Scottish Pyramid – One SFA to rule them all (fantasy) (discussion)

[ScottishPep]

Hi guys. I’m using the lockdown period to make a start on creating a new Scottish pyramid league. I was inspired by the amazing @LewisCumming who shared a tweet with a reconstruction proposal which looked fantastic. There were 14 teams, it retained 4 Celtic vs Rangers fixtured per year and was very play-off heavy to make it full of exciting fixtures. This proved to be a little beyond my FM editing skills! So, I’ve used my time wisely and set about researching some semi-serious proposals and came across an article from The Celtic Star featuring a fan idea that was at least recognised by David Longmuir – before he was axed. The jist of this set up was two professional leagues of 16 teams with an accessible pyramid below including League 2 teams, Highland teams and Lowland teams in a regional set up. Interesting, very interesting. 30 league games aren’t enough for most teams to survive on as revenue is already limited in Scotland but this was rectified by revamping the League Cup. I think that I can combine the two ideas and come up with a workable solution but if you’re interested and have some ideas to chip in with then please use this thread to state your opinion – I’m open to help, constructive feedback, anything at all really!

 

SPL – Top tier.

 

16 teams play each other twice for 30 games. After 30 games top 4 teams carry their accumulated points into a Championship league split, paying each other home and away. This keeps the presumed 4 OF games per season for TV and creates a scenario where Celtic and Rangers could play each other home and away within days to decide the title. Potentially adding in a banana skin tie to Pittodrie or Easter Road in between.

Relegation – undecided between a play-off with second tier promotion hopefuls or a straight relegation. If play-off then bottom 2 would be automatic relegation with third bottom entering play-off. I also like the idea of the bottom 4 teams splitting like the top 4 and playing each other again to see who goes down. If you lose your head to heads then you can have no complaints. But accumulated points mean that rest of the season still means something.

 

Championship – Second Tier

 

16 teams play each other twice for 30 games. Potential play off with SPL side. Can also use the SPL championship league style play-off to stretch out a few games. A bit to think about here.

Relegation could be straightforward, the bottom two teams are relegated and will either play in the highland or lowland league set ups below. Howver my difficulties with the regional pyramid may change this.

 

Regional Pyramid – Third Tier

 

Where to begin… Ideally, I’d like every Scottish team to have a chance of being promoted to professional football and bring everybody together into one league system. But there’s just so many clubs! I need a system for 10 League 2 teams, 17 Highland, 16 Lowland, 16 South Scotland, 16 East of Scotland. The we get to the junior game… West Region 63 teams, East 38 and North 32 clubs! That’s a total of 208 teams! Then there’s the problem of geography, there’s a massive bias towards central Scotland. How on Earth do I solve this problem? I’ll have a second post for this conundrum!

 

League Cup – Only for SPL and Championship clubs. 32 teams in 8 groups of 4 play each other home and away to guarantee 6 more games per season (plus one SC). The 8 winners progress to the Quarter Finals.

 

Scottish Cup – Unchanged as much as possible.

 

Regional Cup - Amateur Cup featuring all teams below the Championship. Hopefully a big deal.

 

Final curve ball… potential summer football in Scotland (and beers at games!)

Edited March 22, 2020 by ScottishPep

[ScottishPep]

Regional Pyramid. This needs a post in itself because it is quickly becoming a problem.

As mentioned above there are 208 teams and I need to create a fair pyramid for these. I think for the sake of my sanity that I need to cull this number somehow.

If I take Cove Rangers from League 2 and put them back in the HIghland set up I can combine the 18 HIghland teams and 14 Junior North Premiership sides into two tiers of 16 - done.

Now I have 9 League 2 sides plus Lowland (and regional second tiers plus Junior West and East. A total of 160 teams. Too many. If I lose the lower division teams from these (EoS, NoS, then lower Juniors) that leaves 57 teams. 3 leagues of 16 is 48 teams meaning I want to lose 9 more (those pesky L2 teams). I'll do this on reputation alone.

 

So to recap I'll have the following league system all with 16 teams each:

SPL

Championship

Highland                                                    Lowland

Highland Second                                                                               Lowland Second

                                                                                                                                          Lowland Third

 

Edit: Thinking outloud again here, if I can find one more Highland Tier it will A) be symmetrical and B) will have a perfect number of teams for a straight knockout Scottish Cup...

 

Edited March 22, 2020 by ScottishPep

[EnigMattic1]

Following just because it sounds interesting (And the fact I'd love to try and get Craigmark into the Scottish Prem)

[ScottishPep]

Thanks @EnigMattic1 You may be waiting a while though to get Craigmark in I'd have to go quite low! As it stands I'm struggling to get anything working below the Highland/ Lowland Premier leagues which is pretty much the same as the Conference  North/ South. Craigmark would be 4 or 5 leagues below that haha.

[EnigMattic1]

23 minutes ago, ScottishPep said:

Thanks @EnigMattic1 You may be waiting a while though to get Craigmark in I'd have to go quite low! As it stands I'm struggling to get anything working below the Highland/ Lowland Premier leagues which is pretty much the same as the Conference  North/ South. Craigmark would be 4 or 5 leagues below that haha.

Mate, I'm in no rush. If you ever get to a point where it's possible to play as them then great. I'd still play the db regardless.

I know how hard it is to create something like this, I struggle to find my way around the editor as it is. 

I've got a lot of respect for people who give up their time to create something so elaborate off their own back. 

[ScottishPep]

I'm nearly at a workable league system. It's not quite how I imagined it but it's looking pretty close. I'll come back to creating more leagues below the north/ south split when I've more patience so I can include teams like Craigmark Burntonians!

 

Final jobs are squad and matchday rules; transfer rules; create the cups and decide on the big one.... do I include Summer football??????

[EnigMattic1]

1 minute ago, ScottishPep said:

I'm nearly at a workable league system. It's not quite how I imagined it but it's looking pretty close. I'll come back to creating more leagues below the north/ south split when I've more patience so I can include teams like Craigmark Burntonians!

 

Final jobs are squad and matchday rules; transfer rules; create the cups and decide on the big one.... do I include Summer football??????

Could always drop a cup competition in the summer? With the amount of work you have, no doubt, already put in, maybe leaving the summer free wouldn't be a bad idea?