed. The Lowland will have swung enough to increase relegation but just to two spots. Then it's basically automatic promotion for WoS and EoS. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vikingTON Posted June 20, 2022 Share Posted June 20, 2022 45 minutes ago, stanley said: St. Cuthbert Wanderers did not lose 7-0 to a WoS side but they did to an EoS side who play at the same level of the pyramid. An EoS side who proved themselves to be better than the first souped-up outfit in the West as well. So a completely irrelevant result in a comparison between West and South then. Quote The WoS and EoS cover populations of around 2 million people each and the Premier divisions sit at tier 6. D & G covers 150k people and sits alongside them. The SoS will never be able to compete with those leagues. Erm no they don't though because the SPFL and Lowland Leagues are already stacked with teams from the West and East catchment areas. The idea that the West needs more spaces based on raw population - without accounting for the impact of Celtic and Rangers to name but two clubs - is utterly moronic. Within a reasonable period of time it will be such giants of the game like Beith and Tynecastle playing in these play-offs and there's absolutely no reason why a South league couldn't compete at that level. -1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stanley Posted June 20, 2022 Share Posted June 20, 2022 I don't even know what to say in response to virginton at this point. Results prove that the SoS is significantly worse than the EoS and the WoS. In WoS terms, it would be a fourth or fifth tier league other than a couple of clubs. How anyone can argue that three leagues should be at the same level when two cover areas of huge populations and one covers 150k, I really don't know. It's actually hard to believe that this isn't trolling, to be honest. Not much more I can say on this. Literally the only reason for the SoS to be at tier 6 is because it happened to be a senior league for decades. Your arguments are bizarre. The leagues are stacked with East and West clubs because the vast majority of Scotland lives in those areas so it stands to reason that the best clubs will come from the most populous towns. There aren't many SoS-area clubs in the leagues above because it represents such a small population. Any decent SoS clubs move on for a better league (Threave, Annan and Dalbeattie). You've got an SoS left now without its three biggest clubs and very little of quality is left now. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vikingTON Posted June 20, 2022 Share Posted June 20, 2022 (edited) 15 minutes ago, stanley said: How anyone can argue that three leagues should be at the same level when two cover areas of huge populations and one covers 150k, I really don't know. It's actually hard to believe that this isn't trolling, to be honest. Not much more I can say on this. Literally the only reason for the SoS to be at tier 6 is because it happened to be a senior league for decades. Your arguments are bizarre. The leagues are stacked with East and West clubs because the vast majority of Scotland lives in those areas so it stands to reason that the best clubs will come from the most populous towns. Erm yes - and so 'the best clubs' and the most populous towns in the West/East regions are therefore not in tier fucking 6/7/8/9. They've been in the senior leagues at national level for over a hundred fucking years. Your population argument is therefore completely irrelevant and quite frankly moronic. The city of Glasgow is hardly missing out on representation, because of St Cuthbert's Wanderers hogging a tier 6 play-off spot. Edited June 20, 2022 by vikingTON -1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FairWeatherFan Posted June 20, 2022 Share Posted June 20, 2022 On 18/06/2022 at 19:53, stanley said: The gap between the SoS and the WoS is clearly massive. 