Too many clubs?

[Gordon EF]

I don't know why so many people are obsessed with dividing the number of clubs playing at 'national' level by the population. 

Scotland isn't that big country in the grand scheme of things. Plus you've got something like 75% of of the population living in a fairly densely populated central belt. Aside from picking out the most extreme examples, travelling simply isn't a massive issue for most clubs.

Look at England, and some of the distances travelled in the northern regionalised leagues. Blyth to Halesowen is almost as big a distance as Elgin to Annan. So comparing Scotland to geographically much larger countries with more even population distribution, doesn't really make sense.

The average travelling distance per season is probably less for clubs in Scottish league 2 than it is for clubs in the regionalised sections of England, France, Germany etc.

[1320Lichtie]

I don't know why so many people are obsessed with dividing the number of clubs playing at 'national' level by the population. 

Scotland isn't that big country in the grand scheme of things. Plus you've got something like 75% of of the population living in a fairly densely populated central belt. Aside from picking out the most extreme examples, travelling simply isn't a massive issue for most clubs.

Look at England, and some of the distances travelled in the northern regionalised leagues. Blyth to Halesowen is almost as big a distance as Elgin to Annan. So comparing Scotland to geographically much larger countries with more even population distribution, doesn't really make sense.

The average travelling distance per season is probably less for clubs in Scottish league 2 than it is for clubs in the regionalised sections of England, France, Germany etc.

It's great, if you were to put all the clubs currently in League 1 and 2 you'd just have a massive cluster from the south side of Glasgow (to Edinburgh) up to Montrose. Which is probably about a 2 hour drive. Must be brilliant being a fan of Stirling or whatever. Slap bang in the middle. Funnily enough the days I enjoy the most are the longer trips, can't wait for Elgin away on the train again.

My mate plays 'regional' junior football coming from Arbroath and still makes journeys down to Broxburn/Haddington/Peniciuk and the like.... Scandalous..

[Gordon EF]

10 minutes ago, cmontheloknow said:

I don't really know where I stand on the 'national/regional' debate for part-time teams. Ultimately if it's affordable, it's doable. However it is not seen as attractive to most part-time teams outwith the set-up and if you want to set up a genuine pyramid which increases in prestige the higher up you go, that's a problem. I vaguely follow a Conference team and the sides in that league are desperate to get out of it and go up. Teams the league below are desperate to get out and go up, and once up, stay up. That just isn't the case in Scotland. To me that suggests there is a misalignment somewhere. The elephant in the room as I see it is the very different outlook on a successful season between the fans of say Albion Rovers and Pollok. AR clearly are at a higher level onfield yet will likely never see silverware unless it's the 3rd Division trophy while supporters of Pollok are so ambitious for the club onfield that losing a game is a catastrophe and a season is only a success if it has a trophy or two in it somewhere. Yes it is big fish in a small pond stuff, but that also makes it hard to reverse the roles. AR fans probably see the silverware on offer as irrelevant while Lok fans might see playing in a system that they have no hope of ever being a success in as a fallacy... that doesn't really happen in the Juniors as fortunes can turn around for clubs and they can go from being the worst to the best with a bit of investment - i.e. Hurlford.

That's an interesting spin on it. I've got to admit, I can't imagine not wanting to be part of the national set up. It's not just silverware but getting promoted, getting the chance to play new teams at a higher level. On the other hand, I do understand why fans want to stick with what they're used to. i suppose there'll be some fear of getting 'lost' in the system. Conversely, I'd imagine there'd be a fair bit of anxiety that the bigger junior clubs would take the place of some of the smaller league clubs.

[Burnie_man]

Who cares if you were at Gayfield? Do you support a senior side? No, you dont

Not that has any bearing on this debate, I have supported a senior side longer than you've been born. So let's leave that to one side and agree your statement about not knowing anything about Senior football a wee bit juvenile on your part.

As for the rest of your post, you've not pointed out one positive, not one other than "its always been".

What benefit is it to Scottish football having 20 or so part time clubs playing games nationally. Answer it specifically, I'm interested.

[1320Lichtie]

Not that has any bearing on this debate, I have supported a senior side longer than you've been born. So let's leave that to one side and agree your statement about not knowing anything about Senior football a wee bit juvenile on your part.

