Team 16?

[WaffenThinMint]

3 hours ago, VodkaTap said:

Oh dear, How could I have forgotten all about this !!

So it seems that the SJFA have more than one statement of how they would like to see the future of non-league football develop.

Rather than have then restate their position it looks like they need to state which is the current view they hold now.

Maybe after we know that, they can start negotiations and maybe put in place a system that would allow a smooth and easy transition to a fully integrated setup.

But I suspect nothing will happen.

They will continue to carp on about how poor the LL is with few fans and continue to proclaim their superiority in all things non-league.

The SJFA proved when push came to shove they're nothing but a self-interested rabble led by a street 2-pairs-for a-pound-socks-salesman Tom Johnson who says whatever he believes people want to hear at any given time. Even by the standards of Scottish football's dodgy characters on high, Johnson's in a depth of his own. You cannot negotiate with those that have demonstrated bad faith time & time again.

Given time, the likes of Auchinleck Talbot, Linlithgow Rose, & the other progressive Junior clubs not stuck in the Dark Ages will naturally move over as the gulf between them & the rest of the Juniors - in terms of the standard of football on the field & standard of conditions their fans can expect within their grounds as paying customers - becomes insurmountable.

It's the oldest footballing story in the book: they'll demand certain minimal standands for Junior top tier entry beyond the mere winning of a tier 2 promotion spot, this will be rejected by those that think spending money on players is the be-all & end-all: at which point the committees of those demanding change will be forced to accept that it's time to move on.

[Burnie_man]

5 minutes ago, newcastle broon said:

Who am I to say  though, hardly desperate,I  travel wi a 200 miles round trip every 2nd week just to Rosewell,so it doesn't really matter a Donald duck whether it's a junior team or LL side theyre playing against

Again I'm certainly no a spokesman or representative of ww

Did you answer my question by the way do crowds win trophies a simple yes or no will suffice please.........

I answered yer question! without cash ringing through the till in the bar or fans through the gate, you wont have money to run a club unless you have a sugar daddy bankrolling it. As Jock Stein once said, football without fans is nothing and who am I to disagree with him!

Anyway, look forward to you joining the South Division next season, although we might be in the Premier by then, fingers crossed

[newcastle broon]

1 minute ago, Burnie_man said:

I answered yer question! without cash ringing through the till in the bar or fans through the gate, you wont have money to run a club unless you have a sugar daddy bankrolling it. As Jock Stein once said, football without fans is nothing and who am I to disagree with him!

Anyway, look forward to you joining the South Division next season, although we might be in the Premier by then, fingers crossed

This is Internet harassment

No really some clubs have social clubs without a sugar daddy to be seen or am I missing something.

 

 

[HTG]

Whatever it takes we need to batter through all these barriers. I'm not fussed or interested any more in who should have done what. Clubs need to be supported to find their best level. Demographics make it blindingly obvious that a regional split in Scotland should be 3 way.

We played Threave the other week and whilst the scoreline was close i think we had a bit more up our sleeves. But ...

Threave have got a great wee set up and they look like they're very much at the heart if their community. Loads of so called better junior teams should be replicating what Threave have achieved. Bo'ness have started to make strides with their quality mark award. Long way to go but the impetus is really starting to build with the redevelopment of Newtown Park on the horizon. It would be good to see a few junior teams actually position themselves to challenge current thinking.

If everyone remains entrenched then the only thing that will happen is more circular chatter,.

[Hillonearth]

1 hour ago, newcastle broon said:

Who am I to say  though, hardly desperate,I  travel wi a 200 miles round trip every 2nd week just to Rosewell,so it doesn't really matter a Donald duck whether it's a junior team or LL side theyre playing against

Again I'm certainly no a spokesman or representative of ww

Did you answer my question by the way do crowds win trophies a simple yes or no will suffice please.........

Of course they don't - you only need to look at Bournemouth in England or Villareal in Spain who have been successful without huge fanbases.

I think the reason the crowd thing gets brought up a lot is that in most cases LL crowds haven't risen much since EoS days - obviously more will be tempted out by cup games and so on, but in the bread and butter games the majority of clubs three seasons into the competition seem to still be attracting double figure attendances, which would suggest that outside of certain clubs - EK with last year's cup run are a good example - the league hasn't really captured the public's imagination in the manner perhaps it was hoped.

