New Scottish Systems with Regional Leagues

[mjaferrie]

With a week to go until we can finally get our hands on the Editor for this year I thought I'd outline an idea I've had and tried to develop a bit towards the end of FM16.  Personally, I like to play with B/C teams in FM but I know not everyone's a fan so I'll be making two versions of this file - with and without (for more info on that see the next post).

This started out with getting bored of playing as the Old Firm, winning easily and watching the rest of the league not really develop.  Bit like real life really!  Even when I'm not actually managing in Scotland - I'm currently in Sweden, and in 7 seasons Celtic have won the title every year and Rangers have come 2nd every year bar one when Aberdeen managed to nick in between. Only Aberdeen, Hibs and Dundee have got in about the 3rd place.  So I've tried a few things over the last few years to try and get the smaller teams to develop a bit quicker and challenge more - Celtic Nations system, 16 team system, Old Firm in the English leagues, etc.  All tried and tested things that have been kicking about for ages.  This year though I've been trying to develop something a bit different after playing a lot in the Brazilian Leagues over the last couple of releases. 

So the idea is this: 

12-Team Ladbrokes Premier, Championship, Leagues 1&2
This means we need an additional 6 teams to come up from the Highland/Lowland Leagues.  I decided that relegation/promotion should be in place as it happened last season - meaning Dundee Utd, Livingston, Alloa, Cowdenbeath, Forfar and East Stirlingshire will continue to play in their respective new divisions in this new system.  Joining Edinburgh City in League 2 will be the best places 3 teams from H/L in 2015/16: Cove Rangers, Formartine Utd, Brora Rangers, Spartans, Stirling Uni and Cumbernauld Colts.

All teams will play each other twice meaning a total of 22 games per division.

Highland and Lowland Leagues
These will be added as playable divisions but as yet I have no plans to extend the pyramid beyond these leagues.  There are plenty of options for Scottish pyramid systems out there (which are amazing!) and to be honest I'm not that keen to implement it here.  Promotion/Relegation from League 2 to H/L will be as IRL.

EDIT: I think actually with the number of B/C teams from lower divisions some lower leagues may be necessary.  Stay tuned!

Teams promoted to League 2 from the Lowland League in this new system will not be replaced.  The Highland League sees the relegation of Strathspey Thistle, Fort William and Rothes to respective Lower Divisions giving us two 12-team leagues at this level and again 22 games each.

Regional Leagues
So now we get into fantasy world, with the introduction of nine regional divisions across Scotland.
Aberdeen and Grampian
Ayrshire and Lanarkshire
The Borders, Dumfries and Galloway
Dundee and Angus
Edinburgh and Lothian
Glasgow and Renfrewshire
Highlands and Islands East
Highlands and Islands West
Perthshire, Central Scotland and the Kingdom of Fife

Each of these will have its own Premier Division made up of 10 teams that play each other twice.  This results in a total of 18 games which combined with the normal leagues makes 40 league games per season.  Regions with enough teams will also have multiple tiers and promotion/relegation of 1 team per season.

So what happens with the cups?

The William Hill Scottish Cup
Remains as is, with champions qualifying for Europe.

The Betfred League Cup
The League Cup becomes a pseudo-Super Cup for the best two teams from each regional Premier Division.  The 18 teams are divided into 6 groups of 3 teams and play each other once, with the group winners and two best 2nd placed teams qualifying for the Quarter Final.  Current League Cup rules apply, with group stage matches going straight to penalties and 1 or 2 points being awarded for a draw.

The IRN BRU Challenge Cup
Remains much the same, but includes Labrokes Premiership teams who did not qualify for the Betfred League Cup instead of the Welsh / Northern Irish best placed.  This also means that teams from the Championship downwards who qualify for the Betfred League Cup will not qualify for this competition.  (I.e. these two competitions are now related to the regional divisions and not the standard league system).

I'm also thinking about including a Caledonian or Highland Shield (if you have a better idea for a name give me a shout!  Holland have the "Johan Cruijff Schaal", this could open a can of worms here about the best player to grace Scottish football so let's not go there eh? We all know it has to be the Rafael Scheidt Cup...).  This competition would be for the winners of the Ladbrokes Premiership and the Scottish Cup.

FINAL VERSIONS:

Scottish Regional System_242FF602-2C9A-4315-938F-C94C01A8776B.fmf

Scottish Regional System with B Teams_91A05665-B1AA-42AB-A730-126312B38E6C.fmf

[mjaferrie]

B and C teams in this League structure

As I mentioned I'll make two versions of this file, the first of which will have no changes to current teams in the Scottish system.  The second, though, sees a major overhaul of the number of teams playing in Scottish football - Scotland's "Das Reboot", if you will - with major mergers being done across the country, in a move sure to **** off those of you who are supporters of lower league teams.  This is how I like to play but I know not everyone will be a fan, hence the two versions.  The goal of this is to give more game time to Scotland's better quality youngsters without them being shipped out on loan or rotting away in the development squad.

