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Lthv 17/18


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1 hour ago, stanley said:

Great news for LTHV.  

Feel a bit sorry for them.  Clearly a level above the EoS for years and they finally get licensed just as 26 new clubs join. 

 

34 minutes ago, FairWeatherFan said:

I would say Lothian Thistle/LTHV were a level above the EoS of the last 5 years. Just by the fact that the Lowland League's creation put them down a level. They got promoted from the EoS First in 1996/97 and were never relegated from the EoS Premier.

Compare that 16 season record to some of the clubs that have been in the Lowland League and LTHV should have been in the Lowland League on the basis of their on the field performances.

 

Let's no forget the rules for getting in the LL in 1st place. (Licensing etc). It's no as if they didn't know the script. 

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Let's no forget the rules for getting in the LL in 1st place. (Licensing etc). It's no as if they didn't know the script. 


Spot on. Since the Lowland leagues original ‘floating’ to is inception, to the present day, they’ve had about 72 months ( or six years) to get licensed and have only just managed it. Would hazard a guess that if they’d spent what was needed in the first two years on the infrastructure they’d have struggled to have the success on the pitch.
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1 minute ago, newcastle broon said:

 

Let's no forget the rules for getting in the LL in 1st place. (Licensing etc). It's no as if they didn't know the script. 

That's why I used on the field performances as the basis. Not knowing their financial situation year to year they may well have been investing in the first team and not their infrastructure. It's been 5 full seasons since the creation of the Lowland League, they had plenty of time to get in there both on the field and off it.

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Agreed that they shouldn't have been in the LL because of they didn't have a licence.  Still think they have been unlucky with timing in getting a licence just as the juniors join.  Could potentially be the difference between them being a long-term LL side and being in the EoS for the next few years.  

Remains to be seen how they will do in the EoS now and maybe they'll manage promotion anyway but will be a lot harder now.  Had the juniors not joined this season then they would be big favourites for promotion.

Would be good to see some of the old EoS clubs do well in amongst the ex-juniors so I'm hoping they can get promoted at some point.

Edited by stanley
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Obviously it's a tier lower: but if people look at them having aspired to LL for higher-quality opposition and its challenge, the influx has added Bonnyrigg, Dundonald, Bo'ness, Sauchie etc. this season, and the new EOS Premier Division from next season looks like being a very high-quality division. Not all negative.

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Interesting the SFA make a thing of this while currently preventing others following suit.


The embargo is odd, I get the feeling they are desperate to encourage clubs to get licensed, you would hope they'd share an enthusiasm for a thriving non-league game, however they are also worried they aren't set properly structured to deal with a 100-200+ membership.

There is of course no reason to fear a large membership, the money paid out at the bottom end is relatively small that even a big jump in membership wouldn't have a great affect on the overall accounts, but I think that might be the fear of some.

Hopefully won't be long until they see sense and open up licensing again.
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12 minutes ago, parsforlife said:

 


The embargo is odd, I get the feeling they are desperate to encourage clubs to get licensed, you would hope they'd share an enthusiasm for a thriving non-league game, however they are also worried they aren't set properly structured to deal with a 100-200+ membership.

There is of course no reason to fear a large membership, the money paid out at the bottom end is relatively small that even a big jump in membership wouldn't have a great affect on the overall accounts, but I think that might be the fear of some.

Hopefully won't be long until they see sense and open up licensing again.

 

One interesting thing in the SFA Articles of Association is a specific limit on members of 200. With LTHV being member 90 we're still a way off getting anywhere near that but interesting that someone felt the need to put an absolute limit in the constitution and curious that 200 was chosen as that limit. It’s a number significantly higher than the historical number of members but also significantly lower than the total number of Scottish Football Clubs playing on semi-enclosed pitches and charging admission which this year I reckon to be 267 clubs in total - including all juniors, EOS, SOS, NCL but excluding the reserve sides. 

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One interesting thing in the SFA Articles of Association is a specific limit on members of 200. With LTHV being member 90 we're still a way off getting anywhere near that but interesting that someone felt the need to put an absolute limit in the constitution and curious that 200 was chosen as that limit. It’s a number significantly higher than the historical number of members but also significantly lower than the total number of Scottish Football Clubs playing on semi-enclosed pitches and charging admission which this year I reckon to be 267 clubs in total - including all juniors, EOS, SOS, NCL but excluding the reserve sides. 


This is one of the things that I think worries the SFA head honchos.

We also know the Scottish cup will need re-formed if even a small handful more clubs get licensed.

I'm sure there's more 'issues'. Nothing particularly difficult but unfortunately the wheels of progress turn slowly.
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1 hour ago, parsforlife said:

 


This is one of the things that I think worries the SFA head honchos.

We also know the Scottish cup will need re-formed if even a small handful more clubs get licensed.

