LongTimeLurker Posted April 2, 2015 Share Posted April 2, 2015 Don't think Saints have, try Glasgow Uni??? Nothing on their website, but if they want to stay in the Scottish Cup they will need to get licensed over the next 12 months. Anyone know if there are any upgrades going on at Garscube at the moment? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cicero Posted April 2, 2015 Share Posted April 2, 2015 I doubt very much that is a solution. If the SJFA are ever persuaded to become part of a Pyramid, it would be at LL and HL level, not EoS and SoS. Why would we want to persuade them? The only people who see them as being special are they themselves. If they do not want to be part of what is on offer, then let them do their own thing. Honest, they won't be missed by anyone outside of .their own niche. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HibeeJibee Posted April 2, 2015 Author Share Posted April 2, 2015 I doubt very much that is a solution. If the SJFA are ever persuaded to become part of a Pyramid, it would be at LL and HL level, not EoS and SoS. On paper that would work - although it would be pretty messy to have 2 overlapping feeders at tier 5, even assuming SPFL clubs would accept it (after all they long demanded a nationwide feeder and eventually settled on the compromise of 2 feeders). Maybe they could be remixed into West and East feeders. In practice only Rose are licensed, and (it would seem) there is little support for the Superduperleague. So I don't imagine it's going to happen anytime soon - given you'd thus be talking the current ER & WR Superleagues joining (i.e. 3 overlapping feeders) with a collective total of 1 licensed club out of 28. Personally, I hope we one day have a comprehensive pyramid system in Scottish football. For now we have a partial one which is at least a start. Anyway, I've said my usual piece and the thread has heavily veered off on a tangent anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Burnie_man Posted April 2, 2015 Share Posted April 2, 2015 Why would we want to persuade them? The only people who see them as being special are they themselves. If they do not want to be part of what is on offer, then let them do their own thing. Honest, they won't be missed by anyone outside of .their own niche. Who are "We"? Nobody is saying anyone is special, but if more than half the Scottish professional football clubs are not involved in the Pyramid then you do not have a Pyramid, no matter how you dress it up. I'm sure everyone wants to rectify that. Well, I thought they would...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Burnie_man Posted April 2, 2015 Share Posted April 2, 2015 On paper that would work - although it would be pretty messy to have 2 overlapping feeders at tier 5, even assuming SPFL clubs would accept it (after all they long demanded a nationwide feeder and eventually settled on the compromise of 2 feeders). Maybe they could be remixed into West and East feeders. In practice only Rose are licensed, and (it would seem) there is little support for the Superduperleague. So I don't imagine it's going to happen anytime soon - given you'd thus be talking the current ER & WR Superleagues joining (i.e. 3 overlapping feeders) with a collective total of 1 licensed club out of 28. Personally, I hope we one day have a comprehensive pyramid system in Scottish football. For now we have a partial one which is at least a start. Anyway, I've said my usual piece and the thread has heavily veered off on a tangent anyway. If there is to be a solution, I can only see a three feeder solution (which should have been the template to start with), ie HFL/LL/SJFA "Lowland" A little more unlikely would be something like HFL, LL(East), LL (West) with Junior Superleagues forming the bulk of the West, and some sort of merger in the East with existing LL. Sadly, I don't see anything happening soon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
calmac25 Posted April 2, 2015 Share Posted April 2, 2015 Nothing on their website, but if they want to stay in the Scottish Cup they will need to get licensed over the next 12 months. Anyone know if there are any upgrades going on at Garscube at the moment? Glasgow signed a deal to play scottish cup games at firhill. Not sure if this will be acceptable for licencing but imagine they must've sought advice from the sfa http://ptfc.co.uk/news/2014-2015/july_2014/new_training_base_for_thistle Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cicero Posted April 2, 2015 Share Posted April 2, 2015 Who are "We"? Nobody is saying anyone is special, but if more than half the Scottish professional football clubs are not involved in the Pyramid then you do not have a Pyramid, no matter how you dress it up. I'm sure everyone wants to rectify that. Well, I thought they would...... It was you who said that the SJFA need to be persuaded to join the pyramid, Who do you envisage as doing the persuading if not from those clubs who are already in it. You cannot say that we do not have a pyramid because the clubs who have chosen to remain outside it say so. Sorry but we do have a system where a youth club can aspire