I'd suggest while low fanbases aren't a concern to most of the supporters on here, they certainly will be to the people actually running the clubs who are attempting to balance the books at the end of the day.

I don't know why it's the case - most games I've been to have been of a fairly good standard - the only things I can think of are the possibilities that some of the communities represented in the LL are either simply too small to generate higher crowds, play second fiddle to other sports like rugby in their towns or are seen as is possibly the case with the Uni sides as being at a remove from the potential paying public.

 

[Burnie_man]

2 hours ago, newcastle broon said:

This is Internet harassment

 

Oh c'mon, the South Division isn't that bad

[WaffenThinMint]

1 hour ago, Hillonearth said:

Of course they don't - you only need to look at Bournemouth in England or Villareal in Spain who have been successful without huge fanbases.

I think the reason the crowd thing gets brought up a lot is that in most cases LL crowds haven't risen much since EoS days - obviously more will be tempted out by cup games and so on, but in the bread and butter games the majority of clubs three seasons into the competition seem to still be attracting double figure attendances, which would suggest that outside of certain clubs - EK with last year's cup run are a good example - the league hasn't really captured the public's imagination in the manner perhaps it was hoped.

I'd suggest while low fanbases aren't a concern to most of the supporters on here, they certainly will be to the people actually running the clubs who are attempting to balance the books at the end of the day.

I don't know why it's the case - most games I've been to have been of a fairly good standard - the only things I can think of are the possibilities that some of the communities represented in the LL are either simply too small to generate higher crowds, play second fiddle to other sports like rugby in their towns or are seen as is possibly the case with the Uni sides as being at a remove from the potential paying public.

 

Bournemouth's crowd did begin to improve when they began to be successful - that is so often the crux for most clubs. Ask East Stirling for example what their crowds are like now they're putting teams regularly to the sword in comparison to their Atlas days in Division 3.

There's also the old time slog of getting the community interested in your club, & that means having the people prepared to put in the time (or moreover having the spare time) to do all the PR work necessary. But often you need the success on the field before you get the volunteers.

There's also the matter of quality of activists being far more important than quantity - compare the stories of Auchinleck Talbot to the tragedy of Rushden & Diamonds when the original incantation became "fan owned".

 

[newcastle broon]

1 hour ago, Burnie_man said:

Oh c'mon, the South Division isn't that bad

You should ken yous have been in it long enough......

[Burnie_man]

2 minutes ago, newcastle broon said:

You should ken yous have been in it long enough......

That's cos we love it

[newcastle broon]

8 hours ago, Hawick2016 said:

A lot of talk on here about 'Team 16' as the thread title goes.

Whats everyones early thoughts on Hawick and Strollers being introduced?

Both have had indifferent starts and funnily enough have drawn each other in the scottish!

Havent seen the Strollers yet so can't comment, your side have started well and you must be reasonably pleased you are in there as many, on various threads on here thought you'd be making the numbers up.  

Long long way to go but well done so far. 

[newcastle broon]

2 minutes ago, Burnie_man said:

That's cos we love it

What being in the bottom district junior league season after season wi naewhere to go at the end of it.  Aye it's maybes yer level.  

 

[Burnie_man]

Just now, newcastle broon said:

What being in the bottom district junior league season after season wi naewhere to go at the end of it.  Aye it's maybes yer level.  

 

Oh come on now Newky play nice, we even have a former League winner of yours on the books to show us what a medal looks like

[The Mantis]

16 minutes ago, Burnie_man said:

Oh come on now Newky play nice, we even have a former League winner of yours on the books to show us what a medal looks like

Who's that then Burnie?

edit- found it. I see you've got the wee ginger guy from Bronsky Beat too.

[bendan]

7 hours ago, HTG said:

Whatever it takes we need to batter through all these barriers. I'm not fussed or interested any more in who should have done what. Clubs need to be supported to find their best level. Demographics make it blindingly obvious that a regional split in Scotland should be 3 way.

We played Threave the other week and whilst the scoreline was close i think we had a bit more up our sleeves. But ...

