welshbairn Posted April 1, 2016 Share Posted April 1, 2016 4 clubs applied for 3 places,Banks O Dee,Formartine United,Turriff United and Strathspey Thistle. Banks o Dee were the unsuccessful club.Banks o Dee would be first in now no doubt about it,with them being licensed now,only Golspie Sutherland of the NCL are the only other club north of the Tay that are licensed. Talk is they're not too fussed bout moving up,they're league rivals Halkirk United who have a good set up at Morrison Park were said to be interested though. Apart from Banks and Halkirk I haven't heard of any other interested parties,that would be enough though for the much touted 2 leagues of 10. There's a story in the Northern Scot today about a counter proposal from the "other" ten chairman,Forres chairman has a say on it but he doesn't go into detail what their proposal's are. They're waiting till the upcoming LMC meeting to put their proposal's to the gang of "8". I can understand them wanting a geographical spread so letting Strathspey Thistle in, but why on earth did they allow Formartine in instead of Banks o Dee, with their top notch facilities (so I believe, never been)? Formartine's pitch was still a bog with nearly every home game postponed until last season when they decided to divert some money from their hefty player budget and poaching fund to doing a bit of drainage work. Was it to protect Cove Rangers while they were the soul Aberdeen HL club trying to sort out a new ground, from local competition? Perhaps we'll never know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HibeeJibee Posted April 1, 2016 Share Posted April 1, 2016 Well, normally the story is that BoD didn't get the votes as they were too good and would've competed for players. They'd all the facilities in place, were Junior top dogs (weren't some of the others not even in the Superleague?) and were already playing in the Aberdeenshire Cup, Shield and Aberdeenshire & District U20s league. There is usually a retort that they "didn't try hard enough" in mounting an electoral campaign, usually ascribed to an assumption they'd be a shoe-in. Mind you - if some clubs really were theorising that Formartine and Turriff wouldn't prove as strong, they've been sorely mistaken. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lionel hutz Posted April 1, 2016 Share Posted April 1, 2016 In all fairness, you wouldn't think that the two teams leading the HL come from villages with a combined population of under 3,000. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
welshbairn Posted April 1, 2016 Share Posted April 1, 2016 In all fairness, you wouldn't think that the two teams leading the HL come from villages with a combined population of under 3,000. Cove Rangers have a population of zero. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lionel hutz Posted April 1, 2016 Share Posted April 1, 2016 Cove Rangers have a population of zero. More meaning Brora and Pitmedden, but each to their own Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
welshbairn Posted April 1, 2016 Share Posted April 1, 2016 More meaning Brora and Pitmedden, but each to their own Just pedantically pointing out that Brora and Cove are the top two, Formartine are 3rd at the moment, though it could well change. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lionel hutz Posted April 1, 2016 Share Posted April 1, 2016 Just pedantically pointing out that Brora and Cove are the top two, Formartine are 3rd at the moment, though it could well change. Oh Aye! Didn't notice that. I think Formantine have a game in hand over Cove and two over Brora (?). Getting back to the point, Banks' o Dee, Aberdeen Uni and Halkirk would all be good additions to a new HL2. On another note, if Oban Saints wanted to join the pyramid, would they have to join the Highland or Lowland region? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
welshbairn Posted April 1, 2016 Share Posted April 1, 2016 Oh Aye! Didn't notice that. I think Formantine have a game in hand over Cove and two over Brora (?). Getting back to the point, Banks' o Dee, Aberdeen Uni and Halkirk would all be good additions to a new HL2. On another note, if Oban Saints wanted to join the pyramid, would they have to join the Highland or Lowland region? I hope they'd join the HL, nice round trip from Inverness for away days, via Skye on the way out and Fort William on the way back maybe, with an overnight stop or two. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LongTimeLurker Posted April 2, 2016 Share Posted April 2, 2016 Think you'll find they are in Lowland League territory. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedLichtie86 Posted April 3, 2016 Share Posted April 3, 2016 I would say that Oban Saints would go in the Highland setup due to being closer to Fort William than Stirling or Glasgow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lionel hutz Posted April 3, 2016 Share Posted April 3, 2016 I found out that the Border is a straight line along the 56.4513N parallel, Oban is 56.41N which is about 2 miles south of the HL/LL dividing line. However, there is no rule in the SHFL rules that states that Oban Saints could not join the HL, as long as they are not relegated from League 2. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
