Marten

In Rotterdam the river is a major boundary indeed. Feyenoord draw their support from the south bank of the river and all the villages/towns south of the river (being a big club they obviously also draw in support from further afield, but much larger part of their support is local than at Ajax and to a lesser extend PSV). The north bank of the river is split between Sparta and Excelsior. Sparta represent the west/north of the city and the towns/villages surrounding on the north/west side. Same for Excelsior on the east side of the city and surrounding towns/villages. My family (at least my father's side) is from the east side of Rotterdam, hence why I support Excelsior. FC Eindhoven were originally the main team of Eindhoven, while PSV were a workers' team for Phillips. Until the 1950's, FC Eindhoven were the bigger club, with PSV then taking over. Nowadays, while PSV are by far the biggest club there, FC Eindhoven draw most of the support from the south side of the city. There isn't that much of a rivalry anymore as the difference between the 2 is so big, so there will be PSV fans who occasionally watch FC Eindhoven when PSV aren't playing and vice versa.

Well, I didn't have many hopes for the league title and it's definitely over. Odd with us that when we do lose, it's with a big margin. We had only 4 defeats in all competitions all season (Broughty/North End in the league, Broxburn in the Scottish Cup & Darvel in the Junior Cup) and conceded 14 goals in those 4 games while not scoring any. The consistency is what has to improve for next season. However, the club is still working hard on improving both on and off the pitch and I'm pleased with what I'm seeing. The new, young, players that joined us during this season will all be there next season. We keep building and hopefully come back stronger next season. But the season isn't over yet, there is still a cup to win (hopefully). Semi-final against Buchanhaven Hearts next weekend, all focus can be on that one now.

Also an interesting stat: with Vitesse's relegation, 6 clubs (Ajax, Feyenoord, PSV, FC Utrecht, SC Heerenveen & AZ) have been in the Eredivisie continuously from the start of the century, the next longest serving club is Fortuna Sittard who got promoted in 2018. That means that next season 12 out of 18 clubs, so 2/3rd of the league, have been promoted in 2018 or later. And then to think that there was 1 season in that period without promotion/relegation due to Covid. Since the turn of the century, 31 different clubs have played in the Eredivisie. Of the 13 clubs that are not there now, 12 are in the 2nd tier Eerste Divisie. Other than the B-teams, the only Eerste Divisie teams to not have played in the Eredivisie this century are FC Eindhoven, Telstar, Helmond Sport and TOP Oss. Of those, only TOP Oss never played Eredivisie. The only team that play lower are RBC Roosendaal, who re-started in the 10th tier back in 2012 after bankruptcy. They just got back to back promotions to get to the 5th tier, Vierde Divisie. They are back in the nationally organised "division" structure for the first time after going bust. Below the 5th tier, leagues are organised in regions.

Vitesse Arnhem just got officially relegated from the eredivisie. But not due to a result on the pitch. Because of their financial issues, they got an 18 point deduction from the licensing committee. That leaves them on -1 and confirmed relegation as they didn't appeal. Even without the deduction, they were already 7 points from a relegation play-off place with 4 games left so they'd almost certainly get relegated anyway. But that will be the least of their worries as there is still a risk of liquidation. The could even have lost their licence today so -18 is better than they feared. They have been in the eredivisie from 1989, making them the 5th longest serving club behind the traditional "big 3" (Ajax, Feyenoord and PSV) who have been there from the start in 1956, and FC Utrecht who joined when they were formed through a merger in 1970. It can be argued Utrecht were really also there from the start as one of the clubs that merged to form FC Utrecht, DOS, were eredivisie from 1956 - 1970. The new club continued playing at the same ground (and still do to this day) and most fans/players came from DOS.

The Midlands League & North Region League are organised by the ERJFA & NRJFA respectively, both in turn fall under the the SJFA. So yes, they are still officially "junior" leagues, but obviously in the pyramid now.

And they should have a player sent off early in the second half. Staggering that VAR didn't spot the Ajax player deliberately hitting a Feyenoord player on his head...

In fairness, I don't think they eased up. They had a seventh goal disallowed. A mate of mine who was at the game said they tried very much to score another one.

Ajax just suffered their biggest league defeat in their history. And it's a painful one for them.

On Wednesday is the first fixture, and probably not the last, that has been moved to a different ground just to get it played. Kirrie Thistle v Downfield will be played at Thomson Park as Kirrie doesn't have lights suitable for a game.

Here is hoping! It would be great if George Shields puts the title back in our hands.

Welcome back and I hope things are going better with you now.

Yes, he did get the first too. That was also his 50th league goal of the season.

Broughty Athletic 1-3 Lochee United It's not over just yet. Broughty are still firm favourites, especially when looking at the fixtures both sides have. But if we manage to keep winning the pressure would be on Broughty as in that case they can't afford to drop points.

He now mainly comes on as a sub, he is a good striker, but Kerr Hay is on fire this season and by far the top goal scorer in this league. Which 17 year old? We had a few young signings recently.

It's frustrating, I admit Broughty are the better side at the moment, but with them seemingly not bothered about a license, they could continue being the blockers. I'd be happy for them to go up so next season we'd have a better chance. But it is what it is, a lot of work is going on at Lochee United both on and off the pitch to build for the longer term. Our time will come.

