Lapsed Junior

"as the juniors had become stagnant, unambitious." True statement. Nothing was ever done until something needed to be done. Tiresome look back culture. No thought for the future. Happy to celebrate VE Day. Happy to applaud "frontline" workers. Happy to do hee haw.

Not sure I understand the level of bile and hate speech going on here in what should be a relatively mundane debate about a potential new structure in a new league. I thought these trying times were all about being kinder and more considerate to each other. Dunipace seem to have done, quite well for themselves, and are doing good things, and appearing to be progressive and forward thinking, and not too up their own backsides. Talbot obviously don't want to do anything that will stop them from being flat track bullies. Clydebank - people need to get over the Senior/Junior thing, and the no home patter. Tiresome. They groundshare and arguably because of that have helped prolong the like of a team on life support - Yoker. A twofer. As for the "back to the juniors" brigade there seem to be a bit of projecting of themselves on to the Lowland League people. No one made the "juniors" move. If they were forced it was the West Region's bizarrely hatched plan to move en masse they is at fault. Anyways - the two teams I heard named were Talbot and Pollok. But what do I know apart from the whole need to denigrate people because they don't or won't name names is immature and irrelevant. The source I heard it from is credible, coherent and not prone to hyperbole. I am not sure they would fabricate it either. There could well be a germ of truth. "At this point is born the fatal envy which so many men feel of the lives of others. "

There does seem to be some rather tired old thinking going on here with regards to the make up of the new league and conferences. If you are going to go down the route of trying to fit a bog standard league setup into some kind of brave new world - post SARS-CoV-2 - there seem to be too many variables to make it an immediate success. If the season, as it could well do, starts late - how are all the games going to be squeezed in if there are 30+ league plus the sundry cups? Might be time for a new paradigm in thinking what is deliverable in the short term. It might be better to start with something akin to the current Mexican model of with an "apertura" set of conferences, then a "liguilla" for fun, and finally a "clausura" set of conferences to finalise positions. A novel concept for Scottish senior football (but not the Juniors). That way if the season starts on time then everything is good - if it doesn't start on time then the flexibility is already built in to set up placements for 2021-2022. You could even regionalise it from the outset along the lines of Ayshire, Glasgow and Lanark and maybe some kind of Renfrewshire-Dumbartonshire combination.

And this is exactly the problem with the defunct SJFA West Region (and many teams) - a defiant desire to keep information to themselves. People should not have to go hunting for this kind of stuff in this day and age. How do you attract more people to pay in when you don't do anything to attract them? The new, notionally "Senior" set-up looks more progressive, more open to community involvement and generally more forward thinking. It was the Junior way to live in the past, recounting former glories ad infinitum. Hopefully we can look to the future now.

Bankies obviously cared enough about football to join/rejoin the "Juniors". Bankies obviously cared enough that one of them became a VP or something. How many teams have folded in the "Juniors" since 2003 when the Bankies joined/rejoined? The Scottish Junior Cup is down to numbers not seen since the depths of the Second World War. Next season, without the "Seniors", it will be down to numbers not seen since the 1890s. Clubs, regardless of support, have to do what is right for them and their futures. If the Bankies saw the writing on the wall then they had an obligation to do what is right for them. For the record I don't think Yoker Athletic are Juniors. They are a football team, that mostly played in "Junior Leagues". Now they will play in "Senior Leagues". They are still Yoker Athletic. (Remember they were Juveniles and Intermediates too for spells) Maybe they care about Scottish football and not petty, parochial, self interested "gradeism". Maybe they just cared about themselves. We all have to look after ourselves. Junior officials are to football what CAMRA was to the beer world. They think they are everything to everybody but in reality all they have done is tried to turn back time to a dim and distant past "when things were better". If the Bankies have made the wrong decision then so has every other team in the defunct West Region? I doubt it will be smooth sailing for our ground share partners but at least they had the gumption to stand up and be counted. And if it fails then who really cares - it is only football. It has always been only football. And if a serpentine snake pairs us in Conference then that will be just dandy. Anyway this Ronney character seems to be claiming credit for everything "good" and not accepting any responsibilities for anything "bad", for the many failures that got us all to this point in time when clubs felt they had to do something because the blazers were sitting on their hands and not listening. Progress is about protecting the future. It is not about forgetting the past. And if moving to a successful, thriving League is the answer then I am glad we have all made it. Never mind what's it to him...

Founded 14th August 1887. Moved into "new" Holm Park in 4th October 1902 - after Queen Vic shuffled off in January 1901. But good to hear we have signed up.

So we can look forward to a sponsored "Scottish Junior 'But Not Really' Cup"? Not sure about sporting integrity but that reeks. Leave it to the rump and move on. You can't have your cake and eat it.

The rumpers trying to be the last team standing?

The rump