The current LL in laymans terms.

[southerner]

27 minutes ago, AlanCamelonfan said:

More proof of you being wrong than right. Pollok should be there because they get crowds of 500

I also considered how East teams performed in the junior cup for the last few years and when that gets to the quarters (in the old format when every team was in) was dominated by the west teams. All the best to your team trying to progress as this is a bit of pointless chat as it won’t change anyway.

[Shannon]

Which competition was this in and was that this season? Which position were you in at the time?

Irvine Meadow currently 9th in table defeated table toppers from East Region Penicuik in South Challenge Cup and also defeated Musselburgh in Scottish Cup who are currently in 4th spot.

In my opinion top 10 of West, top 4 in East plus top 4 Lowland League teams would make a right good league. Pity we won't have that for a long time.

Should be 3 up and 3 down from tier 5 down with 16 team leagues if numbers add up.

[Gordon EF]

On 29/12/2021 at 21:49, Blackie Gold said:

Had a wee delve into the LL forum and it looks like the all singing and dancing tier 5 is turning into a shitshow with the ugly sisters colts teams telling the league when they are playing each other, the Highland-Lowland boundary being scrapped due to somebody being miffed about where their team dropped into after being relegated. I couldn't be bothered wading through all the posts, so could somebody enlighten me on whats happening as my team is one of the front runners to be promoted into it.

To all the proper football clubs below tier 5. Hurry up and start replacing these jokes in the LL so tier 5 can be an actual proper football league in the Lowlands.

[Gordon EF]

On 05/01/2022 at 09:48, Hillonearth said:

It's notable that as yet none of the former SPFL clubs has bounced back from non-league status, which suggests that the pool of clubs below the league proper is at least as strong as those above them.

It doesn't really. Brechin, Berwick and Shire were getting absolutely rag-dolled week after week when they were in L2. Brechin have more wins in the HL this season already than they picked up points in L2 last season. 

The fact that these three teams got demolished in L2 and have tended to be somewhere between 'average'-to-competitive in tier 5 is not evidence that tiers 4 and 5 are equivalent. The top teams in tier 5 would clearly fit in in tier 4. The average will be significantly worse.

[jimbaxters]

16 minutes ago, Gordon EF said:

To all the proper football clubs below tier 5. Hurry up and start replacing these jokes in the LL so tier 5 can be an actual proper football league in the Lowlands.

They'll no' let us!

[Andy groundhopper]

Just a quickie,what is the obsession with endless play offs etc ? (not just Scotland) play a season, win the league, get promoted. Sounds simple. You've been shite all season, get down to a level that you can compete in. Get both the HL and LL champions up without play offs. How about a spfl of 4 X 12 with 2 up and down all the way ? 

[Gordon EF]

1 hour ago, Andy groundhopper said:

Just a quickie,what is the obsession with endless play offs etc ? (not just Scotland) play a season, win the league, get promoted. Sounds simple. You've been shite all season, get down to a level that you can compete in. Get both the HL and LL champions up without play offs. How about a spfl of 4 X 12 with 2 up and down all the way ? 

When the play-offs are 'extra' promotion spots, I'm in favour of them. I think there's a decent argument to say 'win your league, you go up. Finish bottom you go down'. But in smaller leagues or where two leagues go into one, having play-offs gives more to play for.

[San Starko Rover]

On 06/01/2022 at 20:34, Shannon said:

Irvine Meadow currently 9th in table defeated table toppers from East Region Penicuik in South Challenge Cup and also defeated Musselburgh in Scottish Cup who are currently in 4th spot.

In my opinion top 10 of West, top 4 in East plus top 4 Lowland League teams would make a right good league. Pity we won't have that for a long time.

Should be 3 up and 3 down from tier 5 down with 16 team leagues if numbers add up.

It’s pointless to debate whether the teams from the East, West or South are better than the Lowland League we’ll find out as teams progress. However we need to speed this up as the current setup will take about 20-30 years for teams to level out. Get 3 down from the LL with automatic promotion from East, West and South.  Get 2 down from League 2 with automatic promotion from HL and LL.  Any team that wins their league should be promoted (if eligible) and teams finishing bottom should be relegated. There’s far too much self preservation in the Scottish Leagues.  It’ll still take a few years for teams to level out.  The Lowland League could be a cracking league in a few years and the best of the East and West can only strengthen the SPFL by replacing the weaker teams. 

[Andy groundhopper]

17 hours ago, Gordon EF said:

When the play-offs are 'extra' promotion spots, I'm in favour of them. I think there's a decent argument to say 'win your league, you go up. Finish bottom you go down'. But in smaller leagues or where two leagues go into one, having play-offs gives more to play for.

