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West of Scotland League the future…?


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2 hours ago, Shannon said:



With Talbot and Meadow drawing each other potentially in next round big chance for a Conference team or bottom half West Premiership team to get to semi or final and earn before gate money etc £5,000 or £12,000 while I don't think Challenge Cup is near these amounts?
 

Was told there is no prize money for the challenge cup, a few hundred for Kilmarnock Pie and it’s £1000 for first place only in the league. 

Seems extremely low as someone who has no experience running cups. 

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2 hours ago, Shannon said:

If West Premiership can have 6 or 7 down from 20 for one season no reason Lowland League can't have 6 down and 6 up for a season to sort things out but of course they won't. Even having 3 up and 3 down with automatic promotion for East, West and South league winners would be much better but would still be 7 to 10 years before tier 5 has genuine 16 best teams in the Lowland League area.

Automatic promotion for the South would be a waste of time. Should really be West & East champions up and a playoff between West & East runners up for third promotion spot.

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2 hours ago, San Starko Rover said:

Get yourselves a DeLorean travel back to the beginning of the last decade and tell your chairmen to ignore Tom Johnson and sign up to the Lowland League. The best of the West and East Juniors starting at tier 5 was utterly blown when the member clubs chose to believe lies about gold plated toilets and Tuesday nights in Elgin. You have absolutely no right to jump the teams at tier 5 who are there on merit you’ll have to play through them as Kelty have done.
Your teams being better than theirs and having more fans is completely irrelevant as it’s a pyramid you start at the bottom and earn your way up it (someone tell the Old Firm Colts 🤢 ) Armadale are down in Tier 7/8 because they missed the boat, should we let them into tier 4 or 5 because they’ve a bigger support? Expecting to jump existing members is utter fantasy you might as well ask for Tier 2 instead of 5 as it’s about as likely to happen. 
Get promotion and relegation opened up so every Champion can be promoted if licensed and we’ll start to see some movement. I look forward to seeing the best of the EOSFL and WOSFL at tier 5 or higher but they have to earn it on the pitch.  Sadly it’s going to take time for the pyramid to even out but this was all caused by a few people who wanted to protect their fiefdom and too many chairmen who couldn’t see what was inevitable.  
 

Bingo.  

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56 minutes ago, Burnieman said:

Bingo.  

The three Tier 6 leagues need to get together and decide what changes they want the LL to pursue.

Current LL Playoff format with Top 2 teams promoted or all 3 licenced champions promoted. Pick one as neither complicates things too much. Get some old mates to ensure it's on the LL AGM agenda.

Use this year's LL Playoff to take the little crumb of media attention the non-league gets to put public pressure on the LL and it should pass.

Edited by FairWeatherFan
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3 hours ago, FairWeatherFan said:

The three Tier 6 leagues need to get together and decide what changes they want the LL to pursue.

Current LL Playoff format with Top 2 teams promoted or all 3 licenced champions promoted. Pick one as neither complicates things too much. Get some old mates to ensure it's on the LL AGM agenda.

Use this year's LL Playoff to take the little crumb of media attention the non-league gets to put public pressure on the LL and it should pass.

Agreed.

I don't think any change to the Pyramid structure needs to happen at the moment, we don't even have it fully in place yet due to Covid,  that will happen next season. We've waited 120 odd years for this afterall, let it bed in.

Sort out the promotion and relegation issue between tiers 5 and 6, that's all that's needing addressed at the moment, and maybe move forward with a solution to South Challenge/Junior Cup issue. Otherwise what we'll have next season is perfectly OK.

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22 minutes ago, Ross. said:

I think as a minimum it should be 3 down from the LL, with the EOS and WOS Champions getting automatic promotion, and the 3rd spot being a play off.

100% this. They won't vote that in though. "We were here first" doesn't cut it, frankly.

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44 minutes ago, Big Davy Boy said:

Vale of leithen - there on merit? 🤣

The scary thing is that there's a far from impossible scenario where they can still avoid relegation this season, if Bonnyrigg Rose (or whoever from the LL) were to beat Elgin City in the Club 42 playoffs. Nothing is likely to change for at least another 5-10 years until enough top former east and west junior clubs are in the LL to vote through a new type of pro/rel structure but there's nothing stopping the WoS kicking up a fuss about it on a regular basis and maybe even proposing that they get bumped up to tier 5.

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39 minutes ago, jimbaxters said:

100% this. They won't vote that in though. "We were here first" doesn't cut it, frankly.

I think that argument doesn’t really hold sway with the setup now. They are tier 5 and will remain tier 5. If they want to avoid tier 6, they just have to not be shit. The whole point of a pyramid is to promote meritocracy. Sadly, protectionism is the reason it’s taken that far to get where we are, but it should be too long before the leagues start resembling what they should.

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9 minutes ago, Ross. said:

I think that argument doesn’t really hold sway with the setup now. They are tier 5 and will remain tier 5. If they want to avoid tier 6, they just have to not be shit. The whole point of a pyramid is to promote meritocracy. Sadly, protectionism is the reason it’s taken that far to get where we are, but it should be too long before the leagues start resembling what they should.