As for the rest of your post, you've not pointed out one positive, not one other than "its always been".

What benefit is it to Scottish football having 20 or so part time clubs playing games nationally. Answer it specifically, I'm interested.

What's the benefit of any team playing nationally?

Answer that however you'd like too and apply the same to part time clubs.

Eta: personally can't see the benefit or difference in Inverness playing Motherwell or Edinburgh City playing Elgin.

[Gordon EF]

3 minutes ago, 1320Lichtie said:

 

It's great, if you were to put all the clubs currently in League 1 and 2 you'd just have a massive cluster from the south side of Glasgow (to Edinburgh) up to Montrose. Which is probably about a 2 hour drive. Must be brilliant being a fan of Stirling or whatever. Slap bang in the middle. Funnily enough the days I enjoy the most are the longer trips, can't wait for Elgin away on the train again.

My mate plays 'regional' junior football coming from Arbroath and still makes journeys down to Broxburn/Haddington/Peniciuk and the like.... Scandalous..

 

Yep, Fife is brilliantly placed as well. Angus and greater Glasgow are easy to get to and it takes barely any time to get to all the central teams. Through in a a few decent journeys every season and it's perfect.

[paranoid android]

Anne Budge did say a few weeks back that there are too many clubs - she's wrong about that.

She wasn't the first to say it, mind.

[Gordon EF]

14 minutes ago, Burnie_man said:

Not that has any bearing on this debate, I have supported a senior side longer than you've been born. So let's leave that to one side and agree your statement about not knowing anything about Senior football a wee bit juvenile on your part.

As for the rest of your post, you've not pointed out one positive, not one other than "its always been".

What benefit is it to Scottish football having 20 or so part time clubs playing games nationally. Answer it specifically, I'm interested.

 

It's a stupid question to be fair. 

What is the aim of Scottish football? Should it all be driven towards improving the national team? Being as economically successful as possible? Providing the most entertainment possible?

Different people have different opinions but how do part time teams even fit into this. PT aren't really the bed-rock of producing players for the national team any more are they? Of course the odd one or two will come through or get experience on loan. National v regional doesn't change this? Financially what difference does it make overall? even if there is a distribution from top to bottom of the league structure, you're talking about denying Alloa the opportunity to sign Jim Goodwin so that Morton might be able to sign an extra striker or something. Who cares?

Entertainment? Scottish football is remarkably well supported. For all its faults and the wailing doom-merchants, lots of people like it. Almost to a man, supporters of PT are saying they don't want this. The only folk that seem to have a pathological desire for it, don't have any interest or stake in PT league football.

PT teams like East Fife are there for players, managers, coaches etc who want to step up to a higher level or aren't good enough for FT but want to play the game at a decent level and for the fans. Regionalisation won't make a difference to the players and the fans despise the idea.

You're suggesting an alternative to the way things are. We're saying we just don't want it and you've yet to come up with any good reason why we should.

[GordonD]

24 minutes ago, paranoid android said:

Anne Budge did say a few weeks back that there are too many clubs - she's wrong about that.

She wasn't the first to say it, mind.

When people say there are too many clubs, it's always other teams that they suggest should amalgamate, never their own.

[Dunning1874]

2 hours ago, Burnie_man said:

It's not a ludicrous argument at all, clubs should be sustainable, take away the handouts and some are not.

Nobody is punting anyone, small clubs playing games regionally makes them more accessible to more fans. Instead of Elgin taking 12 fans to Coatbridge and everyone else sitting at home, they might take 100 to Buckie Thistle which is a good thing.

The relevance of bringing up Spain (or Portugal, or Italy, or Germany etc etc etc) is to illustrate that proportionally, large nations have far less clubs playing nationally. Nations of a similar size to Scotland are lucky to have half the number of clubs playing nationally than we do.

Perhaps you could share the benefits of the current system and persuade me to change my view?

Take away the prize money, 'handouts' as you call them, from the top flight and clubs there aren't sustainable either. This is a total non-sequitur.

The thing about large nations is that they are, eh, larger. So yes, Spain also has 42 clubs playing nationally, but the fact they're a larger country doesn't mean they should have more teams playing nationally, because playing nationally in Spain involves travelling far greater distances than playing nationally in Scotland.

