Scottish Cup, Round Five, Cappielow Park, 10/2/18.

So that’s us out of the cup then. Doesn’t look like it was a good day for us at all. We seem to be really toiling.

Six points behind 8^th place in the league now too almost certainly means we’ll be in the relegation play-offs. I can’t see us making up the gap especially with all the postponed games we need to catch up on.

Next up is the Challenge Cup sem-final against The New Saints in Oswestry on Saturday 17^th. Catch it live on S4C if you can’t get to the game. Kick-off is 7.35 I think.

It’ll be a change and new experience for the fans. A bit of pressure off for the players too, though arguably today was too. And they’ve got to go again in the league the Tuesday after.

I had some optimism about this game when the draw was made but that’s just about evaporated now what with recent results.

Still, you never know.

So it’s off to Oswestry, to play a Welsh team, in England, in a Scottish cup competition. The ways of the modern football world are bizarre.

We’ve drawn The New Saints away in the Challenge Cup*.

It’s a long way but I’ll need to keep the weekend of the 17^th and 18^th of February free, just in case.

*Irn Bru Cup.

Scottish Challenge Cup*, Fourth Round, The Rock, 11/11/17.

A historic moment. Certainly the first time we’ve won four games in this tournament in the one season and also the first time we’ve reached its semi-final.

This will be our first national cup semi-final since we lost to Hearts after a replay in nineteen hundred and long time ago.

Plus it’s our first ever international cup semi-final given that Irish and Welsh teams are now allowed in it.

Heady stuff. Congratulations to the lads and manager.

*I suppose I’ll have to mention the sponsors now. It’s officially the Irn Bru Cup.

Sons have been drawn to face Raith Rovers, on the second weekend in November, again at home – the fourth such tie this season.

Only our second ever quarter-final in this competition. The last one was so long ago I forget when it was and who it was against.

Scottish Challenge Cup*, Third Round, The Rock, 6/10/17.

An odd night statistically. I’m sure that’s the first time we’ve won three Challenge Cup ties in one season and it marks four home games in a row we’ve won 2-1 – and the away game in that sequence was lost by the same score. And we don’t usually beat Stranraer.

I must say Stranraer turned out for this in an ugly black strip with horrible luminous yellow flashings and socks.

We should have had this dead and buried after ten minutes. At least four great chances in that time. Mark Stewart charged down a defender’s forward pass and set up Calum Gallagher who didn’t shoot first time but instead dollied round another defender and his subsequent shot was saved by the keeper’s legs. Then a Chris McLaughlin cross gave Calum Gallagher a free header and he didn’t get anything like enough on it. The goal came after a fine driving run into the box from David Wilson to set up Craig Barr who still had a lot to do but did it superbly. A minute or so later Dimitris Froxylias hit a chance over the bar. Pretty much it for the half except for Scott Gallacher going off to be replaced by Jamie Ewings and us letting Stranraer have too much possession.

Second half followed the pattern of the latter part of the first but we always looked comfortable. Scott Agnew (formerly of this parish) pinged over a few great cross-fields balls with that left foot of his but was otherwise uninfluential.

The game was all but over when Tom Walsh skinned the full back yet again and put over a beautiful cross. Mark Stewart showed Calum Gallagher how it’s done.

Froxy did track back more than I’ve seen him but when on the ball occasionally tried too much. He was perhaps a bit too cute with a late shot which was deflected then cleared off the line.

They had a couple of moments from corners where the ball flashed across the box but were nowhere near clinical and only two shots, both long range, on target in all of normal time both of which Jamie Ewings dealt with easily. Three minutes stoppage time was announced and I thought we might actually get a clean sheet. But another poorly given away and defended corner led to them scoring with the second last touch of the game.

It’s the first time I’ve seen us win this season, since late January at Raith in fact.

I’m glad we’re not in the third tier. I thought Stranraer were brutal (football fan speak for not very entertaining.)

*Irn Bru Cup if you must.

The highly unusual occurence of a third round Challenge Cup tie has given us a home game against Stranraer on the first full weekend of October. This sees manager Stevie Aitken come up against his former assistant Stephen Farrell.

Stranraer have always been something of a bogey team for us – usually at their place but our home record against them is a bit iffy too.

aet 2-1.

Scottish Challenge Cup*, Round 2, The Rock, 2/9/17

What a novelty. When was the last time we won two Challenge Cup ties in a row?

Though it seems like it wasn’t a good performance – even if they parked the bus after they scored.

Still we managed to score a goal through David Wilson late on in the ninety minutes to take it to extra time.

And then new signing Dimitris Froxylias stepped up to bang in a free kick with what sounds like the last kick of the ball to spare us penalties.

I keep thinking of how Lord Charles would pronounce the last part of our Dimitris’s surname. (Below at 2.21 and 5.16 and 6.07 minutes in.)

What will Round 3 bring?

*OK, the Irn Bru Cup.

Scottish Challenge Cup*, The Rock, 16/8/17.

The good news is that we actually won a Challenge Cup game (and a first “proper” game this season.) The bad news is it was against a team that shouldn’t be in the competition in the first place.

I am of the opinion (shared with many fans of smaller clubs) that the inclusion of “Colts” teams in this cup is a stalking horse for introducing them to the league system, an innovation which would then destroy the SPFL lower leagues as a meaningful competition.

If the “big” clubs want their younger players to develop why not play them in the first team, or bring back their reserve league, or loan them out to other clubs as happens at the moment? I know in Spain, for example, “reserve” teams are allowed in the league at a lower level but in Scotland there is only the short-lived and quickly scrapped C Division in the late 1940s and early 1950s in which such participation was allowed. It is simply not part of our footballing culture and would only contribute to the further disregarding of the smaller clubs – whose interests are routinely not taken into account by the authorities, swayed as they are by the influence of the most supported clubs. In any case there is no way in which Scotland could ever in the future resemble Spain in footballing terms.

In the next round Sons have the unusual prospect of a game against a Welsh club, Connah’s Quay Nomads. I don’t know if we’ve ever played a Welsh club before, certainly not in a competitive match.

*Officially the Irn Bru Cup

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.