Junior football, what is the future?

[honestman54]

8 minutes ago, Im_Rodger said:

Great news to see that the WoS is going ahead. 

So, getting back to the earlier conversation, do we know yet who the two extra teams are who have applied to the WOSFL?

[peasy23]

The West Region management wise was in flux anyway. Scott Robertson was needing replaced. Unfortunately, Franny McNeil has just passed and they were on the Management Committee according to the website. Then i'm not entirely sure John Fyfe, who has been the interim General Secretary and longstanding assistant, is still linked with a club?

Some of the officials, e.g. Secretary, Treaurer etc, are classed as being neutral and have no club affiliation. I think the President and VP are the only ones who are still tied to a club as they are only in office for a year.

[FairWeatherFan]

22 minutes ago, honestman54 said:

So, getting back to the earlier conversation, do we know yet who the two extra teams are who have applied to the WOSFL?

St Cadocs a Newton Mearns based youth club with the expectation they will groundshare with an unknown Junior club. Which is based on insider knowledge not a public statement by them.

The other is unknown youth/amateur and considered a possible rejection based on the entry criteria

[FairWeatherFan]

1 minute ago, peasy23 said:

34 minutes ago, FairWeatherFan said:

The West Region management wise was in flux anyway. Scott Robertson was needing replaced. Unfortunately, Franny McNeil has just passed and they were on the Management Committee according to the website. Then i'm not entirely sure John Fyfe, who has been the interim General Secretary and longstanding assistant, is still linked with a club?

Some of the officials, e.g. Secretary, Treaurer etc, are classed as being neutral and have no club affiliation. I think the President and VP are the only ones who are still tied to a club as they are only in office for a year.

Cheers. What i'm thinking if there are no current ties to a club i'm not sure they, or anyone else in a similar position, would be forwarded as a candidate to a new league body.

[Baldie2k19]

1 hour ago, honestman54 said:

I didnt tho as can be seen

I know you didn't.  I was talking about Tutenkhamen's reply to your post, the one where you typed "beggining"

[paul-r-cfc]

St Cadocs a Newton Mearns based youth club with the expectation they will groundshare with an unknown Junior club. Which is based on insider knowledge not a public statement by them.
The other is unknown youth/amateur and considered a possible rejection based on the entry criteria

Announcement imminent

[cmontheloknow]

Keeping on topic:

https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/sport/football/2142565/talk-of-north-junior-football-clubs-being-ready-for-highland-league-promotion-plan-premature/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook

Quote

“We have had very early discussions but there’s nothing in place for us at the moment. We just wanted to see what the plan was if any of our clubs wanted to progress through the pyramid.

“If some time in the future they want to take the step up, improve their facilities or maybe feel they’ve outgrown junior football, it gives them the platform to do so.

“But there’s not too many clubs in that situation just now if an agreement was to be put in place. That is a long way away.”

Smells a bit like an old TAJ recipe.

Edited April 14, 2020 by cmontheloknow

[AsimButtHitsASix]

On ‎13‎/‎04‎/‎2020 at 12:03, Robert James said:

Both the Western Isles and the Shetlands would relish the idea of playing in the North Caley League, which could only be feasible if they had independent sponsorship, and direct financial support from the SFA. 

I know this is, again, a return to fantasy land but there are currently amateur leagues in Shetland, Lewis & Harris and Uist & Barra (all summer leagues I believe?)

In theory these leagues could just join as feeders to the Highland League (or NCL). It would allow the clubs from the islands to chase licensing (if they wished) and enter the cups available without the hassle of trying to fill a full league programme with monumental travelling costs and considerations. Make promotion places by application rather than automatic and it would give clubs the opportunity to advance if they chose to. I'd imagine, even if it was automatic, they would almost certainly lose play offs anyway.

[FairWeatherFan]

3 minutes ago, cmontheloknow said:

Keeping on topic:

https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/sport/football/2142565/talk-of-north-junior-football-clubs-being-ready-for-highland-league-promotion-plan-premature/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook

Smells a bit like an old TAJ recipe.

Its the same old myth about licencing being too strict and nobody being ready.

The SoSFL and EoSFL joined up to the pyramid from 2014-15. Neither league promoted a champion until 2016-17 and didn't have a play-off until 2017-18.

