Pyramid 2019/2020

[Burnie_man]

Well who knows but I would imagine the likes of Glasgow Uni and Strathclyde Uni would want to be involved in a West feeder league however that materialises.

There's zero evidence of that.

[edinabear]

12 minutes ago, Burnie_man said:

13 hours ago, edinabear said:

Well who knows but I would imagine the likes of Glasgow Uni and Strathclyde Uni would want to be involved in a West feeder league however that materialises.

There's zero evidence of that.

As I said I'm a bit doubtful myself but if the Juniors don't want to be part of a West feeder then what clubs then fill the void? So there is a bit of logic on that basis

[FairWeatherFan]

24 minutes ago, edinabear said:

As I said I'm a bit doubtful myself but if the Juniors don't want to be part of a West feeder then what clubs then fill the void? So there is a bit of logic on that basis

It wouldn't necessarily surprise me that the colts in the pyramid plan for the OF has fallen to creating a Tier 6 WoSFL. The concept largely originated from BSC Glasgow's email regarding interest 2 years ago and that was meant to be a way for them to enter a reserve side. They've now got a more robust Lowland U20s and SPFL Reserve League teams that fill that need.

I just don't see the LL changing their rule regarding access to a 2nd team already in the Professional Game Board leagues. So I don't see it coming of anything.

[LongTimeLurker]

On one level if Stirling University, Stranraer and Annan can have tier 6 teams last season, it's not obvious why the Old Firm shouldn't have them as well, until you consider the question of why they would want to be in a WoS league rather than the SPFL reserve league, which they are not currently participating in. Rangers don't seem to have been impressed with that setup and colt teams definitely seem to be the preferred way to go:

https://www.rangersnews.uk/news/rangers-pull-development-squad-out-of-spfl-reserve-league/

so Edinabear's info fits what is currently happening in many ways. If into leaks out of next month's PWG meeting the way it normally does, we should soon know more about what's happening.

[San Starko Rover]

Interesting and I’m not sure it’s as ridiculous as it sounds, Colts can play at Tier 6 so the OF could be playing the long game here. At the moment they are battering themselves off a brick wall as the SPFL clubs say no to colt teams with the fans in particular united against them (see the League 2 forum thread). Would Junior and Amateur fans be as opposed never having played in the same system there could be a lot of fans or even board members who have “a big club” or just be less hostile to all things OF this potentially adds more weight behind Celtic and Ranges in club numbers, they can also try to persuade clubs at Tier 6 of the benefits they claim and some of these clubs will eventually replace the current SPFL teams at Tiers 3 and 4 suddenly it’s not a handful of clubs for it it’s nearly half.

 

Would take time but it could be the only way they see the SPFL not blocking it as the current SPFL fans are not buckling. They could use LL as a stepping stone once enough clubs from the former Juniors replace the old EOS allowing a rule change to colts at Tier 5

 

 

[LongTimeLurker]

...and I for one welcome our new Tenants Super drinking overlords. Maybe worth bearing in mind that Inverness Caledonian Thistle were also pushing for a colts team in the Highland League recently:

https://www.inverness-courier.co.uk/sport/highland-league-not-closed-to-colts-team-178630/

 

[PastyMan]

On 18/10/2019 at 15:00, Burnie_man said:

Wednesday 11th December for next PWG meeting.

Wonder if the performances of the non league sides in the Scottish Cup will sharpen up thinking on the shape, pace and direction of the future pyramid?
Does it highlight dangers for SFL2 sides of being overtaken?
Does it highlight to West junior sides the dangers of continually missing the boat?
Does it have zero effect at all and we continue with piecemeal developments and a bottleneck between the levels?

Whaddya think?

[FairWeatherFan]

19 minutes ago, PastyMan said:

Wonder if the performances of the non league sides in the Scottish Cup will sharpen up thinking on the shape, pace and direction of the future pyramid?
Does it highlight dangers for SFL2 sides of being overtaken?
Does it highlight to West junior sides the dangers of continually missing the boat?
Does it have zero effect at all and we continue with piecemeal developments and a bottleneck between the levels?

Whaddya think?

It'll make some West clubs more interested.

Some more SPFL clubs more wary. While those beneath saw it as a reason to open things up more. I saw a few people point out the lack of seats and the usual infrastructure notes. So seeing seating became part of licensing will probably become a more prominent call.

[Burnie_man]

24 minutes ago, PastyMan said:

Wonder if the performances of the non league sides in the Scottish Cup will sharpen up thinking on the shape, pace and direction of the future pyramid?
Does it highlight dangers for SFL2 sides of being overtaken?
Does it highlight to West junior sides the dangers of continually missing the boat?
Does it have zero effect at all and we continue with piecemeal developments and a bottleneck between the levels?

Whaddya think?

The answer is – not a scooby!

The performances of Broxburn, Penicuik and Linlithgow must help the EoS to maintain that they should be the only senior league in the East, and I’m lead to believe that the ERJFA have been told by the SFA to come up with a solution acceptable to PWG, which in reality can only by either fit in under EoS, or some sort of merger.

The West as we know is an open goal.  If at this meeting there’s no progress then IMO there must be moves made to form a new WoS to allow ambitious clubs to progress, who must be looking on chomping at the bit.

But who knows. There certainly isn’t any urgency being shown.

[Burnie_man]

4 minutes ago, FairWeatherFan said:

It'll make some West clubs more interested.

Some more SPFL clubs more wary. While those beneath saw it as a reason to open things up more. I saw a few people point out the lack of seats and the usual infrastructure notes. So seeing seating became part of licensing will probably become a more prominent call.

The 2020 Licence criteria has been issued, with hardly any changes to Entry, apart from a note to say from 2021 floodlights need to be 200lux.