to better things whether those outside the pyramid like it or not. I have always been for the integration of non-league football but I resent those who come on here and rubbish our set up because we may have to accept clubs with no history or have small fan bases. It is up to those clubs outside the system to join and then make the changes that they require when they are in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bankies Alive Posted April 2, 2015 Share Posted April 2, 2015 If the SFA had set up the pyramid and said that the EoS league was to sit under the Junior Super Leagues and be on a par with District League football you`d be going tonto! If you were involved with Linlithgow Rose would you go and play in a league with Spartans and Whitehill Wefare`s reserves? Edit - it was worse than Whitehill reserves its Stirling Uni reserves!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hillonearth Posted April 2, 2015 Share Posted April 2, 2015 We have good facilities as the norm, sponsorship of the league, entry to the Scottish Cup, "Christmas Bonus" from the SFA, fixture lists for virtually the whole season, increased playing standards and more media exposure than the juniors. To name just a few things of the top of my head. Oh and cup draws with the correct number of team in them and players know how many games they are suspended for when they are sent off. What is it with the juniors and crowds? Apart from the usual quoted examples, it is not as if you lot do much better? The future fans will come from the youth clubs that you are talking about. The days of going along to the local junior match when your big team is playing away from home are gone. We need to get fans at an early age and what better way than to get the younger fans to go and support the team that they actually play for. Since the formation of our youth set up this season, I have seen a lot more younger fans at our matches. A lot of this is justifiable criticism of the Juniors, although the "good facilities as the norm" and "increased playing standards" are probably a degree of rose-tinted specs; LL facilties are as wildly differing as those in the Juniors, and while the top third of the LL is on a par with the top end of the Juniors, there's a rapid drop-off to the bottom end which is probably district standard. Largely fair comment, though on the other side of the coin equally so is also the oft-levelled criticism of the crowds the LL is currently attracting, with hardly any of the 15-20 LL games I've seen over the last two seasons pulling in three figures. With the high profile sponsorship and increased media coverage you mentioned on board, why is this still the case? It's clear that by and large - with notable exceptions such as Gala, who I gather have seen their crowds increase substantially, and the likes of BSC and EK who have effectively started from scratch as opposed to the established sides - it simply hasn't fired up the public's imagination in the way I'm sure it was initially hoped. Over this side of the country, there's little awareness of its very existence. The bottom line is that the LL has ostensibly been set up to produce teams capable of stepping up and being valid SPFL sides - the implied suggestion earlier in the thread that teams didn't actually need a fanbase and could effectively exist on SFA handouts and subsidies would suggest the opposite is the case. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cicero Posted April 2, 2015 Share Posted April 2, 2015 If the SFA had set up the pyramid and said that the EoS league was to sit under the Junior Super Leagues and be on a par with District League football you`d be going tonto! If you were involved with Linlithgow Rose would you go and play in a league with Spartans and Whitehill Wefare`s reserves? That was never the scenario and has never been proposed. (I bet Mickey would love a Whitehill reserve team). The original conception was to have sixteen of the best non-league teams in Lowland Scotland made up of all non-league clubs no matter whether senior or junior. For the probably justified reasons about the unreasonable haste that the league was set up the juniors chose not to take part. Two years later they are still not choosing to take part. What would it take to "persuade them"? I have a feeling there is nothing that can be realistically offered, as for the most part, they are happy to be playing at the level they at. What do those pro-pyramid juniors want us to do? Due to negotiations with the SPFL we have to have one league south of the Tay with licensed clubs. These are not negotiable at the moment, perhaps later when some of our better clubs get in the SPFL and change the dynamics from within . