A STATEMENT FROM THE BEECHWOOD REGENERATION COMMITTEE

[AlanCamelonfan]

19 minutes ago, LongTimeLurker said:

It would need to be pushed very hard by the politicians before that would happen. Holyrood politicians have been happy to raise football issues in recent times in a populist sort of way:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2016/06/01/scottish-government-will-intervene-if-needed-over-scottish-cup-f/

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-38281185

so somebody raising the issue of equitable automatic Scottish Cup entry wouldn't be too out of place?

 

Those issues mentioned were in regards to criminal acts not the actual running and rules of the game.  If I have a dominos match and someone wants to play and I don't let them are they going to call the SNP to interfere.

[Dunning1874]

13 hours ago, HTG said:

Actually it lies as squarely with the SPFL as it does the SFA. They all refused to countenance a 3 way regional split despite it being as clear as day that Scotland's demographics make a mockery of just splitting between north and south. For a north/south split to have any balance (in an "all in" pyramid) you'd be as well making the M8 the dividing line. 

There is such an obvious need for a 3 way split that it does give credence to Long Term Lurker's long held belief that there was never any intention on the part of the authorities to create an integrated football structure. I'd lay decent odds that an east/west split would have seen 16 - 20 junior teams licenced in next to no time. 

That's not having a pop at the existing LL clubs - I just think we'd have seen far more representation from Scotland's most populous area. 

This is the biggest issue for the pyramid and even if all parties are willing to put past grievances aside in order to find a solution, it's hard to see how it will be resolved. Even if the SFA/SPFL and existing LL clubs were to accept splitting into East & West, you're really needing 6 or 7 West Juniors to be willing to make the jump at once - ideally more - to make that split viable. You can't practically see how that number can all be ready to get their licence and willing to move at the same time, and if some (such as Talbot) are ready sooner but are only willing to join in the event of an East/West split than that would require the SFA to grant a licence without demanding they move immediately.

It also requires that those Junior clubs be willing to make the move without any Junior clubs going before them therefore no idea how it might go (a reasonable concern, particularly for smaller clubs) and if they did have as many as 20 going at once, they'd have to accept that they can't skip the queue ahead of clubs already in the LL (an unreasonable complaint but could cause friction). If they can get by all those issues, they then need to look at a new format for promotion/relegation between Tiers 4 & 5 with the potential for reconstruction of Tiers 3 and 4 being necessary to provide fairness to those in Tier 5 (such as moving to a larger league to allow automatic promotion for all three champions at Tier 5).

So as I see it the compromises required to advance the pyramid from here involve:

SFA, SPFL & Lowland League agreeing to three-way split
SJFA & Junior clubs committing to the pyramid in the event of a three-way split
A co-ordinated strategy agreed among those Junior clubs who wish to join on gaining their licences and how they enter the pyramid
Flexibility from the SFA on licencing, eg allowing clubs to gain a licence without being forced to go into EoSL/SoSL and possibly a further grace period on floodlights/other stadium improvements
Junior clubs accepting that clubs currently in LL can't be moved down to Tier 6 to accommodate them, which ties in with splitting the number of Juniors willing to join and numbers currently in LL into East & West
If a significant number of Juniors join en masse how to structure Tier 6, integration with EoSL/SoSL
SPFL clubs accepting new relegation playoff format
SPFL clubs potentially having to vote on reconstruction of Leagues 1 and 2

We're just lucky our game has the visionary leaders who can steer Scottish football through that minefield, IMO.

[Burnie_man]

These would be the existing LL clubs that could move over to a LL West, plus all other Licenced clubs that would fall into the catchment area. 11 clubs in total and assuming that all want to join, that leaves 5 vacancies for West Junior clubs. It would also leave 5 vacancies in the East for East Junior clubs (or 3 if Burntisland and Coldstream wish to join)

BSC Alloa -LL

East Kilbride - LL

Cumbernauld - LL

Dalbeattie - LL

Gretna 2008 - LL

Wigtown – SoSFL

St.Cuthberts – SoSFL

Edusport – SoSFL

Threave – SoSFL

Newton Stewart – SoSFL

Glasgow Uni – Licenced

Doesn’t look too attractive initially, but assuming that there would also be promotion/relegation between LL West and the West Superleague, over the following 4 or 5 seasons it would begin to look much like the West Superleague is now, with maybe EK, Gretna, Dalbeattie in there as well, even Clyde. It needs a long term view rather than “that looks shite” attitude.

Remaining SoSFL clubs who wanted to, would be integrated into the West Junior structure, same with the EoSFL in the East Junior structure. The existing Junior structures would be tiers 6,7,8,9 of the Pyramid.  There would be a 4 way play off with LL East, HFL and SPFL bottom club. Semis and Final.

