Jump to content

Pyramid 2019/2020


Recommended Posts

1 hour ago, Glenconner said:

The travel is not the worst of it although nobody seems to mention a team isn’t expected to arrived 2 minutes before kickoff or the higher you go in the leagues floodlights and midweek games kick in. What if the company doesn’t give an eff about a player playing for XYZ Utd. Effing off at lunchtime 5 weeks in a row might not be suitable for every workplace. Wouldn’t fancy leaving Wick after a midweek game and then travelling to say Dundee.

Unlikely. Twice we have been sent to carnoustie and once to Lochee midweek and Lochee got sent down to us midweek one year in the juniors aswell. An hour and a half journey particularly when you have to use bridges

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, effeffsee_the2nd said:

ah well happy to be corrected mate, not personaly made the trip myself . I know that Dundee to coldstream or dumfries in mostly dual carriageway where as a lot of the way up north isn't, although the majority of teams in the highland league  are in Aberdeenshire and not the true highlands.  what about further down in the north region once promotion relegation kicks in? are there more teams from the far north and west coast where population and roads are much sparser?

It's all single carriageway between Edinburgh and Coldstream so it's not great either, though obviously Wick and Brora would be much further.

Below their top division the North Juniors are regionalised, which is obviously a big factor  in Montrose Roselea's decision to move. If the north pyramid ever comes together you'd imagine the top league, maybe the top two leagues would be region-wide, and they'd be split East/North beneath that.

IIRC there's only one senior or junior club in Scotland north of Alexandria and west of Muir of Ord - Fort William, in lonely isolation, with their nearest neighbour a 3.5 hour round trip  away. 

4 hours ago, Glenconner said:

The travel is not the worst of it although nobody seems to mention a team isn’t expected to arrived 2 minutes before kickoff or the higher you go in the leagues floodlights and midweek games kick in. What if the company doesn’t give an eff about a player playing for XYZ Utd. Effing off at lunchtime 5 weeks in a row might not be suitable for every workplace. Wouldn’t fancy leaving Wick after a midweek game and then travelling to say Dundee.

The HL have had midweek games for years, they generally kick of at 8pm so I think the work issues can't be too bad.

It's always surprised me that there are at least 20 part time clubs in Scotland happy to play national-level football, but that's how it is.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, Dev said:

Currently there is no automatic promotion into Division Two and Play-Offs are in place between the leading Highland and Lowland Leagues Champions which allows the best club out of the two regions to enter that Division Two Play-Off. If one region is perceived to be weaker than the other it really doesn't matter because it does not prevent the best club from competing in the Play-Off with the bottom Division Two club.

Including Dundee/Angus clubs in the northern half of the country might seem inconsiderate but if they grasped the opportunity the Highland region could be significantly strengthened, as could the profile of football in this area e.g. guaranteed entry into the Scottish Cup each season etc.

Thing is, talk of Tayside clubs and the distance they'd need to travel in the Highland is a bit premature given none have a licence/floodlights and they would have to compete at tier 6 first. But for Lochee United, I crunched the numbers and came up with the following average return journeys:

  • East of Scotland Premier next season, with Broughty (to simulate the boundary moving north) - 111 miles
  • North of Scotland Premier (17+18th HL, 7 Tayside Juniors, 7 North Juniors) - 113 miles
  • Lowland League in place of Selkirk this season - 169   miles
  • Highland League (16 team) - 240 miles

So at tier 6 there isn't any travel difference between going North or East. 

1 hour ago, Cyclizine said:

I think the most pragmatic long-term solution is something like the Regionalligen in Germany. Have relatively fixed boundaries and just set the promotion and play-off places in proportion the  number of licenced clubs in each region. You'd need to have more than one relegation slot in SPFL2 though - at least one automatic and one playoff place. This means that you can have a relatively shallow pyramid in the North, due to the density of the clubs, but a deeper one in the East/West without making it 'easier' for a North team to gain promotion.

Agree, and as Dev mentioned above so long as there's a play-off it means any weaker region still has to prove themselves against another region's champions or a League Two team first.

1 hour ago, Glenconner said:

The travel is not the worst of it although nobody seems to mention a team isn’t expected to arrived 2 minutes before kickoff or the higher you go in the leagues floodlights and midweek games kick in. What if the company doesn’t give an eff about a player playing for XYZ Utd. Effing off at lunchtime 5 weeks in a row might not be suitable for every workplace. Wouldn’t fancy leaving Wick after a midweek game and then travelling to say Dundee.

At least floodlights mean the games are always at 3pm so you have a bit more time, rather than 1.45, 2 or 2.30pm in other leagues. West Junior games kick off at 1.45 from November to February so every week means leaving at lunchtime (or earlier)!

All of the League Two games at the beginning of the season are scheduled for Saturdays, same with the Highland League (apart from two games in August), so unless there's postponements midweeks shouldn't come into it.

2 minutes ago, GordonS said:

Below their top division the North Juniors are regionalised, which is obviously a big factor  in Montrose Roselea's decision to move.

Not any longer, they reverted back to a first and second division of 9 below the 14-team Superleague this season. And I don't think it was a factor with Montrose Roselea as they immediately won Division One East plus the play-off in their first season and are now in the Superleague.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

40 minutes ago, Ginaro said:

Not any longer, they reverted back to a first and second division of 9 below the 14-team Superleague this season. And I don't think it was a factor with Montrose Roselea as they immediately won Division One East plus the play-off in their first season and are now in the Superleague.

I believe they were actually placed in Division One West. Due to the quirk of being the most Southern by far, but still more Westerly than the teams that made up Division One East when it came to balancing the divisions.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Ginaro said:

Agree, and as Dev mentioned above so long as there's a play-off it means any weaker region still has to prove themselves against another region's champions or a League Two team first.

