The revised format for the WOSFL Premier Division for season 2020-21 was announced this evening.

Given the league decided at it’s formation to expand to 20 teams rather than the 16 of last season, they were faced with a mammoth task of fitting in 38 league games into 33 Saturday’s, assuming the league start date of 10th October remains in place. This also includes Boxing Day & 2nd January, both of which are Saturday’s but are traditionally not football days at our level. With the SoccerShop Challenge Cup still to be factored in, as well as the Macron Scottish Junior Cup and other local Cup competitions, they have left themselves with an impossible task & that needed addressing. And that’s before the Scottish wintry weather has any impact!

WOSFL Fixtures Secretary Kennie Young has produced the following plan:

Phase One

In phase one, the Premier Division will be split into “Premier Group A” and “Premier Group B”, with 10 teams in each group. Playing each other home & away will see each side play 18 games at this stage.

Teams have been split into these groups based on last season’s finishing positions. The WOSFL Management Group drew lots to place the remaining teams in each group.

The three Conferences have been set-up in the same fashion, as illustrated below.

Phase Two

In phase two, the teams will play all of the teams in the other group either home or away once (10 matches) with each team playing 5 home matches and 5 away matches.

This will give all Premier Division clubs a league campaign of 28 games: 14 home and 14 away, albeit there will be an imbalance in the number of times you’ve played half of the league.

Promotion & relegation will remain as was previously planned, with 3 teams being promoted from the Conferences and 7 going down from the Premier Division.

League Fixtures Release

The opening league fixtures will be announced on Thursday 17th September 2020.

Any news on supporters?

As of yet, there has been absolutely no updated news or guidance as to when football clubs can expect to have even a reduced capacity of supporters present at matches.

Football is just not the same without our supporters there – be it loyal supporters of the club, die-hard committee members, parents, siblings, partners or children. We hope to have all of you back in Portland Park very soon!