I've just seen this on the non-league list.

Gretna have been accepted into the Scottish Football League

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport/hi/english/scotland/newsid_2051000/2051975.stm
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport/hi/english/scotland/newsid_2051000/2051975.stm>;


Gretna have become the newest members of the Scottish Football League.

The 27 current member clubs voted the club into the Scottish Third Division on Tuesday after hearing presentations from seven clubs.

Newly-formed Airdrie United had been favourites to fill the gap in the league left by the now defunct Airdrieonians.

But the Unibond League club beat off all competition to take their place in the league at the third time of asking.

Former Morton player Rowan Alexander is the Gretna manager and he believes the club are well equipped to cope with life in the Scottish Third Division.

Many at the club feel the Unibond League is stronger than the Third Division.

They play at Raydale Park, which has a 1,500-seater stand, but they play in front of an average crowd of only 100.

Nevertheless, the club has achieved its lifetime ambition of making it into the Scottish Football League.
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This means that Kendal will retain their place in the 1st division of the Unibond League and avoid relegation to the NW Counties.

One less long trip for all first division teams. Not that it matters for Ashton of the Premier division. ( Will probably stop harping on about that in a few years, it took us 10 years to get promoted, so why not go on about it for a while longer.)

Nigel

Unibond League sense would still relegate Kendal and rightfully relegate cheating Hyde

HOWS PHIL DENNEY PLAYING THESE DAYS?I WAS SORRY TO SEE HIM LEAVE BRADFORD.

Well dome to everyone up there, quite an achievement getting 'voted' into the league is possibly more difficult than winning your way in as us English clubs have to.

Lets hope the towns folk take to Scottish football in larger numbers than English football (can't see it some how).

ps.
The promotion & relegations issues have been a bit of a sham this term !!!.
Then again the League probably thought it all went well.

new league website maybe:
www.brewery_a piss up_organise_in a_couldn't.com !

Congratulations to Gretna, but I think we at Alfreton will be sorry to lose them although it's a long, long journey. Last time we went there (prior to our relegation to NCEL) they looked after us marvellously well, and were as lovely a club as you could wish to find. I remember my wife put her curse on Alfreton that day (we'd gone up for the weekend but the Smithy wouldn't take her back!) - she has still never seen them win except in a pre-season friendly, and since that trip to Gretna I've never allowed her to go again. We were 1-0 up after 90 minutes, and I thought she's broken her hoodoo, but no, Gretna scored twice in stoppage time, and contributed to our three-year NCEL exile!
Now, you moaners about the league organisation, let me tell you that, after three years in the NCEL (No Commonsense Ever League), the UniBond runs like a well-oiled machine in comparison. OK, there were teething troubles in the new play-off system because of the Bishop Auckland and Ossett Town situations. But, as to relegating Hyde regardless and still demoting Kendal, the promotion and relegation rules which were in place at the time to cover the situation, the way I read them, made it impossible for this to happen. Those rules can only be changed at an annual meeting, and then for the season which follows, not the one just gone. Had it been decided at LAST YEAR'S AGM that the Premier Divison would be reduced to 22 clubs at the end of the 2001-02 season, then yes, Hyde would have gone and so would Kendal. But it wasn't, so they didn't. And we still have a trip to the Lakes to look forward to. (The NCEL would have sent us there on a Tuesday night in darkest January!)

The Unibond still might Gordon.