I was wondering about the strength of the Highland League since its clubs started going into the senior set up.

- Has it been devalued at all by losing its top clubs to the senior leagues or is it actually better without them?
- Has competition and/or quality improved?
- Has there been any direct affect on attendances?
- How do the Inverness and Aberdeen media treat their HL clubs in comparison to the senior clubs?

For the record, there's no hidden agenda to these questions, just personal interest!

Thanks in advance for any responses.

IMO the loss of the 5 clubs from the highland league has had some impact ,obviously.From my own viewpoint,living in Inverness,the most obvious impact has been the complete imbalance now between the relative strengths of the Highland and Grampian teams although it could be argued that this eastward shift in dominance was underway before 1994 anyway.Since then there have just been infrequent cup wins and Clachs solitary,unexpected championship;Nairn,for the amount of money they allegedly have,have completely underachieved for ages.
Im sure in some respects attendances have been affected-no Inverness derbies/Caley-elgin/peterhead-broch games but,on the other hand increasing competition among the Grampian teams,along with Deveronvales renaissance and Locos election to the league has probably helped negate the loss of the 5 teams in this regard.
Regarding quality,the previous paragraphs points apply also;lets face it,the HFL has never been Serie A but some pretty good football is played and if you cherry pick the games you attend youll see a whole lot more excitement,IMO,than you would following the bigger leagues-ive seen some great games over the last few seasons and all that without wandering too far from Inverness.
The Inverness media treats the local HFL clubs pretty poorly,theyd rather have a massive "nothing happening at ICT"headline than say much about clach or nairn-the courier is shite,the Highland news is even worse.
Hope ive said something of interest

Having shamefully ignored the Highland League between the end of Caley until the last year, I must say that while there is no doubt the league has been devalued and attendances are obviously affected, what remains is still going strong. The quality of football is variable but the entertainment, banter, and value for money is much better than what is on offer in much of the SFL and certainly the SPL. There is also no one team that dominates the league - usually a different champion most years so competition is as strong as ever although it would be good to see the western teams making a comeback.

The local Inverness media is pisspoor - ICT reserve games are given major coverage in the Courier while half of the rest of the paper is covered in adverts for them. There is token coverage at best for Clach but what would you expect from low quality media outlets?

- It has been devalued immeasurably. Losing Caley, Elgin and Thistle was akin to the SPL losing the Old Firm, to be blunt.
- Competition has been improved at the expense of quality
- Attendance are on the same slow downward spiral as the rest of football, with some exceptions like Vale and Buckie. Clubs could do more in some places to get folk in, Lossie being the prime example.
- The coverage of the HL in general by the Northern Scot and P and J is not bad at all, but could always do with being expanded. I don't know how the Inverness media treat Clach (a quick scoop at previous posts tells me its not well). The HFL has a healthy online presence, however.

As far as I'm concerned, the league is only now beginning to recover from the loss of Caley, Thistle and Ross County. The set up is hampered by the North FA clubs seeming inability to get their act together, which leaves almost half the league lagging behind before a ball has been kicked in August.

It's been in better shape, but is well poised to take advantage of the fact people are becoming less willing to fork out £20+ to watch Aberdeen or ICT, or travel long distances to watch the Old Firm. I'm not sure it appreciates how much of these punters it could pull in, and thats before we get to the idiocy of scheduling games on the same day, at the same time, as Scotland games. We'll leave that one alone for now tho.

Thanks for taking the time to post such decent replies guys. Much appreciated.

The motivation for me asking was actually what Jimmy mentioned...the OF leaving the SPL. Whilst lots of folk talk about what would happen I've often thought that the HL situation could be a barometer and would be worth having a serious study of the effects.

I've gone to a few HL games over the years and have never been disappointed.

Thanks again.

Cheers.