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Lowland League 2020/21 General Chat


FairWeatherFan

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Just now, FairWeatherFan said:

LL season finishes two weeks earlier than the other pyramid leagues due to the way the SPFL2 Play-off plays out. In a normal season that takes 4 weekends to play with a variety of different scenarios that could flip 15th from relegation play-off/automatic relegation/safety and see 14th dragged into it.

Correct. You don't know until SPFL2/HL/LL playoff is over... 4 weeks after LL ends... whether LL's lost a club to SPFL2, gained a club, or no alteration; and therefore know who'd be in such a playoff/round-robin.

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One way to include a LL team in the PO would be to have a round-robin of the 3 champions and #15 (ignoring colts) in the Lowland League and let the knock-on effect from SPFL promotion/relegation influence that round-robin. In the case of LL champion going up & HL area club going down the first 3 in that RR group will go to the LL, int the case of the HL champion going up & LL area club going down only the winner of that group and in all other cases it would be the top 2.

If you ensure that the last game of the round-robin is at the same time as the return of the L2 play-off final or later, all clubs will know when those last games finish where they play the next season. That means there won't be the situation anymore of one team having to wait for the outcome of the L2 play-offs whether or not they will get relegated.

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34 minutes ago, Marten said:

One way to include a LL team in the PO would be to have a round-robin of the 3 champions and #15 (ignoring colts) in the Lowland League and let the knock-on effect from SPFL promotion/relegation influence that round-robin. In the case of LL champion going up & HL area club going down the first 3 in that RR group will go to the LL, int the case of the HL champion going up & LL area club going down only the winner of that group and in all other cases it would be the top 2.

That still doesn't work particularly well either. It requires the East, South and West to finish mid-April... it moves the burden of absorbing a gain from SPFL2 away from bottom-end LL clubs, where it falls just now, and shares it across the champions below (you actually have a scenario that if 15th finish top = no promotion at all 😮!)... and it still might often only see 1 promotion.

EDIT: Presumably you'd also need a double-round-robin, as finishing its last games at same time as SPFL2/HL/LL finishes or later means having to last 4 or 5 weeks.

Edited by HibeeJibee
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A further complication will be the LL's sudden change of position on which teams are eligible to compete in those play-offs. We must now surely assume that if one of the Tier 6 champions are not eligible to go up then we keep going down the table until we find someone who is, in line with what the LL are proposing for their own promotion play-off. That means there will always be 3 teams in the play-off every year.

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A further complication will be the LL's sudden change of position on which teams are eligible to compete in those play-offs. We must now surely assume that if one of the Tier 6 champions are not eligible to go up then we keep going down the table until we find someone who is, in line with what the LL are proposing for their own promotion play-off. That means there will always be 3 teams in the play-off every year.
I'm in favour of allowing the highest eligible teams to get the chance of promotion instead of just the champions to prevent "bed blocking". Now there is even more of an argument for that. Especially for the SoSFL if Stranraer reserves win the league again.
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There is so much positivity and potential in football across Scotland if we are brave enough to open up to it and let it flourish - CE

We'll see how the LL AGM goes and whether or not the LL Pyramid Play-off stays the same :whistle

While all the LL clubs try and share a little in Kelty's success today, the 3 Tier 6 leagues should be using their words against them.

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8 minutes ago, Bankies Alive said:

It’s a joke that there’s 1 relegation spot with 150 teams underneath the LL.

Self preservation is alive and well in the LL as well as the SPFL.

 

It has served it's purpose up until now. 2014-2016 expanding through application. 2017 only one licenced champion, 2018 the only LL Play-off, 2019 only one licenced champion, 2020 only one licenced champion. 2021 null & voided.

2021-22 is the first season that there's almost a guarantee that there will be two licenced champions and the expectation of a completed season. There isn't the excuse anymore.

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It’s a joke that there’s 1 relegation spot with 150 teams underneath the LL.
Self preservation is alive and well in the LL as well as the SPFL.
 
If you think that's bad the Premiership has 1.5 spots with 250 teams below it.
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The difficulty in expanding relegation is there are two feeder leagues to the LL in the West, one of which is nowhere near the standard of the other tier 6 leagues in LL territory. 3 up/3 down sounds like a great idea in theory till you realise you'd be promoting fodder from the SoS every season rather than having second in the EoS playoff against second in the WoS for the third spot.

There is a place for a regional SoS league in the pyramid but it's not at tier 6 now we have a proper WoS league.

Edited by Marshmallo
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11 minutes ago, Marshmallo said:

The difficulty in expanding relegation is there are two feeder leagues to the LL in the West, one of which is nowhere near the standard of the other tier 6 leagues in LL territory. 3 up/3 down sounds like a great idea in theory till you realise you'd be promoting fodder from the SoS every season rather than having second in the EoS playoff against second in the WoS for the third spot.

There is a place for a regional SoS league in the pyramid but it's not at tier 6 now we have a proper WoS league.

Doing the 3up from Tier 6 could work since it would have to be licenced champions. It could get two votes from Dalbeattie & Gretna 2008 in the Lowland League since they would fancy being yo-yo clubs in that circumstance and the SoSFL aren't likely to object. 

 

 

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16 minutes ago, Marshmallo said:

The difficulty in expanding relegation is there are two feeder leagues to the LL in the West, one of which is nowhere near the standard of the other tier 6 leagues in LL territory. 3 up/3 down sounds like a great idea in theory till you realise you'd be promoting fodder from the SoS every season rather than having second in the EoS playoff against second in the WoS for the third spot.

There is a place for a regional SoS league in the pyramid but it's not at tier 6 now we have a proper WoS league.

Wasn't there talk that the SoSL was moving to be a feeder league of the West? Trying to remember where I heard that...

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8 minutes ago, AlansHotBath said:

Wasn't there talk that the SoSL was moving to be a feeder league of the West? Trying to remember where I heard that...

It was something relatively off the cuff from the Official Catch Up the way I remember it. More along the lines of everyone expects it to happen, not that it's actively being worked on. As let's face it if you're a WoSFL First Division club are you keen on limiting your promotion chances for the SoSFL. The West Region scrapped the Districts not that long ago after all. 

Online though it grew arms and legs.

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2 minutes ago, FairWeatherFan said:

It was something relatively off the cuff from the Official Catch Up the way I remember it. More along the lines of everyone expects it to happen, not that it's actively being worked on. As let's face it if you're a WoSFL First Division club are you keen on limiting your promotion chances for the SoSFL. The West Region scrapped the Districts not that long ago after all. 

Online though it grew arms and legs.

That was it, aye. Had forgotten it was just chat for now

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17 minutes ago, AlansHotBath said:

Wasn't there talk that the SoSL was moving to be a feeder league of the West? Trying to remember where I heard that...

Mentioned by Mozza on the podcast, I wrote in a previous post "the SOS are looking at moving down a tier (the worst kept secret in Scottish football apparently)." . Don't think he said specifically as a feeder to the west but just moving down to tier 7 (I presume to get out of the LL play-off).

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