Now all of this is easy to say on a forum and much harder to put into practice, but if Regan and TJ really are getting together to begin discussions, this is the format that should be the basis of discussions. However, I remain very dubious that TJ will be remotely interested.

[honestly united]

25 minutes ago, Burnie_man said:

These would be the existing LL clubs that could move over to a LL West, plus all other Licenced clubs that would fall into the catchment area. 11 clubs in total and assuming that all want to join, that leaves 5 vacancies for West Junior clubs. It would also leave 5 vacancies in the East for East Junior clubs (or 3 if Burntisland and Coldstream wish to join)

BSC Alloa -LL

East Kilbride - LL

Cumbernauld - LL

Dalbeattie - LL

Gretna 2008 - LL

Wigtown – SoSFL

St.Cuthberts – SoSFL

Edusport – SoSFL

Threave – SoSFL

Newton Stewart – SoSFL

Glasgow Uni – Licenced

Doesn’t look too attractive initially, but assuming that there would also be promotion/relegation between LL West and the West Superleague, over the following 4 or 5 seasons it would begin to look much like the West Superleague is now, with maybe EK, Gretna, Dalbeattie in there as well, even Clyde. It needs a long term view rather than “that looks shite” attitude.

Remaining SoSFL clubs who wanted to, would be integrated into the West Junior structure, same with the EoSFL in the East Junior structure. The existing Junior structures would be tiers 6,7,8,9 of the Pyramid.  There would be a 4 way play off with LL East, HFL and SPFL bottom club. Semis and Final.

Now all of this is easy to say on a forum and much harder to put into practice, but if Regan and TJ really are getting together to begin discussions, this is the format that should be the basis of discussions. However, I remain very dubious that TJ will be remotely interested.

12 Clubs as you missed out Girvan who are already licensed

[Burnie_man]

True, forgot about Girvan.

Some of these clubs may not want to enter at LL level anyway, maybe the likes of Glasgow Uni, Threave, Wigtown etc would want to integrate into a lower level in the West Region structure more in line with their playing standard, same with Burntisland and Coldstream in the East, and be content with Scottish Cup entry that their licences provide. Who knows, all pie in the sky just now.

As has been said and to get back to the point, maybe Talbot have no interest in this anyway and just wanted the Licence to play in the Scottish Cup like Linlithgow, Banks O’Dee and Girvan whilst being totally indifferent to the concept of a Pyramid. However if it kicks off a debate on the matter, at least it’s achieved something.

[The Mantis]

As Isa said there's the big question of compulsory promotion if you win your league. In principle I like the idea that clubs can just stay where they are.

But that creates issues further down. Do you let the 2nd placed team go up? Do you extend it down to the first team with a license? If not then when one team dominates the league as Talbot have done recently then other ambitious clubs get trapped below.

 

[parsforlife]

I believe in compulsory promotion as far as possible without it not only is it stagnation of the club denying promotion but of the whole league structure.

 

I recognise this creates some difficulties, however we should be capable of creating a system in a county our size where each individual step up is sustainable.

 

I think the danger of allowing clubs to not move because 'we like it here' is far bigger than the chance a club will be forced into financial difficulties by going up against their will.

 

 

 

[HTG]

I think you could deal with that in slightly controversial fashion by implementing a 15 point fine on a club that wins promotion but refuses to move up. That will maybe cause any club who are seeking to spend on players but at the same time stifle others or create a blockage to think again. 

[stanley]

20 minutes ago, parsforlife said:

I believe in compulsory promotion as far as possible without it not only is it stagnation of the club denying promotion but of the whole league structure.

 

I recognise this creates some difficulties, however we should be capable of creating a system in a county our size where each individual step up is sustainable.

 

I think the danger of allowing clubs to not move because 'we like it here' is far bigger than the chance a club will be forced into financial difficulties by going up against their will.

 

 

 

I've posted about this before so it might be repetitive by now but I favour the way they do it in England.  At level nine, all interested teams apply for promotion.  The teams then have to meet the relevant stadium criteria for level eight.  The top placed team which applies for promotion in each league and meets the stadium criteria is then promoted (as long as they finish in, I think, the top three of the league).  Now, in Scotland this could come in at a higher level than level nine due to the population differences and especially as the pyramid only covers, so far, a very small number of the non-league clubs.  That way, you can have one team dominating a league and not wanting promotion/not meeting the criteria, but still have a route to promotion for other teams.  Probably, we need compulsory promotion at the Highland/Lowland League level because we need to have regular movement between the SPFL and level five to let the pyramid grow.  Below that, as things stand, I really don't think it's necessary to force very small clubs in the East/South Leagues into promotion.

