Irn-Bru Cup


HOODLUM65
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I note the S.F.A. are in talks to invite 2 teams from England , likely to be Boreham Wood and Sutton United to compete in this competition .

Last season Saints u20's entered the comp. but were knocked out at the 1st round.

With the demise of the u20's and Saints unlikely to run a reserve team , will the u18's be allowed to compete?

Edited by HOODLUM65
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On 6/6/2018 at 8:11 AM, TheMarkChristie said:

I think it would be very counter productive to have 16/17 year olds playing against other clubs first teams 

Really? Why do you think that? 

We played a 16 year old last season, Hearts had a 16 year old playing a good chunk of the season.

Saints and players such as Jason Kerr have stated that loans are the best moves for youngsters to play against other clubs first teams.

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2 hours ago, garydavidson said:

Saints and players such as Jason Kerr have stated that loans are the best moves for youngsters to play against other clubs first teams.

Isn't that because they play alongside old pros and learn from them rather than 11 of them being booted around the park by aging part-timers? 

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7 hours ago, garydavidson said:

Really? Why do you think that? 

We played a 16 year old last season, Hearts had a 16 year old playing a good chunk of the season.

Saints and players such as Jason Kerr have stated that loans are the best moves for youngsters to play against other clubs first teams.

It's different having one player surrounded by more experienced teammates who can talk them through the majority of the  game. Having a full team at that age getting knocked about could knock confidence more than anything (realistically it would only be one game)

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17 hours ago, Shibbydoo said:

Isn't that because they play alongside old pros and learn from them rather than 11 of them being booted around the park by aging part-timers? 

So if they are on their team they are old pros but yet all opposition are aging part-timers? 

They would learn from playing against as well as with old pros/aging part timers. It is only going to be a max of two games anyway.

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On 05/06/2018 at 11:54 PM, HOODLUM65 said:

I note the S.F.A. are in talks to invite 2 teams from England , likely to be Boreham Wood and Sutton United to compete in this competition .

Last season Saints u20's entered the comp. but were knocked out at the 1st round.

With the demise of the u20's and Saints unlikely to run a reserve team , will the u18's be allowed to compete?

It's been confirmed that the two English teams above will compete for the first time in the Irn-bru/Challenge cup.

Premiership U20's sides, 'colt teams' will compete against Championship, league 1 & 2 sides in addition to Welsh, N.Ireland and Eire club's.

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Would be interesting to see the matchup between a saints u20/u18 team or a league 2 side vs the 2 English teams. The general view down south is that our top flight/championship is about that level, so for those contests alone, could be valuable.

Of course, say Sutton United hump Dundee United, while funny for us, sort of devalues Scottish football. 

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19 minutes ago, TheYellowBox said:

Would be interesting to see the matchup between a saints u20/u18 team or a league 2 side vs the 2 English teams. The general view down south is that our top flight/championship is about that level, so for those contests alone, could be valuable.

Of course, say Sutton United hump Dundee United, while funny for us, sort of devalues Scottish football. 

Have never heard our level being compared to the English 5th tier.

God help any team facing Boring Wood and their horrendous time wasting tactics, had the misfortune to see them 3 or 4 times last season and I would rather watch non drying paint dry.

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1 hour ago, Tranmere Saintee said:

Have never heard our level being compared to the English 5th tier.

God help any team facing Boring Wood and their horrendous time wasting tactics, had the misfortune to see them 3 or 4 times last season and I would rather watch non drying paint dry.

Any time you get an article on Scottish football on the bbc website that has a comments section, you get English fans comparing our leagues to either lower English leagues or non league. Obviously folk who know sod all about Scottish football as always referred to as SPL.

Genuine question, but at what level vs Scottish football are both likely to be? Always of the view that there are some massive clubs lurking around those leagues so always difficult to gauge standard going by players or crowds etc. Seen a few EFL League 2 games and the standard wasn’t great.

 

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1 hour ago, blueheaven said:

From what I've watched of English non-league football, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see that happen.

Which sort of begs the question, why invite non league English clubs who are as good or better than our 2nd tier clubs when we are trying to big up our leagues? We don’t need to be highlighting to potential sponsors or tv companies that our clubs are at the level of English non league, whether that’s the case or not. Most folk outside Scotland already think it is tinpot.

All that aside, I actually think it is a good idea. Would much rather if we were in the championship an away day in London than Coatbridge. However, it will go one of two ways. Either the Scottish teams will be constantly better than the non league sides and the English teams will get bored of long trecks for games they loose. Or they will beat the sides easily and soon loose interest. Of course, the sponsors and Doncaster will be hoping for something in between.

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The SFA have for generations been punting the idea of all -Britain cup competitions - the Anglo-Scottish Cup, the Texaco Cup, the British Champions game that lasted about 2 years etc. There’s now a huge gulf in quality between the SFFPLPL and the EPL, which means they have had to go down to The 87th English tier to find opposition that won’t mercilessly hump our teams. Personally I think it’s harmless and good fun. It’s these quirky sidelines you tend to remember years later, rather than that time Saints battled with Hamilton Accademicals for ninth equal place in the league - again.

Edited by Abernethy Saint
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15 hours ago, TheYellowBox said:

Which sort of begs the question, why invite non league English clubs who are as good or better than our 2nd tier clubs when we are trying to big up our leagues? We don’t need to be highlighting to potential sponsors or tv companies that our clubs are at the level of English non league, whether that’s the case or not. Most folk outside Scotland already think it is tinpot.

All that aside, I actually think it is a good idea. Would much rather if we were in the championship an away day in London than Coatbridge. However, it will go one of two ways. Either the Scottish teams will be constantly better than the non league sides and the English teams will get bored of long trecks for games they loose. Or they will beat the sides easily and soon loose interest. Of course, the sponsors and Doncaster will be hoping for something in between.

Pretty much agree with all of that but I think it's the "something in between" that we'll get. I think the English teams will get some good results but I wouldn't expect them to walk over everyone else every year. We may even find that due to travel distances and fixture congestion these English teams might not play their strongest teams in the competition.

Personally I like the overall concept as most of the teams in the tournament will never get to experience playing in Europe and this gives them the next best thing: a chance to play competitive matches against teams they'd never normally encounter. It'll mean some great days out for fans too.

I remember hearing yonks ago that when Coca-Cola sponsored the League Cups in both England and Scotland they wanted to do a final play-off between the winners of the two competitions but scrapped it because Raith Rovers won our final. No idea if that's true or just urban myth.

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