What are you doing right now?

[Minty]

(17-06-2013 04:04 PM)Caspin Wrote:  I am still trying to learn about Scottish football. I was hoping to find a nice neat diagram of Before and After the recent pyramidal change, but no such luck. So I thought "Ha! Diagrams are my forte. I'll make my own diagrams from Wikipedia!" but instead I have become more confused even just trying to get to grips with the Before scenario.

I get that there's the Premier League (SPL), which contains all the big names, then there's the Irn-Bru ones below that (of which are three divisions, possibly made from girders) and they're all bunched together and called 'Senior'. OK so far. Then you then have 'Junior' football teams that are sub-divided into regions (West, East and North - but what about South? ...), then you have amateur teams and something called 'welfare' teams (eh?). Then, even though there is a 'North' bit of the Juniors, there is then a further Highland League and, as though to compensate for the lack of a South region in Juniors, there is a separate South of Scotland League. Further to that, there is a whole other League for the East, but not an extra one for the West. I'm lost.

It's all very confusing. I feel that there are too many sections. Then I find out that some of the clubs aren't even Scottish but are English - far north of England, granted, but still not Scottish.



My Project to Understand Football in Scotland ("PUFS"!) is on hold for now.



Edit:

I take it all back, there is nothing unduly complex about the Scottish football stuff. The English one is just as mad really, with Welsh teams competing in England, and various off-shoots to the otherwise relatively tidy pyramid. Clearly I need to accept that I know nothing at all and need to go back to basics. I suppose I've just never paid any attention whatsoever to how the different leagues operate and interact (or not) - my interest in football is usually confined to individual matches.

No, you were right the first time, the Scottish system is completely mad!

The way it currently works is like this:

Scottish Professional Football League (was Scottish Premier League & Scottish Football League)
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Scottish Seniors (Highland League and brand new Lowland League) of semi-professional clubs.
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East Of Scotland League & South of Scotland League

Below all them are various regional Amateur Leagues. If they want to join any of the above, they have to apply, but from now on they have to start at the bottom of the pyramid.

The Lowland League is a merger of the best East Of Scotland & South of Scotland clubs with one from East Kilbride, & includes former professional football league clubs Edinburgh City (1920s to 1940s), the famous Gretna, & Spartans who have been trying to get in (sometimes using dirty tricks) for decades.

The Juniors are a completely separate organisation of semi-professional & sham-amateur clubs, existing in three different regions - West (West of Scotland), East (Tayside, Lothian & Borders areas) & North (North East Scotland & the Highlands) - which overlaps with the Seniors in all areas except for the South of Scotland, which they abandoned in the 1950s.

Three times Scottish Cup winners Vale Of Leven along with former Scottish league clubs Arthurlie, Beith, Bo'ness, the controversial Clydebank & Royal Albert all play in the Juniors. Beith played in the Scottish Cup in 2011 through the "wildcard" given by the SFA to the West, East & North region champions & Scottish Junior Cup winners.

The Juniors are something of the Wildings of football: they contain three clubs (Auchinleck Talbot, Irvine Meadow & Linlithgow Rose) which are markedly stronger in terms of finance & support than some of the minor professional clubs. However, they're very resistent to changes or anything that threatens their "independence" - they won't even have floodlit games unless both clubs "agree" to it (which never happens), & game fixture lists come out on a week to week basis rather than issued months in advance, & seasons often end with clubs trying to pack in three matches a week to finish before the first week in June!

The Welfare leagues are the Amateurs version of the Juniors (ie. same standard, but acting as a separate system with their own organisation & competitions), & are even worse - they have a website but all correspondence between the association & clubs must be by recorded delivery letter, no e-mails or faxes allowed!

The Welsh clubs in England are all down to there not being any national Welsh league system at all (the so-called Welsh Football League being southern Wales only) until 1992, the only national cup contest being the Welsh Cup for over a century. UEFA have said all new Welsh teams must join the Welsh system, but reneged on this when Merthyr Tydfil went bust & reformed as Merthyr Town (the name of the former Football League club which reformed as Merthyr Tydfil when they went bust!). Why Merthyr rejoined a system they haven't a hope of competing in against the likes of near neighbours Cardiff (only 20 miles away) is beyond logic.