Sidney Lumet

Jeez oh, no amount of you howling at the moon will change the fact that at the start of this season every team knew where they were and every team knew where they would consequently be next season through their finishing positions. Your one man campaign to see that all ripped up and rehashed because you feel that the rump of West Lothian teams who failed time and time and time again to see that the writing was on the wall for the junior game - despite them being implored to make the move to the EoSFL before they eventually had no option - should be hoisted to a position higher than others you deem unworthy is as tedious as it is fruitless. Beds were made and, to their credit at least on this, the ex-juniors are willing to lie in them. Only you appear unwilling to refrain from beating a dead horse.

What is the rumour being alluded to? Would I be correct in guessing that Harthill Royal are being touted for a move back to the east after their ill advised move to the WoSFL? If so, wasn’t there a deadline for EoSFL applicants that has long since passed with, apparently, no new applications - Harthill or otherwise - being lodged ahead of that deadline?

I think you can definitely read that graphic as a set-up next season of; 16 - Premier League 18 - First Division 18 - Second Division 8 - Third Division …..with the third placed team in the current Conference X being promoted to achieve this should there be a net gain of one from the Lowland League. An eight team Third Division will be pretty poor but I guess it continues to give the West Lothian teams what they had apparently hankered after before they were dragged kicking and screaming into the real world - a wee league of their own!

The graphic I had seen was this one and certainly suggests a 16 team First Division next season, which is a little contradictory to the statements quoted earlier that tend to suggest that with a net gain of one club there will be an 18 team First Division.

I think that Blackburn have the best away record in the division outside the top four, but have the worst home record out of all 18 sides. Pretty unusual stats.

Just read on Twitter that the EoSFL Board have declined to sanction an early postponement of the Penicuik game, will that be the case for all the clubs who are declaring postponements tonight or is it just the Penicuik v Blackburn game that is being singled out

The issue is surely deep rooted and has its beginnings in the failure of the club to see the Junior game was all but gone years ago. Several opportunities to move to the EoSFL and a higher tier than the club now occupy were snubbed for no logical reason - a previous manager saw the sense in it and was all but pleading for it to happen, despite his own initial scepticism. Small town thinking only has one short term result and it’s what Fauldhouse are suffering from now. It’s how they address the mid to long term that is key now, and history says there is little vision within their club to see them do so effectively. Of course, the same can be said of the rest of the West Lothian Junior diehards - all behind the new boys of Bo’ness Athletic and Syngenta and barely better than the Edinburgh College boys, if at all. No one to blame but themselves though.

Perhaps just letting it go is prudent for you now? The decision has been made and your repeated carping is beyond embarrassing for both you and your club.

To quote your own words back at you, I’ve been following developments on here over that past year or so but I’ve only recently had time to read through your stuff and form a different opinion to you. If I have to believe you then you’ll just need to believe me. I trust that is okay and I’ll not need to ask your permission as to when and what I post and with who I do or don’t agree with. Your caustic approach verging on trolling does your argument no favours.

But it IS entirely unreasonable to ask players to commit to that schedule just because of its similarity to schedules they may have endured previously in a pre-pandemic world. There are life experiences and necessities that have been missed for many months and that will take precedence over play-play-play (as you seem to suggest that training can simply be shelved, itself an entirely unrealistic proposition) as demanded by your route map to end the season. In previous seasons where demanding schedules were the norm near the end of the campaign these demands weren’t placed in a climate where a form of house arrest had proceeded them so it was indeed then something that had to be factored into life as a football player or committee member. Simply to imply that if a return to football after lockdown impinges on your family life and prevents what to some is their desired ‘finish’ to a season then the solution is for individuals to choose not to return is also unreasonable. This indiscriminate course will impact the potential strength of teams on their enforced return and thus potentially impact performances and therefore results meaning the season is again adversely affected. It also has the potential to put additional stresses and strains on those behind the scenes - where many committees are short handed during the best of times - should some committee volunteers not return due to an entirely understandable desire, nay need, to put a return to normal family life first. For me, it is entirely unrealistic, and therefore unreasonable, to shoehorn games in to reach a 50% watermark to avoid a null and void decision already agreed upon twice.

It seems that there is just no real reasoning with some on here that expect part time players (most of whom at this level play for little more than expenses only so are very far removed from being the employees cited in an earlier example) and volunteers (who do all manner of jobs big and small behind the scenes for nothing more of a reward than getting to see a team representing their community play) to simply suck it up and play, train, play, train and play again once lockdown regulations are eased sufficiently because that’s just what they signed up for - begone the pesky necessities of life that surround a return to work for many, a re-engagement with family near and far and a return to normality with their nearest and dearest. “I can’t do this with my wife or partner or mum or dad or son or daughter as I’m playing a game, I can’t do that with my wife or partner or mum or dad or son or daughter as I’m training”. This or that being something they haven’t been able to do for many months because of rules that have proscribed them from doing so. Put those every day, normal things they have longed for on hold, indeed continue to put their close families lives on hold, because someone who won’t sacrifice any such return to normality demands that they squeeze umpteen games of football in instead for that someone’s enjoyment and for that someone’s idea as to how the football pyramid should look and look ASAP. Wow, tell you what - let’s just quickly redefine the word selfish too.

What Truthteller describes is exactly what was intended to happen had the season been played to a conclusion.

And you’ve read this definitively where? A link or an attributable quote would be great. I would refer you to the post by Black & Red Socks for an absolutely compelling reason as to why 2 and possibly 3 games a week for part time players and volunteer committees should be a complete no no. I find it really quite hard to understand why their sacrifice is being demanded by many who will most likely never be expected to make any such sacrifice themselves.

I would think many clubs just want their governing body to stand by the decision to null and void that was made at the beginning of the season should 50% of games not be reached and that was then reaffirmed to them in February. I guess it really is as simple as that. Looking for ulterior motives is fruitless when such motives will be found in nearly every clubs position on the matter.

Madness when you look at it from the point of view of club volunteers I’m afraid.