Really a post for Infowire (move it if you wish mods ... but more people will see and answer it here ). Has any Junior club, in history of Junior football, operated Reserve XI in competitive league/cup?

dont hink so but i know some do in the soluth and east of scotland leagues.

not allowed,i was told when making enquiery

I wouldn't have thought that many teams would have enough players. I even think there may be a limit on how many players can be on a junior team's books. Others in the know could advise.

There may be a limit now (25 players) but has that limit always been there? He was talking about the history of Junior football which is over 120 years of football. I'm sure I've saw mention of Junior clubs 2nd X1 in various published histories of clubs.

The Largs Thistle history mentions them having three teams in one season - although I think one of them played in the Juveniles.

In the dim and distant past, there were such things as Junior 2nd and 3rd XIs.

In 2008 as has been the case for a while, clubs are limited to 25 players of adult age, but an additional 20 players can be signed on amateur youth contracts.

Some Junior sides run amateur sides as 2nd XIs, though they are treated as separate entities.

Don't Girvan have a 2nd XI in the amateur leagues?

Don't think so... could be wrong though.

There are a few sides who have loosely affilliated under 21 sides, Kilwinning, Kirkintilloch, Campsie, Neilston and Ardrossan all have teams in the west of Scotand 21 league. Some great young players and a very good standard of football.

There is/was a Sunday league in Ayrshire known as 'Girvan Sunday AFL' - not in SAFA tbf, (IIRC).

Shettleston have an amateur team but I think they are basically a seperate entity albeit with some links to each other.

If you go to the Scottish Football History site, and type "2nd Juniors" in the search bar, you get a (very much incomplete) list of such sides.

Im sure Rosyth have a U21 team

There has never been any organised "Reserve" competitions for Junior sides as far as I am aware (certainly not in the East). 100+ years ago you could find Junior clubs who did have "A" sides which were basically Juvenile (U21/U18) and played in those competitions, but nothing is the sense of Reserve sides that we understand it today.

I guess the closest we'll ever come to Junior clubs having "Reserve" sides these days is if the club is part of a larger Community club with U21, U19, U17 sides etc and maybe even an Amatuer side.

There have indeed been reserve competitions for Junior clubs. The Glasgow Junior 2nd XI FA, founded by 24 clubs on 15 Sept 1886 organized the GJ 2nd XI Cup, replacing the abolished Juvenile cup that the 2nd Juniors had taken part in. The GJ2ndXIFA existed well into the 1890s. Other associations and cups catering for Junior reserves also existed during the 1890s in Ayrshire, Dundee and Lanarkshire