Strange phenomenon of midweek league games

[free beer]

The English League appear to have started this in 1933, with return matches between two clubs being for their two mid-week fixtures in August and September. I speculate then that the Scottish introduction in 1936 was a variation on this,  but having Saturday and mid-week return fixtures instead. Unfortunately, I have not yet found any reasoning behind the 1933 introduction.
 

[free beer]

Final digging on this topic revealed that Charles E. Sutcliffe solely generated the English Football League fixture list using "his own system, with special maps and charts." The early midweek return match scheme was thus his idea, and was most likely done to balance the gate receipt impact to both clubs. Interestingly (and slightly off topic), The English League went to war with the pools companies in February 1936, who were making around £700,000 a week from their fixture list. Meetings were held regarding the introduction of a fee for the use of their copyright fixtures. In a bid to prevent pools coupons from being posted in time, the League even scrapped their fixtures and only informed the clubs on the Thursday as to who their opponents were to be on the Saturday. The prearranged fixture list was returned to after two weeks and no fixture list usage fee was introduced. The Scottish League did not take likewise action as they deemed it not being worth the trouble.

Sutcliffe's passing in 1939 revealed that he personally owned the fixture copyright for which an agreement had previously been made, with himself and his son, to hand this and the fixture generation methods over to the League in c. 1946.  In May 1939, the English League introduced a fixed fee for the use of their fixtures based on the number of copies.  The Scottish League only took out a legal copyright on the use of their fixture list in May 1958.

This begs the question:- was the Saturday/mid week return match scheme used by the Scottish League, subtly different so as to avoid a copyright infringement of the novel mid-week/mid-week return match one?

[VincentGuerin]

I have no idea why this method of fixture scheduling was used.

But I am now genuinely dying to know. Fantastic stuff.

[tamthebam]

In the last 25 years Edinburgh City  have played on a Monday (Scottish Cup replay v Shire), Tuesday and Wednesday (East of Scotland, Lowland, Scottish League etc), Thursday (away game v Dalbeattie), Friday (Challenge Cup, Scottish League), Saturday (naturally) and Sunday (groundhog weekend, again away to Dalbeattie) 

Clubs like the OF and Hearts with European and televised domestic games can say the same thing if course. There are Alba games on a Friday for Championship clubs but I doubt many will have played on a Thursday. 

I can't be bothered looking but there might have been the odd end of season cup final in the East of Scotland League played on a Thursday 

[HibeeJibee]

51 minutes ago, tamthebam said:

In the last 25 years Edinburgh City  have played on a Monday (Scottish Cup replay v Shire), Tuesday and Wednesday (East of Scotland, Lowland, Scottish League etc), Thursday (away game v Dalbeattie), Friday (Challenge Cup, Scottish League), Saturday (naturally) and Sunday (groundhog weekend, again away to Dalbeattie)

Clubs like the OF and Hearts with European and televised domestic games can say the same thing if course. There are Alba games on a Friday for Championship clubs but I doubt many will have played on a Thursday. 

I can't be bothered looking but there might have been the odd end of season cup final in the East of Scotland League played on a Thursday 

Not common, but numerous EOS games have happened on Thursdays during the last decade-&-a-half or so:


Thu 1 May 2008     Easthouses v Whitehill     EOS League Premier Division
Thu 1 May 2008     Selkirk v Lothian Thistle     EOS League Premier Division
all had 2 games that midweek (Tue-Thu)
Thu 8 May 2008     Whitehill v Easthouses
Easthouses had 2 games that midweek (Tue-Thu)
Thu 22 May 2008     Dalbeattie v Edinburgh City     EOS League Premier Division
Thu 22 May 2008     Easthouses v Lothian Thistle     EOS League Premier Division
Thu 22 May 2008     Selkirk v Preston     EOS League Premier Division
Dalbeattie, Easthouses and Selkirk had 2 games that midweek (Tue-Thu)

Thu 13 May 2010     Spartans v Gretna     South Challenge Cup Final (at Hearts)
clubs agreed to play Final at Tynecastle on available night

Thu 5 May 2011     Edinburgh Uni v Spartans     EOS League Premier Division
Spartans played 2 games that midweek (Tue-Thu)
Thu 26 May 2011     Spartans v Edinburgh Uni     EOS League Cup Final (at Preston)
this was due to venue availability after SF which was on Sun

Thu 11 Apr 2013     Leith v Easthouses     EOS League First Division
Thu 2 May 2013     Leith v Kelso     EOS League First Division
Thu 9 May 2013     Berwick EOS v Duns     EOS League First Division
these were due to clubs playing 2 games those midweeks and/or ground clashes

Thu 15 Aug 2013     Hibs EOS v Kelso     EOS League First Division
this was due to a ground clash

Thu 10 Nov 2016     Uni of Stirling v East Kilbride     EOS Qualifying Cup R2
clubs agreed to avoid clashing with university league game on Wed

Thu 19 Oct 2017     Spartans v Ormiston     South Challenge Cup R2
Edinburgh City were home on Sat and for some reason clubs preferred Thu to usual Fri

Thu 19 Apr 2018     LTHV v Burntisland     EOS League
LTHV had 2 games that midweek (Wed-Thu after failing to comply with order to obtain alternate ground as Mon waterlogged)

Thu 9 May 2019     Camelon v Bonnyrigg     EOS Qualifying Cup SF
Bonnyrigg had 2 games that midweek (Mon-Thu)

Thu 30 Dec 2021     Broxburn 0-2 Linlithgow     EOS League Premier Division
Thu 30 Dec 2021     Dunbar 0-2 Whitehill     EOS League Premier Division
Thu 30 Dec 2021     Haddington 5-0 Ormiston     EOS League First Division Conference A
Thu 30 Dec 2021     St Andrews 3-2 Kennoway     EOS League First Division Conference A
clubs agreed to move games from New Year's Day