Junior football, what is the future?

[Burnie_man]

27 minutes ago, TFW said:

Again, it harks back to what I have said numerous times before in that things are cyclical with successful teams. There's no doubt that in the noughties the East were the dominant region, likewise this last decade it's been teams from the West, and especially Talbot. The fact that nobody from the East has won since 2009-10 is significant. I miss the teams from the East as we always had good days out whever we went, but the fact that they don't compete en masse now hasn't diminished the quality of the Cup, just lessened the amount of teams in it.

Of course it has! a Junior Cup without the best teams from the East is diminished however way you look at it.

Part of the reason why the east fell behind in recent years is the Lowland League, as it got stronger, clubs were competiting with LL teams for the better players. West clubs had no such competition.  Not the only reason, but it was a contributory factor.

[GordonS]

2 hours ago, Tutankhamen said:

Broadwood is the pits after a game if you are relying on public transport. 

 

Croy Station is well-served, but the walk to and from the ground is weirdly shit. 

[morley]

Not quite the normal topic for this thread of late, but given the debate around community benefits of juniors and lower league senior teams, I seen this on the BBC website this evening and thought relevant to share in here. A very interesting uefa study aimed to calculate the revenue a club brings to a community. Ayr United and Spartans were looked at in the pilot, with the result being Ayr are estimated to generate £8.6m pa to the local economy and Spartans £5.2m pa. Given Spartans are a Lowland League team that figure I am sure will amaze many people. Just shows the impact and benefit clubs can have on their communities. 

BBC News - Ayr Utd & Spartans worth £13.8m annually to local economy - Uefa
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/51756888

 

Edited March 5, 2020 by morley

[Southside Bankie]

 

[Cameron Wilson]

6 hours ago, theesel1994 said:

This is what I think brought about the downfall of Junior football - Junior clubs being allowed in the Scottish Cup. And now clubs can see with a little bit of investment up front they can recoup that over just a few seasons by being a Licenced club.

Absolutely. Juniors being put together with other semi-pro clubs in the Scottish Cup laid bare the meaninglessness of the Junior-senior divide for all to see. 

For the same reason junior clubs should retain Scottish cup access as this will continue to expose the ridiculous nature of the divide and help completely break it once and for all.

Edited March 5, 2020 by Cameron Wilson

[vikingTON]

33 minutes ago, GordonS said:

Croy Station is well-served, but the walk to and from the ground is weirdly shit. 

That's really not weird because you're still in Cumbernauld.

[Aqy]

15 hours ago, G4Mac said:

Dunipace did not give a years notice when leaving the wrsjfa for the eosfl. The club were never brought to task regarding it. In legal terms we were the setting if the precedent.

Clubs can feel free to get in touch with the club if they want to find out about the experiences moving from the wrsjfa to the eosfl.

I would think they are also free to come to the ground and be walked/talked through everything we have done for licensing and get rough costs. (Nowhere near 150k toilets for your information)

Just to chime in, I was at Dunipace a wee while ago for the game against the County U21s and was very impressed with the facilities. Going by some of the older photos, the ground has come along heaps in just the last couple of years, so fair play.

[Aqy]

4 hours ago, Tutankhamen said:

Broadwood is the pits after a game if you are relying on public transport. 

 

Was there on Tuesday, absolutely baltic but a decent chance to warm up by powerwalking back to Croy station.

[gaz5]

That's the point a lot of ppl have made. Dunipace as an example I'm sure gaz and g4mac would agree they were able to recruit better players in eosfl than they did in the juniors I think one of them said they only have 2 players left from junior days which I suppose would be david kane and greg macpherson

Close. [emoji846]

Greg MacPherson and Aidan Stevenson remain from the squad we inherited in West L2. A couple of diamonds who were very young when they joined the club and have gone from strength to strength over the past few years.

You're 100% correct though, we have had access to players we simply would never have had before, due to the improvements at the club and the level of the EoS, in equal measure.

This season we have signed players who have come from clubs in the Lowland League, West Premier and West Championship among others. We've managed to sign players for next year ahead of clubs at those levels and we already know we will be losing at least 1 to a near neighbor no-one would ever expect to be picking players up from Dunipace.

We still have a lot of work to do, but we are certainly heading in the right direction, miles ahead of where we were on the park 2 years ago at First Team and Development (19 & 20) levels.

