Ginaro

Obviously the league should ensure the top teams from the previous season play all the diddy teams in the first half of the season so they don't have an affect on the title race.

Bronze floodlights have been a requirement for League 1/2 for years so no excuse for Buckie not sorting them before now (unless they were just waiting to see if they won the league again).

That's not true. The rules before this season was tiers 1&2 required a Bronze ground with Silver floodlights, and tiers 3&4 required a Entry ground with Bronze floodlights. There was no requirement for anything above Entry level for anything else. See rule D4 in the 2022-23 rules https://web.archive.org/web/20230518043723/https://spfl.co.uk/admin/filemanager/images/shares/pdfs/SPFL Rules and Regulations 14-Oct-22 (MASTER COPY) CLEAN.pdf

Depends on exactly what the issues are - a club could fail one criteria in each of their ground, first team, or legal/finance/admin sections that are easily sorted if they knew they were going to be in contention for the play-off. For Cowdenbeath and Linlithgow already with Bronze grounds, these are the differences between Entry and Bronze: 6.1 Training and Coaching Facilities for Senior Players Suitable training facilities (written evidence) 6.3 Medical and First Aid Facilities for Senior Players Rehabilitation Medical examination facility (not third party) 6.4 Medical and First Aid Provision for Senior Players at Matches Club doctor/paramedic, physiotherapist, medical bag 6.6 Team Manager/ Head Coach B licence from 2025 and have started A licence course 6.7 First Team Coaches B licence 6.8 Club Doctor or Medical Officer Clubs shall have one 6.9 Club Therapist Clubs shall have one 6.10 Goalkeeping Coach Clubs shall have one 8.4 Finance Manager Clubs shall have a professional one 8.5 Safety Officer Clubs shall have a qualified one 8.11 Annual Financial Statements Stricter, prepared by qualified accountant 8.13 Insolvency Events Not since June 2020 8.17 Attendance at a Scottish FA Organised Event on Refereeing Matters Manager/coach and team captain (instead of just someone from the club) 8.19 Diversity and Inclusion The club shall identify the training requirements for staff and key volunteers and create a learning development plan within the equality action plan. There's no difference between the Premiership and Championship in terms of ground or licence criteria. But of course they need to have their Bronze licence by 1st July. "The SPFL Board has granted a period of grace to 1 July 2024 to all SPFL Clubs that currently do not have a Bronze Standard Scottish FA Club Licence to provide sufficient time for this to be achieved before Season 2024/25." https://spfl.co.uk/admin/filemanager/images/shares/pdfs/Membership Criteria Letter 2024-25 31 October 2023.pdf

No, it was brought forward (with a week's notice) from 2nd December which was a washout for all fixtures. Continuing with single leg Junior Cup semi finals would've kept two matchdays for the league but I suppose it's more important for the SJFA to make money.

Probably fewer postponements, out of the cups earlier (3x Scottish Cup, 1x SCC, 2x League Cup games but also no Junior Cup - compared to Talbot with 16, Beith, Darvel and Pollok 14), Benburb game brought forward in October when both were idle (they ended up losing) - though the gap won't be what costs them the title.

The same Star that struggled to win against 10th tier Carluke and were beaten by tier 8 Craigmark in the cups, or have they had a massive overhaul since then?

After seeing the various comings and goings in that other threads - how many clubs do these three leagues (covering the same area) actually have now? What would it take for them to merge together - when one or two of them drop down to just a single division?

The fact you think they judge offside when the ball leaves a players foot makes your entire post worthless and just confirms my point about fans being ignorant about the laws and VAR. You also just ignored the fact that the lines are made thicker in order to account for a margin of error. Your last sentence about referees who don't use the semi-automated system not being able to do UEFA/FIFA games just doesn't make sense, as almost all competitions (except Serie A and from next season La Liga and the Premier League with SAOT) using VAR have the same Hawkeye system as we use.

You do realise that the blue and red lines are deliberately made thicker to account for the margin of error, so that if the lines were touching in Coventry's case it would've been onside? Quite a lot of fans are ignorant about officiating and the laws of the game they are watching so I wouldn't trust their "common sense" judgement or otherwise. You go on Twitter and see people talking about the ball leaving the foot, the camera not being in line, margin of error, and lines on the pitch - and you realise that the average fan doesn't know much about VAR yet will still talk nonsense. Feel free to ask IFAB to change the offside law to add even more subjective interpretation to it so the poor assistants and referee without VAR have even more to deal with in terms of judging if a player is offside based on similar criteria to DOGSO. If Aberdeen were in Man Utd's position on the receiving end of an offside decision like that against Celtic on Saturday would you have been happy to have been without VAR and conceded the goal? So the assistant has to judge how far the attacker is past the last defender for this arbitrary/subjective "daylight" to decide if they are offside or not?

Everyone at the bottom cheering on Beith and Broxburn in these next few weeks to avoid 13th going down as well.

Apart from when East Stirlingshire finished 2nd in their first LL season.

They only lost 2-3 to Dunbar in the Scottish Cup (though also lost to Harthill in July) so they've probably got a decent chance, with less travel, fewer games and a slightly later season start to help them as well.

Cowdenbeath were in the SPFL League Cup which took up the first two LL matchdays. Playing SCC or EOSQC cup games midweek doesn't work when you have a team without floodlights or you're playing a club from Ayrshire for example. Automatic relegation for club 42 (frees up two weeks) and automatic promotion for tier 6 winners would help solve fixture issues for non-league clubs while keeping an 18 team league competitive.

At the other end of the table, Strathspey are now safe with Lochee United unable to win the Midlands League.

Well that's that then, Dundee North End winning every game the only thing that can stop Broughty.

Next two weeks after Saturday, LL at home first

A Broughty win on Wednesday with Lochee United failing to win means the latter is out of the running. North End not winning means they will almost certainly be out of contention. Broughty not winning v Tayport while winning their final game, means Lochee winning all four would give them the title (but not easy games v North End, Carnoustie, Downfield)

Don't think it's the three Junior Cup games for Shotts that have been the factor in their fixture pileup... (and even if they weren't playing in that they they'd probably have played the same amount of games in the Strathclyde Cup) Also, the East of Scotland League finish their lower divisions a week later than Premier and the WOS did similar last season, so I don't see why extending the season is an issue. Certainly Campeltown shouldn't be made to play midweek in East Kilbride when they could play it on the next Saturday.

Highland League area teams in League 2 are 5 and 7 points ahead of club 42 with 3 games remaining - so unless that gap is overcome then 18th will be going down with 17th having to wait until the outcome of the pyramid and League 2 play-offs. Going to be a massive game at Raydale Park on Saturday between Gretna and Edinburgh Uni.

If you're counting regional cups like the EOS Cup, Fife Cup, or Glasgow Cup etc then there could be more.

League - 4 games SCFA Cup - QF J Haig Gordon - SF Cree Lodge Cup -SF Tweedie Cup - SF So 8 games, potentially up to 13, with 8 Wed/Sat matchdays left to crown a champion. Guess they want to try and get them played sooner so other teams aren't hanging around for any potential finals after the play-offs.

You can see a yellow socked player on the red line And it’s not the player they’ve drawn the lines against. I thought that at first (whether there was something yellow amongst all the red) but if you look at the actual footage after the ball is kicked none of the Livingston players feet are where it's been circled.

I saw a TERF making it topical by saying the SNP are handing out puberty blockers to children

Well here's the thread that started it. Seems like a problem for candidates in this area (see previously Neale Hanvey).