Given they have given notice of the lux requirement, perhaps it will be 2022 at the earliest before they bring in a seating requirement, giving clubs time to meet floodlighting.

[FairWeatherFan]

4 minutes ago, Burnie_man said:

The 2020 Licence criteria has been issued, with hardly any changes to Entry, apart from a note to say from 2021 floodlights need to be 200lux.

Given they have given notice of the lux requirement, perhaps it will be 2022 at the earliest before they bring in a seating requirement, giving clubs time to meet floodlighting.

I know 2020 will already be settled. I'm thinking more of 2021 and beyond. 

Having spent years with people saying the licensing was being set low to keep existing members in, that doesn't appear to be the case anymore.

Everyone got the same summer 2020 deadline for floodlights and not the initially rumoured 2-3 years. That's potentially going to rule out the odd long standing member.

Seating seems the next button to push for raising standards as you know. Something not impossible or unexpected but certainly costly.

 

[Burnie_man]

10 minutes ago, FairWeatherFan said:

I know 2020 will already be settled. I'm thinking more of 2021 and beyond. 

Having spent years with people saying the licensing was being set low to keep existing members in, that doesn't appear to be the case anymore.

Everyone got the same summer 2020 deadline for floodlights and not the initially rumoured 2-3 years. That's potentially going to rule out the odd long standing member.

Seating seems the next button to push for raising standards as you know. Something not impossible or unexpected but certainly costly.

 

Seating on top of floodlighting is massive for many clubs, I hope they take the long term approach.   We have already started fundraising for seating and with no major changes next year we can push on with that. Depending on how we do it, we hope to have 100-150 seats by Aug 2021 at the latest, it's not cheap.

The lux requirement could cause issues as well for some clubs.

[PastyMan]

2 minutes ago, Burnie_man said:

Seating on top of floodlighting is massive for many clubs, I hope they take the long term approach.   We have already started fundraising for seating and with no major changes next year we can push on with that. Depending on how we do it, we hope to have 100-150 seats by Aug 2021 at the latest, it's not cheap.

The lux requirement could cause issues as well for some clubs.

Huge mistake imo

[Buddie Holly]

2 minutes ago, Burnie_man said:

Seating on top of floodlighting is massive for many clubs

sounds a bit dangerous.

[PastyMan]

2 minutes ago, Buddie Holly said:

sounds a bit dangerous.

Yaaasss! Chalk 1 up for us pedants Burnie_Man

Seriously though, I hope the licencing requirements are signposted a lot further out than the floodlights ones were. Could actually hold clubs back if they plan now for, say, implementing 100 seats and the requirement is subsequently set at 150.

[Burnie_man]

58 minutes ago, Buddie Holly said:

sounds a bit dangerous.

Great view though.

[Burnie_man]

53 minutes ago, PastyMan said:

Yaaasss! Chalk 1 up for us pedants Burnie_Man

Seriously though, I hope the licencing requirements are signposted a lot further out than the floodlights ones were. Could actually hold clubs back if they plan now for, say, implementing 100 seats and the requirement is subsequently set at 150.

I hope they got the message after the problems cause by the floodlighting requirement, so much so they have given notice of the Lux requirement for 2021.

I'd be surprised if any future seating requirement would be set at more than 100 for entry level, but you never know.  As you say, a good notice period would help.  I can also foresee ground capacity minimums being set for SPFL entry.

[Ray Patterson]

Realistically, the smart thing for the SFA to do is that they bring in an Entry Plus Standard which requires seating etc and would be the minimum for SPFL2 and is required within 3 seasons for HL and LL.

It raises standards but it also doesn't financially burden smaller clubs with never-ending infrastructure costs.

[Ginaro]

20 minutes ago, ArabAuslander said:

Realistically, the smart thing for the SFA to do is that they bring in an Entry Plus Standard which requires seating etc and would be the minimum for SPFL2 and is required within 3 seasons for HL and LL.

It raises standards but it also doesn't financially burden smaller clubs with never-ending infrastructure costs.

There's already a requirement of Bronze floodlights for League Two, so the SFA could make seating a criteria for Bronze with the SPFL then requiring that.

Hopefully any seating or capacity requirement would just be needed for SPFL or tier 5 first of all. Only Bonnyrigg and VoL are missing seats in the LL and all but five HL/LL clubs have more than 150 seats - meaning any seating requirements would primarily affect tier 6+ clubs.

As for the WOS talk a couple of pages ago - surely the biggest factor in whether it gets off the ground is how close clubs are to being licensed (and if they want access to the U20s). If the only thing holding back Clydebank, Cumnock and Petershill is not being in a senior league then they should be pushing for a WOS league or even joining the SOS to replicate what happened in the east.

[Marten]

9 hours ago, Ginaro said:

There's already a requirement of Bronze floodlights for League Two, so the SFA could make seating a criteria for Bronze with the SPFL then requiring that.

Hopefully any seating or capacity requirement would just be needed for SPFL or tier 5 first of all. Only Bonnyrigg and VoL are missing seats in the LL and all but five HL/LL clubs have more than 150 seats - meaning any seating requirements would primarily affect tier 6+ clubs.

As for the WOS talk a couple of pages ago - surely the biggest factor in whether it gets off the ground is how close clubs are to being licensed (and if they want access to the U20s). If the only thing holding back Clydebank, Cumnock and Petershill is not being in a senior league then they should be pushing for a WOS league or even joining the SOS to replicate what happened in the east.

If the SFA are serious about a pyramid, they shouldn't put up any further barriers for clubs wanting to get licensed. Fine if some more requirements get added to the bronze level as it's reasonable to argue that higher standards are needed in SPFL2 compared to LL/HL, but to further raise the requirements a lot for getting in the LL would prevent clubs who'd really add something to the level being able to make the step.