A huge number of Lower League teams come forward as volunteers for a merger with big clubs across Scotland, and we see the following changes:



Lots of changes and more to come.  This would definitely cause political strife across Scotland's small communities, but hey, TV money talks...   We also see smaller teams from the same towns pooling their resources to try and push up the divisions, with mergers happening across the country.

Why did I do this and not just give every team an actual B or C team?  I didn't want to put a whole load of new teams into the league structure and find space for them for one - who would I kick out of the league structure to give them space, or would I increase the number of teams meaning we'd have a ridiculous number of league games per season - so that's basically why.  Also because it was more interesting for me to look into which teams are playing in which areas, I generally tried to make the B and C teams as close geographically as possible to their Main teams. 

[phnompenhandy]

Interesting, though as a lower league junkie I'm looking forward to what Morrissey comes up with.

[mjaferrie]

12 minutes ago, phnompenhandy said:

Interesting, though as a lower league junkie I'm looking forward to what Morrissey comes up with.

Me too mate!  I had a great save last year trying to get Doune Castle up to the Premiership in williamcnicol's 'Scottish Pyramid System'.  Just wanted to try something a bit different when others are already doing the pyramid thing! 

[phnompenhandy]

Fair enough. Hope you gather plenty of interest.

[mjaferrie]

1 minute ago, phnompenhandy said:

Fair enough. Hope you gather plenty of interest.

Haha, cheers - I'll be playing it anyway, even if it's all by myself!

[Morrissey]

1 hour ago, mjaferrie said:

Haha, cheers - I'll be playing it anyway, even if it's all by myself!

I'll be giving it a go as well bud - always interesting to see how different systems like this work, and what teams move around over the years

[wkdsoul]

Nice, i always make  Cambuslang Rangers, the b team to glasgow rangers based on the badges lol. 

Will defo check this out  

[mjaferrie]

A bit of info on the Prize Money distribution in this new system (Figures are taken from williamcnicol's Scottish Pyramid System for FM16, so will be tweaked as necessary).

The Premiership, Championship, League 1 and 2 have their prize money per position decreased to 80% and the Betfred Cup, now being a sort of super cup, now offers no prize money as follows:



The savings of £5.34m here are distributed evenly between the 9 regional divisions, giving us prize money per position of:

1. £100,000
2. £80,000
3. £70,000
4. £65,000
5. £60,000
6. £55,000
7. £50,000
8. £40,922
9. £37,500
10. £35,000

Pittance in the beginning of a save, but I feel this most accurately reflects reality in that no new money would likely come into a scenario like this.  What we do get however is the smaller clubs getting to play against the Premiership and Championship teams in their respective regional divisions (imagine seeing the mighty Vale of Clyde coming up against Celtic and Rangers twice a season ), with the gate money benefits that comes with that and as seasons pass in game the TV and prize money will increase or decrease algorithmically according to performance anyway.  

[mjaferrie]

Started work!  Couple of things:

• BSC Glasgow will play in the Perthshire, Central Scotland and Fife division as they're based at the Indodrill in Alloa these days, and that's the same reason why they'll be the B team for Alloa in the B team version of this file.
• Berwick will play in the Borders, Dumfries and Galloway Division.
• Third Lanark will be included in this file.

The other thing is a bit of a question mark for me that I'm throwing out there for you guys to decide - how to structure the lower leagues?
One option is that I go for the full pyramid, but I'm pretty reluctant to do it as @Morrissey has already started work on what looks to be an awesome pyramid system for this year.
The other option, which I'm leaning towards, is to steal an idea from the Scandinavian systems which would see the Ladbrokes League 2 split into A, B, C and D divisions of 12 teams each - bringing a whole bunch of teams up the leagues - and then having either:

a) an inactive division below that with pro/rel; or

b) an active League 3 of the same structure, with pro/rel to the smallest teams in an inactive. 

What do you reckon?  

[steff91]

I'd probably go for optin "A" sounds the more viable to be fair,looking forward to using this too,ETA on a release?

[mjaferrie]

11 minutes ago, steff91 said:

I'd probably go for optin "A" sounds the more viable to be fair,looking forward to using this too,ETA on a release?

If I'd realised before this morning that I could import FM16 editor data to the FM17 editor, I could have had it out already  First version should be ready tonight. 

[steff91]

Just now, mjaferrie said:

If I'd realised before this morning that I could import FM16 editor data to the FM17 editor, I could have had it out already  First version should be ready tonight. 

Superb looking forward to it,let me know if u need help running tests etc etc..more than happy to help.

 

[mjaferrie]

10 minutes ago, steff91 said:

Superb looking forward to it,let me know if u need help running tests etc etc..more than happy to help.

 

Cheers man!

The border between Highlands and Islands East and West leagues is going to be pretty vague.  Teams that are obviously east or west, such as Brora or Fort William, will be correct, ones in the middle will be placed to accommodate the league structure.  I also want to separate Inverness and Ross County, so Caley go to the East division while County go west.  Just in case anyone wants to have a hernia over that  

[mjaferrie]

Alrighty - structure is now Premiership, Championship, League 1, League 2A/B/C/D, Inactive Lower Leagues.

I've also added Gaelic as a language.

