National Conference League

[lithgierose]

4 minutes ago, CambieBud said:

Has any club come out and stated that they support this nonsense?

 

Good question. Is it a secret ballot vote aswell ?. 

[CambieBud]

Just now, lithgierose said:

Good question. Is it a secret ballot vote aswell ?. 

Who knows. St Mirren have balloted members so I’m delighted to report that we will definitively vote No, as will Motherwell and Livingston. The others in the top league have been silent in public

[Footballfirst]

Bill Leckie at the Sun calls it out.

https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/sport/football/10742343/english-football-fairytale-luton-scottish-play-off-bill-leckie/

ENGLISH football lives for the kind of fairytale Luton Town have written. Scottish football, in contrast, dreads them.

You only have to compare our play-offs to theirs to know that for sure. If the Hatters were playing by our rules, they would have had to beat Sunderland over two legs, then Coventry over two legs, then Leicester over two more legs, with the second one away from home. And the chances are that schedule would have broken them, the way it’s broken all but two Championship sides here in the decade since the system was put in place.

Instead, though, Luton were given a sporting chance. They had to finish in the top six of 24, win a two-legged semi, then a one-off showpiece at Wembley — and the doors to the Promised Land opened and showered them with riches.

The fact that they were playing non-league nine years ago?  The fact their Kenilworth Road ground is a century-old, 10,000-capacity throwback tucked in among Coronation Street-style back alleys? And the fact 99 per cent of Big Team fans couldn’t pick out any of their players in an ID parade? Well, all that only adds to the romance of it.

The very thought of Erling Haaland stooping to get out of their teeny-tiny tunnel, of fans hanging over the barriers to yell in Jack Grealish’s ear, this and so much more only makes the prospect of them dining at the top table all the more exciting.

Here, though? Luton would be a nuisance. They would be in the way. They would be caned for not being able to give Old Firm fans enough tickets. But then, that’s what happens when your country’s footballing pyramid’s built the wrong way up. Down south, they have created a pathway that would allow a club to start out on a public park and end up at Old Trafford.

They love nothing more than the kind of rags-to-riches story that saw Luton vote for the introduction of the Premier League in 1992, only to be relegated before its first season. Since then, they have fallen down the divisions like a stone to spend five years stuck in the fifth tier, then found a way to climb back, rung by rung, all the way to the top. Because this is no Gretna charade, a castle built on straw. They have no sugar daddy, just a hard-working board working within their means. In an EFL Championship where 23 players have cost more than £10million, Luton have only spent £1m-plus twice in their puff.

At the heart of everything they have done is a guy called Pelly-Ruddock Mpanzu, who joined them in 2014. And who, on Saturday, became the first player to scrap his way from Conference to Premier League with the same club.

So I, for one, would absolutely, Kevin Keegan-style, love it if a Brechin City or an East Kilbride or a Darvel did what Luton have done, by grafting through the levels to go toe-to-toe with Celtic, Rangers, Aberdeen, Hearts and the rest of what we call our elite. That, however, is the problem — we actually believe they are ‘an elite’. Which is why the system’s set up to protect them. But while no team is too big to go down from England’s top flight, here we give the second-bottom side in the Premiership a dog’s chance to save their skin. Here, we force those who miss out on the one automatic promotion spot to grind each other down, before making them take on a team from the higher level to be allowed to progress.

Worse still, the SFA are now planning to shoehorn in their own version of a Conference. Rather than giving ambitious outfits more hope of making it big, it pushes them all — Highland, Lowland, West of Scotland and the rest — down another level. And adds at least another year to what’s already a journey laced with broken glass and razor wire. See what I mean about the Pyramid being upside down? We seem to want nothing more or less than the status quo, and for everyone to accept it.

As I’ve written so many times, until that changes our game will quite simply just never get to celebrate the kind of occasion that Luton Town and Coventry City were part of on Saturday. We have to expand the Premiership so every point isn’t a prisoner, and to get rid of the artificial excuse for real excitement that is the split.