You just have to sign up and start working on it. Not just sit out and wait on...? Something absolutely unknown.

Having be "unprepared" for Highland League football last year, I'm guessing Banks O'Dee will once again bodyswerve applying for 2020-21.

[Cameron Wilson]

Time for PnB's webmaster to set up a WSOL forum. This thread has pretty much ran its course and only Tayside, WL and the north juniors are relevant to this topic now. 

"Junior football, what is the future?" the answer is in my view that the juniors had no future and deep down everyone knew this, but not everyone wanted to face up to it, hence the agonizingly slow pace of progress towards a desperately-needed pyramid since the idea took root in the early 2000s. Now that the key juniors region, the west, have all signed up to join, the question originally asked by Bman has now been largely answered. North and Tayside will inevitably join in some form, possibly even in time for next season. WL clubs may hang on for another season before either swallowing their pride and joining the EOS, going amateur, or dying. I don't believe the HL/LL line will move significantly, the joining of the west juniors makes the imbalance in numbers on either side of the divide too big to increase even further.

Once all this virus craziness has subsided, there will never have been a better time for semi-pro football in Scotland. This whole thing is a massive breath of fresh air for the entire Scottish league. The WSOL is going to be fantastic. And in a few years the Lowland League will rival league 2 for quality and there will be a lot of intriguing movement up and down the leagues as licensing, increased competition, focus on youth, and the incentive of knowing that a pathway exists to higher levels generates quality in the lower tiers which will float upwards and improve all levels as it does so.

I predict than within ten years at least half a dozen ex-junior teams will be permanent fixtures in the SPFL and those who manage to fully understand and grasp the opportunity which is emerging, by putting in place some kind of long term vision or plan for themselves, may even make it to the second tier. Meanwhile the improvement across the board in the lower tiers will also spur on long-standing strong senior sides who have long had aspirations to join the ranks of the SPFL, to rise as well.

Most of all, having a fully functional pyramid which allows teams to rise up through the leagues may finally lead the lower tiers to get the recognition they richly deserve from football people like myself who were ignorant or perhaps even foolishly disdainful of life outside of the SPFL until Kelty Hearts revolution-inspiring move to the EOS in 2017. I've missed out on a few decades of the intimacy and passion that semi-pro local football offers in my lifetime, but I think the best is yet to come and the Lowland League in particular in the next few years is going to become the most fascinating competition in UK football for quite some time.

Edited April 14, 2020 by Cameron Wilson

[Bad Wolf]

54 minutes ago, FairWeatherFan said:

Its the same old myth about licencing being too strict and nobody being ready.

The SoSFL and EoSFL joined up to the pyramid from 2014-15. Neither league promoted a champion until 2016-17 and didn't have a play-off until 2017-18.

You just have to sign up and start working on it. Not just sit out and wait on...? Something absolutely unknown.

Having be "unprepared" for Highland League football last year, I'm guessing Banks O'Dee will once again bodyswerve applying for 2020-21.

Wait until... Richard Easton completes that nice new extension on his house.

[honestman54]

1 hour ago, cmontheloknow said:

Keeping on topic:

https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/sport/football/2142565/talk-of-north-junior-football-clubs-being-ready-for-highland-league-promotion-plan-premature/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook

Smells a bit like an old TAJ recipe.

But does this mean that the NCL can proceed and let the Juniors catch up - Again!!!!!

[Ginaro]

12 hours ago, Robert James said:

Last year, I was the first to state on here, that in my opinion the Lowland League would be open to litigation, if it prevented Bonnyrigg Rose from being promoted, on the basis that by backdating the new licensing rule about floodlighting, was arguably unlawful,  if the club challenged the LL's initial decision, the league would probably lose (and why). The club's promotion was confirmed soon after my post.

You just can't help yourself, can you?

4 hours ago, cmontheloknow said:

If league takes priority, any club in both the big Scottish and the Junior Cup is going to have a headache. Say Talbot for example, playing big Scottish on the date everyone else is playing Junior Cup, they won't be (unless league is very accommodating) be able to postpone a league game the following weekend as they can do now. Perhaps the sensible option is that it is only Junior Cup if no other cup commitments. Sour milk and off honey for some perhaps!

