PauloPerth Posted February 15, 2017 Share Posted February 15, 2017 There isn't one in the offing, I'm just suggesting one. As the Scottish Cup and League Cup offer the only 2 realistic opportunities for most premiership sides to dream of success, why can't we make our involvement in the Scottish Cup a bit longer? There are far too many all-premiership ties that pop up, that provide interest for no-one. For Killie, Saints and Ross County fans the tournament has been a bit of a damp squib this season in going out to sides they play 3 or 4 times a season, every season. We also went out last year in the 4th round to Killie. If Premiership teams entered the competition in Round 1, there'd be far more variety of fixtures, far more opportunity for smaller clubs to get a premiership team and the ensuing publicity and pay day on the back of it. There would hopefully be more variety in the quarter finals etc, as big clubs had far more hurdles on the way to the latter stages, so possibly more would fall by the wayside, and there'd be lots of opportunities for giantkillings. And, most importantly, the factor which should dictate all Scottish football related decisions: there'd be far more varied and enjoyable days oot. We went out the Cup 2 seasons ago at Queen of the South, but it was a great trip. The season we won it, 2014*, we had away days at Forfar and Kirkcaldy which were superb. Two of the best trips this season have been in the league cup group stages at Elgin and Brechin. If Celtic complain about fixture congestion, with Europe etc, then they can play their younger players in the early rounds, as they're desperate to get competitive fixtures for their Colts team anyway. Our leagues obviously don't provide too much variety at times, but surely our Cups should... * St Johnstone won the Scottish Cup in 2014 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
afca32 Posted February 15, 2017 Share Posted February 15, 2017 Round 1 get everyone in. Senior, junior, amateur, Sunday league, welfare, church teams. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dunning1874 Posted February 15, 2017 Share Posted February 15, 2017 I would absolutely adore a Coupe de France style Scottish Cup with every club in the country entering followed by SPFL clubs all entering at the same stage along with those who've progressed from each region, leading to far more interesting ties as a result, but even if it was workable in terms of the calendar (help us out @HibeeJibee) we all know clubs currently entering in later rounds will never agree to it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karpaty Posted February 15, 2017 Share Posted February 15, 2017 8 minutes ago, Dunning1874 said: I would absolutely adore a Coupe de France style Scottish Cup with every club in the country entering followed by SPFL clubs all entering at the same stage along with those who've progressed from each region, leading to far more interesting ties as a result, but even if it was workable in terms of the calendar (help us out @HibeeJibee) we all know clubs currently entering in later rounds will never agree to it. Dunno, we could fling in the runners up from Azerbaijan as well to spice it up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheScarf Posted February 15, 2017 Share Posted February 15, 2017 8 minutes ago, Dunning1874 said: I would absolutely adore a Coupe de France style Scottish Cup with every club in the country entering followed by SPFL clubs all entering at the same stage along with those who've progressed from each region, leading to far more interesting ties as a result, but even if it was workable in terms of the calendar (help us out @HibeeJibee) we all know clubs currently entering in later rounds will never agree to it. Indeed. Would be good to get the chance to visit new grounds and play new teams. ICT have never played a Junior team competitively for example. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shandon Par Posted February 15, 2017 Share Posted February 15, 2017 Ban penalty kicks from the competition. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JakeSAFC Posted February 15, 2017 Share Posted February 15, 2017 Ban the old firm from the Scottish cup imo. They're not Scottish enough to enter Scotland's premier trophy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DA Baracus Posted February 15, 2017 Share Posted February 15, 2017 Agree that all clubs should go in earlier. It seems that the majority of fans before each draw are saying that they'd love an away day at a non league team, or at least a lower league team. This season the trip to Buckie was brilliant, and previous trips to the likes of Montrose and Elgin were similarly brilliant. The media seem to have fooled themselves and others that everyone wants to draw a 'big team' 'for the money'. Utter pish. The only folk who want that are the media sycophants and arsehole chairmen. That isn't what the Scottish Cup is all about. Or indeed football. Fans not only want teams from non or lower leagues as it's a good away day, they also want them because they have a great chance of progressing. If anyone who claims to be a fan says they want a big team away from home in the cup 'for the money' then they should immediately stop following football and stop pretending to be a fan. Also, as mentioned, recent draws have seen far too many teams from the same league drawn together. It seems to me that they don't really mix up the balls (snigger) enough before the draw is made. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