We need to make the Championship bigger and merge League One and League Two, so the likes of Stranraer and Elgin City visit each other once a season rather than twice. We need to make it a straight two down from every division. If we must have play-offs, then make them purely between clubs from the same division, with two-legged semi-finals and a one-off final at a packed-out neutral venue.

Oh, and you can stick that Conference idea where the sun don’t shine. Because if the top clubs need somewhere for their second-string sides to play, they can always go back to — oh, what was it called again? — a reserve league.

Sensible policies for a happier game, I hope you’d agree. But, hey, let’s not hold our breath for common sense to catch on any time soon.

[Burnieman]

Far be it from me to praise that rag, or that numpty, but fair do's he has absolutely nailed it.

[Spyro]

23 minutes ago, Burnieman said:

Far be it from me to praise that rag, or that numpty, but fair do's he has absolutely nailed it.

I've always thought he knew his stuff, but just gets too caught up in all the nonsense around him sometimes. Albeit this is the 1st report of his I've read for about 10 years  

[welshbairn]

Went to Clach's meeting tonight, a big NO from them. They don't think it will pass the AGM and it's too late for the SFA to withdraw the motion. Also thought that any Highland League sides who were wavering have probably swung to NO after getting clarification from the SFA, except for maybe Brechin.

[Burnieman]

How many Lowland clubs have declared?

 

Also, how many actual voting clubs are there, plus hangers on like local FA's?  what's the total of number of votes possible?

Edited May 30, 2023 by Burnieman

[Ginaro]

14 minutes ago, Burnieman said:

How many Lowland clubs have declared?

The NoToBTeams twitter is keeping track of teams here: (doesn't include affiliated or national associations though)

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZaaVK-gDcjeZX88quxBfxlBL64AGDpViEqwbHTAUvrw/edit#gid=503625374

Caley Braves, CSS, Cumbernauld, East Stirling, Tranent.

Edited May 30, 2023 by Ginaro

[LongTimeLurker]

Think there are 108 possible votes once extras like regional FAs and affiliated national FAs are factored in but forget where I saw that.

[parsforlife]

24 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

. They don't think it will pass the AGM and it's too late for the SFA to withdraw the motion..

I did wonder if beales comments were limbering up along those lines,  the OF at spfl level at least have a tendency to suggest things, get positive feedback from the board, go to clubs and put out media feelers before quickly withdrawing and never putting a formal proposal when the realise the have no chance.

I reckon they and Maxwell have massively underestimated resistance here, possibly thinking the LL would be up for it and are noticing too late they can’t quietly withdraw and pretend it was just brainstorming.   At least I hope so

[Burnieman]

56 minutes ago, parsforlife said:

I did wonder if beales comments were limbering up along those lines,  the OF at spfl level at least have a tendency to suggest things, get positive feedback from the board, go to clubs and put out media feelers before quickly withdrawing and never putting a formal proposal when the realise the have no chance.

I reckon they and Maxwell have massively underestimated resistance here, possibly thinking the LL would be up for it and are noticing too late they can’t quietly withdraw and pretend it was just brainstorming.   At least I hope so

They really need to be shown up, embarrassed, and Maxwell's position under pressure.

[welshbairn]

49 minutes ago, parsforlife said:

I did wonder if beales comments were limbering up along those lines,  the OF at spfl level at least have a tendency to suggest things, get positive feedback from the board, go to clubs and put out media feelers before quickly withdrawing and never putting a formal proposal when the realise the have no chance.

I reckon they and Maxwell have massively underestimated resistance here, possibly thinking the LL would be up for it and are noticing too late they can’t quietly withdraw and pretend it was just brainstorming.   At least I hope so

I got the impression that the leagues and clubs were told it was happening without a vote, a done deal as the message kept on being recycled through the likes of the Mail, Thomas Brown and Official Catch Up. Not sure if there always was going to have to be a vote at the SFA AGM, or if the SFA bottled it given the resistance, or if they just lied to the leagues and clubs.

