holmparkheroes Posted January 15, 2022 Share Posted January 15, 2022 10 hours ago, Unknown Fan said: Yeah the SofS league being at tier 6 isn't much of a problem for the clubs in it. My belief would be that the SofS would be best served playing at tier 8 or 9 parallel to the WofS Division 3. As firstly the Champions of the SofS will doubtful ever to be able to be competitive against WofS & EofS Prem Champs in the playoff for a Lowland league place. Hence being at tier 9 would best serve any SofS Champion getting promotion into the West of Scotland 1st or 2nd Division providing a step up and more competitive football and hence the more ambitious clubs to find their nature level. Likewise it would service Greta, Dalbeattie Star & ANNAN better if and when they were to get relegated from the Lowland League. In the case of the former, Gretna this is a real possibility in the next few years, maybe even this year and probably will be the catalyst for any change to the current set up. You would hope the Lowland League in a year or 2 could have a more pragmatic approach to relegation/promotion between themselves and the WofS & EofS, it is still early days we haven't seen a West of Scotland Junior club gaining promotion to the Lowland league yet! Ah, I just noticed that Pollok are proceeding to getting floodlights at Newlands, thought it was impossible because of the residential location. So the top of the West & East have their floodlights and SFA licenses in place or well on their way, any glaring omissions? Annan are challenging for promotion to SPFL 1 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul-r-cfc Posted January 15, 2022 Share Posted January 15, 2022 Pollok have made a planning application for floodlights, but I haven't heard if it has been approved or not yet.No objections from residents were received by the deadline so it's all in the hands of the council now..... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigkillie Posted January 15, 2022 Share Posted January 15, 2022 On 11/01/2022 at 17:31, Dev said: .... but it's not a situation at all. The SoS is much like the NCL in that it serves an outlying area. Like the NCL if any Champion club wins a play-off then it deserves to be promoted, however, there seems to be little chance of that happening on the HL or LL play-offs so it is not a problem at all. It would be easy to increase the number of promotion spots up to the HL or LL without automatically giving a place to the SoS/NCL champions. Except that it clearly is a problem, as will be illustrated this season when their champions will unbalance the Tier 6 promotion play-offs by forcing the match between the two genuine promotion candidates (WoS and EoS champions), the de facto play-off final, to take place over a single game with one of the teams having home advantage, rather than the two-legged affair it should be. All of that is purely to accommodate St Cuthbert or Threave taking a couple of pumpings in the other games, something which has no benefit to them or South of Scotland football as a whole. That outlying area clearly does need to be served, but given that it is based in the Western part of Scotland, it should be as a Tier 7 or Tier 8 feeder league into the WoS league. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vikingTON Posted January 15, 2022 Share Posted January 15, 2022 Lochmaben is certainly not in the "Western part of Scotland" and the likes of Castle Douglas aren't by any reasonable definition either. Gretna would not be if they get relegated in the near future either - and a Gretna side has actually played in the East of Scotland league instead. That the geography (not to mention transport infrastructure) of Scotland does not make a neat two way division does not mean that the SoS league should be arbitrarily dumped down a level or two and also fed into a league system to which it has no resemblance. That is a ridiculous sledgehammer approach to cracking a nut. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigkillie Posted January 16, 2022 Share Posted January 16, 2022 Given the lack of useful east-west roads in the south of the country, pretty much every single team in the South of Scotland League is far better connected by transport to the West of Scotland League sides than they are to any in the East. Even from Lochmaben you can get as far as Glasgow in roughly the same amount of time as it takes you to get to Selkirk or Hawick, which are the nearest East of Scotland teams, and they are an edge case compared to the rest of the league. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dev Posted January 16, 2022 Share Posted January 16, 2022 1 hour ago, craigkillie said: Except that it clearly is a problem, as will be illustrated this season when their champions will unbalance the Tier 6 promotion play-offs by forcing the match between the two genuine promotion candidates (WoS and EoS champions), the de facto play-off final, to take place over a single game with one of the teams having home advantage, rather than the two-legged affair it should be. All of that is purely to accommodate St Cuthbert or Threave taking a couple of pumpings in the other games, something which has no benefit to them or South of Scotland football as a whole. That outlying area clearly does need to be served, but given that it is based in the Western part of Scotland, it should be as a Tier 7 or Tier 8 feeder league into the WoS league. A little inconvenience. That's all it is after all. -1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unknown Fan Posted January 16, 2022 Share Posted January 16, 2022 12 hours ago, holmparkheroes said: Annan are challenging for promotion to SPFL 1 Well Brechin were in the Championship in 2018. Things can change especially with the super strong Juniors still filter through. My point being Annan, Gretna (I know they play EofS in the past), Dalbeattie, the SofS league would be completely unsuitable for them, dropping from the Lowland league & would be a disservice to players given the chance to play at the highest level they are able to achieve. The strength of other parts of tier 6 is clear to see, 4 teams still left in the last 32 of the Scottish Cup, compared to 1 tier 5 team 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unknown Fan Posted January 16, 2022 Share Posted January 16, 2022 1 hour ago, virginton said: Lochmaben is certainly not in the "Western part of Scotland" and the likes of Castle Douglas aren't by any reasonable definition either. Gretna would not be if they get relegated in the near future either - and a Gretna side has actually played in the East of Scotland league instead. That the geography (not to mention transport infrastructure) of Scotland does not make a neat two way division does not mean that the SoS league should be arbitrarily dumped down a level or two and also fed into a league system to which it has no resemblance. That is a ridiculous sledgehammer approach to cracking a nut. Come on, Castle Douglas is in Southern Scotland terms pretty far West, not a patch on Newton Stewart or Stranraer that is true, though it's way past the far side of Dumfries, so west it is. Big Criagkillie is right the road network east to west is a nightmare in the Borders heading Ayrshire way and vice versa, deceptively a lot of hills! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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