Lowland League comparison

[LongTimeLurker]

Just who are the blazers that you talk about?

I thought that the people behind the scenes were on the whole footballing people who give up their free time to help run the game unpaid. Which fiefdoms were kept intact and for what reason?

I know Tom Johnstone gets a salary and his position had been retained but who else?

The blazers would be the representatives from the HL, EoS, SoS and SJFA who were participating in the pyramid working party. The fiefdoms that were kept largely intact would be the aforementioned HL, EoS, SoS and SJFA. The rational thing to do would have been to merge the lot and create a single merged structure for regional part-time nonleague teams, but that would mean having many fewer officeholders. The people who get involved with league administration usually keep doing it because they enjoy the power trip that is involved. The last thing they are ever likely to do is effectively vote themselves out of office. It's naive to think that only the SJFA's representative would be driven by that sort of consideration.

[Cicero]

You need office bearers to run any league. I may be corrected but these are mostly drawn from the member clubs with the odd exception. The LL office bearers were nearly (I know at least one exception) all in office in either the East or South leagues. Those leagues would have to have voted in replacements.

From what I have seen, looking in from the outside, it seems you need to give up a lot of your own time for very little reward. Hardly a power trip as nobody seems to get any recognition for what they do.

[LongTimeLurker]

Very few people with a worthwhile social life and a career that is heading in a positive direction are interested in sitting through lots of boring league and association meetings. Being involved at the club level is much more enjoyable for most people. The sort of people who are interested in doing that sort of thing season after season for a league and association have unusual personality traits and are often pretty much the last people you would actually want in the roles if there were a budget available to hire somebody competent. It would have been better if the SFA had simply blown the whole thing up using the argument that it was hopelessly dysfunctional and had started again with a clean slate, but a quick perusal of who sits on the most important boards and committees soon makes it clear why that was never on the cards.

[Guest]

And do you really believe you would be taking four buses away from home every time you played an away fixture in the LL? The travelling time alone would be sure to put many of the denizens of Auchinleck off. That and having to be back indoors before they breach their tag conditions

Well my friend there we have it! Talbot take four buses because there is interest in the product, although no doubt having a successful side helps. The LL really has to be a better proposal than it is now IMHO. But there are clubs within the juniors who can generate big travelling supports if the product is right.

[VodkaTap]

Well my friend there we have it! Talbot take four buses because there is interest in the product, although no doubt having a successful side helps. The LL really has to be a better proposal than it is now IMHO. But there are clubs within the juniors who can generate big travelling supports if the product is right.

It is much more important for all clubs to put as much effort in all sorts of ways into increasing their own fan base.

Talbot have been very successful in doing that and are a good model in that respect.

The development of affiliated kids teams will also grow the club fan base as well.

A large travelling support, should be regarded as the cream for any club.

[mickles 1981]

My tuppence, wtf is it to do with any of the Juniors what we compare our League to? Come back next year when you can be arsed to join in with us, then your opinion will count.

This.

A great thread which I am enjoying, but this is the effective bottom line.

[Aubrey Maturin]

Well my friend there we have it! Talbot take four buses because there is interest in the product, although no doubt having a successful side helps. The LL really has to be a better proposal than it is now IMHO. But there are clubs within the juniors who can generate big travelling supports if the product is right.

Yes but when you are having to travel to Edinburgh, the Borders etc every fortnight the novelty factor would most likely quickly wear off. It would be expensive and time consuming for your fans and slowly your away support would tail off.

[LongTimeLurker]

If the LL ever had the best nonleague clubs south of the Tay on board (which is probably the scenario that Isa had in mind with that) most of the teams involved would probably be based within 20 miles of the M8 so the travel wouldn't necessarily be that drastic. Different story with the LL as currently constituted though that's for sure.

[newcastle broon]

If the LL ever had the best nonleague clubs south of the Tay on board (which is probably the scenario that Isa had in mind with that) most of the teams involved would probably be based within 20 miles of the M8 so the travel wouldn't necessarily be that drastic. Different story with the LL as currently constituted though that's for sure.

only your opinion of course.

One of your posts actually criticized the LL for not having teams geographically.

Now your stating it would be made up of teams within 20 miles of the m8

Yet another positive post larky

[LongTimeLurker]

Having only one club in the LL based west of Stirling and north of Dumfries is laughable given that's where most of the population lives south of the Tay and the old Strathclyde region is also underrepresented at the SPFL level.

[VodkaTap]

Having only one club in the LL based west of Stirling and north of Dumfries is laughable given that's where most of the population lives south of the Tay and the old Strathclyde region is also underrepresented at the SPFL level.

Am sure Strathclyde was also under represented in the list of applicants.

The choice of teams in the LL can only come from those that apply !

[Guest]

Am sure Strathclyde was also under represented in the list of applicants.

The choice of teams in the LL can only come from those that apply !