[Tutankhamen]

29 minutes ago, Aqy said:

Was there on Tuesday, absolutely baltic but a decent chance to warm up by powerwalking back to Croy station.

When Clyde first played there was only two stands, it was that cold one winters night game an ambulance had to be called because one of the goalkeepere had frost bite.

[Jerry Macguire]

7 hours ago, Tutankhamen said:

When Clyde first played there was only two stands, it was that cold one winters night game an ambulance had to be called because one of the goalkeepere had frost bite.

And that was only a pre-season friendly in July.

[jimbaxters]

15 hours ago, GordonS said:

Surely a better and simpler route into the Big Scottish is to get licensed, rather than aim to be one of the very few to muscle Talbot out of the way to win a league or cup?

I was at Beith when they pushed Airdrie ridiculously close in a 4-3 replay defeat in 2010/11. They've only had two seasons in the Scottish Cup since, both exciting, eventful runs with matches that will live long in the memory. For the life of me I can't understand why they wouldn't want that every year.

 

15 hours ago, theesel1994 said:

This is what I think brought about the downfall of Junior football - Junior clubs being allowed in the Scottish Cup. And now clubs can see with a little bit of investment up front they can recoup that over just a few seasons by being a Licenced club.

So which is it? Is it that Junior clubs aren’t taking the opportunity or that they’re flying the coop because of that opportunity?

[GordonS]

1 hour ago, jimbaxters said:

 

So which is it? Is it that Junior clubs aren’t taking the opportunity or that they’re flying the coop because of that opportunity?

It's both. Beith haven't had a path to being licensed other than joining the SoS or the EoS, neither of which are realistic. Clubs in the east had a league to join, and two dozen did so. A path has now opened up in the west and clubs like Beith would be prime candidates to benefit from it. 

I didn't mean to suggest Beith don't want to join the pyramid and get licensed btw.

[Robert James]

1 hour ago, GordonS said:

It's both. Beith haven't had a path to being licensed other than joining the SoS or the EoS, neither of which are realistic. Clubs in the east had a league to join, and two dozen did so. A path has now opened up in the west and clubs like Beith would be prime candidates to benefit from it. 

I didn't mean to suggest Beith don't want to join the pyramid and get licensed btw.

Beith would be an essential addition to the WoSL. 

And the slope has great character  !

 

[jimbaxters]

18 minutes ago, Robert James said:

Beith would be an essential addition to the WoSL. 

And the slope has great character  !

 

And they can keep the tradition of attacking visiting buses alive.

[AlanCamelonfan]

12 hours ago, gaz5 said:

Close.

Greg MacPherson and Aidan Stevenson remain from the squad we inherited in West L2. A couple of diamonds who were very young when they joined the club and have gone from strength to strength over the past few years.

You're 100% correct though, we have had access to players we simply would never have had before, due to the improvements at the club and the level of the EoS, in equal measure.

This season we have signed players who have come from clubs in the Lowland League, West Premier and West Championship among others. We've managed to sign players for next year ahead of clubs at those levels and we already know we will be losing at least 1 to a near neighbor no-one would ever expect to be picking players up from Dunipace.

We still have a lot of work to do, but we are certainly heading in the right direction, miles ahead of where we were on the park 2 years ago at First Team and Development (19 & 20) levels.

I forgot about Aiden. If yous go up this season I know you will play that down but yous could attract a better player again

[Jacksgranda]

29 minutes ago, jimbaxters said:

And they can keep the tradition of attacking visiting buses alive.

Not much point in attacking visiting buses when they're dead.

[Jimmy Caskie]

36 minutes ago, jimbaxters said:

And they can keep the tradition of attacking visiting buses alive.

Pot kettle !!!!

[clash city rocker]

16 hours ago, surely not! said:

 

Talbot have had sustained success throughout my life under a range of managers, but I do think no matter what they do, tucker will be impossible to replace and therefore there’d be at least a drop off of some description.

 

Vast majority of Talbot success has came under Knox and Sloan.

[morley]

I wonder if this story in the press today about the possibility of spfl division 2 sides being given a choice they have to declare at the start of the season if they would drop into the LL or HL if end up bottom, could be a prerequest of the SFA supporting the LL/EOS WoS proposal if they support this choice of league proposal.