Junior football, what is the future?

[welshbairn]

6 hours ago, mcruic said:

I find it interesting that some junior/now senior teams are baulking at travel, but you've got teams like Fort William who seem to manage somehow despite very little success and despite the added costs of Highland League membership. 

Kinlochleven is only 22 miles away from Fort William, and their amateur team (South Lochaber Thistle) - who incidentally beat Fort William away in a 2018 pre-season friendly - play in the Greater Glasgow Premier Amateur League - where pretty much every away match is a 100-mile trip.  I'm sure they've got a lot of players from the Glasgow area in the team, but they do play at home - and clubs have to travel the 100 miles to Kinlochleven to play them.

You've also got Lochgilphead Red Star playing in the Scottish Amateur Football League - where many teams are from the Glasgow area, 90-100 miles away.  There's also other teams from out west in that league - Campbeltown, Dunoon, etc.  Campbeltown to Glasgow is over 130 miles.  You've also got Rothesay and Rhu in the Caledonian Amateur League, which also has teams from Stirlingshire - 60 or 70 mile trips.  These teams have played in these leagues for years.

So, how do these amateur teams manage to find the funds to travel year in year out?  Fewer overheads giving them more money to spend on travelling?  Something else?

 

No choice if they want to play football. The Tayside teams could manage fine with the current pyramid map, it's fine for locally recruited players, it's the likes of Brechin and even Elgin who recruit from the Central Belt who whine about it. The Elgin Chairman admitted on the radio that he's terrified of the clubs coming up through the pyramid as his best players come from the South West and rarely even visit. Most players and even more so the blazers would obviously prefer shorter journeys on match days, if it's not possible they find a way of making it work.

Edited July 25, 2020 by welshbairn

[mcruic]

The clubs from the Argyll & Bute area could easily form their own league without having to travel across to Glasgow or East Kilbride every 2 week.  Many of them are in the same league anyway, in different divisions.

Clubs like Brechin and Elgin will just have to learn to adapt - and recruit more local players.  If they can't have success with the players they can find, they'll get relegated.  Or - they can stop saying "we are against regionalisation of the lower tiers" when financially, and geographically, and with the paltry crowds they get at that level, it makes perfect sense to regionalise below the Championship.  The only reason they need to recruit from so far away is to save money on travel.

 

 

[welshbairn]

10 minutes ago, mcruic said:

The only reason they need to recruit from so far away is to save money on travel.

This makes no sense. They recruit from far away because there aren't enough good players locally, and maybe they don't they invest enough in training them up.

[GNU_Linux]

This makes no sense. They recruit from far away because there aren't enough good players locally, and maybe they don't they invest enough in training them up.

In the case of Elgin some of the HL clubs with deeper pockets can probably offer better wages to players from the local/regional area.

[FairWeatherFan]

41 minutes ago, mcruic said:

The clubs from the Argyll & Bute area could easily form their own league without having to travel across to Glasgow or East Kilbride every 2 week.  Many of them are in the same league anyway, in different divisions.

Call it the "Liechtenstein solution". Liechtenstein could have their own league recognised by UEFA. Yet they choose to play in Switzerland and have their cup to keep things local. I'm guessing because the standard is better and allows for more variety.

The point is kind of proven for why Argyll & Bute are the way they are. Same league and different divisions.

Aren't most of the main amateur leagues no more than 12 team leagues? Its 11 weeks of the year they're on the road with possible cup games on top of that. Its not exactly a hardship.

41 minutes ago, mcruic said:

Clubs like Brechin and Elgin will just have to learn to adapt - and recruit more local players.  If they can't have success with the players they can find, they'll get relegated. 

Elgin City were capable of winning the Highland League in the past when it was stronger than it is now. They'll manage to do alright once again. Same with a Brechin City or Montrose that feared it would be their end. Its just an adjustment from the way they currently operate. No different than what we've seen from East Stirlingshire and more recently Berwick Rangers.

Edited July 25, 2020 by FairWeatherFan

[mcruic]

36 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

This makes no sense. They recruit from far away because there aren't enough good players locally, and maybe they don't they invest enough in training them up.

