Well, it used to be the Challenge Cup. Now it’s sponsored by Irn Bru.

It’s a home tie, against Rangers Colts.

I’m not happy about Colts teams being involved in Senior competitions. I fear it is a stallking horse to get them into the league structure – as if the presence of the full sides did not distort Scottish football enough.

But this is as it is and I suppose we have to put up with it.

There is a potential here for a serious riddy to rank alongside the game of which we do not speak – especially given our utterly dire history in this competition: far and away the worst of any of its regular participants.

Once again our acquaintance with the Challenge Cup (now known as the Irn Bru Cup) has taken the briefest of forms.

Sometimes prediction is just so easy.

I see our Irn Bru Cup (once known as the Challenge Cup) fate has been settled.

Stanraer away.

Since no-one can remember the last time we beat Stranraer (and in recent encounters we’ve made a habit of going two goals up against them but still losing in the end) and our record in this competition is shocking in the extreme there’s no reason to expect we’ll be in the next round.

Way back in the dim mists of time the world was a simpler place and football did not dominate the calendar. World Cup finals were 16 teams large and the European Championship only had four qualifiers until it expanded to eight teams in 1980.

In Scotland the football season started on the second Saturday in August and finished on the last Saturday in April.

I thought it was pushing it when the season began edging into July to accommodate the Challenge Cup and altered League Cup format.

Today though is the 16^th of July. The schools have barely broken up for the summer. Yet the Sons have a first game of the official season at Station Park, Forfar, in yet another alteration to the League Cup. It barely seemed the old season had ended when pre-season games began.

The squad manager Stevie Aitken has collected seems a little thin. The League Cup looks on paper to be not too daunting but I have no idea how we will fare against the three lower division sides in our group. (I expect to be beaten by Dundee.)

The league is a different matter. Already it looks tough. We’ll be relying on another full-time side to be rubbish (as Livingston were last season) to avoid the relegation play-offs and even then we’d have to finish above Ayr United, by no means a given.

How long we can continue to defy gravity I don’t know. This may be the season we don’t.

I see from the club website that the Challenge Cup has been given a revamp so that it will now include more Scottish clubs from outwith the SPFL, top division under 20 sides and even clubs from Wales and Northern Ireland. The format looks like a right dog’s dinner.

I note that Tier 2 clubs won’t be joining till Round 3. It won’t make any difference to us. We always lose in it anyway. (I doubt being seeded will alter that at all.)

What concerns me most is the inclusion of the top division under 20s sides. This feels like the thin end of a wedge that will eventually see them allowed to play in the lower leagues. I know similar provision happens in Spain etc with reserve teams but the Scottish scene has unique characteristics that make me uncomfortable at the thought.

Edited to add. I just took in the fact that the draw will be regionalised. Fat chance of me getting to a a game then. (But maybe we’ll be in the North for that too.)

There have also been changes to the laws of the game. We’ll need to see how those work out.

aet 1-0. Scottish Challenge Cup, Hampden Park, 18/8/15.

Any triumphalism is now put firmly on hold.

Again we faced a lower league team packing the defence – Queen’s had six across the back at times* – again we failed to break them down.

OK, we did get a penalty right at the end of normal time but Garry Fleming blasted it over the bar.

I never at any time felt that we would lose a goal but then in the first half of extra time we did. Andy Graham dwelled too long on the ball near our penalty area and ended up losing it, leaving us undermanned at the back. The free attacker stroked the cross in.** After that we were a bit more open as we pushed up and there were a couple of close things. Our best efforts were a Willie Gibson free kick their goalie saved and a Garry Fleming effort with his right foot when his left might have been a better bet. He’s not really convincing as a centre forward.

Were the players perhaps not too bothered about this game? The league is probably more important. If so I hope they’re more focused when the Scottish Cup comes round. I wouldn’t like to see us exit that this way.

This was my first view of the revamped Hampden; a vast bowl of a stadium. A weird sight indeed with its serried ranks of empty seats. The attendance was apparently 587. I had meant to take my camera but left home in a bit of a rush and forgot it. Next time we play Queen’s? (I can’t see us being back at Hampden any other way.)

*Queen’s had a player with number 10 on his back playing at centre back. This is a defilement of the spirit of football. A no 10 shirt rightly belongs to a fantasista.

**Edited to add:- The linesman put up his flag for an attacker offside (who looked to be on the bye-line from where we were) in the run-up to Andy Graham losing the ball. For some reason the ref overruled the flag.

SPFL Tier 2, St Mirren Park, 15/8/15

Wow!

I’m struggling to remember when we last won our first two league games. In fact I can’t. And these two were against two of the teams expected to be in the promotion play-offs.

I wasn’t at the game as I was away down in England (hence the lateness of this posting) but it’s a cracking result.

Will we be able to keep it up?

Well, the next league game is a top of the table clash at home versus Queen of the South who just happen to have a 100% record at our new ground.

Plus there’s the small matter of a second round (be still my beating heart) Challenge Cup tie at Hampden against the other royally monickered Scottish team, Queen’s Park, tomorrow night.

Scottish League Cup, New Bayview, 1/8/15.

My first match watching the new look Sons….and we’re a work in progress. Not surprising considering that only two of last year’s squad started the game. Three finished it as one had come off but two later came on.

The match was preceded by an announcement to the owner of a Vauxhall Zafira to go back to the car – not an unusual thing to hear at a football ground but the following words were. I quote. “This is Methil and you’ve left your windows open.”

The first half was pretty uneventful. We had one close effort saved by their keeper, I think from Scott Taggart. Mark Brown didn’t have a save to make. We dominated the second half apart from a few breakaways on one of which they scored. The attacker was allowed too much room and Mark Brown had come too far off his line and was lobbed. They had the ball in the net a minute or so later but it was chalked off for a foul on the defender on the way through. For about two minutes East Fife threatened but then we got on top again.

The equaliser came from Kevin Cawley, neatly placed to head home after their keeper flapped at it a bit. We had a few more efforts on goal before the 90 minutes were up.

In extra time we carved them open several times but the ball just wouldn’t go in apart from one disallowed possibly for a foul on the keeper but who knows?

The statistics tell the story really.

So it was on to the lottery of penalty kicks. You have to say, 3-2 up with two kicks to one left we ought to have put it away. But we didn’t. Time to concentrate on the league, then. (The Challenge Cup can take care of itself. It usually does.)

No. It’s not an unwonted indulgence in excessive enthusiasm.

Just a second round Challenge Cup game. (That’s sufficiently rare in itself to be worth a celebration.)

Queen’s Park away on 18^th or 19^th August.

Scottish Challenge Cup,* Round 1, Cappielow Park, 25/7/2105.

And so it begins again. Only nine months to go.

But with an unusual result. I believe this is only our fifth win in this competition in its 25 year history. Two of those were in the same season.

Looking at the team sheet there were only two starters who were at the club last season. Life in part-time football.

While it’s a bit disturbing to have a three goal lead eaten into it’s still refreshing to kick-off a season with a win.

*It’s officially the Petrofac Training Cup but that’s just too much of a mouthful.