National Conference League

[Pyramid Watcher]

27 minutes ago, Burnieman said:

"The main Board consists of eight members: the Scottish FA Office Bearers (Rod Petrie, President; Ian Maxwell, Chief Executive; and Michael Mulraney, Vice President), plus Neil Doncaster (PGB), Leslie Gray, Thomas McKeown (NPGB) and independent non-executive directors, Ana Stewart and Malcolm Kpedekpo."

When Mike Mulraney (Alloa) is crowned at the AGM, I believe Les Gray and Tom McKeown are in line for VP, meaning one of them is next, ie a choice between Hamilton Accies guy and the Scottish Amateur FA bod. Wonder why the SFA is going to shit?

Les Gray is the only nominee for VP.

[Connor7]

Queens Park board must be having a laugh. Imagine the board meeting when they decided to have an interest in this 

"Do we finish our tinpot effort of a stadium"  nah don't bother lets get a B team introduced who will have no where to play like our first team.

Good to see the Queens Park Supporters club have reacted to this already on Social Media. Supporters are very important here, without voicing any opinion...certain boards will try and do what they want.

[Gordon EF]

1 hour ago, Burnieman said:

The two examples I provided were a Saturday afternoon.  The fixture clearly didn't appeal to the visiting clubs fans, and from what I understand, it's fairly common to have so few traveling these sort of distances, just the real diehards.

Yeah, you brought up two example of Saturdays after mentioning Elgin and Stranraer playing midweek.

Of course Elgin are likely to bring fewer fans to Stirling or Coatbridge than most SPFL central belt clubs would.

[cowdenbeath]

49 minutes ago, Connor7 said:

Queens Park board must be having a laugh. Imagine the board meeting when they decided to have an interest in this 

"Do we finish our tinpot effort of a stadium"  nah don't bother lets get a B team introduced who will have no where to play like our first team.

Good to see the Queens Park Supporters club have reacted to this already on Social Media. Supporters are very important here, without voicing any opinion...certain boards will try and do what they want.

They have forgotten their roots quickly. If they didn't have a sugar daddy financing their team they would have ended up in the conference or lowland league the right way.

 

[Burnieman]

23 minutes ago, Gordon EF said:

Yeah, you brought up two example of Saturdays after mentioning Elgin and Stranraer playing midweek.

Of course Elgin are likely to bring fewer fans to Stirling or Coatbridge than most SPFL central belt clubs would.

Of course, but it does illustrate IMO the daftness of national football at that level, and probably why some leading HL clubs are reluctant.  A replica at tier 5 with B teams is of course even more daft.

[Sparticus]

Queens park B?

Where would that team sit in the leagues if they were left to find a natural league position?

One of the west of Scotland leagues?  Perhaps not even in the premier division.

[Cowden Cowboy]

39 minutes ago, Burnieman said:

Of course, but it does illustrate IMO the daftness of national football at that level, and probably why some leading HL clubs are reluctant.  A replica at tier 5 with B teams is of course even more daft.

No it doesn’t because SPFL teams have the funding available to play at National Level - while Tier 5 has next to nothing 

[rockson]

22 hours ago, Deanburn Dave said:

I would guess that 99.99% of P&B posters don't care.

Still leaves 0.001 % who do .....

Edited May 15, 2023 by rockson

[rockson]

7 hours ago, Connor7 said:

Well done Aberdeen.  Hopefully this gets the ball rolling for more clubs to come out and express there opinion on this sham of a proposed league.

They didn't say they'd vote against the idea ....

[Dev]

7 hours ago, Pyramid Watcher said:

If you think he actually gives a flying fcuk about this then you are mistaken, he will still pick up his £300k per year regardless of the outcome.

Not being bothered about this mess which he is guiding is his weakness.

[Dev]

7 hours ago, Greenmachine said:

Maxwell is only putting out what’s been agreed by the SFA Board.

Good enough reason for them all to go!

[Pyramid Watcher]

Just now, Dev said:

Good enough reason for them all to go!

Unfortunately it’s one big gravy train up at Hampden.

[Dev]

6 minutes ago, Pyramid Watcher said:

Unfortunately it’s one big gravy train up at Hampden.

No trains stay on track for ever.

[Burnieman]

1 hour ago, Cowden Cowboy said:

No it doesn’t because SPFL teams have the funding available to play at National Level - while Tier 5 has next to nothing 

Yes it does, to me, it's a personal opinion. Playing football nationally at tier 4 in front of small crowds and reliant on SPFL funding makes absolutely no sense.   I appreciate not everyone agrees, but there you go.

Edited May 15, 2023 by Burnieman

[Gordon EF]

2 hours ago, Burnieman said:

Of course, but it does illustrate IMO the daftness of national football at that level, and probably why some leading HL clubs are reluctant.  A replica at tier 5 with B teams is of course even more daft.

But the same is true for every level. I'm sure much fewer Ross County fans travel to Kilmarnock than, say, Motherwell fans. ICT fans to Hamilton than Partick fans, Peterhead fans to Kelty than Clyde fans. I'm sure we could shake out anecdotes about small crowds at every single level.

I'm pretty confident we'd see some miniscule away crowds in the Lowland and Highland Leagues.

Edited May 15, 2023 by Gordon EF

[Deanburn Dave]

1 hour ago, rockson said:

Still leaves 0.001 % who do .....

It is actually 0.01 % Rockson. 

You van have an A+ for English and a  D- for Arithmetic.

 

[Deanburn Dave]

The ridiculous suggestion of the participation of Queens Park B's is surely the final nail in the Conference coffin.

How out of touch are these muppets ?!!

[RossBFaeDundee]

1 minute ago, Deanburn Dave said:

The ridiculous suggestion of the participation of Queens Park B's is surely the final nail in the Conference coffin.

How out of touch are these muppets ?!!

It really does feel like a last desperate suggestion which should hardly place any confidence in voting teams of the sustainability of this proposed setup.

[Black Pennel]

1 hour ago, Deanburn Dave said:

It is actually 0.01 % Rockson. 

You van have an A+ for English and a  D- for Arithmetic.

 

Maybe he wasn't counting the ones who don't care enough either way.

If you take out the abstainers, that just leaves him & myself. His figures are correct

[Burnieman]

2 hours ago, Gordon EF said:

But the same is true for every level. I'm sure much fewer Ross County fans travel to Kilmarnock than, say, Motherwell fans. ICT fans to Hamilton than Partick fans, Peterhead fans to Kelty than Clyde fans. I'm sure we could shake out anecdotes about small crowds at every single level.

I'm pretty confident we'd see some miniscule away crowds in the Lowland and Highland Leagues.

There's a big difference to 200 making the effort to 12.   I have spoken to friends of lower league SPFL clubs who have on occasion said they saw no away fans at all, or at least so few they couldn't identify them. Probably pretty rare, but still.   IMO that's not good for the game, we need to find a way of encouraging more people to attend games and that includes away supports. 

I'm fairly sure that on a regular basis there would be more Elgin fans at HL away games than SPFL, does that make the HL a more attractive proposition to an Elgin fan? I don't know any so I don't know, but there does seem to be a reluctance in HL circles to move to League 2 and I absolutely understand it. The Conference must be an even more unpalatable prospect for those up north.