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Highland Pyramid


Burnie_man

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On 27/04/2021 at 08:59, TheScarf said:

Half of the Highland League is boys from exclusively Inverness and Aberdeen.  It's chock full of ex Aberdeen, The Caley and Ross County youths.  

I have a mate who still plays in the HL and he's played for clubs all over the HL including the likes of Cove and Buckie despite living in Inverness all his life.  There used to be car fulls of boys heading east every Saturday to play for these teams.  Likewise loads heading west from Aberdeen.

There's a car park beside the A96 in Bucksburn that usually has Buckie, Turra and Keith owned-minibuses parked side by side throughout the week.  Always presumed that these would have been for the Aberdeen-based youth players for each club?

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Youth players? Not so much. Turriff and Buckie have first teams who live in Aberdeen. The latter used to have three pools of players all training apart once a week and together once a week. Turriff are now potless and likely to be relying on youths but they'll still take on whatever they can get from Aberdeen, particularly if they can get a few and save on expenses.  

At one recent home game with Lossie, Keith arrived in a team bus from Aberdeen with practically the entire squad on it. 

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44 minutes ago, Jimmy Shaker said:

...At one recent home game with Lossie, Keith arrived in a team bus from Aberdeen with practically the entire squad on it. 

Haven't they been an Aberdeen team for decades? Used to get told that they aren't a Keith team so why would I care about them by people I knew from Keith when I mentioned that Hamilton Accies don't have the greatest track record in Scottish Cup games against them. Think we'll probably see a few Edinburgh City eclipsing Berwick Rangers type scenarios over the next decade or two if relegation starts to get implemented.

https://keithfc.com/charlies-poems/2020/12/12/the-scourge-of-hamiltonnbsp-accies-1980nbsp-annbsp-anbsp-that

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The reason we're forever told for their shite home crowds is because there's no locals in the team and hasn't been for years, even though there's been plenty Keith lads in the league as a whole all through my time. The club as a whole seems to be some kind of proxy set-up for Toonser players, and committee men too. I mind going through there with Lossie and a few locals turned out to watch us because we'd a Keith boy in the team.  

It's becoming clearer that some of the SPFL clubs who voted for the pyramid never thought further ahead than the relegation of East Stirlingshire, Berwick Rangers and maybe Albion Rovers. Either they assumed their own houses would be in order by then or it just wouldn't happen to them. The Lowland League will empty half of SPFLLT in a decade. 

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9 hours ago, Hedgecutter said:

There's a car park beside the A96 in Bucksburn that usually has Buckie, Turra and Keith owned-minibuses parked side by side throughout the week.  Always presumed that these would have been for the Aberdeen-based youth players for each club?

 

1 hour ago, Jimmy Shaker said:

Youth players? Not so much. Turriff and Buckie have first teams who live in Aberdeen. The latter used to have three pools of players all training apart once a week and together once a week. Turriff are now potless and likely to be relying on youths but they'll still take on whatever they can get from Aberdeen, particularly if they can get a few and save on expenses.  

At one recent home game with Lossie, Keith arrived in a team bus from Aberdeen with practically the entire squad on it. 

Aye that’ll be for the first team. There’s a Buckie Thistle minibus parked at the top of where I live, presumably for their Inverness players.

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1 hour ago, Jimmy Shaker said:

The reason we're forever told for their shite home crowds is because there's no locals in the team and hasn't been for years, even though there's been plenty Keith lads in the league as a whole all through my time. The club as a whole seems to be some kind of proxy set-up for Toonser players, and committee men too. I mind going through there with Lossie and a few locals turned out to watch us because we'd a Keith boy in the team.  

It's becoming clearer that some of the SPFL clubs who voted for the pyramid never thought further ahead than the relegation of East Stirlingshire, Berwick Rangers and maybe Albion Rovers. Either they assumed their own houses would be in order by then or it just wouldn't happen to them. The Lowland League will empty half of SPFLLT in a decade. 

I'm around Keith a fair bit and I see far more of a presence from Strathisla juniors (raffles / posters in shops etc) than the senior team.  I get the impression that they're the 'locals' team'.

There's almost certainly a detachment between the locals and a team that are Keith in name only, and who can blame them.  That said, how many small town SPFL seaside league teams have players from the local area in their teams?

Brechin are in the situation where the vast majority of squad players come from the Central Belt.  If they come down to the HL then that will dry up overnight and we'll be fighting for the same pool of players out with the other 'Grampian' teams.  Perhaps they'd be able to tap Dundee, but I'm not convinced players would fancy committing to a league where the closest away side is 80 miles away (Locos), and I'd suspect those guys would opt for the juniors down there instead.  Therefore Brechin would probably need to rely on also being a proxy team for Toonsers if they wanted to avoid being on par with the likes of Turriff.  Perhaps we could tell the 'Keith' players "We have a dual carriageway all the way, so join Brechin City today". 