So we are back to the vicious circle, you can't expect a host of big hitters to line up to join if the fare on offer doesn't attract, then place the blame at their feet for not applying, which has been the response to some supporters of the LL. In fact some have taken it further by suggesting punishment like withdrawal of Junior entry to Senior cup and the like, it's all very much us and them. The fifth tier should be populated by clubs with potential whether Junior or otherwise and be the top part of a unified regional non league set up. That should be the goal, what is stopping it is "man mind thy self" I can imagine some clubs currently in the LL who would prefer to stay there, making it attractive to bigger clubs might not be high on their agenda.

[Boomtown Boy]

If you weren't a johnny come lately to this section of the forum, you'd know I like a little bit of dry sarcasm. And aye, ok, fair enough, I probably didn't read that bit properly, I was on my lunch break and had just burnt my tongue on my boiling hot soup

Just for the record, I did watch the whole Junior Cup Final. I thought it was a dreadful game - although I know that it wasn't representative of the grade, or even those two teams as a whole. I continued to watch it even though I thought it was a crap game because there was nothing else on, and I was interested in seeing it out to its conclusion! I've been a lifelong football man, and know you can't judge on one game! I actually used to play Junior football, y'know!

Let's just hope for some good football this weekend, regardless of allegiance!

Craig a will have a wee word with whoever runs the soup kitchen in Rosewell and tell them it was a wee bit hot for the poor souls of Rosewell

[VodkaTap]

So we are back to the vicious circle, you can't expect a host of big hitters to line up to join if the fare on offer doesn't attract, then place the blame at their feet for not applying, which has been the response to some supporters of the LL. In fact some have taken it further by suggesting punishment like withdrawal of Junior entry to Senior cup and the like, it's all very much us and them. The fifth tier should be populated by clubs with potential whether Junior or otherwise and be the top part of a unified regional non league set up. That should be the goal, what is stopping it is "man mind thy self" I can imagine some clubs currently in the LL who would prefer to stay there, making it attractive to bigger clubs might not be high on their agenda.

I don’t reckon it was just the fact that the fare on offer didn’t attract the big hitters from the juniors.

The fact that there was no clear progression route from juniors to LL and back again that was as much an issue as anything else.

This issue has still to be resolved and can only achieved from within the juniors.

Of course there should be one unified non league setup and i don’t reckon there would be many who would argue against that.

I am on record as wanting the 5^th tier to be the best of the best, where the best of the juniors both east and west meet with the LL teams and then the cream will come to the top.

[info]

Surely the obvious solution was to have at least one other feeder league for the lowland league ie West of Scotland.With the South East and North covered surely that was the answer but knowing the way the Junior and present SFA minds work they don,t do obvious!

[HibeeJibee]

Do you mean forming a senior West of Scotland league to sit alongside the East of Scotland and South of Scotland leagues; or having 2 leagues instead of 1 (=Lowland) alongside the Highland League?

[HTG]

If the Junior model were recognised as a decent structure within which to regionalise then Lowland (East & North), Lowland (South & West) would be feasible. I don't know whether it would be equally feasible to split the Highland League so that there was less travelling. I'd actually have gone a step further and included SPFL 2 teams in a revised regional structure. I'd need time to look at the splits when not on my phone but I would drop 2 straight out of SPFL 1 to be replaced by teams who won a qualifying play off from 4 Regional divisions.

It will never happen though. And the reason it will never happen is the same one for which some people want the Juniors emptied from the Scottish Cup - there is too much to lose and not enough to gain either collectively or individually. Thing is, when they were all looking after number one, nobody was suggesting they were backward looking and should be hunted.

[LongTimeLurker]

Surely the obvious solution was to have at least one other feeder league for the lowland league ie West of Scotland.With the South East and North covered surely that was the answer but knowing the way the Junior and present SFA minds work they don,t do obvious!

So you are arguing that a league covering an area with a population of 150,000 or so merits equal status with a new west league covering a population of over 2.5 million? Think the rational thing to do now would be to have the SoS league absorbed into the west region of the juniors as a third district, ditto with the EoS league where the east region of the juniors is concerned, and then get the HL and LL clubs into the junior cup so the barriers to participation by top junior clubs are broken down. That means fewer blazers, however.

[Sergeant Wilson]

Not been to a NECL game and only 1 NWCL (Abbey Hey) but plenty of NL games. Back to Abbey Hey in October I hope.

I was at Eccleshill v Armthorpe on Wednesday, it was a cup game. Home team hammered the visitors 4-0. Armthorpe are a division above. Eccleshill have a tie up with a coaching school, so had a few Bermudans and Americans. They sold Nhaki Wells to Bradford for good money. The next big one will be Marcus Evans who scored 3.

In terms of standard they looked fitter and stonger than non league players here. There were a few decent skillful players too

Facilities were excellent, with good terrace, stand and club. Crowd was only about 50 though.

In the bar, the talk was of clubs over spending to achieve success and the behaviour of some visiting supporters. So that much was the same. Shawlane Aquaforce spending big and last year Scarborough and a couple of others causing bother.