Threave have got a great wee set up and they look like they're very much at the heart if their community. Loads of so called better junior teams should be replicating what Threave have achieved. Bo'ness have started to make strides with their quality mark award. Long way to go but the impetus is really starting to build with the redevelopment of Newtown Park on the horizon. It would be good to see a few junior teams actually position themselves to challenge current thinking.

If everyone remains entrenched then the only thing that will happen is more circular chatter,.

I'd agree with this. I've always thought that a deal might be quite easy if there was some kind of meaningful financial support for a new structure, by extending SPFL prize money into Tier 5 for example. This wouldn't have to be a big share of revenues - say 0.1% for top of the E/W/N down to 0.02% for bottom would add up to about 2% of overall prize money (a bit over 400k at current levels). The most difficult thing with a new E/W split might be deciding who goes in the top league in the East, as you could just use the juniors structure in the West and add on EK, CC and (maybe!) BSC to make an expanded top league.

The point has been made that crowds haven't increased in the LL to the level that might have been hoped, and it does seem like that, though the standard of football and level of organisation off the park seem to have stepped up a level to me. I think one problem is that the league itself is not really being promoted (or 'branded') very well. That's one thing the SFA should be able to help with. The SPFL have helped by including more LL teams in the Challenge Cup this year, and that also injects more money into the league.

[HTG]

9 hours ago, newcastle broon said:

What being in the bottom district junior league season after season wi naewhere to go at the end of it.  Aye it's maybes yer level.  

 

"Naewhere to go at the end of it" whilst tongue in cheek is a bit of a riddy from someone who's team is in tier 5 but has very limited opportunity to go up the way and a fair chance of not having to go down the way - and even if they did they'd have nowhere to go after that. 

Then of course we have our tier 5 friends in the north where you can get pumped 14 - 0 every week with absolutely no consequences. Aye, it's a proper pyramid up there ...

[Hawick2016]

10 hours ago, newcastle broon said:

Havent seen the Strollers yet so can't comment, your side have started well and you must be reasonably pleased you are in there as many, on various threads on here thought you'd be making the numbers up.  

Long long way to go but well done so far. 

Yeah so far i am relatively pleased. Dropped some daft points (3-1 up at Vale against ten men and lost) but otherwise its been a promising start.

Big couple of weeks coming up with Dalbeattie this weekend followed by the Scottish the following.

Enjoying LL life so far, all clubs have been very welcoming!

[Rab B Nesbit]

2 hours ago, HTG said:

"Naewhere to go at the end of it" whilst tongue in cheek is a bit of a riddy from someone who's team is in tier 5 but has very limited opportunity to go up the way and a fair chance of not having to go down the way - and even if they did they'd have nowhere to go after that. 

Then of course we have our tier 5 friends in the north where you can get pumped 14 - 0 every week with absolutely no consequences. Aye, it's a proper pyramid up there ...

Very limited is better than nowhere at all though. And if relegated we'd go back to the East of Scotland League. 

[Rab B Nesbit]

7 hours ago, bendan said:

I'd agree with this. I've always thought that a deal might be quite easy if there was some kind of meaningful financial support for a new structure, by extending SPFL prize money into Tier 5 for example. This wouldn't have to be a big share of revenues - say 0.1% for top of the E/W/N down to 0.02% for bottom would add up to about 2% of overall prize money (a bit over 400k at current levels). The most difficult thing with a new E/W split might be deciding who goes in the top league in the East, as you could just use the juniors structure in the West and add on EK, CC and (maybe!) BSC to make an expanded top league.

The point has been made that crowds haven't increased in the LL to the level that might have been hoped, and it does seem like that, though the standard of football and level of organisation off the park seem to have stepped up a level to me. I think one problem is that the league itself is not really being promoted (or 'branded') very well. That's one thing the SFA should be able to help with. The SPFL have helped by including more LL teams in the Challenge Cup this year, and that also injects more money into the league.

Crowds at WW and interest in the club is well up since joining the LL. 

[Doonhamer doon south]

Can I ask how many teams have gone defunct or gone to the juniors since the pyramid began few years back. I know EOS league is losing teams steadily?

[lowenan]

None from the Highland League or Lowland League. Only if you start counting the unlicensed teams in the SOS and EOS.