St-ow!

Further to my 'troll' post of a few weeks ago where I said it may be time to have another look at Scottish Labour... having done so and having also seen Douglas Ross for a while now...I have decided to vote for... neither. Or vote at all, in fact. Ever. Again.

Rubbish! It's less than ten years since the introduction of the pyramid, changes to the league cup and, least conservative of all, the new challenge cup format. I'm sure you can remember the '90s when the league seemed to be restructured every other season. Forgive a bit if caution rather than go back to a state of continual flux. Or maybe you only look old because you've smoked so much...

This clinched it for me. Shame, as I was very keen on parallel conferences at the third tier.

Sportsound is great but they should stop with the calling me Richard. Surely.

@Oldster Your proposal - colts at tier 5 of the pyramid, but within their own division, in parallel with the Lowland and Highland leagues:

@SecretCEO Your proposal - colts teams, not part of the pyramid, but playing some games against SPFL lower league opponents, each earning points towards their respective leagues: You could classify it as three Scottish trained players. They would need to have been registered at Scottish clubs for a certain amount of years before a certain age. It wouldn't matter what their nationality was but you'd find the vast majority would be eligible to play for Scotland anyway. That's how hockey got away with it.

Can't wrap my mind around that first idea you've posted there - might take some work! For the top division of 16, you could split after 30 games. Then top 4 play again, home and away. middle 8 play again, home or away. Team finishing top plays off against 4th for final European place. bottom 4 play again, home and away. Same for Championship, but 5th qualifies for promotion playoff. I like your 2 divisions of 10 for League 1. But might need to promote the champions of each automatically, with 2v3 and 3v2 to keep things interesting (winner plays other winner plays 14th of Championship). Relegate one per L1 division, and 2nd bottom of each play off v 2nd in LL and 2nd in HL.

The board don't think that the teams will manage to fit in all of the games if there's any Covid resurgence. And maybe that part timers are more likely to have Covid postponement issues. So they're looking for the clubs to come up with a contingency plan. As I understand it.

Hearts had a great opportunity to be a bigger club by playing at Murrayfield instead of Tynecastle. Their attendances for bigger games at Murrayfield were beyond Tynecastle's current capacity and so they'd be making more money each season. They also effectively spent a thousand quid+ per additional seat of capacity in order to upgrade their main stand when they could just have sold the lot to developers. Not prudent.

Think so. All 5 teams would be involved in the head2head matches (that are effectively playoffs) but maybe you'd want the team in 5th at the split sitting out the final matchday (with an odd number of teams in each mini league of 5 after the split, 1 team has to sit out each matchday) because they would be least likely to be involved in the battle for 1st (automatic promotion) and 2nd (playoff v 9th from division above). Not sure what they're actually proposing, though.

The other way to do it would be to seek the agreement of Championship clubs to reduce the playoffs to just 9th v 2nd, because this would save a couple of fixture dates and the split more or less gives head2head playoff matches anyway. Can't see Championship clubs refusing fewer playoff games for their 9th place team, as it would be less risky for them than having to go through the usual 2 ties. So - 22 games with split, push back the playoffs to give leeway for fixtures, and only have 9th v 2nd playoff finals since the split sorts out the best playoff candidate anyway.

Looks like, in order to approve the 22 game option, all that the SPFL board want from League One and League Two clubs is consensus on a method of deciding how to deal with clubs who cannot complete 22 games. Therefore, the clubs only need to assure the SPFL board that points per game will be used in such a scenario for the SPFL board to give the 22 game with split proposal their approval.

I was keen on reserve leagues with a set quota of youths in each team's XI, as a way to progress their development alongside senior pros. Don't know where we are with that now. Then again, maybe that didn't ever produce very many really good players in the past, who would actually improve the national team. Maybe the best development comes from good young players actually signing permanent contracts with clubs down the leagues, and being fully part of that club's efforts for a couple of seasons - because my impression is that loans don't really do much for player development.

I think the bit you highlighted is about meeting stadium criteria, licensing stuff, etc.

I take it this issue will just keep returning unless Scotland consistently qualify for the major championships. So maybe find a better way to bring on youth development, then there would be no argument for the colts (even if youth development isn't their genuine reason for wanting colts in the league). Project Brave, reserves leagues - something must work.

My bad!

I can see the logic - keep saying no, see how much it means to them by what they offer, and maybe yes if it's something very beneficial to all clubs. It's still not for me, though. I don't understand why they have such a hard-on for League 2 when surely their ambitions are elsewhere. Off to the EPL's U23s with you. Goodbye.

Surprised the old firm aren't looking at putting their colts in with the English Premier's equivalent, where they think they belong. Don't know what the standard is like there, but it seems more like the sort of glamour they aspire to.

Hearts is why they're treated differently, I tells yer.

This really is hopelessly obvious trolling. A more than generous 1/10. It isn't. These are my genuine beliefs, at this moment. Absolutely scunnered with the SNP sleaze damaging our constitution. And so are many others, if today's papers/polls are to be believed. Also tempted by the other pro-indy party, if it materialises, but I want both to give Mr Sarwar his chance and to wait until after Covid is long gone before we look again at independence. The economy (postBrexit, too) is too frail for any ither major changes ('shocks') right now.

Tempted to vote for Scottish Labour now. Like what Sarwar says about no indyref this parliament, to recover from Covid. I'm a Yes voter, but am ashamed that my team can still plan for an independence referendum at this worst of times. They really are irrational about independence and are putting me off. It isn't the solution to everything. I like the background rumblings of Starmer, Findlay, Brown about looking again at Devo More or Devo Max. Hopefully something will come of that, and we'll see independence a good bit further down the road.

Sturgeon being given the dreaded vote of confidence by that Blackford guy today. The writing's on the wall for our wee Nippy Sweetie, methinks. Never mind - that Kate Forbes ladyperson will be an excellent replacement.

The reason that the Championship was allowed to continue was because one of Scotland's superclubs, Hearts, were/are in there. If they weren't and if they hadn't been treated controversially last summer, only the Premiership would have continued. Am I wrong?

Um - I'm ignorant of the German system, but when I originally came on P+B it was to promote just that type of split for Scotland at tier 3. Needless to say, I had my erse handed to me.