Edited by Hedgecutter
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56 minutes ago, Jimmy Shaker said:

It's becoming clearer that some of the SPFL clubs who voted for the pyramid never thought further ahead than the relegation of East Stirlingshire, Berwick Rangers and maybe Albion Rovers. Either they assumed their own houses would be in order by then or it just wouldn't happen to them. The Lowland League will empty half of SPFLLT in a decade. 

The Highland/Lowland League combined couldn't empty Cowdenbeath twice already; unless there is an automatic relegation spot added then it'll be a slower process than that.

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2 hours ago, Hedgecutter said:

Brechin are in the situation where the vast majority of squad players come from the Central Belt.  If they come down to the HL then that will dry up overnight and we'll be fighting for the same pool of players out with the other 'Grampian' teams.  Perhaps they'd be able to tap Dundee, but I'm not convinced players would fancy committing to a league where the closest away side is 80 miles away (Locos), and I'd suspect those guys would opt for the juniors down there instead.  Therefore Brechin would probably need to rely on also being a proxy team for Toonsers if they wanted to avoid being on par with the likes of Turriff.  Perhaps we could tell the 'Keith' players "We have a dual carriageway all the way, so join Brechin City today". 

Do you think so? I would have thought Brechins geographical location between the central belt and Aberdeen would actually be a bit of an advantage compared to other teams in the HL. Look at Brora and Fraserburgh, two fairly isolated teams compared to the rest however they were top of the league and had scored a heap of goals between them. I think things would be harder for Brechinin the HL for sure  but I don't think it would be terrible. Then again I'm not a Brechin fan so I might have the wrong take on it.

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1 hour ago, Jimmy Shaker said:

...The Lowland League will empty half of SPFLLT in a decade. 

In a similar sort of way most of the Lowland League as constituted at the moment is likely to get emptied by top clubs from the old west region juniors. A decade down the road I suspect even the likes of Bo'ness United and Bonnyrigg Rose are going to be one relatively poor season of form away from tier 6 if they don't quickly take advantage of the headstart they have right now and emulate Cove Rangers and Edinburgh City.

Up to now it's been not too far off 50:50 whether Club 42 goes down (the penalty shootout involving Cowdenbeath and East Kilbride was a tossup that could easily have gone the other way) but there isn't that much more of the really low hanging fruit like East Sirlingshire and Berwick Rangers left now. Over the next decade I think a lot will probably depend on whether or how soon rules changes are made to open up promotion from below in an LL context so the strength in depth at tier 5 improves as quickly as possible.

Clydebank sustained fulltime football in the past and could do so again if their WoS club became established in the SPFL and it would be interesting to see how far a club like Irvine Meadow could rise if they got the wind in their sails. Brora Rangers would be well advised to get the job done this season before Darvel arrive on the scene as another village club with a sugar daddy that can tap into Glasgow rather than Inverness for local talent chasing the biggest available paycheque.

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5 hours ago, Hedgecutter said:

Brechin are in the situation where the vast majority of squad players come from the Central Belt.  If they come down to the HL then that will dry up overnight and we'll be fighting for the same pool of players out with the other 'Grampian' teams.  Perhaps they'd be able to tap Dundee, but I'm not convinced players would fancy committing to a league where the closest away side is 80 miles away (Locos), and I'd suspect those guys would opt for the juniors down there instead.  Therefore Brechin would probably need to rely on also being a proxy team for Toonsers if they wanted to avoid being on par with the likes of Turriff.  Perhaps we could tell the 'Keith' players "We have a dual carriageway all the way, so join Brechin City today". 

Brechin could well tap into the east coast playing pool Cove have made merry with should Cove go up and need a better stock of players. Not sure where Peterhead or Elgin get theirs from these days. Aberdeen to Brechin is much more preferable than Aberdeen to Keith, specifically because you're not ending the journey in Keith. 

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2 hours ago, Jimmy Shaker said:

Brechin could well tap into the east coast playing pool Cove have made merry with should Cove go up and need a better stock of players. Not sure where Peterhead or Elgin get theirs from these days. Aberdeen to Brechin is much more preferable than Aberdeen to Keith, specifically because you're not ending the journey in Keith. 

Quick glance at both their squads suggests they are using less central belt players than 2-3 years ago.  Still seems to be a market they are willing to work in, but IMO finding more difficult to entice guys to travel with more high paying lowland region teams.  

On brechin,  I haven't followed their plight as much as I probably should, but my understanding is their recent collapse is due to bad decision making rather than lack of finance?  If that is a case they should still find themselves financially able to bring in dundee/aberdeen players in and the odd central belt player willing to travel.  That should be a decent pool of players providing they pick the right ones and use them correctly.

Edited by parsforlife
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8 hours ago, virginton said:

The Highland/Lowland League combined couldn't empty Cowdenbeath twice already; unless there is an automatic relegation spot added then it'll be a slower process than that.

I feel like Brechin this year are much closer to Cowdenbeath (or the Shire) than to Berwick Rangers. Feel like the play-off could be closer than a lot of people think - would have the non-league side as slight favourites but I don't think it's inconceivable Brechin could do it.

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7 minutes ago, craigkillie said:

I feel like Brechin this year are much closer to Cowdenbeath (or the Shire) than to Berwick Rangers. Feel like the play-off could be closer than a lot of people think - would have the non-league side as slight favourites but I don't think it's inconceivable Brechin could do it.

