Scottish Cup drama continues…

Posted on Friday, December 12th, 2008

We were alerted by the SFA registrations department today that Dean Hoskins was not registered on a form for our 1^st XI before last Saturday’s game against Elgin City.

Dean Hoskins has been a signed Spartans player for the last five seasons coming through our Youth ranks.  This season he reached the 1^st XI squad and he was signed on an amateur form. 

 

He was injured in our Scottish Cup tie against Annan on 1^st November.  To enable him to play a comeback game for our 2^nd XI his amateur form was cancelled on 15^th November and he signed a recreational form to enable us to do this.  After this game he rejoined the 1^st XI squad and should have re-signed an amateur form. 

 

The SFA reviewed the situation in a further meeting today and have decided that the rearranged game will go ahead on Monday as planned, with both teams having played an ineligible player in the first game.  We will have to explain to the competitions committee our version of events in support of a letter we sent through this afternoon.

We have apologised to the SFA for this oversight and will do so to Elgin in person on Monday. 

Each time a player moves between our 1^st XI and 2^nd XI we have to cancel one form and sign another.  This does create considerable bureaucracy for the SFA and for us.  This isn’t an excuse but perhaps in the future this could be streamlined to allow community clubs to reduce the amount of player administration. 

Teams who play their 2^nd XI in the South of Scotland League do not need to cancel forms and re-sign. In England players become signed players of that club and can play for any team within that club. These examples do not in anyway excuse the oversight on our part but do go some way to explain where confusion and errors can arise.