GordonS

I basically know nothing about the ins and outs of all this. I have my opinions on what I do and don't want to happen, but other than that I only know what I've read from these pages. Would it be fair to surmise that Tom Johnston loves his role, and if most of the big clubs in the SJFA leave to join the pyramid, his role either no longer exists or is completely trivial? And that his objective over his years in charge is to keep the SJFA strong so that his role is strong? And that expecting him to help clubs move to the pyramid, or to subsume the whole of the Juniors into the seniors, is turkey-voting-for-Christmas territory? I ask because if what's written here is true, he appears to be running a desperate rearguard action and playing for time.

You think so? I don't think there's any excuse for a club that has by a very considerable margin the second highest income in Scotland, and started off less than 6 years ago with no debt, not to be safely finishing second.

If it's good enough for Swansea in the EPL... No, they moved back to Murrayfield a couple of months ago. Latest gossip is that they're looking to build something on the back pitches of Murrayfield.

But not level 11, which includes hundreds of clubs. They still draw a line somewhere.

You're forgetting Lochee are still in the Junior Cup.

Until recently I would never have believed it possible, but the way things are going Dundee will pass Aberdeen as a more appealing place to live, work and study within a decade or so. And that's before the oil runs out. Their lack of investment in culture has been a huge omission.

Thanks man. This thread is so good that my first thought any time I hear or read anything funny about Rangers is "wonder what they're saying on P&B".

Aw, how is this not up here already? https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/43828476 Apparently Rangers are "ahead of the curve" by being in the "top 3". Last season they finished 9 points ahead of 4th, right now they're only 3 ahead. Progres? And my favourite; "We are probably doing a little better than we would have imagined back in the dark days of running out at Brechin in the fourth tier." Seriously? In what everyone presumed would be their third year back in the Premiership? Rangers fans seem to finding these days pretty dark too.

When it's Old Firm day and the only clean trousers in the house are yer Maw's jeggings.

This thread is hilarious. Everybody is supporting what's best for their own team, which is fine, and red-dotting those who disagree, which is missing the point. We're all fans of clubs at various levels because that suits our preferences. If it didn't, we wouldn't be fans of those clubs, we'd be following someone else or doing something else. To about half the football fans in Scotland, there are only two clubs worth following. To the vast majority, everything below the top 6 or so is shite. To those paying £12 for League One and Two, or who aspire to, Junior football is diddy and their level is fine. To me, what you get for £6 is great and other levels are too expensive, too boring or too rubbish. Because we're all self-selecting. There's no right answer to any of this, it's just a matter of preference. There are fundamentally different motivations between those who prefer what you get at the Old Firm, Hearts, Falkirk, Stenhousemuir, BSC Glasgow or Camelon. And that's fine. Just don't kid yourself that your opinion is the right one, or better than others, or best for Scottish football.

Because apart from Ayr and Raith Rovers, there's practically nothing to pick between the 18 other teams and the next 50 best non-league clubs.

You're assuming that it's the original 50 plus a new 250. In reality some of that original 50 will be going a lot less often, or not at all. I can't believe we're comparing bigger Junior clubs with a team that were getting attendances as low as 50. It says a lot about the perspective you're bringing to this that it makes sense to you. £12 for the utter dross that is League Two is laughable. There's very little difference in standard from halfway down League One to the bottom of the Highland League, the middle of the Lowland League, the bottom of the West Superleague and the middle of the East Superleague. Clubs drawing a paying crowd of 200-500 or so are all much the same. Queens Park aren't a higher standard than Pollok.

I saw Bo'ness give Queens Park an absolute chasing. If you think those Queens Park players weren't giving it their all, you're very much mistaken.

Unless your club have made some serious improvements in the last three years, Linlithgow Rose's toilets are better than Elgin's.

It's not remotely bizarre. You just think so because you go to football matches for a different reason than I do. Football isn't actually important, it's supposed to be fun. SPFL 1 and 2 are a long way from being fun, and certainly much less fun than any non-league senior or junior division in the country.

I presume you're not claiming that Whitehill Welfare is a higher standard than Linlithgow Rose? Apart from being obvious when you watch the teams, Scottish Cup results prove it. Linlithgow Rose have lost to one Highland League Team, and never lost to a LL, EoSL or SoSL team.