Agree with this, think they are second favourites but they have been playing - something Kelty and Brora haven't been doing and they have some quality on the pitch in Osman and Barr, albeit both getting on a bit now.

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37 minutes ago, parsforlife said:

Quick glance at both their squads suggests they are using less central belt players than 2-3 years ago.  Still seems to be a market they are willing to work in, but IMO finding more difficult to entice guys to travel with more high paying lowland region teams.  

On brechin,  I haven't followed their plight as much as I probably should, but my understanding is their recent collapse is due to bad decision making rather than lack of finance?  If that is a case they should still find themselves financially able to bring in dundee/aberdeen players in and the odd central belt player willing to travel.  That should be a decent pool of players providing they pick the right ones and use them correctly.

Perhaps for the first season or two while they still have SPFL money, but there is of course the extra travel costs.

7 minutes ago, craigkillie said:

I feel like Brechin this year are much closer to Cowdenbeath (or the Shire) than to Berwick Rangers. Feel like the play-off could be closer than a lot of people think - would have the non-league side as slight favourites but I don't think it's inconceivable Brechin could do it.

Don't think we'll ever have such a Cove v Berwick mismatch again. But Brechin have lost to Kelty and Linlithgow in the cups this season though the lack of games might balance things out.

Funnily enough in each of their club 42 seasons, Cowdenbeath were beaten 1-0 at home to East Kilbride in the Scottish Cup.

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43 minutes ago, craigkillie said:

I feel like Brechin this year are much closer to Cowdenbeath (or the Shire) than to Berwick Rangers. Feel like the play-off could be closer than a lot of people think - would have the non-league side as slight favourites but I don't think it's inconceivable Brechin could do it.

I agree, and as more sides get emptied the standard of the bottom placed side should improve to the point that they're usually capable of holding their own most seasons.  

There'll almost certainly be some different names coming in from the Lowland League (East Kilbride are already displaced to some degree) but none of them are likely to waltz into the national league setup. 

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4 hours ago, Jimmy Shaker said:

Aberdeen to Brechin is much more preferable than Aberdeen to Keith, specifically because you're not ending the journey in Keith. 

Oi, I had the Mon-Fri commute from Keith to Aberdeen for a while. Might be a 100 mile round trip, but you get used to it soon enough.

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Slightly OT, but the teams for this summer's Inverness amateur league have been confirmed.

https://www.inverness-courier.co.uk/sport/28-teams-announced-to-play-in-inverness-amateur-summer-leagu-237207/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook

Premiership – Avoch, Ardersier, Contin, ICM Electrical, IRN Security, Loch Ness, Maryburgh, NMM Sams and Tomatin.

Division One –Balloan, Black Rock Rovers, Charlestelona, Culloden Blacksmith’s, Drakies PDG, Highland Hospice, Hill Rovers, Innes CI and Muir of Ord Rovers.

Division Two – AFC River Ness, Black Isle United, Citadel, Conon Bridge, Gellions, Highland Athletic, Invergordon Social Club, Inverness Athletic, Ness Thistle and Tomatin United

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25 minutes ago, Sherrif John Bunnell said:

Slightly OT, but the teams for this summer's Inverness amateur league have been confirmed.

https://www.inverness-courier.co.uk/sport/28-teams-announced-to-play-in-inverness-amateur-summer-leagu-237207/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook

Premiership – Avoch, Ardersier, Contin, ICM Electrical, IRN Security, Loch Ness, Maryburgh, NMM Sams and Tomatin.

Division One –Balloan, Black Rock Rovers, Charlestelona, Culloden Blacksmith’s, Drakies PDG, Highland Hospice, Hill Rovers, Innes CI and Muir of Ord Rovers.

Division Two – AFC River Ness, Black Isle United, Citadel, Conon Bridge, Gellions, Highland Athletic, Invergordon Social Club, Inverness Athletic, Ness Thistle and Tomatin United

There's the odd one or two teams in the  premiership division could quite easily make the step into the NCL if they fancied.

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1 hour ago, Sherrif John Bunnell said:

Slightly OT, but the teams for this summer's Inverness amateur league have been confirmed.

https://www.inverness-courier.co.uk/sport/28-teams-announced-to-play-in-inverness-amateur-summer-leagu-237207/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook

Premiership – Avoch, Ardersier, Contin, ICM Electrical, IRN Security, Loch Ness, Maryburgh, NMM Sams and Tomatin.

Division One –Balloan, Black Rock Rovers, Charlestelona, Culloden Blacksmith’s, Drakies PDG, Highland Hospice, Hill Rovers, Innes CI and Muir of Ord Rovers.

Division Two – AFC River Ness, Black Isle United, Citadel, Conon Bridge, Gellions, Highland Athletic, Invergordon Social Club, Inverness Athletic, Ness Thistle and Tomatin United

I've played for 2 or 3 of these teams.  I see both Tomatin sides have moved over from the Speyside/Aviemore region.

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