[mjaferrie]

I've tested the file in basic mode - regional divisions won't load if clubs in the division are below Ladbrokes 2 level.  Everything else works grand.  I'm going to switch to Advanced now and sort out all the rules, and then have a look and try and get these working.
 

I could a) add them as a cup, but then I'm not sure if pro/rel will work, and how it will get the teams each season...
or b) add it as a league, but then it comes up with the "Aberdeen and Grampian transfer window opens" message, and also you could then take control of a team in a regional division that wasn't in the standard Prem -> Ladbrokes 2 and I'm not sure how the promotion from Amateur to League 2 would work.  Is it still semi-random or would it always pick your team in the first playoff?

Hmm...

[mjaferrie]

Almost there!  Finishing touches and then the first version will be up - so please let me know if you find any bugs / problems!

There are a few obvious things - at the moment relegation playoffs are between the 11th placed team in the division above and the 2nd placed team in the division below only, so it doesn't reflect real life where 3 teams from the lower division contest 2 rounds to decide who gets to play the upper division team.
There is also atm no playoffs in the regional leagues - at the moment it's just 1 up, 1 down, but I'd like to add this in the future.

[mjaferrie]

I just realised that with all the time I've spent on the leagues I haven't even thought about the Scottish Cup, Challenge Cup or Junior Cup - so that is this evening and tomorrow morning's project.  Meanwhile, here is what we are looking at league-wise.

[mjaferrie]

And here is what we are looking at regionally:

[mjaferrie]

Aaaaaand done! The download link is now at the bottom of the first post up there ^

Just copy the downloaded file into the 'editor data' folder in Documents/Sports Interactive/Football Manager 2017 (at least that's the path on a Mac, if it's different on Windows then please add that as a comment, I have no idea about that!)

Let me know if there are any problems, details missed, or details/additions that you'd like to see and I'll update the file.  No B team version available until I'm sure this is working as intended.  

Have fun!  Mike

[mjaferrie]

First problem I've come across is that the Regional leagues are now considered as your main division - i.e. they're first in the 'Competitions' tab and also they're the league that shows up on the Home tab... Any clues?
EDIT:  Okay - further into the game it has switched to the Ladbrokes Premiership in both places, I think this is just dependent on where you have played the most games, and then not something I can fix.  Let me know if there is something specific to do with this.

Staggered entry in the Scottish Cup is also not working atm.  This will be fixed for an update.

[mjaferrie]

@steff91 would you be up for giving this a test run and see if you find any problems?  So far the only thing I've found to be a major issue is the Scottish Cup, everything else seems fine.  Not at the end of a season yet so we'll see how it goes with the playoffs etc, and also the qualification for the Betfred, Irn Bru and Junior Cups next season.

Once I'm happy possible issues are identified and fixed, I'll crack on with the B team version and start adding details like players/managers and also be a bit stricter with the dates for the different leagues.  At the moment there is too much overlap with the international breaks so smaller teams like Rob Roy have played 6 games to Celtic and Rangers' 1 or 2.  

[mjaferrie]

Scottish Cup problem is fixed, updated version is now available at the bottom of the first post here!

[mjaferrie]

Alright folks!  Final versions of both files are here now! 

Scottish Regional System_242FF602-2C9A-4315-938F-C94C01A8776B.fmf

Scottish Regional System with B Teams_91A05665-B1AA-42AB-A730-126312B38E6C.fmf

[mjaferrie]

Files now also available from the Steam Workshop if you prefer to download from there.  Cheers!

[proevofanatik]

is there promotion from regional leagues to the ladbrokes league 2 a b c and d?

[mjaferrie]

32 minutes ago, proevofanatik said:

is there promotion from regional leagues to the ladbrokes league 2 a b c and d?

There is promotion to ABCD from an inactive Lower League - all teams not in the Premiership, Championship, League 1 or League 2 are bunged into one inactive division.  The regional leagues here work as separate competitions, kinda like the Brazilian system.  I.e. Celtic play in the Premiership and the Glasgow League.

[Dave Fairbairn]

Dunno if you'd be interested, for some reason they aren't in the DB, but in real life play in the East of Scotland League. Tweedmouth Rangers from Berwick, who are an affiliate of Berwick and play home games at Berwick's reserve ground Old Shielfield Park(also isn't in the DB, has a capacity of 1,000(no seats)). Since they're a RL affiliate, would probably be a good candidate for a Berwick B team.

[mjaferrie]

16 hours ago, Dave Fairbairn said:

Dunno if you'd be interested, for some reason they aren't in the DB, but in real life play in the East of Scotland League. Tweedmouth Rangers from Berwick, who are an affiliate of Berwick and play home games at Berwick's reserve ground Old Shielfield Park(also isn't in the DB, has a capacity of 1,000(no seats)). Since they're a RL affiliate, would probably be a good candidate for a Berwick B team.

I remember seeing them in a couple of Scottish junior league edits and was surprised they weren't there.  I'm not likely to work on this file again until the next FM so I'll keep that in mind for then!  There were a few things in this edit I wasn't 100% happy with so it's possible I'll make an update at some point.