[Burnie_man]

1 hour ago, Gordon EF said:

It's a stupid question to be fair. 

What is the aim of Scottish football? Should it all be driven towards improving the national team? Being as economically successful as possible? Providing the most entertainment possible?

Different people have different opinions but how do part time teams even fit into this. PT aren't really the bed-rock of producing players for the national team any more are they? Of course the odd one or two will come through or get experience on loan. National v regional doesn't change this? Financially what difference does it make overall? even if there is a distribution from top to bottom of the league structure, you're talking about denying Alloa the opportunity to sign Jim Goodwin so that Morton might be able to sign an extra striker or something. Who cares?

Entertainment? Scottish football is remarkably well supported. For all its faults and the wailing doom-merchants, lots of people like it. Almost to a man, supporters of PT are saying they don't want this. The only folk that seem to have a pathological desire for it, don't have any interest or stake in PT league football.

PT teams like East Fife are there for players, managers, coaches etc who want to step up to a higher level or aren't good enough for FT but want to play the game at a decent level and for the fans. Regionalisation won't make a difference to the players and the fans despise the idea.

You're suggesting an alternative to the way things are. We're saying we just don't want it and you've yet to come up with any good reason why we should.

What is a stupid question? I merely asked to lay out the benefits to Scottish football of part time clubs playing nationally. A fair question. Nobody has answered it.

I have come up with a reason why regionalisation is a positive move, which is also what football should be about, accessibility. As I pointed out in a previous post, if playing games closer to home enables more people to watch football -particularly midweek - it's a good thing surely? The example I used was Elgin City. I attended a game at Albion Rovers where there were 12 Elgin fans and for all I know some of them could have been with the club and not really fans at all. That was a Saturday 3.00pm kick-off. Now let's say instead of going to Coatbridge, they had an away game in a regionalised League 2 at Buckie Thistle, or Deveronvale or such like, would more than a dozen have gone? I'm fairly sure many more would have. That's not to mention the fact currently you're faced with making these trips twice a season which has to be monotonous.

Now perhaps the die hards who go to every game are happy with things as they are, but what of those fans who cant go to all away games, either through finance or circumstances but can go fairly locally, maybe a 45 minute drive instead of 4 hours to Coatbridge? Remember, we're talking about part-time football at tier 4 level which isn't a million miles away in standard to Junior Superleague, its a great level of football which is much more locally based. Not all fans of SPFL clubs "despise" the idea of regionalisation, some can actually recognise the benefits, probably those who during a season watch a bit of both SPFL and non-league.

We need to make the game more attractive to people who don't go every week. Continuing to do the same thing season after season after season isn't going to achieve this.

 

 

[Burnie_man]

44 minutes ago, Dunning1874 said:

Take away the prize money, 'handouts' as you call them, from the top flight and clubs there aren't sustainable either. This is a total non-sequitur.

The thing about large nations is that they are, eh, larger. So yes, Spain also has 42 clubs playing nationally, but the fact they're a larger country doesn't mean they should have more teams playing nationally, because playing nationally in Spain involves travelling far greater distances than playing nationally in Scotland.

Well there's the thing, perhaps the money should be ring fenced to a smaller pool of clubs playing nationally? I mean as pointed out above by Gordon, PT clubs rarely produce players for the national team, and they never represent Scotland in Europe so perhaps given our resources we should direct the money towards the clubs that do?   if large Junior clubs can thrive without any "handouts" at all playing reigonally, then I'm sure Montrose, Forfar, Stenny and the like can do as well. Cut their cloth to suit.

Belgium have 24 clubs playing nationally, Denmark 26, Slovakia only have 12, all comparable land mass to Scotland, some smaller.

[Redstarstranraer]

The idea of regionalisation at League One or Two level isn't wanted by the fans or the clubs who want to and are capable of playing in a national league set up, so that ought to be the end of it.

As has been said above without prize money no Scottish club would probably be financially viable, or at least every Scottish club would have to make serious financial adjustments without it.  The argument is always that the top sides are the ones that generate the income due, primarily, to the sponsorship etc their profile brings but it's evident that the smaller clubs do generate revenue for the league from the same sources so I'm yet to be convinced they are heavily 'subsidised' by the larger sides.  Certainly they're not the recipients of huge sums of 'trickle down' wealth anyway so any improvement the big teams would see if they got the whole pie would be marginal at best once they divvied it up between them.

