What on earth do they do in Whithorn these days? Is not about time they got their heads together and reformed the local football team?

I would think the locals would love to challenge the other teams in the Wigtownshire area. If teams can come from Glencaple, New Abbey and Gatehouse of Fleet, then surely Whithorn can form a committee and get a team of players together to represent the town.

Queens biggest victory was against Whithorn in the Scottish Cup by the way

Whithorn have a team in Stranraer winter league and have been running for years but obviously not in south as they once did.

Bring it on

I hope they have ambitions to compete in the South League.

all the stewartry clubs have struggled a wee bit with Stranraer F.C. going into the league..could you sustain another team?

Someone like the Sloan brothers to help them get started would be a good thing

Come on Tucker, go for it

Do you mean Wigtownshire Clubs m8?

Ithink you mean WIGTOWNSHIRE not Stewartry and the chances of Whithorn getting into south would mean they would have to play at BALLGREEN(TARFF ROVERS) .It would be possible to muster a team from Machars end of Wigtownshire but i doubt it it would be a starter.

The general perception is that all the Wigtownshire teams have struggled since Stranraer FC entered the league. Stranraer have more players from our team last year than that of either Wigtown or Athletic. We have sufferred but despite all this we are still having our best season in many a year. Both Athletic and Wigtown are doing far worse than recent seasons. It has affected all 3 teams but the stats suggest we have coped the best with it all.

If you look back to Wigtown's final game of last season I think you will find they lost their entire first XI. Not all to the Reseves but Dalbeattie, Creetown, Sunday league etc

How many did NS lose??

Dont really see what this post has to do with the topic. The post stated that all Wigtownshire teams have suffered due to the introduction of STRANRAER FC RESERVE TEAM. All tucker stated was that
1) Many of the current reserve team played for Newton last year
2) WE have not suffered as we have more points than last year

If you wish to pick fault in either of they points go ahead, but I think you will find they are facts. As for losing players to the sunday league well I would keep that one quite if I was you.

Never mind Im sure you will have loads of players to pick from next year when a certain £10,000 starts to be distributed around if the rumours are correct. Maybe not the year after though when the money is gone and they move on again.

Rich coming from a NS player.....you have a team full of sunday league players.

What makes you think the £10k is a one off?

Is that the dummy being spat?

No, it's the truth!

Wigtown lost 1 player to the sunday league last year.......Ross McCrindle.............and he would walk into Newton's team

Why are you proud someone left you for Sunday Am's? Says more about your club than anything else surely?

to be honest the south is getting more like a sunday pub league every season with the exception of Threave, Stranraer and Cricton the rest would struggle in a decent pub league. the rest go about their business like pub league teams. What do you think big fella?

I think alot of the clubs like Abbey Vale are a very well run club, they just dont have that great a squad. I would go as far as saying they were better run than the Crichton, but they are making the right moves with their lottery though. I am sure other clubs for Wigton etc are well run I just dont know enough about them.

I was at the Dumfries game on Monday, I am truely awful football player, but why do some of the players kid thereselfs by trying to mix it with the top South teams. Surely some of the boys know there not very good and would be better playing amatuers?

Previous post to gbar s had nothing to do with topic either , Whithorn is subject not Newton,Wigtown or Stranraer.

Yes your right i should've included Annan in my last Quote but after watching a few games the standard of football is terrible outside Annan Threave Cricton and Stranraer the rest really are just pub teams. They might be well run but Joe Public could get a game with the rest.

Did newton not get the £10000 to?

Yes the £10,000 is not the issue its that by all accounst this money is going to be used by Wigtown to pay out large sums to attract players. I wonder how many of these young local players that are showing potential will find themselves in the starting 11 when the big signings come in.

Also I wont be drawn into the merits of one individual player and whether they would walk into the newton team or not. I have spoke to Ross quite a few times and he is a decent guy so I would rather not discuss this in an open forum.

Newton a pub team? We are sitting mid table so that doesnt say very much for many other teams if that is the case. And if we are a pub team, what are teams who are sitting with almost half our points? Yes we got beat last night with a poor performance but on Monday night we got a deserved draw against Dalbeattie that included 6-9 East players. I doubt many pub teams could achieve that or gain 35 points already.

People can make comments about the standard of the league but you only have to look at the south v east cup to see that this is not true. Everybody goes on about the deterioration in the standard but Threave have proven themselves to a class act against league sides this year and they are still not walking away with the league. Teams sitting in mid table and below also have had creditable performances in the same cup. Its easy to sit back and criticise and no doubt with work committments some teams can field weak teams but the overall standard is no worse than previous years.

As we have gone off original topic might as well add that Wigtowns 10,000 WILL NOT be used to entice players to the club and that many of the players who had left last year are i believe (am not saying that its fact in other words) returning next season.It is my opinion that any club using this handout should be refused any future monies should it be proven that it was used for this purpose considering the majority of parks and facilities are poor.

The league really is poor and most of the teams would serve better in tha amateur leagues when i watched the south years ago it was a right good competative league with players like Bobby Mckie Sandy Sutherland and Jim Bark ect all playing in it and more weeks than not first team players stepping into the Stranraer Reserve team I used to enjoy the south rather than first team matches now i only watch the south if nothing else is on.

Have you seen any amateur leagues lately bftt? Think you are being a little bit hard on the south league m8. How many south games have you seen this year?

