Carluke Rovers, Lanark United, Lesmahagow Juniors and Forth apply to join senior football pyramid

The deadline for applications was on Tuesday with the vast majority of the 63 West Region junior clubs having already put their names forward to join the senior pyramid.

Rovers committee man Stevie Kane said: “I think organisers are giving clubs next season to meet stadium criteria to join the new league like having floodlights, which we do. Probably 90 per cent of the clubs don’t meet the criteria, so I think they’re giving them next season to meet it for the following season.”

Run by the Lowland League, the new West of Scotland Football League with clubs from the current junior scene will initially see participating teams seeded or organised geographically into four conferences.

At the end of next season, it is planned that the winners of these four conferences would play-off for the right to join the winners of the South of Scotland League and East of Scotland League in a three-pronged battle to win one promotion slot for the Lowland League.

The Lowland League is just one level below the top four divisions of the SPFL pyramid, running all the way from Celtic at the top of the Premiership to the stragglers in League Two.

Although the current football hiatus owing to the coronavirus outbreak has caused pandemonium among Scotland’s senior clubs – with bleak forecasts that some could go out of business because of the likelihood of going months without gate receipts – its timing does not appear to have badly affected the junior leagues, as they were about to be wiped out for good anyway.

Writing off the unfinished 2019-20 campaign in the junior divisions now seems highly likely, with no end to Covid-19 in sight and sport everywhere falling by the wayside as countries are locked down in a bid to control the pandemic.

The new conference set-up is expected to be confirmed in mid-April, before ratification at an SFA AGM in June ahead of – coronavirus permitting – an August start.