How about HL champs v LL to replace spfl club 42 - the losing side then play club 41 in a two legged shoot out ! Keeps the interest and gives the lower clubs something to aim for. Can understand your point about two into one situation. Only problem is when every club42 (who gets relegated) is based in the southern area, what happens then ? 

[craigkillie]

Doubt there is another nation of the population of Scotland within Europe with mostly full time 2nd tier.

This might be true, but at the same time our 2nd tier attendances will be far far higher than any equivalent country.

[Gordon EF]

On 09/01/2022 at 14:04, Andy groundhopper said:

How about HL champs v LL to replace spfl club 42 - the losing side then play club 41 in a two legged shoot out ! Keeps the interest and gives the lower clubs something to aim for. Can understand your point about two into one situation. Only problem is when every club42 (who gets relegated) is based in the southern area, what happens then ? 

I've suggested that exact setup before. I'd prefer it to the current set up which isn't fair on LL/HL champions. I can understand why it scares L2 and if L2 needs to be expanded to lessen that fear and gain support, I'd also be in favour of that.

There's a reasonable shout to say that when you have a 'multiple into one' scenario with uneven lower levels (e.g. HL vs LL, WoSFL vs SoSFL) champions shouldn't necessarily go up automatically (why do St Cuthbert's Wanderers 'deserve' promotion for winning the SoSFL more than say Pollock for finishing 2nd in the WoSFL?) but with the HL / LL split, that should even out eventually. Cove are not representative of the strength of the HL. If more HL teams come up, it'll just mean that more start going down. Eventually we'll reach a point where most or all of the HL teams who can sustain SPFL football will be in the SPFL and any further ones who come up will struggle to stay there. So if you introduced automatic promotion for HL champions, within a short space of time, you'd probably see quite a few clubs yo-yoing between the HL and L2.

[Pollok mad]

I think a good possible solution would be for the SOSL to be absorbed into the WOSL, then the winner of both the WOSL and EOSL get promoted, then there could be a potential play off between the second place teams of the WOSL and EOSL depending on how many teams the Lowland League loses/gains to the SPFL

Edited January 10, 2022 by Pollok mad

[LongTimeLurker]

The SFA appear to have knocked back the concept of having geographical conferences at the same tier inside the WoS. If that's accurate and there's no way to get around that, there probably wouldn't be much apetite for a change in SoS circles. The way to do it might be to split the WoS into two separate leagues, so that a new league formed by the lower division WoS clubs has the same status as the SoS and feeds into the tier 6 league that contains the upper division WoS clubs. Suspect we are stuck with the SoS at tier 6 though.

[AlanCamelonfan]

2 hours ago, LongTimeLurker said:

The SFA appear to have knocked back the concept of having geographical conferences at the same tier inside the WoS. If that's accurate and there's no way to get around that, there probably wouldn't be much apetite for a change in SoS circles. The way to do it might be to split the WoS into two separate leagues, so that a new league formed by the lower division WoS clubs has the same status as the SoS and feeds into the tier 6 league that contains the upper division WoS clubs. Suspect we are stuck with the SoS at tier 6 though.

The Answer is Lowland League 2 that way you would have licensed clubs in it and 3 up 3 down would flush these clubs out quicker

[ian44wood]

1 hour ago, AlanCamelonfan said:

The Answer is Lowland League 2 that way you would have licensed clubs in it and 3 up 3 down would flush these clubs out quicker

You don't need a LL2. It,s another barrier for tier 6 teams.

You only need more relegation and promotion between tier 6 and lowland..

[AlanCamelonfan]

10 minutes ago, ian44wood said:

You don't need a LL2. It,s another barrier for tier 6 teams.

You only need more relegation and promotion between tier 6 and lowland..

Right but how can you do that with the South of Scotland situation. Putting a Lowland league 2 means teams will be more equipped with the travel should create a better tier 6 while the rest move down to tier 7.  That way you get 3 up 3 down and it happening more regularly. Increasing promotion with the SOSFL really creates more problems than it solves

[Dev]

14 minutes ago, AlanCamelonfan said:

Right but how can you do that with the South of Scotland situation. Putting a Lowland league 2 means teams will be more equipped with the travel should create a better tier 6 while the rest move down to tier 7.  That way you get 3 up 3 down and it happening more regularly. Increasing promotion with the SOSFL really creates more problems than it solves

.... 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.

[Unknown Fan]

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?

[glensmad]

Pollok have made a planning application for floodlights, but I haven't heard if it has been approved or not yet.

[FairWeatherFan]

Vice-Chair of the WoSFL going to twitter to figure out what the Lowland League is planning. You would have thought there was a better line of communication between the leagues.