North Caledonian League Expansion

[invergowrie arab]

15 hours ago, Robert James said:

Yes, Skye could enter a club into the North Caley League, but it would be more likely that they would enter 1 or 2 of the NCL cup competitions first, as a way of testing the water. Lewis & Harris have done so in recent seasons, but won't consider joining the league whilst covid flourishes

Stop making stuff up 

[GNU_Linux]

 

[Spyro]

So what are the chances of Athletic making it to the end of the season?

Quite embarrassing that none of the Inverness teams have got a ground in the city. I know it’s not their fault, we’ve done that to death before. I can accept Loch Ness settling in Fortrose, nice ground and a great town… even if they seem to be a publicity stunt, their putting the results together so fair play to them.

Athletic back hiring a 3G pitch at the school needs looked at though, especially for a tier 6 league. Am I wrong in saying they were initially a spin-off of the old Muir of Ord side, and that went tits up too?! Seems like a bit of a shambles tbh

***glossing over Alness failing to beat Bonar AGAIN ***

[welshbairn]

21 minutes ago, Spyro said:

So what are the chances of Athletic making it to the end of the season?

Quite embarrassing that none of the Inverness teams have got a ground in the city. I know it’s not their fault, we’ve done that to death before. I can accept Loch Ness settling in Fortrose, nice ground and a great town… even if they seem to be a publicity stunt, their putting the results together so fair play to them.

Athletic back hiring a 3G pitch at the school needs looked at though, especially for a tier 6 league. Am I wrong in saying they were initially a spin-off of the old Muir of Ord side, and that went tits up too?! Seems like a bit of a shambles tbh

***glossing over Alness failing to beat Bonar AGAIN ***

They started off in Farr and moved to Muir of Ord soon after. Only formed in 2016 which is a surprise to me! Muir of Ord Rovers have upped their game and have loads of youth teams so I guess they wanted their pitch back. Athletic seemed like they had got their act together last season and they did well in the amateurs over the summer so I was expecting them to crack on this season. Don't know what's happened, maybe Loch Ness Sportswear Ltd poached their best players? Don't know what happened about the Ardersier pitch either.

https://www.invernessathleticfc.co.uk/history.php

[kevsmart]

34 minutes ago, Spyro said:

So what are the chances of Athletic making it to the end of the season?

Quite embarrassing that none of the Inverness teams have got a ground in the city. I know it’s not their fault, we’ve done that to death before. I can accept Loch Ness settling in Fortrose, nice ground and a great town… even if they seem to be a publicity stunt, their putting the results together so fair play to them.

Athletic back hiring a 3G pitch at the school needs looked at though, especially for a tier 6 league. Am I wrong in saying they were initially a spin-off of the old Muir of Ord side, and that went tits up too?! Seems like a bit of a shambles tbh

***glossing over Alness failing to beat Bonar AGAIN ***

Would it not make sense for any of the Inverness teams to use the 4g at Highland RFC, when it's not being used by the Rugby

[welshbairn]

39 minutes ago, kevsmart said:

Would it not make sense for any of the Inverness teams to use the 4g at Highland RFC, when it's not being used by the Rugby

Loch Ness used it last season, as did Clach when they had a fire, played on Friday nights if rugby was being played on Saturday afternoon. Maybe they charge too much.

[Sherrif John Bunnell]

I think the rugby pitch is operated by the council/Highlife, so it shouldn't be too much more expensive to hire than the IRA. I imagine the rugby club have first dibs pretty much every Saturday though.

I watched most of the Loch Ness/Nairn game on Saturday and the school is unsurprisingly an awful place for spectators to watch football. The only place to stand was on a boggy area of grass outside the fence. I noticed that the players and officials spent half time just standing around on the pitch rather than going back to the changing rooms, but that is maybe standard practice at North Caley level?

[Cyclizine]

6 hours ago, Sherrif John Bunnell said:

I think the rugby pitch is operated by the council/Highlife, so it shouldn't be too much more expensive to hire than the IRA. I imagine the rugby club have first dibs pretty much every Saturday though.

I watched most of the Loch Ness/Nairn game on Saturday and the school is unsurprisingly an awful place for spectators to watch football. The only place to stand was on a boggy area of grass outside the fence. I noticed that the players and officials spent half time just standing around on the pitch rather than going back to the changing rooms, but that is maybe standard practice at North Caley level?

I asked my egg-chasing friend about it a couple of years ago and it wasn't that pricey, about £45 an hour then. Rugby club have priority over bookings though and with first XV, second XV, development side, youths, kids, women's teams plus training, etc, it doesn't leave much flexibility.

Edited December 6, 2021 by Cyclizine

[kevsmart]

On 06/12/2021 at 15:15, Cyclizine said:

I asked my egg-chasing friend about it a couple of years ago and it wasn't that pricey, about £45 an hour then. Rugby club have priority over bookings though and with first XV, second XV, development side, youths, kids, women's teams plus training, etc, it doesn't leave much flexibility.

Yeah I looked at Highland Rugby Club's usage this week Monday and Wednesday Kids, Tuesday and Thursday Senior training and I'm sure there was something on the Friday along with matches on the Saturday and Kids matches on the Sunday. So no room for any Footie

[Robert James]

On 02/12/2021 at 18:44, invergowrie arab said:

Stop making stuff up 

Wake up son.

If you check back, you will see that I was the first person to advise P&B about 4 clubs joining in 20/21, and about 2 other clubs making an enquiry about joining for 2020/21.

If Skye footballers could unite, they should enter a winter team in a North Caley cup competition.  It would provide an outlet for younger/developing players to further their experience, without any on-going commitment. Sadly, this is probably unlikely at present.

