Scottish Cup 2020/21
[Monday, 02 November 2020 13:39]
After this past weekend’s semi-final ties, Celtic and Heart of Midlothian will contest the final of the 2019/20 Scottish Cup at the National Stadium on Sunday, December 20th.
By that time the first two rounds of this season’s tournament will have taken place, with a third in the pipeline for the end of that particular week.
Full details of how a revised cup format will work for this strange season we are enduring were released by the SFA at the end of last week and amongst a few changes, the major one to no one’s surprise in the current climate is the fact that there will be no time for replays with all ties to be played to a finish on the day.
An attempt to play off any postponed tie will also have to be made the following midweek.
In this truncated season, remarkably the first four rounds of the cup will be played within six weeks.
The tournament is due to get underway on Saturday, November 28th with at present eight ties scheduled for a first preliminary round potentially involving a mix of clubs from tier six and seven of the pyramid.
This will lead on two weeks later on December 12th to a mammoth 26 ties being played in a second preliminary round, the vast majority of the Highland League and Lowland League clubs due to enter at this stage.
Of course at present, although the Lowland League is well underway, the Highland League is not due to commence until later this month and that has still to be ratified.
Boxing Day will see 20 games played in the first round proper with the SPFL League 2 clubs entering at this stage. This could mean hypothetically it has to be said at this stage aside from the West of Scotland or beyond having a December 26th jaunt to Wick or Brora or of course vice versa.
Move on two weeks to January 9th and this season all twenty clubs in the SPFL Championship and League 1 will enter at the second round stage to join the twenty successful clubs from round two in the ‘hat.’
By January 30th, the date for the third round, the competition returns to almost normality with sixteen ties scheduled, the twelve Premiership clubs entering the fray at this juncture.
The competition will continue to move on at pace from that point, Covid permitting with the semi-finals scheduled for the weekend of 10th/11th April, the final four weeks later on Saturday, May 8th.