The big difficulty right now is that you have the East/South of Scotland Leagues at level six when most of those clubs would not be playing at level six in a full pyramid structure covering seniors and juniors.  Teams like Wigtown and St. Cuthberts face the prospect of being promoted into a league that covers the whole of the bottom half of Scotland when they really shouldn't be at that level in the first place.  Clubs wouldn't be getting promoted from a league that covers Dumfries & Galloway into a league that covers the bottom half of Scotland if we had a proper pyramid structure in place.  They'd be getting promoted, instead, into a league which covers a bigger area but nothing like the Lowland League.

 

 

 

[kefc]

6 hours ago, calmac25 said:

 

Are you allowed to post what your ideas were on your application for juniors to join the pyramid?

 

Our ideas didn't go into detail it just stated that hopefully there could be an SJFA National League to be part of the pyramid or a Lowland East and West open to Junior Clubs.

[BS7]

In a country with what - 20 full time teams? - and only really capable of supporting around that number - the pyramid should be focussed on supporting a structure outwith the full time teams. Part time teams & regionalisation would seem key to that, not preserving historical league status for teams.

In the existing senior "pyramid" you can't really ignore that around half of the 42 teams have no appetite for being in the top league. It's not really a pyramid then, is it.

[energyzone]

In a country with what - 20 full time teams? - and only really capable of supporting around that number - the pyramid should be focussed on supporting a structure outwith the full time teams. Part time teams & regionalisation would seem key to that, not preserving historical league status for teams.
In the existing senior "pyramid" you can't really ignore that around half of the 42 teams have no appetite for being in the top league. It's not really a pyramid then, is it.

How do you figure that half the teams don't want in the top league?

[BS7]

How do you figure that half the teams don't want in the top league?

I'd say virtually every team in league 1 & 2 don't have any ambition or plan to be in the top league. Looking at the bottom two leagues only airdrie in a previous guise and livingston have been in the top league in the last 40 years.

[The Mantis]

12 hours ago, BS7 said:

In a country with what - 20 full time teams? - and only really capable of supporting around that number - the pyramid should be focussed on supporting a structure outwith the full time teams. Part time teams & regionalisation would seem key to that, not preserving historical league status for teams.

In the existing senior "pyramid" you can't really ignore that around half of the 42 teams have no appetite for being in the top league. It's not really a pyramid then, is it.

I don't think Bury or Rochdale have any ambition to reach the PL so the English pyramid doesn't exist either 

I thought the idea was for teams to reach their level, not to all reach the top.

[BS7]

I don't think Bury or Rochdale have any ambition to reach the PL so the English pyramid doesn't exist either 
I thought the idea was for teams to reach their level, not to all reach the top.

By my reckoning there's 17 teams in the bottom two leagues in England (what's that - a third?) that have been in the top flight over the last 40 years, so it's not really the same now is it?

If teams are to reach their level you have to take account of the likely progression, no?

[The Mantis]

23 minutes ago, BS7 said:

 

By my reckoning there's 17 teams in the bottom two leagues in England (what's that - a third?) that have been in the top flight over the last 40 years, so it's not really the same now is it?

If teams are to reach their level you have to take account of the likely progression, no?

 

I was just being facetious. It's comparing apples and oranges tbf.

We have far more teams in the league per capita so by English standards our bottom 2 leagues would be like National North/South or even lower, Northern Premier maybe.

I don't follow your second point though.

[LongTimeLurker]

1 hour ago, BS7 said:

I'd say virtually every team in league 1 & 2 don't have any ambition or plan to be in the top league. Looking at the bottom two leagues only airdrie in a previous guise and livingston have been in the top league in the last 40 years.
 

Clyde and Stirling Albion have also tried to be full-time in relatively recent times so probably were hoping to get there, but basically agree that most of the two lower SPFL divisions don't belong in a national division and would belong at a lower regional tier if a continetal style pyramid were ever implemented.

[BS7]

I was just being facetious. It's comparing apples and oranges tbf.
We have far more teams in the league per capita so by English standards our bottom 2 leagues would be like National North/South or even lower, Northern Premier maybe.
I don't follow your second point though.

I was just looking at the English pyramid and you could equate our level 1 with their level 1 but our level 2 equates roughly to their level 2-5 allowing for as you say comparing oranges and apples, I agree with you on our 3 & 4.

As for the second point - i think there's only around 20 teams in Scotland that could sustain full time football in the top level of the pyramid. In England that number is closer to 100. Our pyramid needs to be different to accommodate that? I get why any junior or senior team doesn't want to commit to a pyramid in its present format.

[parsforlife]

There is absolutely nothing wrong with national part time football

[kenny131]

SJFA run the show like a pub league 100% they f**k this up