I'm not buying any talk of a smaller league with more money producing better players either, how does that work exactly?  Scottish players won't get better just because they're better paid.  Anyway who cares?  Even if it is true the smaller clubs are a net beneficiary from the current set up they also provide the opposition for the bigger sides in the cup, fill out the leagues that the likes of Morton or Dunfermline occasionally find themselves playing in and to some degree provide them with an actual avenue for player development through the loan system and the occasional actual signing, so it isn't like they provide absolutely nothing in return.  Scottish football at that level is actually pretty decent for the size of nation we are, and we ought to be proud of that. 

Why would or should fans of P/T clubs care about not playing in Europe or not producing players for the national side?  That's not why they support their clubs.  I don't even really care that much about Hibs players getting in the Scotland squad, it's nice if they do but if they don't I'm not going to suddenly stop going.  Likewise the odd European game is great but if we don't play in one for a few seasons I'm not all that concerned, it's just a bonus really.  I also really don't care how other Scottish sides do in continental competition, why should I?  I don't worry about the number of coefficient points we have or how many qualifying rounds Celtic have to go through as these things are nothing to do with why I watch Scottish football.  Certainly I don't see why Montrose or Peterhead fans are meant to be concerned about any of that.

Carping about the size of crowds isn't really relevant when the fans of the clubs concerned are happy to watch a national league set up and don't want to watch regional leagues. In the case of Stranraer certainly there's little interest, as it wouldn't mean that much shorter trips with the exception of maybe 4-6 away fixtures each season depending on which teams are in the league.  Crowds aren't always good I admit and sometimes, Elgin away or Berwick (which is actually a nightmare journey from Stranraer despite being in the south) I've been one of only a handful of away supporters.  If we were playing Annan or maybe Girvan say season after season I can't see us suddenly getting 1000 every week, or even an extra couple of hundred frankly.  And evidently constantly playing the same 'local' sides would get just as monotonous as the current set up, probably more so.  The argument about increased attendances is just speculation and might well not be borne out in practice.  

Football isn't about accessibility, it isn't really about anything.  Fans support a club because they have an affinity to it and go to games because they enjoy it.  Stranraer are the only senior side for about 50 miles and you'd think therefore that lots of football fans who happen to live locally would go see a game because it was the only show in town.  They don't.  There seems to be this idea that if it were suddenly the case that most games were a 'local rivalry' fans would suddenly materialise, but they won't because in many cases they aren't there anyway.  I've never met a Stranraer fan who said they wanted to play in a regional league and I doubt most fans of senior sides are the least bit interested.  If Elgin wanted to play Deveronvale or Brora every week they'd presumably just resign from League Two and rejoin the Highland League, but I'm guessing they don't and won't. 

As has been said above Spain, Germany and Italy are larger so totally incomparable, and English regionalised leagues often feature longer trips than the Scottish national set up.  This season in the National League North Darlington will travel to Gloucester and Brackley (Northamptonshire).  In the South Truro will go to Margate.  Those are long journeys.  In any case most of the Scottish population and hence clubs are within about two hours of each other, so really distance isn't a huge issue here.  

Scottish football doesn't need to try and reach some artificial 'ideal' or 'average' number of clubs; we clearly can support a 42 team national league set up, we have been doing for years, so I don't see the need to 'rationalise' it all of a sudden just because it's larger than the norm in the rest of Europe.

I find it interesting that often fans of junior sides (or premiership sides for that matter) are quite vocal about the national league format of League One and Two being a 'problem' when it really has next to no impact on their teams.  By all means correct me if I'm wrong but it also seems that some fans of junior sides seem to want these leagues regionalised either just to mirror their set up, because they have some sort of belief in its innate superiority, or on the basis that if we regionalise the lower senior leagues they might want to join.  Don't care about that, if a junior side wants to play against the likes of Stranraer or Arbroath join the pyramid and prepare to play national football, as that's what we intend to keep doing, because that's what we want to do.  

