THE Scottish Cup used to consist of six first-round ties and eight at
the next stage before the survivors made the draw with the big guns.
With the Scottish League now consisting of 40 clubs, the division of
ties is now an untidy four in the first round and 12 in the second.
The SFA's ambivalent attitude to seeding protects the league's top-20
clubs but penalises the bottom half. Second division Dumbarton went out
in the first round to Stirling Albion, who visit Brechin today in the
second round, while Queen of the South and Clyde are two other Division
2 sides who meet head to head.
The eight non-league teams were fortunate to receive first-round byes,
and four of them are in direct conflict today.
Keith or Huntley will continue to represent the Highlands after their
meeting today, while Burntisland Shipyard will be expected to advance at
the expense of St Cuthbert Wanderers, who lost 11 goals to Ross County
last year.
Ian Thain, the Keith keeper, will be making his 208th consecutive
appearance in the derby clash -- it will be five years and a day since
he last missed a Keith game.
Ross County should be unchanged for their visit to Alloa, who are hit
by suspensions, injuries, and 'flu.
These clubs know each other well having met twice already in the cup
in recent years before becoming third division rivals this term.
Stirling include keeper Mike Monaghan for the visit to Brechin. He
steps in for Mark McGeown, who was injured in Albion's abandoned game at
Broadwood earlier this week.
Stenhousemuir wait for John McNiven for the home game against
Arbroath, while East Fife should be unchanged for their home tie against
Gala Fairydean whose midfielder, Craig Sinclair, may be the player to
watch.
Berwick Rangers' Mark Wilson is injured and Martin Neil suspended for
the visit to Buckie, while Cowdenbeath have Craig Winter back after
suspension for their visit to Cove Rangers.
Queen of the South's Steve Ramsay and Steve Mallon are suspended and
so miss the visit of Clyde who add Martin Clark and Keith Knox to their
squad.
Forfar should be unchanged at home to Meadowbank who add Ian Little
and Mark Thomson. A shock would seem most likely at Rosewell,
Midlothian, the home of cup giant killers Whitehill Welfare.
Their visitors are Montrose, who are off form at present and also will
have to do without the suspended Mark Garden and Derek Grant.
* RAPID Bucharest have joined Napoli in asking UEFA to check a claim
that Eintracht Frankfurt have broken the ''three foreigner'' rule.
The Romanians were beaten 6-2 on aggragate in the second round of the
UEFA Cup by the Germans, who went on to beat Napoli 2-0 on aggregate in
the next round.
But Napoli have protested that Eintracht fielded more than the
permitted three foreigners, claiming that Slobodan Komljenovic had lost
his assimilated status by playing for Yugoslavia.
And now Rapid have joined in the row regarding Komljenovic.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article