I'm sure there's more 'issues'. Nothing particularly difficult but unfortunately the wheels of progress turn slowly.

 

Surely that’s not the case?  There are almost 600 clubs start in the FA Cup - all you do is add on more preliminary rounds and the non league clubs start earlier (main seniors don’t come in until December - not exactly rocket science.

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13 minutes ago, Blowin In the Wind said:

Surely that’s not the case?  There are almost 600 clubs start in the FA Cup - all you do is add on more preliminary rounds and the non league clubs start earlier (main seniors don’t come in until December - not exactly rocket science.

To believe it's simply down to format is somewhat naïve.

Sure it may only be £2000 for example for clubs who go out in rd 1, but over the next 5-10 years if we have 40+ new licensed clubs from EOS and potential new West league all getting licensed then that changes things.  

English game is rolling in money therefore they can comfortably afford to pay out sums to 600 clubs with the latter rounds still dwarfing the sums paid out to Scottish clubs in the latter rounds in spite of a far higher percentage of clubs.

That being said, I look forward to many more Scottish clubs being awarded a National Club License in the not too distant future, for both Scottish Cup reasons but also for potential promotion via the pyramid.

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8 hours ago, Blowin In the Wind said:

Surely that’s not the case?  There are almost 600 clubs start in the FA Cup - all you do is add on more preliminary rounds and the non league clubs start earlier (main seniors don’t come in until December - not exactly rocket science.

You potentially only need three more clubs to get licensed and you are forced to have 3 preliminary rounds assuming that unlicensed clubs win the three junior leagues and the Junior cup winners didn't also win a Superleague.  

Now you might think adding a third preliminary round is simple but the problem is that Preliminary Round One is already on 11 August. If you want to keep the same dates then it isn't simple to have three preliminary rounds as the new PR1 would need to be in mid July. 

There are two simple ways to reduce the need for extra preliminary rounds.  The top four championship clubs could enter with the rest of the Championship in round 3 and the top two LL and HL would enter in round 1 instead of round 2.

The top four championship clubs moving to round 3 would create an extra 16 places in round 1.  Moving the LL and HL top 2 would create an extra 4 places in round 1.  Even with an influx of 20 new licensed members the combination of those two changes would virtually remove the need for a preliminary round

I'm sure both of those changes could be agreed given time but they are the sort of thing that a licensing moratorium gives the SFA a chance to think about and plan for future rather than just tacking on ever earlier preliminary rounds.  So having said that we'll almost certainly have an extra PR1 in July next summer!

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Selkirks accounts showed payments of 9-11k from the SFA. Maybe the moratorium was more to do with understanding the funding implications. Source additional revenue or essentially cut funding to existing members.

Aren't the SFA still in the middle of TV rights and sponsorship negotiations?

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9 minutes ago, ShrimpLok said:

You potentially only need three more clubs to get licensed and you are forced to have 3 preliminary rounds assuming that unlicensed clubs win the three junior leagues and the Junior cup winners didn't also win a Superleague.  

Now you might think adding a third preliminary round is simple but the problem is that Preliminary Round One is already on 11 August. If you want to keep the same dates then it isn't simple to have three preliminary rounds as the new PR1 would need to be in mid July. 

There are two simple ways to reduce the need for extra preliminary rounds.  The top four championship clubs could enter with the rest of the Championship in round 3 and the top two LL and HL would enter in round 1 instead of round 2.

The top four championship clubs moving to round 3 would create an extra 16 places in round 1.  Moving the LL and HL top 2 would create an extra 4 places in round 1.  Even with an influx of 20 new licensed members the combination of those two changes would virtually remove the need for a preliminary round

I'm sure both of those changes could be agreed given time but they are the sort of thing that a licensing moratorium gives the SFA a chance to think about and plan for future rather than just tacking on ever earlier preliminary rounds.  So having said that we'll almost certainly have an extra PR1 in July next summer!

Why start in July? There are 20+ Saturdays between August and Christmas so surely you can shift league games to midweek for licensed clubs who play in it. I’m not sure what the all the criteria is for a licences club is but I’d expect the Devils Illuminations to be one of them so the dark knights won’t matter.

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14 minutes ago, Blowin In the Wind said:

Why start in July? There are 20+ Saturdays between August and Christmas so surely you can shift league games to midweek for licensed clubs who play in it. I’m not sure what the all the criteria is for a licences club is but I’d expect the Devils Illuminations to be one of them so the dark knights won’t matter.

Floodlights aren't a requirement of the most basic level of licencing. Right now only the SPFL and Highland League need them.

The Lowland has some sort of policy where you have to have access to a ground with lights if required. I imagine that'll change to having your own eventually.

