GordonS

Sure but that would likely happen to whoever comes down.

The SPFL Four have finished this season in the bottom half of the Lowland League, behind Cumbernauld Colts, Civil Service Strollers, the two B teams and the three ex-Juniors. Edinburgh Uni will be going down, maybe Gretna too. At some point Beith will stop c*ck-blocking the WoS and then the likes of Clydebank, Talbot and Pollok will come up. The league gets tougher every year and even if you win it you only get a play-off for a play-off. Albion Rovers nearly survived last season, they got 39 points, and they've just finished 9th.

The team in 9th had the best defence and the teams in 1st, 2nd, 4th, 8th and 12th all conceded exactly the same number of goals (43). Tranent can join them if they concede one in their final game. And it's the same number of goals that the team with the best defence scored. Coincidence? Yes.

Whoever missed out was always going to have a lot of games they could point to where they 'blew' it. If Buckie hadn't made it today they would have remembered those three Saturdays when they couldn't beat lowly-placed team after good mid-week results. Brechin will point to their losses to their two main challengers and their general inability to beat better teams. Fraserburgh can blame their weaker start to the season - they were 10 points behind Brechin and had played a game more as recently as mid-February. In the end it was a cracking run-in and brought a lot of well-deserved attention to the Highland League.

Worth saying, their financial issues stem from apparently lying about their accounts to hide the fact Roman Abramovich has poured more than €100 million into the club. KNVB had investigated twice before and not found anything untoward, but leaked documents in the Oligarch papers researched by The Guardian and The Bureau of Investigative Journalism sealed Vitesse's fate. KNVB and the Dutch government are still investigating and Vitesse aren't out of the woods yet. https://www.theguardian.com/football/2024/apr/19/vitesse-arnhem-relegated-from-eredivisie-after-18-point-deduction

That's your opinion. It's not a fact, or the same for everyone else. To me the entire point is to enjoy it. I'll never understand the puce-faced stroke-dodgers screaming abuse every weekend. I can't understand what they're getting from the experience. I make more than my share of noise but there are some folk whose entire football life seems to be anger and frustration. With respect that's batshit mental. I want my club to win every game I go to, but I know they'll never reach the ranks of full-time professional football and that's fine with me. You don't get to decide what makes someone a fan and what doesn't. I suspect I'm pretty typical of a fan of a non-league club. And are you seriously telling me you'd prefer your club to reach the level where they're charging over £60 a game, a quarter of the ground is occupied by tourists and the whole thing is arranged for TV than be where they are now? Everyone has their line. I didn't say anything specifically about L2. Though FWIW I don't fancy paying £18 to sit in a one-stand ground and watch the likes of East Fife or playing the same clubs 4 times a season. Each to their own though, that's the point.

I'd be fine with that. If I wanted to support a 'big' club, I'd be supporting a 'big' club. Following a football club isn't the same thing from Celtic to Saltcoats Victoria, they're materially different ways to spend your time. I'll accept it for internationals because they're infrequent but for all the many other games I go to, I don't want to have to sit in one seat for the whole game - or so much worse, for the whole season. I love sitting on a grassy banking on a fine summer evening while I watch a game, and move round to catch (or dodge) the sun. I don't want to be segregated from the opposition fans. I don't want a police presence and a load of commercial stewards, it just creates a hostile vibe. I want to be able to go to a game with a bottle of juice and not get treated like a criminal for it. I don't want my bag searched - or banned from bringing one, making long-distance trips by public transport a pain. I don't want to pay £4.50 for a deeply sh*t mass-produced pie and another £3 for watered-down postmix juice in a paper cup. And I sure as hell don't want to be paying well over £20 to watch a game. For me, the things that come with the top end of the game make it not worth it. Each to their own, everyone's different and I'm not remotely judging people who are happy to take those things as part of following their team. But it's not for everyone and it's really, really unfair and mistaken to be judgmental or critical about that.

I didn't know if it was like the House of Commons where you can only refer to the House of Lords as "the other place".

First they came for the Jews...