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bankies Alive Posted April 2, 2015 Share Posted April 2, 2015 All they had to do was say that promotion was not mandatory for the winner! Brora would`ve been happy and the SJFA would have been happy. They could have taken the top finishing clubs in the Highland and Lowland leagues that actually wanted to progress into a play off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cicero Posted April 2, 2015 Share Posted April 2, 2015 All they had to do was say that promotion was not mandatory for the winner! Brora would`ve been happy and the SJFA would have been happy. They could have taken the top finishing clubs in the Highland and Lowland leagues that actually wanted to progress into a play off. Who are they? The set up was negotiated and perhaps it was a condition set by one of the interested parties. Having not been privy to the negotiations I don't know who? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bankies Alive Posted April 2, 2015 Share Posted April 2, 2015 The SFA/SPFL would`ve been leading this. I suspect it was the SFA. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prorege Posted April 2, 2015 Share Posted April 2, 2015 The SFA should take the lead as follows: 1). State publicly that the concept of an all-encompassing pyramid has not worked. 2) Instruct the SJFA to create an East-west Super League of 16 clubs for 2016/17. 3) State that for 2017/18 the Lowland League will be reformed into two Divisions of 16. The top tier will comprise the top 8 Lowland League clubs and the top 8 Super League clubs from 2016/17. The second tier takes the bottom eight from each. 4) state that from 2017/18 the SOSL will merge with a reformed Ayrshire Region, and the EOSL with a reformed Lothians Region. Fife and Clacks / Stirling / Falkirk form a third Lowland sub-region. 5) instruct the Highland League that from 2017/18 they will be fed by the North Juniors / North Caledonian League. 6) encourage any new clubs and Amateur clubs that want to be part of the pyramid that they should apply for 2015/16 or 2016/17 to join the most geographically appropriate Junior League or EOSL / SOSL. No direct applications to Lowland or Highland Leagues. Simples. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simplistic Posted April 2, 2015 Share Posted April 2, 2015 Purely my opinion but the I know the juniors were always involved with the pyramid working group. There was a list of 20ish junior clubs who were interested in joining a pyramid system. After that list was handed over by TJ (he didn't want to hand it over as he assumed the pyramid was dead when the SPL and SFL vote didn't happen even though the SFA said that didn't matter) the juniors then started talking about any club relegated from the Lowland League having to re-apply and start at the bottom of the Juniors. No Junior apps were then received. Right set up or not, for me the Junior clubs were not given the same positive encouragement to get involved because the Junior officials were interested in the Junior game only and had no interest in finding a solution for all. It's a damn shame as it would have been much better with them, but it'll be just fine without them. Just like Scottish football doesn't really need the old firm, the pyramid doesn't really need the Juniors. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LongTimeLurker Posted April 2, 2015 Share Posted April 2, 2015 There is no pyramid without the juniors and amateurs only a realignment of the senior grade. Hoping we can get back on topic soon so the focus can be the relative merits of the known applicants and finding out if clubs like St Cuthberts Wanderers and Glasgow Uni are amongst them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Craigyboy Posted April 2, 2015 Share Posted April 2, 2015 Bankies Alive suspects it was the SFA....that's good enough for me....f**k proof, what does that matter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bankies Alive Posted April 2, 2015 Share Posted April 2, 2015 It matters little as mandatory promotion was the only sticking point and it has already caused a problem with Brora. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Craigyboy Posted April 2, 2015 Share Posted April 2, 2015 Luckily it does not concern you or the team that you support....so don't worry about it mate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simplistic Posted April 3, 2015 Share Posted April 3, 2015 There is no pyramid without the juniors and amateurs only a realignment of the senior grade. Hoping we can get back on topic soon so the focus can be the relative merits of the known applicants and finding out if clubs like St Cuthberts Wanderers and Glasgow Uni are amongst them. Don't agree. There is now a format where any team can apply to join the EOS or SOS league and work their way from there all the way to the top in Scotland. That is a pyramid system. I hope in the future there are many more levels, but what we have now is a pyramid. I've always said it would be better with the Juniors. But I've been to several Junior meetings and for far too long a few forward thinkers are shot down by nae saying, negativity and threats. Live goes on without them. Also there was a lot more than just 'forced' promotion that was a so called issue. However what sort of league would it be where teams could just decide to stay put and you end up putting a side that finished 5th, 10th or whatever forward for promotion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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