Deaf Football in Great Britain

I'm well-aware of blind football, but deaf football is something that has been completely off my radar.

Deaf Football in Great Britain has a very proud and strong history, dating back to 1871, a history that is virtually unknown to the majority of the followers of football in Britain.

It was only a tiny step forward, but those that have been campaigning for the return of terraces in the form of safe standing had a rare reason to be cheerful yesterday with an announcement from north of the border, that the Scottish Premier League is to trial a pilot that may see the return of standing at matches in the near future.

The blogathon continues. Alzheimer Scotland and the Homeless World Cup still need your help. So if you've enjoyed any of this please give anything you can.
It's a pleasure to say a massive hello to Jay Mansfield, also know as @leftmidfielder, for this hour of polite argument. Jay blogs here
Here's Jay on why Scottish football won't change:
Browsing Alzheimer Scotland's Football Memories site, I began to reminisce about the times I would discuss the latest calamity to befall Scottish football (among other things) with my much-missed grandfather.

How was the Friday night experiment for you? Partick Thistle fan Tom Hogg has his doubts:
According to the papers, the Scottish Football League will examine the attendance at the Partick Thistle v Greenock Morton match in its trial slot of Friday evening, against last season's equivalent Saturday fixture as a measure of whether to extend Friday night football to other matches.

The BBC published a survey this week on the cost of watching football in Britain. An interesting exercise, the challenge was to find the cheapest day out at football grounds across the country.
(Note: Twohundredpercent has a cautionary tale about the BBC's methodology and, of course, the survey ignored the Scottish Football League.

We are now nearly five years removed from discussions about the Scottish Premier League expanding with an SPL2 division, sparking a war of words with Scottish Football League officials keen on retaining their say in how Scottish football would operate going forward. Since then, that plan collected a bit of dust that was kicked up regularly as calls were made for some sort of reorganization to the game in order to see the clubs be more competitive and more of them stable financially.

Franchise or Brave New World? It's now sixteen years since Livingston moved from the Meadowbank Stadium, changed their name and their town. Alasdair Sim writes on a rollercoaster ride.

The ‘death knell' for Livingston Football Club was due to be heralded in 2009 shortly after the team were demoted to the Siberia-esque echelons of the Scottish Football League.

As always I like to give a brief review of the season and this year is no different:
Number of games seen: 53
Number of new grounds / venues visited: 48
Number of new clubs seen: 44
Number of different leagues seen games in: 23 (including 2 in Germany)
Number of new leagues seen games in: 8 (as above)
A breakdown of the new teams that I have seen in league order:
Cambridgeshire County League (2) Longstanton; Over Sports
Central Midlands League (6) Church Warsop S & S; Kinsley Boys, Nettelham, Nottingham United, Phoenix, Thorne Colliery
East Lincolnshire Combination (1) Chapel Swifts
FA Premier League (2) Everton; Liverpool
German Bundesliga (1) VfL Bochum 1848
Germany Niederrheinliga (1) Turu 1880 Dusseldorf
Hellenic League (1) Winterbourne United
Leicester & District League (5) Allexton & New Parks, Aylestone Lounge*, GNG, Queniborough, Thurlaston Magpies
Liverpool County Premier League (1) Waterloo Dock
Midland Combination (3) Clements '83, Future Legends, Stretton Eagles
Midland Football Alliance (1) Tipton Town
North Leicestershire League (4) Butler Court, Marlborough Rovers, Measham Imperial, Sutton Bonington Academicals
North West Counties League (2) Ashton Town, Glossop North End
Northamptonshire Combination (2) Weldon United; Welford Victoria
Northern Counties East League (1) Winterton Rangers
Notts Senior League (1) Kimberley Miners Welfare
Scottish Football League (1) Stranraer
Southern League (2) Bideford; Chippenham Town
Spartan South Midlands League (1) Leverstock Green
United Counties League (3) Boston Town, Harborough Town, King's Lynn Town
West Midlands (Regional) League (2) Goodrich; Tividale
Western League (1) Roman Glass St.

The curtain comes down on domestic football for another season.
Yesterday's Scottish Cup will not perhaps be long remembered as a classic. Celtic too often seemed unable to click through the gears, that lent long periods of the game a scrappiness that seemed to offer Motherwell their best hope.

Frontman of Glasvegas, James Allan once played as a winger for Cowdenbeath, East Fife, Queen's Park, Gretna, Stirling Albion and Dumbarton, making 105 appearances in the Scottish Football League. He was part of the Cowdenbeath squad that won promotion as runners up in the 2000–01 Scottish Third Division.

With little other than a couple of play-off spots still to be settled in the Scottish Football League, keep an eye out this afternoon for the big game of the day on this side of the border the Buckie Thistle v Deveronvale title decider in the Highland League. It's come down to top v second in the final game, with two points separating them.

Outwardly benign, really rather malevolent.
Inviting your enemies round for a house party is a nice gesture. Until they realise that most of the guests have only turned up to celebrate your achievements.
Cruel that.
Spare a thought for Falkirk's fans. Off the pace in the First Division title race, financially suspect, offloading players here, there and everywhere and stuck with a divisive manager for another season.

There's been controversy and drama at both ends of the table in the Scottish first division this week.

At the bottom end, with Stirling Albion already relegated, Ross County and Cowdenbeath now face a straight fight to avoid the play-off spot, and County took a three point advantage this week by winning their game in hand the twice abandoned game against Queen of the South which finally went ahead at a neutral venue.

Cowdenbeath Football Club is Scottish soccer team based in the town of Cowdenbeath, Fife. Nickmamed The Blue Brazil, Cowdenbeath currently plays in the First Division of the Scottish Football League. Cowdenbeath FC recently unveiled its Umbro 2011/12 home kit. The club switches uniform providers from Italian firm Errea starting next season.

A sell out crowd. A long standing local rivalry. The final derby of a long, tense season.
To the winner, perhaps, the championship.
Welcome to Scottish football's Easter weekend. Welcome to Fife.
Dunfermline v Raith Rovers for a place in the SPL. It's not how many people would have imagined this season's First Division title race turning out.

A difficult Saturday afternoon for Cowdenbeath, shipping three goals and losing their derby with Raith inside the first half hour.
There have been better times though.
As Daniel Gray writes in Stramash:

"Central Park is a relic that binds. If its pensionable walls could speak, they would talk of 1920s glory days and mention the first team of miners that won promotion in 1924 and the following season finished fifth in Division One.

Ayr, Alloa, Cowdenbeath, Coatbridge, Montrose, Kirkcaldy, Greenock, Arbroath, Dingwall, Cumbernauld, Dumfries and Elgin.
Twelve towns offering a fair snapshot of Scotland's social and industrial history in the last century.
And twelve towns that keep the ever threatened flames of lower league football in Scotland just about alight.

Blue Monday. The most depressing day of the year.
Fitting that it was today we heard another version of the SPL's grand new plan for Scottish football.
Forget the two ten team leagues idea of a couple of weeks ago. The head honchos have listened to the near universal condemnation of that plan.

IN a move that has surprised commentators throughout Scottish Football, the SPL have supported terms to introduce a 10-team premier league.

The proposed new league format seemed to be out of favour after being tabled my SPL Chief Executive Neil Doncaster back in November, attracting criticism and opponents from the off.

Not everyone is in favour of a ten team SPL

In the continuing struggle to find a format to make the Scottish Premier League more interesting it is quite astonishing that the top administrators can think of nothing more radical than to reduce the number of teams in the top flight from twelve to ten.