I also highlighted the likelihood that Lewis & Harris would (re)enter an NCL cup this season. They did.

[invergowrie arab]

40 minutes ago, Robert James said:

Wake up son.

If you check back, you will see that I was the first person to advise P&B about 4 clubs joining in 20/21, and about 2 other clubs making an enquiry about joining for 2020/21.

If Skye footballers could unite, they should enter a winter team in a North Caley cup competition.  It would provide an outlet for younger/developing players to further their experience, without any on-going commitment. Sadly, this is probably unlikely at present.

I also highlighted the likelihood that Lewis & Harris would (re)enter an NCL cup this season. They did.

You said Lewis and Harris won't enter a league whilst COVID flourishes, implying that if there was no COVID they would be. This is made up.

Anyway it's fine I'll just put you on ignore because it's the same shite over and over again.

 

[Cyclizine]

3 hours ago, Robert James said:

Wake up son.

If you check back, you will see that I was the first person to advise P&B about 4 clubs joining in 20/21, and about 2 other clubs making an enquiry about joining for 2020/21.

If Skye footballers could unite, they should enter a winter team in a North Caley cup competition.  It would provide an outlet for younger/developing players to further their experience, without any on-going commitment. Sadly, this is probably unlikely at present.

I also highlighted the likelihood that Lewis & Harris would (re)enter an NCL cup this season. They did.

Robert, you're prone to presenting your personal opinions and wishes as truth, and then being very defensive when you're called out on some of the inconsistencies. It's not a competition, everyone up here is well aware of comings and goings in the NCL, just we don't feel the need to post unsubstantiated rumours and Football Manager-esque fantasies about Skye United or Ness and Point joining the NCL...

Edited December 9, 2021 by Cyclizine

[AsimButtHitsASix]

13 hours ago, Cyclizine said:

Football Manager-esque fantasies about Skye United or Ness and Point joining the NCL...

Especially when we all know it's Iochdar Saints who are joining.

[Dev]

15 hours ago, Cyclizine said:

Robert, you're prone to presenting your personal opinions and wishes as truth, and then being very defensive when you're called out on some of the inconsistencies. It's not a competition, everyone up here is well aware of comings and goings in the NCL, just we don't feel the need to post unsubstantiated rumours and Football Manager-esque fantasies about Skye United or Ness and Point joining the NCL...

 

2 hours ago, AsimButtHitsASix said:

Especially when we all know it's Iochdar Saints who are joining.

Why so against a little speculation? It's a Forum after all and without a range of views none of us would be here!

Robert was, after all, the first person on P&B to come up with the West of Scotland League title. He took stick for that one too.

One thing though we should all anticipate is that there are more changes coming to the HL pyramid area. Hopefully that will strengthen the N Cal league.

[welshbairn]

1 minute ago, Dev said:

 

Why so against a little speculation? It's a Forum after all and without a range of views none of us would be here!

Robert was, after all, the first person on P&B to come up with the West of Scotland League title. He took stick for that one too.

One thing though we should all anticipate is that there are more changes coming to the HL pyramid area. Hopefully that will strengthen the N Cal league.

Speculation is fine, it's when it masquerades as being from inside sources or directly filched from local papers without attribution that it gets annoying.

[LongTimeLurker]

26 minutes ago, Dev said:

Why so against a little speculation? ...

The problem is that he doesn't frame his posts as speculation. Beyond that you didn't exactly have to be Nostradamus to be able to guess correctly that the name West of Scotland was going to be used.

[Cyclizine]

6 hours ago, AsimButtHitsASix said:

Especially when we all know it's Iochdar Saints who are joining.

To be honest, a South Uist team is probably more in West of Scotland League territory, given the ferry goes to Oban

[AsimButtHitsASix]

54 minutes ago, Cyclizine said:

To be honest, a South Uist team is probably more in West of Scotland League territory, given the ferry goes to Oban

Bringing it back to FM nonsense... when I was making some regional leagues on FM this week I had to make all the Shetland teams geographically part of the North Region Juniors as opposed to North Caley as they are so far east. I excused this as kayfabe by saying it's easier to get to Aberdeen from Lerwick than it is to get to Fort William anyway. 

[FairWeatherFan]

5 minutes ago, AsimButtHitsASix said:

Bringing it back to FM nonsense... when I was making some regional leagues on FM this week I had to make all the Shetland teams geographically part of the North Region Juniors as opposed to North Caley as they are so far east. I excused this as kayfabe by saying it's easier to get to Aberdeen from Lerwick than it is to get to Fort William anyway. 

I saw on a Mozza tweet thread all the Lowland lower leagues saw some quite unexpected movement between the leagues after year 1 due to geography. 

Fort William relegated to West. South teams moved East and a few others. 

[AsimButtHitsASix]

5 minutes ago, FairWeatherFan said:

I saw on a Mozza tweet thread all the Lowland lower leagues saw some quite unexpected movement between the leagues after year 1 due to geography. 

Fort William relegated to West. South teams moved East and a few others. 

It's a limitation of the region thing FM uses. Using the South of Scotland league as an example the gamemakers know there's nowhere in the league system further west or south than D&G so will only use a North and East boundary for the furthest placed town in the game by those markers. (Sanquhar and Gretna)



As you can see this means if Girvan were to be relegated/promoted the game would view them as clear South of Scotland league teams. Imagine the same cup off for the West of Scotland and it goes as far as Girvan and as far east as Harthill, etc.

So when the game knows there are supposed to be 32 teams in the Scottish 5th tier it will divide those 32 teams the best way they can. Fort William is a lot closer to the boundary line than it is to Wick so it seems the obvious choice, etc.