I didn't really think this one through.  I meant with regard to the players being based in the south travelling to away matches and not having to travel to the matches from Elgin.  I don't know how it works - do the whole squad from the South come up to Elgin to train during the week and do they all convene in Elgin together before travelling to away games?

[FairWeatherFan]

2 minutes ago, mcruic said:

I didn't really think this one through.  I meant with regard to the players being based in the south travelling to away matches and not having to travel to the matches from Elgin.  I don't know how it works - do the whole squad from the South come up to Elgin to train during the week and do they all convene in Elgin together before travelling to away games?

This article always stuck with me and deals with the issue.

https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/sport/football/1505319/peterhead-greg-fleming-willie-gibson/

Its about Greg Fleming and Willie Gibson living down in Annan/D&G and playing for Peterhead.

[mcruic]

A wee table for all those people that think clubs should be prepared to travel nationally, or who might even think a national "conference" at Tier 5 is possible.

England, where there's much more money in the game, goes regional at Tier 6, when the clubs start getting average attendances of around 1,000.  In Scotland, this happens at Tier 3, but there's another whole national division below this, whose attendances are on a par with Tier 7 in England, which is already at the second stage of regionalisation.  Scotland only splits in 2 when the attendances start to get to around the 200 mark.

 

 

Edited July 25, 2020 by mcruic
error in table

[Ray Patterson]

England is a country twice our size in land, 11 times in population. So it's not a great comparison when comparing crowds.

There's also teams in the LL such as the Unis, and Caley Braves that skew the figures downwards, as their funded differently to normal clubs. Plus you'll need to wait til the next season of full crowds to compare the two as the EoS was being massively tinkered with last season with the conferences.

Anyway as I've said before Tayside should be in the North etc...

[FairWeatherFan]

5 minutes ago, mcruic said:

A wee table for all those people that think clubs should be prepared to travel nationally, or who might even think a national "conference" at Tier 5 is possible.

England, where there's much more money in the game, goes regional at Tier 6, when the clubs start getting average attendances of around 1,000.  In Scotland, this happens at Tier 3, but there's another whole national division below this, whose attendances are on a par with Tier 7 in England, which is already at the second stage of regionalisation.  Scotland only splits in 2 when the attendances start to get to around the 200 mark.

 

 

Attendances don't reflect travel though. Going to guess due to poor travel links North-South in Wales that the national Cymru Premier has a surprisingly high travel commitment to it.

[welshbairn]

13 minutes ago, FairWeatherFan said:

This article always stuck with me and deals with the issue.

https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/sport/football/1505319/peterhead-greg-fleming-willie-gibson/

Its about Greg Fleming and Willie Gibson living down in Annan/D&G and playing for Peterhead.

Reminds me of the mad medical student in Edinburgh who played for Fort William, no hotel for him though for Wick away on a wet Tuesday night! Can't find a newspaper article, think it was just on the BBC documentary.

[mcruic]

I'd say attendances do reflect travel in that the local derbies have higher crowds as there are more travelling fans and more interest in general.

As for the comparison with England - it's valid, as it doesn't matter what the population is - it's the interest in football.  Also, I'm not comparing tier to tier - I'm acknowledging that because of Scotland's smaller population, there will be smaller crowds.  Once the crowds go down to the 1,000 mark, a national league is not viable.  England's about 1.5 times bigger than Scotland, so even if you adjust this figure down by a factor 1.5, you get something like 600 as an average crowd for the Tier 6 regionalised leagues in England - which is still higher than the Tier 4 national league in Scotland.  Attendances also translate to finances that help cover travel costs.

Edited July 25, 2020 by mcruic

[welshbairn]

13 minutes ago, FairWeatherFan said:

Attendances don't reflect travel though. Going to guess due to poor travel links North-South in Wales that the national Cymru Premier has a surprisingly high travel commitment to it.

I used to live in North Wales and it was much quicker going via Birmingham to get to somewhere like Swansea than heading south, the road and rail links are shockingly bad.

[mcruic]

12 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

I used to live in North Wales and it was much quicker going via Birmingham to get to somewhere like Swansea than heading south, the road and rail links are shockingly bad.

