Next to go?

[Gordon EF]

10 minutes ago, FairWeatherFan said:

While they go through 2 rounds to make it a harder comparison. I don't think 9th place in the Championship & League One have a 50/50. Both lean to relegation.

You're typically looking at a part-timers having a good season v. bad season over two games. The good scraping past the bad.

Clearly the 9th placed Championship or League One team is less likely to win their play-off because the go in with a 25% of success, rather than a 50% chance.

In terms of ties, 9th placed in the Championship have won 15 and lost 12 play-off ties in totality.

[craigkillie]

2 hours ago, virginton said:

Did anyone not have Albion Rovers on the top 5 of SPFL clubs most likely to drop some time soon? With the best will to their fanbase right now, it's hardly the earth-shattering consequence of the pyramid system HJ is claiming here. 

Bonnyrigg will kick on if they can convert their gate revenue to squad improvement, but there's every chance that it'll be Spartans v Brechin/Fraserburgh/Tranent in 12 months time. Which is what a stabilising pyramid system is supposed to look like. 

If I was to guess, it will be one of the two Edinburgh clubs who will be the first side to complete the promotion/relegation double (in this direction at least, Brechin could do it the other way).

[Scary Bear]

It’s a pain in the arse when the likes of Cowdenbeath, Brechin, and now Albion Rovers get relegated. I’ll never get to visiting all 42 grounds with this stuff going on.

Especially when they are replaced with the likes of The Spartans and FC Edinburgh. Diddy clubs with diddy grounds and no fans.

[Scary Bear]

On who next, Elgin have been flirting with it. 

[WC Boggs]

Not sure about Clyde's chances of survival at all after getting horsed out of Broadwood.  They need a ground of their own and a town to build a fan base in to keep the revenue coming in to sustain them.  I'm not seeing where the revenue for a competitive player budget is going to come from in the short  or medium term.   I hope I'm wrong for their sake, but it doesn't look good to me.

[PossilYM]

10 minutes ago, WC Boggs said:

Not sure about Clyde's chances of survival at all after getting horsed out of Broadwood.  They need a ground of their own and a town to build a fan base in to keep the revenue coming in to sustain them.  I'm not seeing where the revenue for a competitive player budget is going to come from in the short  or medium term.   I hope I'm wrong for their sake, but it doesn't look good to me.

No word yet on Crownpoint?

[PossilYM]

On 09/04/2023 at 10:46, Shawheadrover said:

Oh, and a wee win v Motherwell in the cup. Shocking. Relegate us now.

Done 

[CityDave94]

11 hours ago, Gordon EF said:

There's also the glaringly obvious - that Cove and Kelty can't be held up as the typical example of pyramid champions going into the play-off. Both had the finances to build squads that were well beyond the level they were playing at. Bonnyrigg and Spartans are probably more representative of what we'll typically see from now on.

It'll likely average out to a 50/50 split between pyramid champion and club 42. The existence of the trapdoor has definitely improved the bottom of League Two, partly because some dross has been moved out and replaced with stronger clubs.

Elgin are probably the only semi-perennial strugglers left in League Two, finishing in the bottom half in 6 of the last 10 seasons.

Elgin look the most likely to be next, but would they Bonnyrigg and Albion Rovers in past season been good enough to finish mid table, it was a closer league in quality from top to bottom than previous seasons?

If this is the case I would not disregard either Peterhead or Clyde from ending up in the battle to stay up. Very open league next season unless someone has an absolute mare pre season.

[drs]

11 hours ago, virginton said:

Did anyone not have Albion Rovers on the top 5 of SPFL clubs most likely to drop some time soon?

Amount of times each club relegated out of the SPFL finished bottom of the entire Scottish League structure -

Berwick - 3

Cowdenbeath - 7

Albion Rovers - 10

The Shire - 12

Brechin - 14

The last four funnily enough are the most amount of times clubs have finished bottom of the league so at the moment we're seeing a natural flushing of the long standing jobbies of the Scottish League (Montrose tie at 7), Berwick may feel hard done by but they appointed Harvey so got what they deserved.

We've essentially only got Stenhousemuir and Elgin left of the perennial bottom league dross* and it won't be a shock if they and Clyde are the next 3 out the door. The times they are a changing and its great for the game.

 

edit - * who are in the bottom league at the moment, I expect Montrose to drop like a stone once Petrie leaves and they'll also be out of the league in the next decade.

Edited May 21, 2023 by drs

[CityDave94]

18 minutes ago, Scary Bear said:

On who next, Elgin have been flirting with it. 

Elgin City don't look like they will ever change and they always look like they do just enough to keep their League 2 status on their worst seasons, they will be pushed down eventually. I see them as a massive waste of opportunity as they were one of maybe at one point the biggest club in the Highland League bigger than Peterhead, maybe than the Inverness sides the potential exists for them to reach say the level of the Angus clubs. Maybe these days are gone, the likes of rivals Buckie Thistle might end up in a similar position if they win promotion. A drop down might give them a chance to reset.