I really don't see why these clubs should be forced to regionalise on the basis of some spurious financial benefit which they don't need, a spurious player development benefit which doesn't exist, or the promise of more 'local' games that the fans don't want.

 

[1320Lichtie]

What is a stupid question? I merely asked to lay out the benefits to Scottish football of part time clubs playing nationally. A fair question. Nobody has answered it.

I have come up with a reason why regionalisation is a positive move, which is also what football should be about, accessibility. As I pointed out in a previous post, if playing games closer to home enables more people to watch football -particularly midweek - it's a good thing surely? The example I used was Elgin City. I attended a game at Albion Rovers where there were 12 Elgin fans and for all I know some of them could have been with the club and not really fans at all. That was a Saturday 3.00pm kick-off. Now let's say instead of going to Coatbridge, they had an away game in a regionalised League 2 at Buckie Thistle, or Deveronvale or such like, would more than a dozen have gone? I'm fairly sure many more would have. That's not to mention the fact currently you're faced with making these trips twice a season which has to be monotonous.

Now perhaps the die hards who go to every game are happy with things as they are, but what of those fans who cant go to all away games, either through finance or circumstances but can go fairly locally, maybe a 45 minute drive instead of 4 hours to Coatbridge? Remember, we're talking about part-time football at tier 4 level which isn't a million miles away in standard to Junior Superleague, its a great level of football which is much more locally based. Not all fans of SPFL clubs "despise" the idea of regionalisation, some can actually recognise the benefits, probably those who during a season watch a bit of both SPFL and non-league.

We need to make the game more attractive to people who don't go every week. Continuing to do the same thing season after season after season isn't going to achieve this.

 

 

Or a regionalised league 2 game at Wick?

You're using certain fixtures to suit your argument

As pointed out its only clubs like Elgin/Peterhead/Annan/Berwick and Stranraer that are faced with these lengthy trips, and they don't seem to care. Annan were desperate to join the league when they did.

Eta: as were the club your using as your example!!!

[1320Lichtie]

Out of interest what senior team do you support?

[1320Lichtie]

The idea of regionalisation at League One or Two level isn't wanted by the fans or the clubs who want to and are capable of playing in a national league set up, so that ought to be the end of it.

As has been said above without prize money no Scottish club would probably be financially viable, or at least every Scottish club would have to make serious financial adjustments without it.  The argument is always that the top sides are the ones that generate the income due, primarily, to the sponsorship etc their profile brings but it's evident that the smaller clubs do generate revenue for the league from the same sources so I'm yet to be convinced they are heavily 'subsidised' by the larger sides.  Certainly they're not the recipients of huge sums of 'trickle down' wealth anyway so any improvement the big teams would see if they got the whole pie would be marginal at best once they divvied it up between them.

I'm not buying any talk of a smaller league with more money producing better players either, how does that work exactly?  Scottish players won't get better just because they're better paid.  Anyway who cares?  Even if it is true the smaller clubs are a net beneficiary from the current set up they also provide the opposition for the bigger sides in the cup, fill out the leagues that the likes of Morton or Dunfermline occasionally find themselves playing in and to some degree provide them with an actual avenue for player development through the loan system and the occasional actual signing, so it isn't like they provide absolutely nothing in return.  Scottish football at that level is actually pretty decent for the size of nation we are, and we ought to be proud of that. 

Why would or should fans of P/T clubs care about not playing in Europe or not producing players for the national side?  That's not why they support their clubs.  I don't even really care that much about Hibs players getting in the Scotland squad, it's nice if they do but if they don't I'm not going to suddenly stop going.  Likewise the odd European game is great but if we don't play in one for a few seasons I'm not all that concerned, it's just a bonus really.  I also really don't care how other Scottish sides do in continental competition, why should I?  I don't worry about the number of coefficient points we have or how many qualifying rounds Celtic have to go through as these things are nothing to do with why I watch Scottish football.  Certainly I don't see why Montrose or Peterhead fans are meant to be concerned about any of that.