What about at Tier 2 (which is North/South) - How is it to get from, for example, Llandudno to the "south of the north" - i.e. Llanidloes or Penrhyncoch?

I can see the FAW just took over down to Tier 3 in the Welsh Pyramid, which has 4 newly formed leagues.  So FAW now in charge of leagues with 108 clubs compared to just the 76 in Scotland.

Edited July 25, 2020 by mcruic

[welshbairn]

8 minutes ago, mcruic said:

What about at Tier 2 (which is North/South) - How is it to get from, for example, Llandudno to the "south of the north" - i.e. Llanidloes or Penrhyncoch?

Try Google maps. Have you ever thought about developing an interest in another country's football where you don't live, like Albania, or Russia? Russia would be great, huge travel distances and a massive pyramid I'd have thought, maybe with political factors thrown in. The charts would be enormous.

[mcruic]

As to junior football and the future - which I've ever so slightly veered away from - Tayside Juniors need to get themselves in somewhere before they get left out.  Doesn't matter at the moment if it's North or South, they should be initiating discussions because it's inevitable there won't be any junior scene for them to play in in the not too distant future.  In terms of Scotland, most of the Tayside clubs are in the south geographically (of a line drawn right through the middle of the mainland).  Having lived in Perthshire, I considered it central.  If anything, I considered it easier to get to Edinburgh than anywhere in the North.  Clubs south of Tayside will obviously consider it "North" while those in the north will consider it "south".

 

Edited July 25, 2020 by mcruic

[FairWeatherFan]

26 minutes ago, mcruic said:

I'd say attendances do reflect travel in that the local derbies have higher crowds as there are more travelling fans and more interest in general.

Except with seen with the remaining East Region leagues it hasn't seen a bump in attendances despite the local games. Derbies become pretty meaningless when clubs see each other twice a year plus cups and local doesn't make it a derby as the quality can differ greatly.

Queen's Park in 2018-19. All games on a Saturday. Two local teams in Clyde and Albion Rovers. But once you go past that its some of the outliers that actually bring the better support.

1. Clyde    1076
2. Clyde    977
3. Peterhead    964
4. Berwick Rangers    679
5. Stirling Albion    661
6. Albion Rovers    642
7. Albion Rovers    620
8. Elgin City    543
9. Cowdenbeath    534
10. Edinburgh City    526
11. Annan Athletic    523
12. Stirling Albion    496
13. Annan Athletic    495
14. Edinburgh City    487
15. Peterhead    475
16. Elgin City    455
17. Berwick Rangers    444
18. Cowdenbeath    404

 

 

Edited July 25, 2020 by FairWeatherFan

[mcruic]

2 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

Try Google maps. Have you ever thought about developing an interest in another country's football where you don't live, like Albania, or Russia? Russia would be great, huge travel distances and a massive pyramid I'd have thought, maybe with political factors thrown in. The charts would be enormous.

In the 2nd tier (national), Luch Vladivostok to Baltika Kaliningrad is just the 1,366 miles (5 hour flight or 25 hour drive).  Luch have an average home crowd of 1,900, which is about the same as Raith Rovers.  The approximate equivalent for Raith Rovers would be going to a league match in Vienna.

[welshbairn]

6 minutes ago, mcruic said:

In the 2nd tier (national), Luch Vladivostok to Baltika Kaliningrad is just the 1,366 miles (5 hour flight or 25 hour drive).  Luch have an average home crowd of 1,900, which is about the same as Raith Rovers.  The approximate equivalent for Raith Rovers would be going to a league match in Vienna.

Spain has big crowds and hardly any travelling support. I don't understand the point you're trying to make, if any. Or what any of this has to do with Scottish Junior football.

Edited July 25, 2020 by welshbairn

[mcruic]

I did mention above I'd veered off topic   It was originally because some posters on this thread had said that clubs should be ready to travel nationally once they reached a certain level, and I was trying to point out that Scotland really shouldn't have 4 national divisions, and clubs should be able to play regionally higher up the pyramid than they do now.  Many clubs pointing to travel issues as reasons they don't want to join the pyramid - so it's relevant in that aspect.

Edited July 25, 2020 by mcruic