1 win in 11 matches for SoS sides v others in the South Challenge Cup last season and that was against Bonnyton who were in the SoS not too long ago and were clearly playing miles above their level in the WoS Premier. Go back to 2018-19 onwards and its not pretty. Even including Gretna 2008 & Dalbeattie Star against current Tier 6 or below clubs. Scottish/SCC/Cup Winners Shield 2018-19 Coldstream 4-2 St Cuthbert Wanderers Threave Rovers 0-3 Beith Newton Stewart 0-3 Coldstream Auchinleck Talbot 10-0 Wigtown & Bladnoch Gretna 2008 3-2 Vale of Leithen Abbey Vale 0-5 Broxburn Athletic Dumfries YMCA 0-10 Tynecastle Camelon Juniors 4-0 Heston Rovers Edinburgh United 5-1 Mid-Annandale Coldstream 5-0 Newton Stewart Nithsdale Wanderers 2-11 Penicuik Athletic St Cuthbert Wanderers 0-3 Musselburgh Athletic 2019-20 Mid-Annandale 0-7 Musselburgh Athletic St Cuthbert Wanderers 1-7 Girvan Camelon Juniors 4-0 Newton Stewart Hawick Royal Albert 1-6 Threave Rovers Lothian Thistle HV 5-0 Wigtown & Bladnoch Threave Rovers 0-2 Hill of Beath Hawthorn Gretna 2008 1-0 Hill of Beath Hawthorn Dunbar United 1-0 (aet.) Abbey Vale Creetown 0-5 Craigroyston Ormiston 6-1 Dumfries YMCA Heston Rovers 4-0 Ormiston Heston Rovers 0-6 Linlithgow Rose Glenrothes 3-0 Lochmaben Musselburgh Athletic 5-0 Mid-Annandale Peebles Rovers 2-3 Nithsdale Wanderers Nithsdale Wanderers 1-4 Bonnyton Thistle Blackburn United 8-1 St Cuthbert Wanderers Burntisland Shipyard 1-2 Threave Rovers Tweedmouth Rangers 1-2 Upper Annandale Wigtown & Bladnoch 0-2 Heriot-Watt University Linlithgow Rose 5-1 Gretna 2008 2020-21 Newton Stewart 0-3 Broxburn Athletic Haddington Athletic 3-1 Abbey Vale Broxburn Athletic 6-0 Creetown Vale of Leithen 5-1 Heston Rovers (Abandoned) Lochmaben 3-6 Kirkcaldy & Dysart Dunipace 5-3 Mid-Annandale Newton Stewart 1-3 Yoker Athletic St Cuthbert Wanderers 0-3 Tynecastle Threave Rovers 7-2 Ormiston Forth Wanderers 4-2 Threave Rovers Largs Thistle 2-1 Dalbeattie Star 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stanley Posted June 20, 2022 Share Posted June 20, 2022 Yes, it's fucking moronic to think that a pyramid generally covers a large population in the higher divisions and gets more local as you go down. We should add a borders league at level 6 and have a four-way playoff for the promotion spot. Nowhere near enough borders representation in the SPFL thanks to all those central belt clubs. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stanley Posted June 20, 2022 Share Posted June 20, 2022 2 minutes ago, FairWeatherFan said: Go back to 2018-19 onwards and its not pretty. Even including Gretna 2008 & Dalbeattie Star against current Tier 6 or below clubs. Scottish/SCC/Cup Winners Shield 2018-19 Coldstream 4-2 St Cuthbert Wanderers Threave Rovers 0-3 Beith Newton Stewart 0-3 Coldstream Auchinleck Talbot 10-0 Wigtown & Bladnoch Gretna 2008 3-2 Vale of Leithen Abbey Vale 0-5 Broxburn Athletic Dumfries YMCA 0-10 Tynecastle Camelon Juniors 4-0 Heston Rovers Edinburgh United 5-1 Mid-Annandale Coldstream 5-0 Newton Stewart Nithsdale Wanderers 2-11 Penicuik Athletic St Cuthbert Wanderers 0-3 Musselburgh Athletic 2019-20 Mid-Annandale 0-7 Musselburgh Athletic St Cuthbert Wanderers 1-7 Girvan Camelon Juniors 4-0 Newton Stewart Hawick Royal Albert 1-6 Threave Rovers Lothian Thistle HV 5-0 Wigtown & Bladnoch Threave Rovers 0-2 Hill of Beath Hawthorn Gretna 2008 1-0 Hill of Beath Hawthorn Dunbar United 1-0 (aet.) Abbey Vale Creetown 0-5 Craigroyston Ormiston 6-1 Dumfries YMCA Heston Rovers 4-0 Ormiston Heston Rovers 0-6 Linlithgow Rose Glenrothes 3-0 Lochmaben Musselburgh Athletic 5-0 Mid-Annandale Peebles Rovers 2-3 Nithsdale Wanderers Nithsdale Wanderers 1-4 Bonnyton Thistle Blackburn United 8-1 St Cuthbert Wanderers Burntisland Shipyard 1-2 Threave Rovers Tweedmouth Rangers 1-2 Upper Annandale Wigtown & Bladnoch 0-2 Heriot-Watt University Linlithgow Rose 5-1 Gretna 2008 2020-21 Newton Stewart 0-3 Broxburn Athletic Haddington Athletic 3-1 Abbey Vale Broxburn Athletic 6-0 Creetown Vale of Leithen 5-1 Heston Rovers (Abandoned) Lochmaben 3-6 Kirkcaldy & Dysart Dunipace 5-3 Mid-Annandale Newton Stewart 1-3 Yoker Athletic St Cuthbert Wanderers 0-3 Tynecastle Threave Rovers 7-2 Ormiston Forth Wanderers 4-2 Threave Rovers Largs Thistle 2-1 Dalbeattie Star All of those results are completely irrelevant because St. Cuthbert lost 3-1 at home to Darvel. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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