[Cornishman]

The 'gorilla in the room' within the system is really the SFA licencing issue.

This is all very much like the situation with the top-driven ground-grading program in the English pyramid, driven largely by the Taylor report. The problem being the very fact that it's all top-down driven, thus enforcing grading standards on teams which are costly and very much out-of-whack with the teams' functions and experiences.

Take the FL-entry criterion of a 3000-capacity stadium, to have enclosed spectator facilities on a minimum of three sides, with a minimum amount of seating required, with at least one bank of that seating itself subject to another minimum number ruling (sorry, don't have those actual numbers to hand, guessing 1500, 500 respectively for illustration.). A club might be refused entry with say, 1600 seats (4x400) because not one of those banks of seating has 500 contiguous seats!

As I see it, the Seniors have grasped the nettle, realising that their facilities; no matter how good they are in other ways; simply have to pass muster vis-a-vis the SFA licencing... which I suspect they've been expecting for several years, simply via their SFA connection with SPL/SFL/SPFL.

Meanwhile, the vast majority of SJFA clubs, without that connection, have experienced the SFA licence introduction all-in-one-go, as it were, and have understandably entered into a state of mild shock, not having seen the writing on the wall.

I imagine that the generous handful of Juniors who have made it into the SFA Cup will have picked up more of an inkling about the licencing via discussion with Senior opponents in the boardrooms, but doubt whether they'd have semaphored that information about much further.

So, there, you can immediately see the beginnings of a difference in opinions, although given four or five years they'll become indistinguishable.

Allied, of course, is the regulation that entry to the SFA Cup will eventually become licence restricted, which is by and large interpreted as being a whip with which to cajole Juniors into the LL ~ which it's absolutely not. It's just a coincident fact which applies across the boards (ask Strathspey Thistle!).

Yes, no longer would four championship-winning Junior clubs get a place in the SFA Cup if they're unlicenced... however Cup entry will be accorded to any club which is SFA licenced, so this ruling is actually very, very inclusive. Not exclusive as the doom-mongers portray it.

The matter about where an ex-Junior League club should return to upon its possible relegation from the LL should simply be answered by asking where it originated to join the LL.This is a purely in-house problem for the SJFA to decide upon. I can see their fear of lower-divisional clubs perhaps 'using' LL election in order to 'jump divisions' in the SJFA system if/when relegated back from the LL ~ but how practical could/would that actually be for such a club?

It could only possibly benefit a team needing more than two successive promotions within the SJFA system over the same time period, so I cannot see this 'tactic' becoming in any way pervasive as a way to undermine normal promotion pathways. Besides, should the SJFA in its wisdom decline a SL placement to an LL relegatee, I suspect the lawyers might get a run-out! Thus, this problem, really is no problem at all.

Addressing the fact that as it stands, the LL doesn't represent 'the greatest & best' of teams South of the Tay... Well, that's indubitably correct! Personally, I think it has maybe five or six teams presently in it who could be classed amongst the top-16-teams South of the Tay, but currently it only contains the top-12-teams who applied for entry to it from clubs South of the Tay!

It will become the league containing the best teams from South of the Tay, only when all of the best teams from South of the Tay actually obtain their SFA licence, and obviously, apply for inclusion.

The argument regarding the strength of the LL compared with/to various English leagues has yet to come up with anything definitive.

I think that the range of individual teams' strengths within the LL makes a generalised answer near impossible. I'd suggest that presently the LL has three teams capable of existing at the English Step 3 level ~ i.e. NP/Southern/Isthmian Premier level ~ think AFC Fylde, FC Utd. of Manchester or King's Lynn Town, etc. Whether that'd be top/mid/bottom of the table is arguable, I'd suggest upper-mid myself.

The LL also contains two teams who'd most certainly only be capable and maybe maintaining Step 5 football as it is in England.

Now, there's a little difficulty in using the NL as a Step 5 comparison here, as its general average strength; for historic reasons I'll not entertain here and now; is much closer to the average strength of Step 4 than any other Step 5 league. Think Step4½ perhaps?

Both of these less strong teams might compete ok in a 'normal' Step 5 league, if mid to lower table the one, I think the other likely to struggle even at this lowly level.

For the other seven LL teams, mid-lower Step 4 or mid-higher step 5 would, I think be appropriate levels.

(Remembering that there can be considerable overlap in individual team strengths from a division at one level to a division at the next level ~ if I need a quick 'reckoner' to compare two teams from different levels, I use the reasonably reliable '70% on average rule', which states that when compared on a 2-points per win basis, any team from one level beneath another would on average be 70% the strength of a team equal on points with it, but that single level higher. Useful for FA Cup betting (but English Premier League to Championship is different ~ 60% being closer there!), etc. If theres a two-division gap, you multiply, so 70% x 70% = 49%, etc.

That's my considered thoughts about various sub-topics in this thread. Please feel free to comment, commend &/or condemn!