I can give you my own answer as to why I have reservations. The issue here has nothing to do with ambition, or a fear of change. The issue is what do you go to the football for? The priorities for me are enjoyment, and following my local team. I'd like them to win every week but if that was my main priority I'd be watching Celtic - or Barca on the telly, like half the kids in Scotland. I grew up near Hampden and I've followed Queen's Park ever since. 18 years ago I moved to Linlithgow and started watching the Rose occasionally. At some point I became hooked and they're now my one and only. The experience of being a fan of a bigger Junior team is far, far better than being a fan of a team in SPFL1 & 2. I've been to every league ground and about 60 other Scottish grounds so I'm reasonably well placed to have an opinion. I pay half as much for admission (and nothing at all for my kids), don't face the same opposition four times a season, don't have nationwide travel (which seems nuts to me below full-time level), pay much less for generally better food and drinks, can bring cans and bottles of juice into the ground, don't get my bag searched, can come in at half-time for nothing, can nip out at half time to the local shop (or even home to use the loo) and don't have segregation (not common in SPFL1/2 but recently saw a dozen Albion Rovers fans guarded by 4 stewards at Stranraer). The costs and restrictions on SPFL clubs, plus the drudgery of a nationwide league playing each other 4 times (6 if you meet in a play off, more if you meet in the cups too) is deeply unappealing. I'd love Linlithgow Rose to be in a Lowland League with the best that division currently has, like Spartans, East Stirling and even EK, along with the likes of Talbot and Pollok. That league would be very tasty. But I wouldn't want them to go beyond that. If you ask Brora and Buckie Thistle fans, they didn't want to get promoted recently either. My attitude to the pyramid would change in a heartbeat if SPFL1 & 2 merged with the HFL and the LL to create two regionalised leagues of 18-20 teams (with others bumped down a tier), but the fans of SPFL clubs much prefer the structure the way it is - if they didn't, the presumably wouldn't have become fans of those clubs in the first place. As for my view now, I have reservations but there's safety in moving into the pyramid with the rest of the Juniors as it hugely reduces the chances of going into Tier 4. Rose haven't been great for a couple of years, but a few years ago they would have gone through the LL like a dose of salts. The standard in the LL has improved and there's a pretty low risk of going up if the other big Junior clubs are there too. So I'm for joining if everyone else does, but if it didn't happen I'd be fine with that.

I see this was adopted by UEFA. Another nail in the coffin of my interest in top level football.

Just realised Celtic's first match next season is on the same night as a World Cup semi-final. That's messed up.

A more meaningful metric than "senior" or whatever is the number that are full time. As far as I understand it Scotland has 22 full time clubs. England has full time clubs all the way down to Tier 6 - there must be at least 120 full time clubs. Given the size of Scotland and the amount we spend on football, 22 full time clubs is probably fine.

This has been shamefully overlooked. A masterpiece in tinpottery.

I'm not sure that's a fair comparison. Lincoln are a full-time team averaging about 8,500 in league games. Dumbarton are (IIRC) part-time and have an average of less than a thousand. Lincoln pull more than the 6th-best followed team in Scotland. Alba show a fair amount of lower league and Challenge Cup football. They're showing the ICT v Crusaders semi-final live, that's the equivalent of the Lincoln v Chelsea U23 match.

It was 9,444, a little more than they usually get for league games. Pleased to see that they won.

I'd say yes. For one, it's 20 miles closer. Travelling towards Glasgow in rush hour you hit the always-busy merge between the M80 and the M876, then have to go round Glasgow on the M73 and M74. It's so bad that coming from West Lothian I often divert right up through East Kilbride and come down through Castlemilk. Going into Edinburgh at rush hour you're against the traffic and there's no real hold-ups, it's not so bad going over the bridge and then you have a choice of A90, A8 past the airport or M8. I also find it much, much quicker getting away from Murrayfield with a 67,000 crowd than Hampden with a 52,000 crowd.

We don't know which option would lead to more money for football. Murrayfield is much bigger so could raise more in ticket sales, and Hampden could be facing some big maintenance costs, so it's entirely possible moving to Murrayfield would be the financially smarter option. But the SFA won't release any actual information, so we don't know.