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The official Elgin City relegation thread


AlexJones

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Didn't the highland league vote in favour of joining the pyramid? If so then every team in it that wins the title should be made to play for promotion in the playoffs. The juniors is a closed game and any team not wanting to go national should join them.

It's not like it's only the highlands that are getting made to join the spfl either, there is a lowland league remember. It's not unfair to expect the league winning team to be ambitious!

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It's been an amazing turn around at Elgin since Jim Weir took over! They were dreadful, adrift at the bottom, looking like they were heading back to the Highland League and getting dumped out of the Scottish Cup by a junior club, conceding 9 goals over the two games!

Now, they're looking at the promotion play-offs! Astonishing...

 

As for Brora? I don't know. It looks like they'll win the league, although Turriff are making a real fight of it, and would actually be top if they hadn't been docked 3 points.

I was under the impression that entering the play-offs was obligatory and a club can't refuse (or pass their opportunity to the runners-up).

They could, of course, simply not comply with the 'upgrades' required for the SPFL!

 

It would be a disappointing start to the pyramid-era if the first winners of the HL didn't want any part in it! Particularly as they could well continue to dominate for the foreseeable future. I could see sanctions if that was the case. Possibly exclusion from the Scottish Cup (and the Challenge Cup).

 

Quite frankly, if Brora don't want to go up, they should resign from the HL and look to apply to the North Caledonian League - it could do with increased membership!

Interesting times ahead. Edinburgh City look like they'll win the Lowland League and Montrose could be heading to the Highland League!

But, as Elgin have shown, things can change so quickly in a short space of time.

My understanding is that if a team feels it is not ready to move into SPFL they can relinquish their position to next in line.

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The SPFL has created the most ridiculous of ironies here because for decades until 1994 its member clubs operated a self protection racket, hellbent on keeping the Highlands out. Since then the HL area has acquired four SPFL teams, two of which have shown a number of these erstwhile protectionists a thing or two.

 

And one more thing :smile:  - the only reason that the self protection racket was broken even in 1994 was that Raith Rovers' representative at the vote to decide whether or not to go for 4 x 10 and hence two new recruits - a Mr Paxton - voted against the instructions of his board and for the change.

This then gave the Highland clubs the opportunity to make their cases for real (at a time when Thistle, Caley and Ross County had all had relatively recent Scottish Cup spectaculars) and thankfully common sense prevailed and the Jack Steedman "over my dead body" mentality was defeated.

I do realise that the Highland League collectively voted to opt into the pyramid, but i would be interested to know, for instance, how its two most Northerly clubs, Wick and Brora (who also happened to be among the more likely champions and hence participants in the playoffs) voted?

I just don't see how it's fair that the decision of a large number of clubs which will never be likely to be affected by a decision should be in a position to impose a binding commitment on others which are far more likely to reap the consequences, but would find it far more difficult to fulfil the requirements.

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I don't know who specifically voted 'YES' when the Highland League chairmen got round the table to discuss the pyramid proposal. But, it's publically acknowledged that it was almost unanimous - with 16 clubs in favour.

Rumour has it that Keith FC abstained (or rather, didn't turn up!), but the identity of the dissenting club has never been found to my knowledge - as it was a secret ballot.

If anybody knows otherwise?

The Highland League, in tandem with the Lowland League is now effectively the 5th level of Scottish football. Any clubs not keen on progressing should leave and play at a level more suitable to their ambition.

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The Highland League, in tandem with the Lowland League is now effectively the 5th level of Scottish football. Any clubs not keen on progressing should leave and play at a level more suitable to their ambition.

I'm just not sure about that in a Highland context Sneckboy. I don't think it would be fair to exclude a club which, for reasons of geography and employment, feels unable to play in League Two from being a member of the Highland League which has rules to ensure practicable travel.

I'm also not very sure about this national pyramid in general for these very same reasons of travel and employment and fear that an element in its implementation may be the complete cluelessness of our Weegiecentric SPFL officialdom about the difficulties that much of the country has in getting from A to B.

For its population I think that Scotland already has far too many national league clubs and the lower reaches of the SPFL would have been far better regionalised whilst retaining the opportunity, in principle, for the likes of Fort William to make their way to the Premiership should they ever become good enough.

That, of course, would be subject to meeting criteria - specifically in Fort William's case, a reasonably playable pitch. I see their home game is off yet again today.

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It's been an amazing turn around at Elgin since Jim Weir took over! They were dreadful, adrift at the bottom, looking like they were heading back to the Highland League and getting dumped out of the Scottish Cup by a junior club, conceding 9 goals over the two games!

Now, they're looking at the promotion play-offs! Astonishing...

 

And yet Jim Weir doesn't have a great record at the 3 Angus clubs he managed, getting sacked at least twice.  So does this turnaround suggest, that Barry Wilson was a pretty poor manager? The next time the ICT job is up for grabs will surely be the first time since about 2005 that we won't have fans rose-tintedly suggesting that Wilson should get the job.

 

He's still one of my all time fave players though.

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