Carping about the size of crowds isn't really relevant when the fans of the clubs concerned are happy to watch a national league set up and don't want to watch regional leagues. In the case of Stranraer certainly there's little interest, as it wouldn't mean that much shorter trips with the exception of maybe 4-6 away fixtures each season depending on which teams are in the league.  Crowds aren't always good I admit and sometimes, Elgin away or Berwick (which is actually a nightmare journey from Stranraer despite being in the south) I've been one of only a handful of away supporters.  If we were playing Annan or maybe Girvan say season after season I can't see us suddenly getting 1000 every week, or even an extra couple of hundred frankly.  And evidently constantly playing the same 'local' sides would get just as monotonous as the current set up, probably more so.  The argument about increased attendances is just speculation and might well not be borne out in practice.  

Football isn't about accessibility, it isn't really about anything.  Fans support a club because they have an affinity to it and go to games because they enjoy it.  Stranraer are the only senior side for about 50 miles and you'd think therefore that lots of football fans who happen to live locally would go see a game because it was the only show in town.  They don't.  There seems to be this idea that if it were suddenly the case that most games were a 'local rivalry' fans would suddenly materialise, but they won't because in many cases they aren't there anyway.  I've never met a Stranraer fan who said they wanted to play in a regional league and I doubt most fans of senior sides are the least bit interested.  If Elgin wanted to play Deveronvale or Brora every week they'd presumably just resign from League Two and rejoin the Highland League, but I'm guessing they don't and won't. 

As has been said above Spain, Germany and Italy are larger so totally incomparable, and English regionalised leagues often feature longer trips than the Scottish national set up.  This season in the National League North Darlington will travel to Gloucester and Brackley (Northamptonshire).  In the South Truro will go to Margate.  Those are long journeys.  In any case most of the Scottish population and hence clubs are within about two hours of each other, so really distance isn't a huge issue here.  

Scottish football doesn't need to try and reach some artificial 'ideal' or 'average' number of clubs; we clearly can support a 42 team national league set up, we have been doing for years, so I don't see the need to 'rationalise' it all of a sudden just because it's larger than the norm in the rest of Europe.

I find it interesting that often fans of junior sides (or premiership sides for that matter) are quite vocal about the national league format of League One and Two being a 'problem' when it really has next to no impact on their teams.  By all means correct me if I'm wrong but it also seems that some fans of junior sides seem to want these leagues regionalised either just to mirror their set up, because they have some sort of belief in its innate superiority, or on the basis that if we regionalise the lower senior leagues they might want to join.  Don't care about that, if a junior side wants to play against the likes of Stranraer or Arbroath join the pyramid and prepare to play national football, as that's what we intend to keep doing, because that's what we want to do.  

I really don't see why these clubs should be forced to regionalise on the basis of some spurious financial benefit which they don't need, a spurious player development benefit which doesn't exist, or the promise of more 'local' games that the fans don't want.

 

You're a very good poster

Several posts now I've been reading that I've thought 'f**k sake that's exactly what I've been thinking but no been able to say'

A Telt if I've ever seen one

Money's on Burnie man being a Sevco fan or something.

[Redstarstranraer]

3 minutes ago, 1320Lichtie said:

 

You're a very good poster

Several posts now I've been reading that I've thought 'f**k sake that's exactly what I've been thinking but no been able to say'

Telt if I've ever seen one

Money's on Burnie man being a Sevco fan or something.

 

Cheers, stuff like this can set me off on a bit of rant now and again so good to hear not everyone is totally bored by them.  

[Burnie_man]

2 minutes ago, Redstarstranraer said:

The idea of regionalisation at League One or Two level isn't wanted by the fans or the clubs who want to and are capable of playing in a national league set up, so that ought to be the end of it.

 

We should look at the game as a whole and make decisions based on what is in the best interests of moving the game forward, that is what Ann Budge is driving at although I don't agree with everything that she believes in eg merging clubs.

I personally believe the game needs a radical shake up, we need to be brave and make brave decisions. If we started with a blank sheet of paper we would not have 42 clubs playing nationally of which roughly half were part-time. So if we wouldn't do it in an ideal world, why persevere with it?

Football should be all about accessibility, it should be about your club being part of your community, and for that community to be motivated enough to support the club every week home and away and follow it to the best level it can achieve and if that means playing nationally, great. Playing nationally should be an achievement, for the very best, not a historical right and not based on whether you are capable of it or not otherwise we could invite even more part-time clubs into the set-up, have a League 3 and League 4.

