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Celtic and Hearts B Teams in Lowland League?


falski

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Why would Hearts B get in when they have been an alsoran in the LL this season? Think up to 6 might imply something different from the scenario you are outlining. Obvious questions are why would the HL and LL sign up to this? Automatic promotion for tier 5 champions but with the added wrinkle that this could be a B team? And why would the SPFL L1 and L2 clubs sign up? Relegation into a national division with better subsidies than the parachute payments for Club 42?

Edited by LongTimeLurker
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1 hour ago, edinabear said:

So league 3 could be:

Rangers B.

Celtic B.

Hearts B.

Hibs B.

Motherwell B.

Kilmarnock B.

Spartans.

Stirling Uni

Brechin.

Buckie Thistle.

 

Looks a good, competitive league to me. 

 

That looks so appealing to Buckie Thistle

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Presumably an additional division, placed at Tier 5 with the LL and HL and all feeder leagues relegated a Tier would mean fewer match officials available for these lower Tiers? Is that a good idea? The SFA is already reluctant to deal with disciplinary matters at lower levels so why make the situation even worse?

 

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2 hours ago, Cowden Cowboy said:

But 10 team leagues are competitive and maintain interest through a season for most clubs.  Don’t play in the SPFL if you aren’t ambitious enough to play nationally.  Don’t think there is plan to have 6 b teams in new league - defeats the object then of playing v men 

You could have any number of teams in a division and it could still be "competitive" for the promotion and relegation positions. With just ten teams you can have a better chance of a team scraping into the play-offs and even winning promotion. However, that team could just as easily be little better off points-wise than a team close to or in a relegation position. Why should a weak team be given a chance for promotion?

In addition I believe that there is merit in having larger numbers of teams per division, not only as this avoids the boredom of 4 matches against the same opposition but, also, as it gives mid table teams a better chance to build a team/squad for future seasons. This would also help to bring through younger players as they would be given more time to develop at the teams' level.

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Based upon my post on 25th January on the thread  Pyramid lock out - how to push for change?

FWIW an edited version to allow for B teams:

Tier 1:  SPFL Prem: 12 clubs

Tier 2:   SPFL Championship: 16 clubs . 

Tier 3:  National Conference Division One: 16 clubs. 

A national division is needed at this level so that there is a supply of clubs which could progress to meeting the requirements of the higher level.

Adding up the numbers there's currently 12/10/10/10 SPFL clubs so 42. There's 44 clubs in the above suggestion so 4 clubs move up to the Tier 2 level and 10 clubs move up from the current Tier 4 level and 2 clubs  from the current Tier 5 level move up to Tier 3. No-one losing out in the transition season!

You end up with a flatter pyramid altogether. Tier 3 relegates the bottom 2 clubs and promotes the champions of the LL and HL. However, if there was a B Teams Division at LL/HL level then the champions of that could also be promoted to Tier 3 but this would mean 3 teams relegated from Tier 3 each season. This was B teams would operate at Tier 4 in their own sector i.e. separate from other clubs. They would also be relegated from Tier 3 back into their own B team division at Tier 4.

 

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28 minutes ago, Dev said:

Presumably an additional division, placed at Tier 5 with the LL and HL and all feeder leagues relegated a Tier would mean fewer match officials available for these lower Tiers? Is that a good idea? The SFA is already reluctant to deal with disciplinary matters at lower levels so why make the situation even worse?

 

 

This is probably the single least important reason not to carry out any sort of league reconstruction.

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1 hour ago, Dev said:

You could have any number of teams in a division and it could still be "competitive" for the promotion and relegation positions. With just ten teams you can have a better chance of a team scraping into the play-offs and even winning promotion. However, that team could just as easily be little better off points-wise than a team close to or in a relegation position. Why should a weak team be given a chance for promotion?

In addition I believe that there is merit in having larger numbers of teams per division, not only as this avoids the boredom of 4 matches against the same opposition but, also, as it gives mid table teams a better chance to build a team/squad for future seasons. This would also help to bring through younger players as they would be given more time to develop at the teams' level.

Effectively there are currently say 12 teams in Lowland League with nothing much to play for.  That is in stark contrast with the 10 teams arrangement which is of course the contrary argument to yours and the 10 team version generally is better crowd wise as games are more competitive 

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14 minutes ago, Cowden Cowboy said:

Effectively there are currently say 12 teams in Lowland League with nothing much to play for...

That can be dealt with by expanding promotion and relegation places and having lots of clubs enter a playoff for the last promotion place like they do in the National League in England.

On another topic, if they took the top 5 from both the HL and LL, a new fifth tier national division could look like this:

Spartans, Rangers B, Celtic B, Stirling Uni, Tranent, Buckie, Brechin, Brora, Formartine, Fraserburgh

Major question mark would be whether most of the HL clubs listed would actually want that.

Edited by LongTimeLurker
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54 minutes ago, LongTimeLurker said:

 

On another topic, if they took the top 5 from both the HL and LL, a new fifth tier national division could look like this:

Spartans, Rangers B, Celtic B, Stirling Uni, Tranent, Buckie, Brechin, Brora, Formartine, Fraserburgh

Major question mark would be whether most of the HL clubs listed would actually want that.

That idea would severely deplete the HL? 

 

 

 

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5 minutes ago, newcastle broon said:

That idea would severely deplete the HL? 

 

 

 

Yeah, it would definitely devalue the HL. There are only 4 licensed teams below the HL as well, and I doubt they'd be keen on getting Fort William filling a gap!

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3 minutes ago, newcastle broon said:

That idea would severely deplete the HL?

Agree, but could they do it in an unbalanced way without admitting that something needs to be done to balance the feeders better? Maybe there would be B teams from Aberdeen and Dundee United? They could also let licensed clubs like Fort William, Golspie Sutherland, Lochee United and Tayport in to make up the numbers again.

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7 hours ago, edinabear said:

So league 3 could be:

Rangers B.

Celtic B.

Hearts B.

Hibs B.

Motherwell B.

Kilmarnock B.

Spartans.

Stirling Uni

Brechin.

Buckie Thistle.

 

Looks a good, competitive league to me

There is absolutely no way that Killie and Motherwell will be involved.

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12 minutes ago, sdr71 said:

Why on earth are the likes of East Fife going to vote for potential relegation to a league filled with a majority of B teams?  It actually makes the current Lowland League seem like an enticing prospect.

Because there is significant prize money in that league and none in Lowland 

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