As long as the bottleneck is fixed quickly. Hope I'm wrong but can't see it going through.

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5 minutes ago, Ross. said:

I think that argument doesn’t really hold sway with the setup now. They are tier 5 and will remain tier 5. If they want to avoid tier 6, they just have to not be shit. The whole point of a pyramid is to promote meritocracy. Sadly, protectionism is the reason it’s taken that far to get where we are, but it should be too long before the leagues start resembling what they should.

Up until 2018 there was no reason for them to increase promotion/relegation since the SoS and EoS at the time were struggling to provide licenced champions.

2018 AGM changing promotion/relegation was discussed. The EoSFL were still open to applications and no one knew exactly what format they would be in for 2018/19. The PWG had also been renewed with the SJFA trying to enter the pyramid. The SFA also implement are a moratorium on new licencing applications due to the PWG talks.

2019 AGM the EoS Premier is in place making the existing pyramid lopsided in strength. The SFA have favoured entering the SJFA leagues during the PWG discussions (while retaining a single promotion spot for what would be four Tier 6 leagues).

2020 AGM COVID, the PWG is dead, the WoSFL is created and no one really knows what the season ahead is going to look like. Just adding the WoSFL to the existing LL playoff makes sense as the LL, EoS Premier, and WoS Premier face the prospect of dealing with extra relegations to make up for the compromises caused by ending the 2019-20 season.

2021 AGM the one time anyone can say they truly f*cked it by inviting the Colts.

2022 AGM 6ish months to go until it happens. There's a new board in place. We'll see how it goes.

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On 21/11/2021 at 15:51, San Starko Rover said:

Get yourselves a DeLorean travel back to the beginning of the last decade and tell your chairmen to ignore Tom Johnson and sign up to the Lowland League. The best of the West and East Juniors starting at tier 5 was utterly blown when the member clubs chose to believe lies about gold plated toilets and Tuesday nights in Elgin. You have absolutely no right to jump the teams at tier 5 who are there on merit you’ll have to play through them as Kelty have done.
Your teams being better than theirs and having more fans is completely irrelevant as it’s a pyramid you start at the bottom and earn your way up it (someone tell the Old Firm Colts 🤢 ) Armadale are down in Tier 7/8 because they missed the boat, should we let them into tier 4 or 5 because they’ve a bigger support? Expecting to jump existing members is utter fantasy you might as well ask for Tier 2 instead of 5 as it’s about as likely to happen. 
Get promotion and relegation opened up so every Champion can be promoted if licensed and we’ll start to see some movement. I look forward to seeing the best of the EOSFL and WOSFL at tier 5 or higher but they have to earn it on the pitch.  Sadly it’s going to take time for the pyramid to even out but this was all caused by a few people who wanted to protect their fiefdom and too many chairmen who couldn’t see what was inevitable.  
 

It's hard to disagree with much of that....it's the arrogance and insularity over the years of a few much closer to home than the LL is what sees us where we are at the moment. The ironic thing is that given a bit more vision and a bit less self-satisfaction the SJFA could have easily ended up running Scottish football below League 2...the structure as it was would have been ideal.

Looking at the LL, it's still far from the finished article and certainly isn't a roll-call of the top non-league sides south of the Tay. In eight or ten years time though, there will be at least a couple more former SPFL clubs taking the drop, and each time one of the ex-junior behemoths is promoted into it...a Linlithgow, a Talbot, a Kilwinning...another of the current LL sides will find the going too rich for their blood and drop down to find their true level in the divisions below.

It'll come...the only issue is it'll take longer than it should, and as I said that issue's largely self-inflicted.

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All reminiscent of the old English F.A when re-election for the bottom div 4 club kept out many imposters, luckily after many years the pyramid remains - the strength of the National League shows that. Instant promotions will show spfl clubs that they can return fairly quickly, if they're good enough. The new blood will flow through , giving Talbot and the like, a chance to progress.

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29 minutes ago, Hillonearth said:

It's hard to disagree with much of that....it's the arrogance and insularity over the years of a few much closer to home than the LL is what sees us where we are at the moment. The ironic thing is that given a bit more vision and a bit less self-satisfaction the SJFA could have easily ended up running Scottish football below League 2...the structure as it was would have been ideal.

Looking at the LL, it's still far from the finished article and certainly isn't a roll-call of the top non-league sides south of the Tay. In eight or ten years time though, there will be at least a couple more former SPFL clubs taking the drop, and each time one of the ex-junior behemoths is promoted into it...a Linlithgow, a Talbot, a Kilwinning...another of the current LL sides will find the going too rich for their blood and drop down to find their true level in the divisions below.

It'll come...the only issue is it'll take longer than it should, and as I said that issue's largely self-inflicted.