If they wanted to, Jeanfield could switch to the Midlands League to have a route into the HL instead. Same goes for Luncarty and Kinnoul as Perth is a bit of a grey area between the two leagues. I'd be very surprised to see Jeanfield make that switch though.

This. Also, would you really want what happened in the east, with a trickle of a number of clubs every year over a few years? It took a few years of conferences for the EoSFL to get to a proper structure. And only this season it can really be said clubs are generally at the level they belong at, with a handful of exceptions.

They said they were aiming for a license but no clue if they managed to make any improvements this season. I suppose I'll find out soon enough when we head there.

Geert Wilders will NOT be the next Dutch Prime Minister. Other party leaders couldn't get an agreement with him. There are now talks of getting an independent PM that all parties can agree with.

I'm not sure to be honest. I assume if we get promoted, we'll be in the Highland League cups. But the clubs have regional cups to compete in as well, so maybe we'd stay in a regional cup as the Aberdeenshire Cup or North of Scotland Cup won't have us obviously?

Cover, floodlights etc. aren't the issue indeed. In terms of spectator facilities it's only really the toilets I believe. But other issues aren't really visible to spectators. Things like dressing rooms and other facilities for players/officials/referees aren't to the SFA licensing standards. Obviously there are other licensing demands than just the ground but Broughty have plenty of volunteers / committee members so I'm sure they could pass those. It's more difficult to sort the other issues as I believe it's a council owned facility.

No, and unlikely to get it any time soon.

One QF was played last night. Lochee United had a straightforward win at Letham. It was a commanding performance from us throughout. Could even have been more, but I can't complain about the result and the effort by the lads. They picked themselves up really well after the very disappointing Broughty game last week with 2 good performances straight after. The other 3 quarter finals are being played on Saturday 16th March. Letham 0-5 Lochee United Bridge of Don Thistle v Hermes Buchanhaven Hearts v Downfield Tayport v East Craigie

Sorry for the lack of updates. These were the results until the QF: Second Round Coupar Angus 0-4 Broughty Athletic Downfield 3-1 Dundee St. James Lochee Harp 1-3 Carnoustie Panmure Montrose Roselea 0-3 Tayport Letham 1-0 Scone Thistle Lochee United 4-1 Blairgowrie East Craigie 3-1 Arbroath Victoria Dundee North End 6-0 Forfar United Culter 11-0 Glentanar Bridge of Don Thistle 3-0 Banchory St Ternan Buchanhaven Hearts 2-0 Islavale Newmacher United 1-3 Banks o' Dee Juniors Rothie Roers 2-3 Deveronside Hermes 4-0 Maud Stonehaven 1-3 Dyce Sunnybank 3-0 Ellon United Third Round Downfield 5-1 Deveronside Bridge of Don Thistle 0-0 Dundee North End (pen 4-3) Dundee East Craigie 5-0 Sunnybank Buchanhaven Hearts 1-0 Broughty Athletic Letham 3-2 Culter Dyce 1-2 Tayport Lochee Utd 4-0 Banks O Dee juniors Hermes 7-1 Carnoustie Panmure

I agree that it doesn't make sense to force all new clubs to go through amateur football first. For some it might work well to build up a club from amateur level, for others it's too low a level to start. If we compare it to England, there are plenty of amateur leagues in the pyramid, but it's possible to apply to start at a higher level than the absolute bottom in your region, which goes as far down as tier 20 in some parts of the country. Clubs who plan to go semi-pro straight away could apply to start at the lowest level in the National League System, which is tier 10 (step 6) all over the country now. That is indeed what happened to phoenix/re-formed clubs like AFC Wimbledon, AFC Chester, Macclesfield, Darlington, Bury, Hereford and so on (some started at tier 9/step 5 like Wimbledon but at the time that was the lowest level in the NLS in their region). There are also a number of clubs that aren't phoenix clubs / (claimed) re-starts but started as a fully new club semi-pro on step 6 straight away, one of the best known of those is FC United of Manchester but there are plenty more. With some of these clubs there were already issues when they restarted in that they took far more fans to away games than the host clubs could handle or that they were too good for that level so completely romped the league. Forcing such clubs to start at the absolute lowest level in their area would just be madness and make that far worse. A good example of that actually happened in Germany some 20 years ago. Lokomotive Leipzig reformed after bankruptcy and were forced into the absolute lowest level in their area. They absolutely destroyed all opposition, winning everything and recording wins with more than 20 goals difference a few times. Opponents had to scramble for grounds to play the games against Lokomotive Leipzig as they generally played at simple pitches without any spectator facilities that couldn't handle the expected crowds. After that first season, they were quickly allowed 2 tiers higher than the tier they were actually promoted to. And even then they again won that league with ease, although the scorelines weren't as crazy. They got promoted another few times and have since settled in tier 4, the highest regional level in Germany. I'm more than happy for a route to exist through amateur football to the pyramid. Either with amateurs being formally part of the pyramid but with a different status like in England or with amateur leagues being separate like they are now with the possibility to apply to higher leagues. But it's not an appropriate route for every club.