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2008 - Shetland Fitba


Bogle
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Not far off on the Squad size Brokenlink, though you can only name 16 players in a SFA competition, so of the 16 playing regularly 6 or 7 may not be playing regular competitative football, the list I posted are only those I have seen playing this year or knew had gone to certain clubs.

 

The fact is though that within Shetland there needs to be a move towards a set-up where there is promotion and relegation, so that teams will find their level of competition. This may mean that there needs to be co-operation between the Senior Associations not amalagamtion but co-operation.

 

That way people of all abilities can be catered for and the direction of Shetland football will move towards a continued improvement in standard and competition. I think the member clubs of both the SFA and SJFA need to table proposals to their AGM's for these two Associations to move towards a point where they work together on Issues regarding football and its provision and standard, better communication between the two would be a major improvement in the mean time.

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Between seven and 10 American footballers are expected to arrive next June in time for training for the 2009–2010.

 

I think you'll find that this Augusts game is in Season 2008/2009.

 

I know the Highland League can be a bit rough, but bringing in a whole team of American Footballers is a bit much. Don't know if they will be allowed to wear all the pads.

 

On the Burra thing, in the season before they folded they had a large number of players in their 30s who have since stopped playing or were forced to give up due to injury. The big problem was that there were not enough young players to take their place, hence most of the players on the list are actually from outwith Burra and have gone back to their previous clubs.

 

Thankfully youth football in the Scalloway/Burra area is now very much on the up although it will be years before that filters through into senior level.

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Don't know all the facts but in Orkney they tried a set up with promotion and relegation and it was scrapped after a year.

 

Had a look on the Orkney Football Association website and they seem to have an A league a, B league and a Reserve league at the moment, though it does not show the link between the leagues. There's a link to it below.

 

http://oafa.leaguerepublic.com/Table.do?selectedSeason=8107537&selectedDivision=5159279&standingsTableDay=&standingsTableMonth=&standingsTableYear=

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Between seven and 10 American footballers are expected to arrive next June in time for training for the 2009–2010.

 

I think you'll find that this Augusts game is in Season 2008/2009.

 

But there is nothing stopping them bringing in new boys now and since they got some of the yanks cash aready players are more interested in playing for Fort William than they were before. I'll be surprised if we see last seasons squad turn out against Shetland.

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http://oafa.leaguerepublic.com/page.do?id=7929248

 

Promotion & relegation is still alive and kicking in Orkney if you take a look at that link. Good to see a progressive association, with their own website, and the ability to attract quality opposition such as Ross County.

 

Shetland may have the better team, but the OFA seems to be miles ahead of the SFA.

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Just was thinking about a post that Bogle made earlier about the Highland Amateur Cup, so I made enquiries to the the Secretary of the Cup and this was his reply.

 

Shetland teams are free to enter the competition, as we have had teams enter in the past. Most likely it would depend on how many teams would enter, but what we would most likely zone any Shetland teams then have one team come into the last 16. Most likely you would have to play home games in Orkney and travel as far as Caithness/East Sutherland for away or neutral venue games. (this was the set up in the past).

 

 

 

Competition dates and entry forms are usually sent out in December so if you or any other Shetland team are interested just let me know and I will send out entry forms and dates to your association secretary.

 

 

 

I will raise this issue at our next meeting on Sunday.

 

 

 

Regards

 

Iain Whitehead

 

Highlands & Islands Executive Committee

 

Secretary/Match Secretary

 

If any teams are interested for next year then contact the SFA secretary to let them know. I wondered if there was enough interest from clubs we could have had a Shetland section as they do in Orkney before teams progressed into the next rounds, you could drop a domestic cup in rotation yearly to accomodate the increase in fixtures.

 

That way not only are the top county players getting a chance to improve and play different oppostion, the Clubs are able to do so as well which could help improve the standard of Club competition in Shetland?

 

Here is a link to the the Cup homepage just to give you an idea of which teams enter the competition.

http://caravanhires.com/hacup/hacup_draw.htm

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Yell and Thislte were also involved in it, Whalsay had to play Thistle if I mind right to go through to the next round, think they eventually lost to Halkirk from Caithness to end up with?

 

We had to win 3 regional games (Burra, Yell and Thistle were good enough to provide the opposition) and were put into the competition at the last 32 stage where we had to travel to Halkirk and we beat them 2-0.

 

It was the next round we went out - to Pentland United 3-1, playing the game at Dunnets Head ground.

 

Excellent competition to play in it's just the commitment required to play in it is the problem - once you get your dates to play there's no room for maneouvre.

 

A few of the Shetland teams could do very well in it, the team that put us out that year had a very good history in the competition, having won it several times and although they beat us we did have a few "very dodgy" decisions go against us at very crucial points (no sour grapes honest)!!

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It would be great to have a few clubs included in the Highland Amateur Cup. The fixtures this season have thrown a good few free weekends for some clubs into the programme and possibly with a little bit more tweaking Highland Cup weekends could be kept free?

 

As for qualifying for it, why not use our "Highland Fuels" pre-season competition? It would give teams a chance to plan ahead for it - if we used the Manson Cup (or Madrid) then it may not give teams enough time to make plans for the trips they will have to undertake.

 

Maybe a top 3 or 4 from the previous years league could qualify - not sure how the SAFA would view that as they may want to see a "Cup" take place during the same season, but it would make league games interesting right up till the end of the season for mid table teams.

 

The only down sides i see are that the Shetland FA may see it as taking something away from their own interests. In Orkney there ceratinly used to be a feeling that the competition was more important than the inter-county.

I may be wrong with exact details but a few years ago one of their clubs (Thorfinn i think) was getting to the latter stages of the competition and the semi-final fell on the same date as the Orkney v Shetland game. The club were refused permission to alter the date - all their county players chose to play for their club such was the feeling that it was more important that the county fixture.

 

The other downsides are the obvious ones - cost and commitment!!

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  • 2 weeks later...

I notice from the SAFA website that the quarter-finals of the Highland Amateur Cup were the same weekend as the Inter-county game v Orkney.

 

I think with a bit of forward planning though we could work the dates around it. Speaking to a few clubs over the season their seems to be a bit of disquiet at the amount of breaks teams have had. So there seems to a bit of scope to get these games played.

 

What do other clubs think of this years season so far? Is there things they would like to change or are their things that could be done better?

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