To be honest i've only seen a couple of amateur games here but watched about 12 in ayrshire and the games here were crap to be honest but in ayrshire they weren't too bad I've watched about 20 south games this year including last night at the Cricton and i've only seen maybe 1 decent game out of that. I also go to the auchenleck talbot games when i can and the standard there is better by far.

Well why dont you just go and watch Ayrshire games then

Perhaps players were better years ago and I am old enough to remember many great players from the past but one thing is still the same, only one team has ever won the league in any given season and following that the rest have followed on i.e. second ,third etc.
So by that logic all teams could not all have been brilliant or the league would have ended up tied. As far as I can see every team in the league tries their best with what players are available at the time and every team has over the years generally tried to improve their facilities ( yes I know one or two could do better) .As someone who spent many years in amateur football please let me tell you there is no comparison between the leagues, I have never seen the players putting up the nets or having to pay for a game or for their training in the South. Could things be better ? yes they could , but by that old saying " You can only p--- with the c--- youve got.

how did the teams back in the good old days fare in the Scottish cup? Only askin cause recent teams have done okay....if the old south teams were that much better they should have fared better(if they got into the cup back then?) is that logical??????????

well said rab saints been in four finals ok won one lost two one on pens against strong annan team final to come in the other semi monday, beat crichton 5-1 beat threave in a semi, stranraer fc in two boyfaetoon i s a numpty so if the not in top lot teams

Surely this forum is for us all to express our opinions not call each other names such as numpty i probably know more about football than you ever will and played at a level you never will so why come on and call people names just cos they have a different opinion to you mind you i suppose you have to keep up the good name of saints fans ignorant and clueless

I take your point ed but dont you think players in the south years ago had more ability stronger and they only got booked or sent off for real tackles not petty things like now and you hardly saw anyone argue with the ref. Its a shame Tarff didn't manage to keep going with the players they were bringing in the league was getting back to what it used to be a hard competative league that did attract far more fans whats your thoughts?

This league is better now than ever before.

There are more teams from the districts than I can ever remember competing in the South League.

Even match programmes have been issued for important games.

It's just a damn pity that the teams who receive money don't invest it into their stadia, it would make me go to more games for sure.

Dont agree with you on the league being better now . NEWTON and SAINTS were producing programmes for league games back in 1980,s. I totally agree that money should be spent on grounds though.

Sure there were some classy teams in the past but there was still a big divide between the best and the rest. Before Burns started pumping money into Tarff they were rank and you could predict in any season in the late 70s/80s/90s that they, Creetown and Girvan would be down at the bottom while Threave, Dalbeattie, Annan and Stranraer (and Lincluden Swifts when they were on the go) would be at the top with the rest somewhere in between. Then when Tarff got their financial backing they were so far ahead of most of the other clubs that you couldn't really say the league was competitive because Tarff were winning everyhting.

As far as player ability goes you have to remember there are 5 or 6 more clubs now than there were 20 years ago so it's natural that the talent that's available gets spread around more and lesser players who maybe wouldn't have got to play in the SOSL 20 years ago would get a game now.

Have to agrre about the bookings and sendings off now though - there are far more cards being dished out for much more innocuous looking tackles.

Going back to the original subject of the thread if Whithorn came into the league where would they get the players from if the likes of Wigtown and Stranraer Ath in Wigtownshire have already been badly hit by Stranraer forming a reserve team?

Agree with most things your saying but there were some right good games when tarff had the guys from ayrshire and further because other teams upt their game i can remember several games with tarff and creetown well worth the the entrance money but i really do think that the south have allowed too many amateur teams in. As for facilities some of the member clubs should take a good look at theirs i know Newton dont own their changing rooms but surely they should be condemed, and lets hope the sfa or someone helps none member clubs Creetown could do with new changing rooms. So lets hope tomorrow at the Cricton serves up a stormer of a game and shows us the standard aint that bad.

Football has changed, players have ,I think, as much ability as as they did in the old days but are softer.Yes referees do book players for things that would never have been bookings before.In going back to when I say softer let me explain.I know lots of players playing South football now who do not train at all ,they think because they have some ability and perhaps score goals then they are above that type of thing.It is no accident that that the older players that are still playing at a high level are still good players. It is because they have worked hard throughout their careers and really care about the game. Perhaps one of the biggest changes to football is the number of players who think that playing on a Sunday and winning against crap teams is some kind of achievment. I am a great believer in that you should always play to the highest standard that you are capable off and that only by working hard will you ever know how good you could be.

True enough what you say i find it strange some south players dont train surely playing in a league that is supposed to be senior football they would train, when i played amateur we trained twice a week at least and paid for the privalage of slogging our guts out then went to 3 or 4 times depending on the games

I wonder how some of todays teams would cope with the front pairing of Jim Bark and Jim Hannah or when they came up against Harry Rogers or the late Ben Herries.

The players you have quoted would stroll past any team in the present south league in fact i heard a wee rumour that a south team tried to talk bobby mckie out of retirement but bobby has a dodgey knee although stiil plays six a sides and strolls through

Bobby,s a great guy played against him many times he was a good solid player but was treated unfairly when he was in charge of reserves in reserve league West (i think).Ended going from team of locals to mainly trialists and first teamers.I,m totally with you that players from that era would walk south league.

Yes i agree Bobby was a good guy i was lucky enough to play beside him for 3 years and he never shirked a challenge and put the fear of god into opponents he had a decent touch too. and helped young guys playing beside him he would talk to you the full game