Well England now undefeated against Scotland in 7 games in this competition. Isn't it about time the HFL and EOSL stepped aside and gave the SFL a chance to do a better job of representing our country in the competition.

And what makes you think that SFL players would do any better against essentially FULL-TIME English players from a majority full-time league in the Blue Square Premier?

In the last few years, there has been a little of bit of transfer traffic between the BSP and Scotland, which will maybe put some perspective on the relative strengths of the respective leagues......

In 2001/2002 (IIRC) Richie Barnard, who was a reserve goalkeeper at Aldershot Town and had played only a handful of games for the first team moved up to Glasgow, wrote to most teams for a trial and was a regular for QoS in the First Division for a couple of years...

Clayton Donaldson moved from York City to Hibs and has played in the SPL this season (and scored, I think)...

Meanwhile, moving the other way, David McNiven has been playing for teams like Leigh RMI, Southport, Farsley and other poor sides in the league.

Manny Panther is playing for York City........ need I go on?

Like Elgin players would be heading the selectors thoughts for such a side, anyway!

Don't forget Shallicker and Charlesworth qualify for the opposition from your current squad, too!!

I was there, Scotland played really well, I was proud of every one of them. I was delighted that three players from my club had the chance to represent my country against superior opposition and give a good account of themselves.

If the SFL want to be involved fine, but it would be sad to see HFL, EoSFL and SoSFL players frozen out. The way the boys belted out 'Flower of Scotland' before the games made the hairs on my neck stand on end.

Sean McAuley got his first 90 mins in 6 games. Great for him and our club. If you were there how did he play? Is there any photos?







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He's an Elgin fan. He does't think.

Gibraltar went 1-0 then 2-1 up. Sean McAuley scored the equaliser and it was a raker. Gibraltar still played well individually after that but they fell to pieces as a team, and in the last 20 minutes Scotland got two and could have scored another two at least.

Afraid I didn't note the HFL scorers - the tournament programmes had sold out by Saturday, and there weren't a hell of a lot of supporters around to ask. As it was a Scottish internatonal match, no doubt there will be pages about it in the Monday papers. Robbie Duncanson was excellent, though.

Afraid I've no photos, GP. The time to check the batteries on a camera is the night before, not two minutes after kickoff.

A couple more examples
Kirk Hudson (Aldershot Town) was BSP player of the Month a few months ago. He was released by Celtic at the age of 18 (he is no 21) after figuring in the reserves a bit, trialled at Southend (his local side) and then was at Bournemouth for 3 months. he has only been a regular at Aldershot this season.
Richie Foran is transfer listed by Southend , was on loan at Darlington for most of the season and
apparently Aberdeen are after him !

A large number of Conference south / North clubs are also full time. Billericay Town are full time and finished half way in the Ryman Prem !
A couple of years ago a number of players left league football as the money was better in Non league and they trained a bit less so they could do another job as well !

Well done, you caught a few there!

They aren't. Of the teams in last season's Conference North the only one I know for sure that were full-time were Kettering Town (who won the division). There may have been a couple of others such as Boston or AFC Telford, but no more than that. I would imagine that the same was true of the Conference South.

But that said, although many of these clubs are 'part-time' they still dish out healthy wages to players of several hundred £ per week.

Nuneaton Borough found out to their cost today that such payments aren't sustainable though if you don't get to the Premier.

That was how is used to work back in the 80's & early 90's, with part time players from the likes of Dunfermline, Airdrie, Kilmarnock, Dumbarton, Raith Rovers, all representing Scotland.

Just to say there is a review of the Four Nations tourament in this Newsletter:

LINK!