HibeeJibee

Tynecastle 2-2 Musselburgh (aet, FT 2-2, 1-4p) Hawick 1-4 Whitehill Arniston 1-2 LTHV (aet, FT 1-1) Burntisland 3-1 Dalkeith Easthouses 1-3 Ormiston Oakley 4-1 Inverkeithing Peebles 0-3 Linlithgow Tweedmouth 0-3 Leith Coldstream 1-6 Broxburn Glenrothes 0-2 St Andrews Haddington 0-1 Craigroyston (aet) Jeanfield 4-2 Crossgates Penicuik 3-1 Bo'ness (aet, FT 1-1) Sauchie 2-1 Blackburn Tuesday 10th March Dundonald v LTHV Heriot-Watt Uni v Linlithgow Preston v Leith Wednesday 11th March Dunipace v Kinnoull Saturday 4th April Oakley v Dunbar Wednesday 8th April Camelon v Tranent Date tbd Burntisland v Stirling Uni EOS Ormiston v Hill of Beath Some surprises today - most notably Craigroyston winning at Haddington. R3 teams: Broxburn Burntisland/Stirling Uni EOS Camelon/Tranent Craigroyston Dundonald/LTHV Dunipace/Kinnoull Heriot-Watt Uni/Linlithgow Jeanfield Musselburgh Oakley/Dunbar Ormiston/Hill of Beath Penicuik Preston/Leith St Andrews Sauchie Whitehill

BSCG 1-1 Kelty (aet, FT 1-1) Caledonian Braves 0-1 Dunipace East Kilbride 5-0 Camelon Hill of Beath 5-1 Tranent So your Semi-Finalists are BSC Glasgow, East Kilbride, Hill of Beath Hawthorn and Dunipace... latter who undoubtedly claim 'shock-of-the-day'.

BSCG 1-1 Kelty in cup-tie tonight.

Hawick v Whitehill... kickoff at Hawick Linden RFC delayed to 8:30pm - serious injury during the preceding rugby game. Could be 11pm finish if ET+penalties. From memory this must be the latest kickoff at this level since Wednesday 10th April 2013... by chance another EOS League Cup tie - namely Edinburgh City v Gretna 2008. On that occasion Gretna's bus broke down at West Linton and they'd to be brought on in a fleet of taxicabs. Match was hastily reclassified as an outstanding league game, due to a curfew on Meadowbank's lights, and (IIRC) got underway around 8:30pm. Off-field action proved as unusual...

Apparently the clubs who won the old North and South Qualifying cups each year used to be given a replica, to keep... and the North and South Challenge cups are copies of the replicas, if that makes sense. Certainly that's what I read somewhere regarding the North Challenge Cup, and presumably it would be the same with the South. Qualifying cups themself are retired and held by the Scottish Football Museum.

Whitehill were without a game on March 21st as their game with Sauchie had been played earlier in the season. Jeanfield v Dunbar has effectively been 'split' and replaced with Jeanfield v Whitehill and Sauchie v Dunbar. Whitehill couldn't have played Linlithgow/Bo'ness/Penicuik that weekend - they're all down for Groundhop games, at Newtongrange and Newton Park.

You're correct - I did much the same myself a while ago - Northern Ireland, Wales and Hungary having qualified recently we've the longest "duck" unless counting Israel's pre-UEFA years. Finland having qualified there's barely anyone who has never made a finals tournament either... basically the micro-states, Cyprus, Malta, Luxembourg, plus a few of ex-Yugoslav and ex-Soviet.

Not top division. We could show Scottish Championship.

Unclear how. They're already hoping Inter don't reach both Coppa Italia Final and/or EL SFs, in order to find a date v Sampdoria. In theory they could play Fri-Mon immediately after international break. Currently schedule looks like this... with Atalanta-Sassuolo and Inter Milan-Sampdoria still undated: midweek Coppa Italia SF 2nd legs (Juventus-AC Milan, Napoli-Inter Milan) Mar 8th Serie A #27 midweek European games (Atalanta, Inter Milan, AS Roma) + 2x Serie A #25 games postponed from Feb 22nd ... Verona-Cagliari, Torino-Parma Mar 15th Serie A #28 midweek European games (Juventus, Napoli, Inter Milan, AS Roma) + presumably Atalanta-Sassuolo will be rescheduled here? Mar 22nd Serie A #29 midweek international break Mar 29th international break England v Italy midweek international break Germany v Italy Apr 5th Serie A #30 midweek European games (QFs) Apr 11th Serie A #31 midweek European games (QFs) Apr 19th Serie A #32 midweek Serie A #33 Apr 26th Serie A #34 midweek European games (SFs) May 3rd Serie A #35 midweek European games (SFs) May 10th Serie A #36 midweek 5x Serie A #26 games postponed from Mar 1st ... Juventus-Inter Milan, Udinese-Fiorentina, AC Milan-Genoa, Parma-SPAL, Sassuolo-Brescia May 17th Serie A #37 midweek Coppa Italia Final (delayed from previous midweek) + other option for Atalanta-Sassuolo? May 24th Serie A #38 midweek EL Final + Italy v San Marino May 31st CL Final midweek Italy v Czech Rep