 

Not any longer, they reverted back to a first and second division of 9 below the 14-team Superleague this season. And I don't think it was a factor with Montrose Roselea as they immediately won Division One East plus the play-off in their first season and are now in the Superleague.

Yup, the play-off with the SoS champion hasn't caused any consternation among ambitious EoS clubs, because they're relatively confident about winning it.

 

Yeah, someone else pointed that out. It'd be interesting to know more about Roselea's decision and how they've found it so far. Might re-assure a few others.

And this travel will get a lot easier soon, when the bypass opens.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, FairWeatherFan said:

I believe they were actually placed in Division One West. Due to the quirk of being the most Southern by far, but still more Westerly than the teams that made up Division One East when it came to balancing the divisions.

It was one of those daft situations where no-one noticed the rule until after the AGM - I think even the NRJFA assumed Roselea would be going in the East Division until it was too late.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 hours ago, GordonS said:

 

IIRC there's only one senior or junior club in Scotland north of Alexandria and west of Muir of Ord - Fort William, in lonely isolation, with their nearest neighbour a 3.5 hour round trip  away. 

 

Well f**k me I'm surprised at that but there you go , shows how much I knew! I know the population is a bit thin but always assumed places like Oban or Ullapool had some sort of footballing representation . every days a school day as they say

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 hours ago, Cyclizine said:

Sadly, our geography, club distribution and population split doesn't fit easily with having equal numbers of clubs in each region. I think the most pragmatic long-term solution is something like the Regionalligen in Germany. Have relatively fixed boundaries and just set the promotion and play-off places in proportion the  number of licenced clubs in each region. You'd need to have more than one relegation slot in SPFL2 though - at least one automatic and one playoff place. This means that you can have a relatively shallow pyramid in the North, due to the density of the clubs, but a deeper one in the East/West without making it 'easier' for a North team to gain promotion. This approach works further down the levels as well.

Yeah, long term punting the furthest North team in the LL area to the Highland region to balance the numbers just isn't practical with our geography and population spread, so the altered weighting of promotion place would be a better way to go.

So for example if you have two automatic relegation places from SPFL2, the LL champions go up automatically while the HL champion and LL runner-up play off for the second place. We're obviously many years away from either the Lowland area getting that depth of licensed clubs or the SPFL opening up to more relegation places, but it's a solution to consider if we ever get there.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, FairWeatherFan said:

This is the spread of clubs across the SPFL, HL, LL, EoS, SoS, SJFA and NCL.

image.png.daa2a3e906fbec3afea9476c35fb50fb.png

That illustrates why Tayside clubs need to go North rather than overload the LL area, and as has been calculated, at tier 6 level the travelling difference between North Region  and EoS is negligible.   At tier 5 (HL) the travelling becomes a bit more than LL, but given they need to be Licenced the financial benefits would more than cover that.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, effeffsee_the2nd said:

Well f**k me I'm surprised at that but there you go , shows how much I knew! I know the population is a bit thin but always assumed places like Oban or Ullapool had some sort of footballing representation . every days a school day as they say

They have amateur teams - Oban Saints are a higher level standard of Amateur side, and are about to switch from the Scottish Amateur Football League to the higher standard Central Scottish AFL for 19-20. They usually play out of a reasonably enclosed pitch in Oban called Glencruitten and use the changing rooms and hospitality facilities at Oban Lorne RFC which is next door. They occasionally use the Mossfield Stadium shinty pitch which is also adjacent to Oban Lorne. The shinty and rugby pitches are used for their high profile pre-season tourney.

Ullapool have an amateur team called Lochbroom. They have league swapped a bit in recent times and not sure if they entered anything at all in 2018.

Edited by cmontheloknow
Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 hours ago, GordonS said:

Yeah, someone else pointed that out. It'd be interesting to know more about Roselea's decision and how they've found it so far. Might re-assure a few others.

Thread on the move north, including details of being put in the west division: https://www.pieandbovril.com/forum/index.php?/topic/230870-montrose-roselea-statement-re-north-region-move/

They moved into Links Park this season, and are currently top of the North Superleague (still to play Banks o' Dee though). Mentioned here about not having a big committee, so unlikely to see them think about going to the HL with the licensed ground taken care of: https://www.pieandbovril.com/forum/index.php?/topic/257136-montrose-roselea-on-the-move-again/

Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 hours ago, Ginaro said:

Thread on the move north, including details of being put in the west division: https://www.pieandbovril.com/forum/index.php?/topic/230870-montrose-roselea-statement-re-north-region-move/

They moved into Links Park this season, and are currently top of the North Superleague (still to play Banks o' Dee though). Mentioned here about not having a big committee, so unlikely to see them think about going to the HL with the licensed ground taken care of: https://www.pieandbovril.com/forum/index.php?/topic/257136-montrose-roselea-on-the-move-again/

Cheers, interesting.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

 

 

It is my understanding that the SJFA Secretary and Assistant Secretary recently met with representatives of the SFA, Lowland League, the South of Scotland League and (significantly) the East of Scotland League to discuss standardisation of discipline issues, also player registrations and to discuss how fixture scheduling would have to be timed and arranged to accommodate the play-offs for promotion to the Lowland League.

This is my own personal opinion based on what I understand has already happened, but it looks to me like all parties are moving ahead on the basis of the West Region and East Region juniors joining the pyramid as of this summer.

 

 

From the pyramid thread in the juniors.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
8 hours ago, Burnie_man said:

This could jolt things along a little up north - the HFL losing 4 good teams would seriously weaken it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...