parsforlife Posted April 4, 2016 Share Posted April 4, 2016 I think the SFA should be relatively open in regards to the border should a club (or collection of clubs) wish it to move. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doonhamer doon south Posted April 5, 2016 Share Posted April 5, 2016 If a highland league club do achieve promotion this year there won't be the need to split the division or would they split the division regardless. Would they the league that is accept a new club in however to keep the league at 18 clubs? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimmy Shaker Posted April 5, 2016 Share Posted April 5, 2016 The clubs haven't even worked out how they would go about deciding on how to formalise what they want to do, be it by vote or whatever, never mind decide on what they actually want to do. The SHFL has played with many numbers of clubs and one less should allow the pressure on fixtures to ease slightly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
welshbairn Posted April 5, 2016 Share Posted April 5, 2016 I see Banks o Dee beat Turriff 3-1 yesterday, and are 10 points ahead in the Superleague albeit having played more games. I don't see how the HL could bar them from entry again if there's a vacancy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HibeeJibee Posted April 5, 2016 Share Posted April 5, 2016 I think it would be disappointing if they dropped to 17 but didn't admit Banks O'Dee who are sitting there with a licence, a desire to join, and by the look of it the best team in the North Juniors. Of course they're already Aberdeenshire FA members, too. Having 17 or 18 teams makes no difference: it's still 34 matchdays. Also with Banks O'Dee having 3G (which no other HL clubs has), it should mean no postponements other than perhaps for snow. Only reason to run with 17 would be to put more clear water between the thorny question of splitting into 2 divisions at 19 or 21. However in doing so it would effectively be saying that no-one else was ever going to get in. Even if you think the SPFL2 club will lose every other playoff and the HL club will win every other one of those, that's 1 promotion every 4 years... only 3/10 of current SPFL2 clubs are north of the Tay... HL dropping to say 15 could take ages, or quite conceivably never happen at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
welshbairn Posted April 5, 2016 Share Posted April 5, 2016 I think it would be disappointing if they dropped to 17 but didn't admit Banks O'Dee who are sitting there with a licence, a desire to join, and by the look of it the best team in the North Juniors. Of course they're already Aberdeenshire FA members, too. Having 17 or 18 teams makes no difference: it's still 34 matchdays. Also with Banks O'Dee having 3G (which no other HL clubs has), it should mean no postponements other than perhaps for snow. Only reason to run with 17 would be to put more clear water between the thorny question of splitting into 2 divisions at 19 or 21. However in doing so it would effectively be saying that no-one else was ever going to get in. Even if you think the SPFL2 club will lose every other playoff and the HL club will win every other one of those, that's 1 promotion every 4 years... only 3/10 of current SPFL2 clubs are north of the Tay... HL dropping to say 15 could take ages, or quite conceivably never happen at all. Agree with all that but 17 teams would mean 32 matchdays surely? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lionel hutz Posted April 5, 2016 Share Posted April 5, 2016 Agree with all that but 17 teams would mean 32 matchdays surely? But Each club would have two "off-weeks" - 32 games over 34 weeks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
welshbairn Posted April 5, 2016 Share Posted April 5, 2016 But Each club would have two "off-weeks" - 32 games over 34 weeks Oh aye. Come to think of it we get a lot more than 34 match days anyway with all the postponements so we wouldn't really notice a difference. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lionel hutz Posted April 5, 2016 Share Posted April 5, 2016 An Ideal 12-12 split with 33 games: (could be 14-10)HL Prem -------------------------> HL 2Cove DeveronvaleBrora ClachFormantine HuntlyTurriff Strathspey ThistleInverurie Fort WilliamWick Rothes Buckie Banks O'DeeNairn County Stonehaven*Fraserburgh Culter*Keith HalkirkForres Golspie SutherlandLossiemouth Aberdeen Uni* Denotes serious amount of work required for LicenseEDIT: Clubs should be given a 3-5 year period to acquire a license, as is the case in the English Championship to get rid of "unsafe" terracing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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