Edited by FairWeatherFan
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The facts of the matter are the SFA placed an “embargo” for one SFA Board meeting only for reasons best known to themselves. Therefore you would expect that at the next meeting (this month?) the embargo would be lifted unless there was a reason for it to continue. If there was, then at that point they’d need to communicate the reasons to the clubs as they are effectively barring clubs from membership and also adversely affecting the promotion process to the LL. 

So far the clubs have not had a clear answer as to why it was put in place to start with.

It doesn’t reflect well on the SFA to be honest, and as I said previously it’s a bit rich them trumpeting LTHV being accepted as the 90th member when a lot of their fellow clubs are left wondering when they can join them.

And yes, 200 members is the current limit on membership, not that it should be a factor as we'll get nowhere near that figure for many years.

Edited by Burnie_man
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As regards the Scottish Cup: there is a round every 3 weekends or so (which is basically the minimum gap) from mid-August right upto late November, before it resumes after the Premiership winter break in late January and continues on the same basis upto and including QFs. There is slightly more of a gap in October and November which if you squeezed-up might allow for a new preliminary round in early August - however it has to pick its way round international weekends plus the League and Irn-Bru cups, so such squeezing might be difficult. Fitting one extra round would not be an issue for non-league sides, regardless of floodlighting, but it isn't really the problem. Plus ideally you don't want licensed members to have to go through 3 preliminary rounds.

Simpler and less intrusive would be to look at inefficiencies in the current format - e.g. the 4 'byes' into R2 for HL/LL clubs and 4 into R4 for Championship clubs 'waste' upto 20 extra R1 slots, as a poster above outlines. Otherwise, once you've a few more licensed clubs - depending how many qualifier slots get used, plus assuming HL remains 18 - you'd need a small PR'0' about July 21st.

Edited by HibeeJibee
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5 hours ago, ShrimpLok said:

You potentially only need three more clubs to get licensed and you are forced to have 3 preliminary rounds assuming that unlicensed clubs win the three junior leagues and the Junior cup winners didn't also win a Superleague.  
 

Assuming the embargo is lifted this season, how many more licences would you expect to be granted in time for next season?

I'm guessing Bonnyrigg Rose, Dalkeith Thistle, Blackburn Utd, Hill O'Beath, Camelon, Newtongrange and Heriot Watt may be close.

 

FWIW. If they had asked me to organise this seasons Scottish FA Cup, the format would have been:

Preliminary Round - 10 HL, 8 LL plus all other licensed teams and qualifiers. 37 teams in total - 11 byes and 13 ties.

Round 1 - 20 teams from Leagues 1 and 2, top 8 HL, top 8 LL and 24 teams from Prelim - 60 teams in total, 30 ties.

Round 2 - 10 Championship teams + 30 teams from Round 1 - 40 teams, 20 ties

Round 3 - 12 Premier teams + 20 teams from Round 2, 16 ties

Round 4 - 8 ties

Round 5 = 1/4 finals

Semis

Final

So 11 spaces in the Preliminary Round for new licensed teams, before the need for a 2nd Preliminary Round.  There are loads of alternative solutions, almost all of them would be better than the bottle-neck Preliminary rounds we have at the moment.

 

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32 minutes ago, gwd440 said:

Assuming the embargo is lifted this season, how many more licences would you expect to be granted in time for next season?

I'm guessing Bonnyrigg Rose, Dalkeith Thistle, Blackburn Utd, Hill O'Beath, Camelon, Newtongrange and Heriot Watt may be close.

 

FWIW. If they had asked me to organise this seasons Scottish FA Cup, the format would have been:

Preliminary Round - 10 HL, 8 LL plus all other licensed teams and qualifiers. 37 teams in total - 11 byes and 13 ties.

Round 1 - 20 teams from Leagues 1 and 2, top 8 HL, top 8 LL and 24 teams from Prelim - 60 teams in total, 30 ties.

Round 2 - 10 Championship teams + 30 teams from Round 1 - 40 teams, 20 ties

Round 3 - 12 Premier teams + 20 teams from Round 2, 16 ties

Round 4 - 8 ties

Round 5 = 1/4 finals

Semis

Final

So 11 spaces in the Preliminary Round for new licensed teams, before the need for a 2nd Preliminary Round.  There are loads of alternative solutions, almost all of them would be better than the bottle-neck Preliminary rounds we have at the moment.

 

Seems fair, maybe a separate thread needed for this to discuss to stop dragging this off topic?  also, why not do away with the Preliminary tag and just call it Round 1?

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Not sure good get that passed as it disadvantages already existing members. All of LL and HL go into R1 at present, bar the top 2 who go into round 2 along with L2 clubs.

You'd be bringing in half the LL and HL a round early, plus bringing the top 2 in a round early (meaning no benefit there for finishing top 2 that currently exists) plus the whole of L2 a round early, L1 2 rounds early.

That's a lot of change for teams higher up the pecking order to benefit teams just joining.

I'd pin my money on an expanded preliminary setup than anything changing for R1 proper.

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