[drs]

11 hours ago, Gordon EF said:

There's also the glaringly obvious - that Cove and Kelty can't be held up as the typical example of pyramid champions going into the play-off. Both had the finances to build squads that were well beyond the level they were playing at. Bonnyrigg and Spartans are probably more representative of what we'll typically see from now on.

I'd say they aren't - plenty of teams in the EOS and WoS who are far bigger and would offer far more to the league structure than SPFL jobbers like East Fife and Stenhousemuir. An SPFL Talbot, Linlithgow and indeed EK would offer a far more intense challenge to the historical quirk teams than the likes of Bonnyrigg.

[Jacksgranda]

12 hours ago, RateofKnots said:

Over confidence maybe.

I'm not sure anyone was boasting about East Stirling or Cowden, and many thought Brechin should go down for the cowardly way their committee engineered avoiding a play off. 

Albion got 39 points this year, had probably the Stand out player from the league and most thought (myself included) they would have enough.

They came up just short, and I congratulate Spartans for the achievement.

However, as Rose found out, it can be a tough gig. And just as you suggest that SPFL2 sides may be overconfident about winning play offs, Pyramid winners will eventually fall back, such is the law of averages.

There were no play offs in any division that season, so obviously every second bottom team's board of directors/management committee also engineered avoiding a play off in a cowardly way.

[RateofKnots]

40 minutes ago, Jacksgranda said:

There were no play offs in any division that season, so obviously every second bottom team's board of directors/management committee also engineered avoiding a play off in a cowardly way.

Nope. Just the one that openly manoeuvred to avoid it.

[Toby]

Stranraer and Peterhead must be two clubs who could be in a bit of danger. The days of Peterhead throwing money about seem long gone with McInally’s moaning about missing out on players to Broomhill at the start of the season and if Stranraer were to go I could see them sinking like a stone, given their crowds.

I’d go as far as to say that given the geography, if Stranraer were to fall through, they’d be the one club who’s find it nigh on impossible to get back the the Lowland League, never mind the SPFL, should they end up in the SOSFL.

[Jacksgranda]

18 minutes ago, RateofKnots said:

Nope. Just the one that openly manoeuvred to avoid it.

What influence for such a small side...

[EdinburghBlue]

There have been a few comments here about 'perennial bottom feeders'.  Among the twelve sides that have finished last in the four league structure, six have spent some time in the second tier. Five have an average finishing position that would be in the third tier. Only Elgin and the Shire never made it out of the fourth tier, but both had seasons where they missed out on promotion via the playoffs.

One definition of 'bottom feeding' might be number of times finishing in the bottom half of the third tier. Since the move to the four tier structure the Shire did this 18 times and Albion Rovers 17 in 29 years, so arguably deserved relegation. Montrose and Elgin have been in the bottom five 16 times each (Elgin from six fewer seasons), so maybe equally deserving of relegation? But Queen's Park (11) have been bottom five more often than relegated Berwick and Cowdenbeath (10 times each). Brechin were only bottom five three times, as often as Arbroath.

So I think the analysis shows that while some serial poor performers arguably deserve to now be in non-league football others were unlucky with a bad spell, and yet others that are now in higher levels were lucky that their period of under-performance occurred prior to the establishment of the pyramid.

 

 

 

[RateofKnots]

15 minutes ago, Jacksgranda said:

What influence for such a small side...

Yeah, almost like they had a committee member involved at the highest level.

[Jacksgranda]

2 minutes ago, RateofKnots said:

Yeah, almost like they had a committee member involved at the highest level.

Voted on the committee by the other clubs, presumably.

[drs]

13 minutes ago, EdinburghBlue said:

There have been a few comments here about 'perennial bottom feeders'.  Among the twelve sides that have finished last in the four league structure, six have spent some time in the second tier. Five have an average finishing position that would be in the third tier. Only Elgin and the Shire never made it out of the fourth tier, but both had seasons where they missed out on promotion via the playoffs.

One definition of 'bottom feeding' might be number of times finishing in the bottom half of the third tier. Since the move to the four tier structure the Shire did this 18 times and Albion Rovers 17 in 29 years, so arguably deserved relegation. Montrose and Elgin have been in the bottom five 16 times each (Elgin from six fewer seasons), so maybe equally deserving of relegation? But Queen's Park (11) have been bottom five more often than relegated Berwick and Cowdenbeath (10 times each). Brechin were only bottom five three times, as often as Arbroath.

So I think the analysis shows that while some serial poor performers arguably deserve to now be in non-league football others were unlucky with a bad spell, and yet others that are now in higher levels were lucky that their period of under-performance occurred prior to the establishment of the pyramid.

Brechin finished bottom the entire Scottish League structure 14 times in 82 seasons - anyone claiming that they were unlucky is deluded.

[RateofKnots]

1 minute ago, Jacksgranda said:

Voted on the committee by the other clubs, presumably.

No. Voted onto the committee by other Brechin members.

Other clubs voting for who is in charge at Brechin would be odd.