I think reconstruction is probably a stick on for next season.
Whether it's a 14 14 14 or 12 14 16 or some other mix, I think we need to be in the top 26 clubs to make the SPL2 (hope not) or Championship or whatever they call it.
So a top 4 finish gives us a good shout at being in the 2nd tier.
With a bit of pressure off in a 14 team league, I think BB could develop a good wee squad here, playing crowd pleasing football.
And we're capable of top 4 finish.

I'm sure the players and management of East Fife have always tried to finish in as high as position as possible, and the present team will be no different.

I raised an eyebrow recently when one of the leaders of our game refused to rule out reconstruction happening next year, (Mr Longmuir, or Mr Doncaster perhaps, or someone similar - there's so many I sometimes get confused). Your post seems to come from the same sort of place. i.e. that we should try to finish in the top four, because you think that will boost us up to SPL2, or the promised land, or whatever they've got. Which would be nice. :)

What bothered my eyebrow though, was the principle of shifting the goalposts midway through the season. Surely they can't do that? You need to know what you're aiming for at the start. Otherwise, when it comes to the vote, 3/4 of the way through the season perhaps, the teams in the golden promotion places are all in favour, and those lower down are dead against.

I haven't seen a lot of details, so I decided when they talk about reconstruction before next season, they might mean the merging of SPL/SFL/SFA in the close season. Then agreement on a new league structure, and then one more season of the present arrangement to see who ends up where in that league structure. But that's just my thought, we'll have to wait and see.

SPL proposal for league reform gaining ground, says SFL chief

Mr Longmuir stating that 12-12-18 looks most likely, he feels pressure to get something in place before the start of next year and he see's no reason why it can't be.

I personally don't like his 12-12 with the daft split. 18 team league's no bad though. Just have to wait to see some proper proposals now.

Well if the proposed league reconstruction goes through in time for the staert of next season we would be as well to write of the rest of this season unless we can finish second, which look unlikely at the moment.That would be unless they springboard Newco into the second tier automatically!
12-12-18 would leave us in the bottom tier again with little prospect of gaining promotion in the near future (but then that would be the pessimist in me again!).
At least we would be spared having to play eachother 4 times in a season!

I created a set of proposals for League reconstruction in Jan 2011 and sent copies to SPL, SFA and SFL in Feb 2011. All of them responded saying there was merit in some of my proposals but I heard no more. John Robertson read the proposals and his response was quite positive. I sent a copy to our own Henry McLeish and spoke to him at Bayview a few weeks later and he promised to get back to me - I'm still waiting ! Some of my proposals are similar to those being discussed by the governing bodies at the moment.
I would be quite happy to share these proposals with this website but would ask for permission from GOF to do so. I'd be very interested in any feedback from posters on this site.

12 -- 12 -- 18, do not like the idea. not really that much different from what we have now.
feels like the smaller clubs are being pressurised to do the deal ???

Two top small leagues only serve to maintain the status quo with the bigger clubs holding onto the TV revenue and the same boring four games against the same opposition in a season which the fans find singularly unappealing.
It's a crap situation for clubs the size of East Fife. Get promoted and you might just about survive if you throw a shitload of money into the playing budget or go full-time. Either way it's a gamble that is likely to throw you into administration or worse, with scarcely better gates and little or no TV dosh.
Two top leagues of 16-18 teams on the other hand allows part-time teams the opportunity to survive while developing their youth players. Should a part-time side make it into the top tier the extra revenue from sponsorship, TV money and bigger gates makes the move to full-time football affordable, even if it is only for a season or two.

Would go for either 2 divisions (18/24 or 20/22) or 3 of 16/16/16 with 6 new teams invited in. And there needs to be a pyramid!

Sammy, ahm no fae Levenmouth. Is East Fife not a club from Eastern Fife? It's maybe splitting hairs a wee bit, but since this thread's about how to get people through the turnstiles, could we maybe take a big view of our catchment area? Glenrothes, Cupar, St Andrews, East Neuk and all points between. And always room for those from further away too.

So get your vouchers in the EF Mail, the St Andrews Citizen AND the Kirkcaldy paper, (I forget what the Kirkcaldy folks read - Is it The Big Issue?)

http://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/scotsol/homepage/sport/4735793/Sid-aint-keen-on-quick-fix.html

Bottom tier of 18 teams could be a disaster for teams like East Fife esp if there is no pyramid system in place. We are still in the hunt for the play offs this season and crowds are terrible, imagine what it would be like if we have nothing to play for at this stage of the season in an 18 team league. Would i attend Bayview every other week to watch meaningless games? Probably not. The next couple of seasons could be make or break a lot of teams and i get the feeling the powers that be couldn`t really care less for the smaller teams like ours. I`m in favour of Spl and Sfl being 1 organisation but worried about league set up they favour.

Under the 10-14-14 (or slight variations of) system that ran from the mid 70's to the mid 90's we could harbour realistic ambitions of competing in the middle league and occasionally we did just that. It will be tough under the proposed 12-12-18 for us to achieve the same however. Although on paper there will be 24 teams top teams as before, we have slipped down the pecking order considerably in the past 20 odd years and more middle ranking clubs are full-time (though god knows how some of them manage), so it will be much harder for East Fife to play in the 2nd tier. I too worry that the 18 team league will be our natural home and that if we stay there for more than three or four years then what small support we have now will drift away even more. A 500 crowd in 2017 would probably be a big attendance with 250 being the norm.

I hope that if the 12-12-18 thing comes to pass (it is a lousy compromise mind, not much different from what we have now to be honest) that we put in medium to long term plans to compete in the 2nd tier but given our recent history and the paucity of ambition shown under the present regime I'm not holding my breath to be honest.

League reconstruction should not be all about how teams are organized into divisions. For me, the most important thing to be addressed is the distribution of money within the league.

The SPL experiment, where distribution was weighted too strongly towards the top few, was a failure. Now this has been realized and there is an appetite for change, we have an opportunity to try something different.

At the moment through media rights and sponsorship the league brings in £17M a year. How about it gets divided as follows:
• SPL type clubs get £600-800K each
• Full time non SPL type clubs £300-400K
• Part Time clubs £150-200K
• As a sweetener for the SPL clubs, any player they wish to sign from a non SPL club, they can do so for a nominal fee of £10K.

The top clubs would be getting far less than they do at present while the lower clubs far more. Why do this? – Well fundamentally a strong league requires a strong foundation. And a league with a strong foundation allows for greater mobility between divisions.

Stronger lower leagues will raise the standard of the top league. Well-funded lower leagues will produce better Scottish players. Well-funded lower leagues will bring more supporters to the game.

Oops! Gonnae ignore my previous "No fae Levenmouth" comment. It's in the wrong thread.

Even further back in this thread, I wrote that I liked the idea of an 18 team league. In principle, I do. But, when I start to think about the details, I'm not so sure anymore. The 10 we have now has virtually all the clubs in with a shout of promo/rele-gation right up to the end of the season. They haven't given us the details of their 18, but I bet it's not 2 automatic promotion, and the next 6 go into a playoff with the next 2 from the bottom 12. I think that's what you'd need to keep it interesting.

Then, relegation from the 18? Haven't heard anything about a pyramid yet. If there isn't any relegation, what point to the rest of the season for those teams who're 30 points adrift of the pack by Hogmanay?

I think Sid's right about not voting for any change next year. It makes the rest of this season a farce. Maybe if they take a bit of time and care over it, they can get a few of the potential problem ironed out before they happen.