Yesterday was a big day for Carnoustie Panmure Football Club, whilst our plans for a statue outside Laing Park were a not so elaborate April Fool, the announcement last night from the Scottish Junior FA and the East Region was a major move forward for the region and the football club.
I have made no secret that I was a fan of the Scottish football pyramid and the opportunities that it can bring, that was the way the club voted 3 years ago. However, the avenues for clubs north of the Tay appeared closed for a number of reasons, in my opinion, people playing politics.
As a football supporter you are not aware of the games played off the park but you can believe me when I say its far from a laugh a minute it is hard work and at times it is very easy to get disillusioned with the political games played and as such I would personally like to thank our Region General Secretary  John Reilly and President Marc Stanton for their efforts.
There is still work to be done before we join the pyramid, however, it is looking really positive and likely that we will be in place for the 2021/22 season.
Should all the paperwork etc be completed then we will enter the pyramid alongside the North Region Juniors (East of the River Spey) and North Caledonian League (West of the River Spey), in a rebranded Midland League. The winners of each league will be in a play off for the chance to take on the club that finishes bottom of the Highland League for a place in the higher league.
However, to be eligible for promotion then clubs will need to comply with Highland League rules of which having an SFA Licence is the major part. To obtain a licence there are a number of criteria that we would need to comply and we have already started working on these to ascertain what we need to do. Andy Finlay has been looking at the Licencing requirements and making a start on several of the policies that need to be adopted and agreed as well as the improvement to facilities that we would need to carry out. We are in the position where the new policies are written and we will be obtaining advice on their suitability in the near future.
The physical changes we will need to make to Laing Park are a different story and we will be making a plan for these in a near future but we anticipate that these will take a while to complete.
Whilst obtaining the licence is a project that will take a while, we don’t believe it is beyond us and we would hope to be in a position off the park to be able to take advantage of any opportunity that is available to us from the efforts of the squad on the park in the medium term.
As already mentioned, yesterday was a big day for the club and the region and we are delighted to be part of it.
All we need now is football back, hopefully, that will come fairly shortly.
Mark Johnson
General Manager
Carnoustie Panmure FC