[parsforlife]

5 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

I got the impression that the leagues and clubs were told it was happening without a vote, a done deal as the message kept on being recycled through the likes of the Mail, Thomas Brown and Official Catch Up. Not sure if there always was going to have to be a vote at the SFA AGM, or if the SFA bottled it given the resistance, or if they just lied to the leagues and clubs.

I think it always needed a vote, but the arrogance at the top table thought it would ease through.  Maxwell has history of thinking his position gave him far more power than it actually did tho

i also think the done deal message was aimed to minimise resistance by hoping everyone would be too scared to look the lone sheep voting against.

SFA votes also typically go quite smoothly as they are not often of a controversial nature. Votes like accepting WoS league into the pyramid were never going to face problems for example.

[welshbairn]

5 minutes ago, parsforlife said:

I think it always needed a vote, but the arrogance at the top table thought it would ease through.  Maxwell has history of thinking his position gave him far more power than it actually did tho

i also think the done deal message was aimed to minimise resistance by hoping everyone would be too scared to look the lone sheep voting against.

SFA votes also typically go quite smoothly as they are not often of a controversial nature. Votes like accepting WoS league into the pyramid were never going to face problems for example.

Some club chairmen were told categorically that it was a done deal and there would be no need for a vote. Which was probably why the Highland League negotiated down from 4 teams to 2 for something they were told was happening whatever they thought about it.

Edited May 30, 2023 by welshbairn

[parsforlife]

1 minute ago, welshbairn said:

Some club chairmen were told categorically that it was a done deal and there would be no need for a vote. 

Those chairmen need to publicly out whatever lying snake told them that 

[Sergeant Wilson]

18 minutes ago, parsforlife said:

I think it always needed a vote, but the arrogance at the top table thought it would ease through.  Maxwell has history of thinking his position gave him far more power than it actually did tho

i also think the done deal message was aimed to minimise resistance by hoping everyone would be too scared to look the lone sheep voting against.

SFA votes also typically go quite smoothly as they are not often of a controversial nature. Votes like accepting WoS league into the pyramid were never going to face problems for example.

Maxwell has history of not knowing the fucking rules.

[welshbairn]

7 minutes ago, parsforlife said:

Those chairmen need to publicly out whatever lying snake told them that 

The first person I'd ask is the chairman of the Lowland League, Mr Thomas Brown.

[Burnieman]

9 minutes ago, Sergeant Wilson said:

Maxwell has history of not knowing the fucking rules. anything

Amended for accuracy.

[Dev]

2 hours ago, parsforlife said:

I think it always needed a vote, but the arrogance at the top table thought it would ease through.  Maxwell has history of thinking his position gave him far more power than it actually did tho

i also think the done deal message was aimed to minimise resistance by hoping everyone would be too scared to look the lone sheep voting against.

SFA votes also typically go quite smoothly as they are not often of a controversial nature. Votes like accepting WoS league into the pyramid were never going to face problems for example.

"i also think the done deal message was aimed to minimise resistance by hoping everyone would be too scared to look the lone sheep voting against."

THIS.

Now it is time to make big changes to the SFA and to prevent further ill thought out little schemes. Thought the article by the Sun journalist showed that there are people out there who see through the SFA/OF smoke and mirrors approach and their shambolic idea about how to improve the national team. More should speak up until the pressure reaches the SFA/OF and they can be appropriately attended to and Scottish football returned to the top of the list of SFA priorities once and for all.

[Bestsinceslicebread]

3 hours ago, welshbairn said:

The first person I'd ask is the chairman of the Lowland League, Mr Thomas Brown.

He has been got at, no doubt.  On Official Catch up he was very clear and concise that it was a done deal not matter what the Highland and Lowlands voted. So basically letting the lowland and highland fall in line and vote yes.  

Edited May 31, 2023 by Bestsinceslicebread