I can sit and throw blame at the SJFA and certain people from that organisation but it’s only fair to do the same to the SPFL and LL/HL with their self preservation (1 down maybe if the stars align) which as mentioned above has saved VOL and L2 clubs from a deserved drop.  Yes the Juniors missed the boat and now have to play through but the SPFL and LL / HL need to open the trap doors to allow this.  It’s understandable fans are frustrated when the best of the East, West and South get 1 promotion place to playoff for. There’s some cracking clubs in these leagues who’ll improve the LL and SPFL.  Let’s get 2 down from League 2 and 3 down from the LL, personally I’d like to see the SOSFL merge with the WOSFL but that’s a future debate. Every Champion deserves promotion and teams finishing bottom deserve relegation.  

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40 minutes ago, San Starko Rover said:

I can sit and throw blame at the SJFA and certain people from that organisation but it’s only fair to do the same to the SPFL and LL/HL with their self preservation (1 down maybe if the stars align) which as mentioned above has saved VOL and L2 clubs from a deserved drop.  Yes the Juniors missed the boat and now have to play through but the SPFL and LL / HL need to open the trap doors to allow this.  It’s understandable fans are frustrated when the best of the East, West and South get 1 promotion place to playoff for. There’s some cracking clubs in these leagues who’ll improve the LL and SPFL.  Let’s get 2 down from League 2 and 3 down from the LL, personally I’d like to see the SOSFL merge with the WOSFL but that’s a future debate. Every Champion deserves promotion and teams finishing bottom deserve relegation.  

Absolutely not their fault in isolation, although it is frustrating to think how easily the problem could have been solved by plugging in the SJFA's pre-existing structure as it was had they been bothered to engage from the start with a process that clearly was going to happen anyway with or without them.

Having an East/West/North structure would have solved at least one of the current problems in that what is essentially a closed shop of 18 clubs who represent an area in which only 15% of the country's population live having 50% of the opportunities of being promoted to the SPFL.

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19 hours ago, FairWeatherFan said:

Up until 2018 there was no reason for them to increase promotion/relegation since the SoS and EoS at the time were struggling to provide licenced champions.

2018 AGM changing promotion/relegation was discussed. The EoSFL were still open to applications and no one knew exactly what format they would be in for 2018/19. The PWG had also been renewed with the SJFA trying to enter the pyramid. The SFA also implement are a moratorium on new licencing applications due to the PWG talks.

2019 AGM the EoS Premier is in place making the existing pyramid lopsided in strength. The SFA have favoured entering the SJFA leagues during the PWG discussions (while retaining a single promotion spot for what would be four Tier 6 leagues).

2020 AGM COVID, the PWG is dead, the WoSFL is created and no one really knows what the season ahead is going to look like. Just adding the WoSFL to the existing LL playoff makes sense as the LL, EoS Premier, and WoS Premier face the prospect of dealing with extra relegations to make up for the compromises caused by ending the 2019-20 season.

2021 AGM the one time anyone can say they truly f*cked it by inviting the Colts.

2022 AGM 6ish months to go until it happens. There's a new board in place. We'll see how it goes.

Cannae disagree with any of this. It's only recently there's been enough teams with licensing in tier six for it even have been much of an issue. By the time there were a decent amount of clubs in the EoSFL that more relegation spots were probably needed Covid hit and no-one had a clue what was happening. Even now the WoSFL in place they've still not completed a season yet. As much as they fucked it with that Colts pish I don't think sitting tight and waiting until we have an uninterrupted season of the full pyramid in place is the stupidest idea I've heard of during a world wide pandemic.

Having said that any goodwill or sympathy I may have had for the LL in the decision making evaporates fairly quickly with that B team pish.

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The stated aim of the pyramid was for everyone to find a correct level. However there’s a clear protectionism in the SPL with the Old Firm not wanting a larger league as it would reduce the derbies, Sky are to blame here as well. At tier 4 as clubs don’t want to risk relegation and lose handouts to be replaced by bigger clubs and in the Lowland League with the relegation system to three feeder leagues not having three going down. 

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12 hours ago, Hillonearth said:

Absolutely not their fault in isolation, although it is frustrating to think how easily the problem could have been solved by plugging in the SJFA's pre-existing structure as it was had they been bothered to engage from the start with a process that clearly was going to happen anyway with or without them.

Having an East/West/North structure would have solved at least one of the current problems in that what is essentially a closed shop of 18 clubs who represent an area in which only 15% of the country's population live having 50% of the opportunities of being promoted to the SPFL.

 

Correct, the Junior structure was perfect to take control of tier 6 and below, and to be involved with the LL at tier 5.  The EoS was on it's knees and would have been absorbed by the ERJFA. The LL only had 12 members at the time, and 4 decent Junior clubs would have walked into it to take it upto 16, and ensure there was a voice at board level.

The Junior game f*cked it up though through arrogance and belligerence and that includes people at clubs in the east who have been in the Pyramid now for a few years, benefitted greatly from it, but who were wholly opposed to it at the time.

However that's the past and it can't be changed. We need to work with what we have and from next season it will largely resemble the SJFA structure anyway (south of the Tay at least).  Continue to pressure the LL for more promotion spots and we have a fairly decent structure that will continually evolve as clubs go upwards (and downwards), and new clubs join.

 

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