Aye but isn't EPFL's decision/directive/advice a result of their negotiations with UEFA?

Absolutely: back-in-the-day there were about a dozen European midweeks. Nowadays there are about 15 plus the qualifiers in July-August, and while the number of internationals hasn't gone up much they're in double-headers with rest midweeks. Hence why EPL's gone from 42 games to 38... League Cup R1 & R2 2nd-legs and replays scrapped... no FA Cup 2nd replays... etc.

Tbf from the 1970s onward it was fairly uncommon for domestic competitions to be pre-scheduled for European or international midweeks - I've got old some old Playfair annuals, and it's evident from looking at the fixturelists and calendars. Obviously it was not a wise idea anyway, as you might have had clubs involved in European games, or players away on international duty. It would generally have been limited to lower league matchdays, Scottish Cup replays, early ties in the League Cup, Glasgow Cup, and so on. So in this respect not much has altered. Last month I posted the English schedule for 1991-92 in the FA Cup thread. Leave aside Full Members Cup and the only clashes were League Cup SF 2nd leg, plus FA Cup QF/SF replays: You can still use European midweeks to rearrange postponed games (e.g. off for a waterlogged park), cancelled games (e.g. displaced by League Cup SFs or Final), Scottish Cup replays, etc. etc. What has altered is that you can't televise those rearranged domestic games. Unless you get special permission - or pay whopping penalty charge. UEFA's effort to enhance its TV deals.

Assuming that Dalbeattie v Berwick postponed today is rescheduled to the mutually free Saturday 4th April then these are the run-ins of the contenders as they now stand with 5/6/7 left: Gretna 2008 Mar 07 Mar 14 Spartans (H) Mar 21 East Stirlingshire (H) Mar 28 East Kilbride (H) Apr 04 Vale of Leithen (A) Apr 11 Bonnyrigg (A) Apr 18 BSCG (H) Edinburgh University Mar 07 Mar 14 Kelty (H) Mar 21 BSCG (A) Mar 28 Apr 04 BSCG (H)* Apr 11 Dalbeattie (H) Apr 18 Gala (A) Dalbeattie Star Mar 07 Vale of Leithen (A) Mar 14 BSCG (H) Mar 21 Gala (A) Mar 28 Caledonian Braves (H) Apr 04 Berwick (H) Apr 11 Edinburgh Uni (A) Apr 18 Civil Service (H) Vale of Leithen Mar 07 Dalbeattie (H) Mar 14 Berwick (H) Mar 21 East Kilbride (A) Mar 28 BSCG (H) Apr 04 Gretna (H) Apr 11 Civil Service (A) Apr 18 Stirling Uni (H) Still hard to judge anything at this point... Vale are obviously a bit adrift, but have 2 games-in-hand on Edinburgh Uni and 1 on Gretna, plus host both Dalbeattie and Gretna in Innerleithen. Gretna are sitting highest but have hard games bar a visit to Innerleithen... Edinburgh Uni not dissimilar... Dalbeattie have the consolation of a couple of head-to-heads, Gala and Berwick.

LTHV 5-0 Preston Cup a bit lopsided at the moment with 3 sides into QFs and 1 tie in R1 outstanding: Third Round Dunipace Leith LTHV Second Round Inverkeithing v Tynecastle Ormiston v Glenrothes St Andrews v Haddington Stirling Uni EOS v Kinnoull Tweedmouth v Hawick/Oakley First Round Hawick v Oakley

Bad result for Leith which will given renewed optimism to both LTHV and Dunipace. Kinnoull meanwhile must play half a season's worth of league games in ~11 weeks, and may be facing 3pts deduction, as was earlier applied to Arniston (ironically enough) and Sauchie. They've still considerable headroom but pressure of games and disciplinary process could reduce it.