Until Scottish football grasps the nettle and sets self-interest aside, then we'll carry on as we are and at the moment, it's not looking good.

 

[Gordon EF]

59 minutes ago, Burnie_man said:

What is a stupid question? I merely asked to lay out the benefits to Scottish football of part time clubs playing nationally. A fair question. Nobody has answered it.

I have come up with a reason why regionalisation is a positive move, which is also what football should be about, accessibility. As I pointed out in a previous post, if playing games closer to home enables more people to watch football -particularly midweek - it's a good thing surely? The example I used was Elgin City. I attended a game at Albion Rovers where there were 12 Elgin fans and for all I know some of them could have been with the club and not really fans at all. That was a Saturday 3.00pm kick-off. Now let's say instead of going to Coatbridge, they had an away game in a regionalised League 2 at Buckie Thistle, or Deveronvale or such like, would more than a dozen have gone? I'm fairly sure many more would have. That's not to mention the fact currently you're faced with making these trips twice a season which has to be monotonous.

Now perhaps the die hards who go to every game are happy with things as they are, but what of those fans who cant go to all away games, either through finance or circumstances but can go fairly locally, maybe a 45 minute drive instead of 4 hours to Coatbridge? Remember, we're talking about part-time football at tier 4 level which isn't a million miles away in standard to Junior Superleague, its a great level of football which is much more locally based. Not all fans of SPFL clubs "despise" the idea of regionalisation, some can actually recognise the benefits, probably those who during a season watch a bit of both SPFL and non-league.

We need to make the game more attractive to people who don't go every week. Continuing to do the same thing season after season after season isn't going to achieve this.

Because it's vague and, as I said, there's no agreed objective about what would make Scottish football 'good' or 'better'.

I simply don't buy your "accessibility" argument. For most clubs in Leagues 1 and 2, regionalisation would have very little effect on journey times. The majority of away games are within very easy travelling distance for most clubs. You're always going to get outliers (Elgin, Peterhead, Annan, Stranraer, Berwick) but the other 15 are relatively close to each other. So hypothetically, what would be the sum increase in crowds you'd expect by regionalising the bottom 2 leagues, assuming there's no negative impact at all? A modest increase in away crowds in maybe 25% of fixtures? 

I'm not sure what kind of setup you're actually imagining but who's to say how many times a season teams would face each other. You're not proposing a concrete alternative, just some vague idea of everything being better with regionalisation.

You're continually picking the most extreme examples without accepting the vast majority of teams in League's 1 and 2 don't have an issue with travelling that would be solved by regionalisation. You can tell us all about the 12 Elgin fans at Coatbridge all you like, it doesn't really change that.

I'm not necessarily wedded to the way things are right now. I'd like to see an expanded pyramid. Personally, I'd favour a national tier 3 made predominantly of current L1 and 2 sides with a decent pyramid structure underneath, even if that did mean we reduced the number of national places from 42.

[parsforlife]

The elephant in the room as I see it is the very different outlook on a successful season between the fans of say Albion Rovers and Pollok. AR clearly are at a higher level onfield yet will likely never see silverware unless it's the 3rd Division trophy while supporters of Pollok are so ambitious for the club onfield that losing a game is a catastrophe and a season is only a success if it has a trophy or two in it somewhere. Yes it is big fish in a small pond stuff, but that also makes it hard to reverse the roles. AR fans probably see the silverware on offer as irrelevant while Lok fans might see playing in a system that they have no hope of ever being a success in as a fallacy... that doesn't really happen in the Juniors as fortunes can turn around for clubs and they can go from being the worst to the best with a bit of investment - i.e. Hurlford.

If you aren't willing to enter harder competitions because you might not win them you shouldn't be involved in football, it's about being as good as you can be, If that doesn't interest you then there's something seriously fucked in your mindset.

AR have tasted a fair bit of success recently, and I highly doubt the fact nobody gave them a 'best team in Coatbridge' trophy diminishes that to them. and even with the relatively large size pollock hardly are that used to winning things each season, you haven't won your regions lesgue, major trophy or the Junior cup in nearly a decade. Do the jumble sale everyone's a winner trophies really excite you that much?