forameus Posted February 15, 2017 Share Posted February 15, 2017 I'd be up for that. Looking at the dates, the first round doesn't get played until 24th September, so shouldn't really need to give anyone a bye. Celtic might complain given that they could be in a group stage by then, but they should still have enough to get by whatever team they get drawn against. Let the preliminary rounds stay as they are, then everyone else in the country gets thrown in at the 1st round. Make someone really earn the trophy. At the moment it's, what, like 5 games to win it for the Premiership sides? It's be much more interesting if you had to play the 8 instead. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MEADOWXI Posted February 15, 2017 Share Posted February 15, 2017 Best thing about Juniors is the Scottish Junior Cup, it an all in tournament. About 160 Junior teams in country. First round is enough fixtures to get this number down to 128(this year 1st round was 31 ties and 97 byes - 159 teams). So lots of byes (The 4 or 5 teams in the senior cup are guaranteed byes that the only new exception to all in). Round two onwards is all in open draws, and every round will throw up a couple of clashes between the 20+ teams that would be rated as potential winners. All cups should be all in from the start. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GiGi Posted February 15, 2017 Share Posted February 15, 2017 We'd probably need to bin the challenge cup to fit in the extra games. Therefore I'm all for it. Everybody in from R1. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dudu Dahan pal Posted February 15, 2017 Share Posted February 15, 2017 Hibs win the Scottish cup and you all want to change the rules. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrewh Posted February 15, 2017 Share Posted February 15, 2017 I'm just glad to be able to legitimately post in a cup thread after going out to Thistle All in for round 1. Why not? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HibeeJibee Posted February 15, 2017 Share Posted February 15, 2017 Unfortunately the tournament has been going the opposite way, if anything - from this season the tournament proper has been restricted to SPFL, Highland and Lowland clubs and all other members and qualified were funnelled through 2 preliminary rounds with only 6 progressing into R1. Premiership clubs now start-out 5 rounds further in than qualifiers and some lowly members. I'd be much in favour of the top clubs starting in the Last 64 not the Last 32. In practice you suspect the big clubs would rather make it less open if they could get away with it - until 2007-08 some 22 of the Last 32 places were direct entries of clubs in the top 2 divisions, at least that's now 16. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gannonball Posted February 19, 2017 Share Posted February 19, 2017 I'd be all for it, in a few years time. We already changed the League cup and the challenge cup this year, with the challenge cup being tweaked again next year. Would rather let these changes settle out first before tweaking the main cup. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grazza Posted February 19, 2017 Share Posted February 19, 2017 Would like to see an open Scottish cup with juniors and all non league senior clubs included. For those without a license they would have to pay a levy of the gate fees after the opposition gets their share. Non licensed teams will all start from earliest round. Home team should host the games in each round., Albion Rovers for example should have had to play Celtic at their own ground even if only 1500 folk allowed in. In return the junior cup should invite non league senior clubs e.g. Highland, Lowland, EOS, SOS into their cup. Top 2 tiers should joiin at round of 64 stage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
itzdrk Posted February 22, 2017 Share Posted February 22, 2017 Not overly bothered about expanding it, but the current clubs involved all in at round 1, or go for the batshit mental reversing of the seedings and have the top clubs having to qualify. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AsimButtHitsASix Posted February 22, 2017 Share Posted February 22, 2017 Well I'm in work with nothing better to do for a coupla hours so let's do this...SeniorSPFL: 42 ClubsHighland League: 18 clubsLowland League: 16 clubsEast of Scotland: 11 clubsSouth of Scotland: 14 clubsNorth Caledonian: 8 clubsTotal: 109 clubs Would lead to a 7 round Scottish Cup. Adding in...JuniorsEast Region: 60 clubsNorth Region: 35 clubsWest Region: 64 clubsTotal: 159 clubsGrand Total: 268 clubs Would lead to a 9 round Scottish Cup Adding in...Saturday Amateur League: 706 clubs not listing all the leagues you can find them here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_in_Scotland#Amateur_footballGrand Total: 974 clubs Would lead to a 10 round Scottish Cup Adding in...Sunday Amateur League: 255 clubsGrand Total: 1,229 clubs That's an 11 round Scottish Cup Finally add...Summer Amateur Leagues: 105 clubsGrand Total: 1,334 clubs Is still an 11 round Scottish Cup. Although another option would be all senior and junior clubs plus the winners of each of the Amateur Leagues in Scotland (308 clubs) which would still give ye a 9 round Scottish Cup. 1st round could be held in September and then one round per month would still give ye a May final. Now presuming Stewart Regan takes my 9 round idea, with every Senior and Junior club and Amateur league winners (and, let's be honest, why wouldn't he?) there would still be a few issues to iron out such as crowd safety when Celtic are drawn away to Rothesay Brandanes. I also imagine there might be a few complaints somewhere about prize money being diluted and the travel costs for Berwick playing Lerwick Spurs with very little compensation in return even if they do win... but I think all of this will be cancelled out by the glory of seeing Dumfries YMCA reaching the quarter finals thanks to a very lucky draw. Also these are all going with an "all in" style cup where anyone can enter the first round. If ye wanted to be a boring b*****d and have prelim rounds or have the teams enter the competition staggered then there are countless other options but not only is that boring but it deprives me of my away trip to watch Morton play Portree Juniors. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Forever_blueco Posted February 22, 2017 Share Posted February 22, 2017 On 15 February 2017 at 10:08, afca32 said: Round 1 get everyone in. Senior, junior, amateur, Sunday league, welfare, church teams. Celtic against some Calvinist church in Lewis on a Sunday = scenes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
invergowrie arab Posted February 22, 2017 Share Posted February 22, 2017 It should be like national service with all men aged 16-40 not currently registered with a side are conscripted into teams. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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