Talbot should have floodlights for next season so they can host Junior Cup games in midweek - that's if there are any Junior qualifiers in the Scottish Cup at all of course...

3 hours ago, craigkillie said:

It has been repeatedly stated on here that the WoS wants to create its own competition parallel to the Alex Jack cup to allow another opportunity for Scottish Cup entry for its non-licensed clubs.

 

As it would just be the WOS League Cup minus Girvan (assuming they retain their licence) and Glasgow Uni to begin with, perhaps it might not run in the first season?

After all, the point of the Alex Jack Cup is to provide a cup for non-licensed members, which in the EOS prior to the LL was about half the clubs - it's only in the last four seasons that it's offered a chance of qualification. If it's a choice that means preventing fixture chaos in the Junior Cup who knows if the WOS members will want non-licensed trophy.

Assuming of course that the SFA actually offer a qualifying place for the winners of either competition.

Quote

https://www.the-gazette.co.uk/sport/18377721.johnstone-burgh-boss-calls-sjfa-chiefs-provide-greater-clarity/

“The only thing I don’t agree with is that they haven’t actually told us what they’re doing yet.

“We’ve not heard how they are going to place the league or heard from the West Region how the new leagues are going to work.

“There’s no communication, which is disappointing and frustrating for all the clubs.”

 

Johnstone Burgh's manager

[AsimButtHitsASix]

4 minutes ago, Ginaro said:

Talbot should have floodlights for next season so they can host Junior Cup games in midweek - that's if there are any Junior qualifiers in the Scottish Cup at all of course...

Not much use if they get drawn away from home to a team without tho' is it?

[Cyclizine]

5 hours ago, Robert James said:

"Posting style".  "One-upmanship".

Oh dear !  It isn't me who has been on the attack here.

Let's leave it there.............please.   

No-one is on the attack Robert. I think some of us would just like you to perhaps reflect on what you've written, before you post it.

I will leave it there, but please maybe have some insight into why you're getting some criticism here.

At the risk of having a P&B Heads Gone moment, for sanity's sake I will probably just mute you.

[Guest]

Surely a wos cup will be put in place. I would say that would be an important cup to have given the pyramid would then be missing a West cup to match the south and east equivalents.

[theesel1994]

4 hours ago, FairWeatherFan said:

The West Region management wise was in flux anyway. Scott Robertson was needing replaced. Unfortunately, Franny McNeil has just passed and they were on the Management Committee according to the website. Then i'm not entirely sure John Fyfe, who has been the interim General Secretary and longstanding assistant, is still linked with a club?

Not quite. The General Secretary and Assistant Secretary were going to be combined into one position but along came the Chinese with their bat soup eating plague and everything was put on hold. Proving what everyone said at the time of the Kennie Young vote, that this extra role was being created to keep Scott Robertson in a job.

[FairWeatherFan]

14 minutes ago, Ginaro said:

After all, the point of the Alex Jack Cup is to provide a cup for non-licensed members, which in the EOS prior to the LL was about half the clubs - it's only in the last four seasons that it's offered a chance of qualification. If it's a choice that means preventing fixture chaos in the Junior Cup who knows if the WOS members will want non-licensed trophy.

With potentially a 32 game league season, SCC and WoS Cup in a condensed season an Alex Jack/Alba Cup probably won't happen in the first season. Its tight enough as it is, as you've also got to finish the league season in time for a WoSFL champion playoff before the LL playoff.

Going beyond the first season it would be a good thing to have as an early season competition while other clubs are busy in the Scottish Cup.

[Born To Run]

20 minutes ago, Ginaro said:

Johnstone Burgh's manager

Clubs were told how this would play out at the information meeting. Now that the application process is finished, once the final list of accepted clubs is agreed they will all approve the conference setup and cups etc from there.

I'm not sure what other communications could have been made tbh...

[Stag Nation]

5 minutes ago, Born To Run said:

Clubs were told how this would play out at the information meeting. Now that the application process is finished, once the final list of accepted clubs is agreed they will all approve the conference setup and cups etc from there.

I'm not sure what other communications could have been made tbh...

But the JB manager seems to thing the SJFA or WSJFA are running the new league.

Not sure why he doesn't pick up the phone to someone there instead of whinging to the press.