Supporting a big fish in a small pond has its own appeal. Let's be honest, it's half the appeal of the OF. In this context, you see your team win more matches and trophies, and in contention for others. You'll almost never spend season after season grimly battling relegation and rarely seeing your team win or even score. You don't lose your Saturdays to travel, at a substantial cost too. You don't play the same teams 4 times a season. You don't pay higher ticket prices. The appeal of non-league football is that it's not like the higher levels.

Those Nat 5s are murder, eh?

Yeah, I agree. I think 34 is the right number of games for the lowest tier with a requirement for floodlights, bridging between the three regional leagues and the SPFL. I'd rather play 30 than play the B teams though. And 18 teams with one-third of a promotion place and 0-2 relegation places gives a pretty stale mid-table.

Ending a 152-year tradition so that the billionaire clubs can play 2-4 more Champions League games and go to the World Club Cup in the USA at the end of the season. Very #Barclays.

I wonder if Martinez knew that.

Yes. I'm saying racism and sectarianism are worse things than a soggy pitch. If you see it otherwise you're not a good person.

IMO there's not enough traffic to keep it feeling sufficiently active. One of the main reasons for that is there's another very active and longstanding forum for northern football. There's only a quarter of the number of posts here as in the LL forum, and a third of the WoS and EoS forums, and only 14 threads here that have seen a post in the past 5 months.

I see the SPFL cares far, far more about a handful of postponements than they do about sectarian and racist chanting. Priorities, eh.

The bookies had all of them favourites too.

FWIW, 30 league games is standard in the EoS and WoS and is the SFA's preferred size for non-league. The LL had 16 members from 2015-16 until the B teams were added in 2021-22, though they ran with one extra in 2020-21 because the didn't want to relegate anyone in the Covid season.

Dyce have had lights since at least October 2022. The only cover they had when I was last there in January last year was a wee area in front of the pavilion, I don't think they've added any since.

100% guaranteed that's someone with at least one other account on here. Their posting history makes that obvious. Trolls gonna troll.

East Craigie 0-2 Dundee St. James, Midland League, attendance about 50. This completes the Midland League for me... or does it. I've only been to a first half at Blairgowrie, does that "count"? I know it doesn't matter but I wouldn't want to be claiming things like completing the grounds in a league if folk thought I was taking the piss. I've been to 21 grounds in this league as I've been to both of Montrose Roselea's, which I very much recommend if you get the chance. Another cold evening - will winter never end? - but a very tasty steak pie helped with that. Somehow in my mind I'd decided East Craigie were a bigger club than they actually seem to be. It looks like the ground was just grass banking and a rail until very recently, when they flattened and concreted part of it and put up some cover in the form of what seems to be bike sheds without sides. The pitch was in fine condition, which I understand is typical for Dundee... Other than the two first-half goals there was little between the sides, with St James' keeper making a couple of very good saves to keep his side ahead. End of season fayre played ay 100mph regardless.

Fun (or depressing) fact: apart from Ally McCoist, most of whose games were in lower divisions, Clement has the highest win percentage of any Rangers manager ever and Beale is second.

Longside 5-0 Whitehills, SJFA North Region Championship, att 60. Success on my second attempt to get here, after I drove all the way up one Friday evening last February only to find the game off due to a power cut caused by high winds. Longside are an unusual club, they don't appear to have any social media at all, not even Facebook. It's a tiny village yet they have a remarkably well-appointed ground with a large social club and separate pavilion, modern floodlights, impressive personalised ironwork and a substantial brick shelter... the view from much of which is ruined by the two dug-outs, which could have been on the opposite side, obstructing the far goal. You can't have it all. By chance I've seen Whitehills a few times over the past couple of years and this game followed a similar pattern. They're competitive and right in the game until the moment they're not. Nil-nil at half time turned into 5-0 at full time, with the gaps between goals getting shorter and shorter. Another 10 minutes and it would probably have been 10-0. It's not difficult to see why they're the second-lowest placed team in this part of the pyramid, spared the ultimate indignity only by Cruden Bay losing all 26 of their league games and getting docked 3 points to boot.

Tuesday 16th April 2024 Keith v Brechin City Wednesday 17th April 2024 Fraserburgh v Brora Rangers Strathspey Thistle v Buckie Thistle Saturday 20th April 2024 Brora Rangers v Brechin City Buckie Thistle v Keith Fraserburgh v Strathspey Thistle