Scottish Cup

After playing a few seasons, I decided to have a look at the early rounds of the Scottish Cup to see any potential amateur teams coming through who may look at some giant killing.

I noticed that a few teams who should be in the first round were not actually in the draw, some to mention were Newton Stewart and Wigtown & Bladnoch, can anyone tell me why they aren't included in the draw, despite being guaranteed to be in the draw?

Don't some teams have to qualify in some way for the first round?

I take it he means some major non-league sides are guaranteed a place in the first round. I didn't know this. Hoss, can you list which ones? And which league clubs get byes to the second round - does it depend on previous season position of drawing lots?

I found this quote on Wiki....

Entry criteria

Previously clubs in the Third and Second Divisions qualified automatically for the first round, along with four non-league teams each from the Scottish Qualifying Cup (North) and (South) competitions. Clubs in the First Division and the Scottish Premier League had automatic byes to the third round. However, from the 2007–08 season a new criteria was introduced for entry into the Scottish Cup.[4] The Scottish Qualifying Cup competitions were scrapped and the 36 SFA member clubs outwith the SPL and SFL were given direct entry to the 1st Round of the cup. Additionally, the league winners of the East of Scotland and South of Scotland Leagues, both of which contain some clubs that are not full members of the SFA and hence could not previously enter the Scottish Cup, were given a place in the draw.

Clubs from Scottish Junior football (all but one of whom are not members of the SFA as they belong to the Scottish Junior FA) were admitted for the first time in the 2007–08 competition. Up to four Junior clubs are allowed to enter, these being the winners of the previous season's North Premier League, West Premier League and East Superleague, and the winner of the Scottish Junior Cup if they have not also won one of the three regional league titles.[5] The first three Junior clubs to qualify for the tournament were Culter, Pollok and Linlithgow Rose. During Season 2008–09, Junior sides Bathgate Thistle, Pollok, Banks o' Dee and Lochee United will compete in the tournament.

Brilliant slipknot. Not sure if that means Hoss is unaware of the new criteria, or that SI were unaware. My hunch is on the former.

It is the latter, because the teams he mentioned are teams who should automatically qualify. It was an issue last season, too. All senior teams should automatically qualify along with 4 junior teams who qualified. In the game it is just random high reputation non-league teams, whether senior or junior.

It shouldn't really need to be hard coded, either, as the the senior divisions are included in the database as seperate competitions with the teams in them with all the junior teams being in the "Lower Division" section.

Banks O' Dee, Fort William, Clachnacuddin, Burntisland Shipyard, Edinburgh City, Nairn County, Edinburgh University, Civil Service Strollers, Fraserburgh, Hawick Royal Albert, Glasgow University, Vale of Leithen, Golspie Sutherland, Threave Rovers, Huntly, Girvan, Inverurie Loco Works, Deveronvale, Newton Stewart, Brora Rangers, Spartans, Preston Athletic, Gala Fairydean, Rothes, Buckie Thistle, Selkirk, Coldstream, St. Cuthbert Wanderers, Wick Academy, Wigtown & Bladnoch, Forres Mechanics, Whitehill Welfare, Cove Rangers, Dalbeattie Star, Selkirk, and Keith...

The winner of the South of Scotland League, Highland League and East of Scotland League get a bye into the second round.

I know it doesn't affect much, but I like to see consistency!!

If the game is wrong and you have a link to an official source you'd be best of posting in the revelant thread within the Data Issues forum so it can be corrected for FM10.

If the game is wrong and you have a link to an official source you'd be best of posting in the revelant thread within the Data Issues forum so it can be corrected for FM10.

I did this in the Scottish Bug forum when the game was released.

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php?t=54600

My initial observation there was:

I think this is a bug relating to the set-up of the game's database as it is not solely relating to data.

Bug: Scottish Cup non-league entrants (which in reality are pretty much set in stone) are incorrect.

What happens in FM09: For the 1st Round, the game appears to select 4 random hi rep 'Scottish Junior Leagues' teams (which is basically correct) plus a further random 32 teams from the North Caledonian, Highland, South of Scotland and the two East of Scotland divisions. 4 more from those leagues will join in the 2nd Round. In total, 40 non-league sides enter the cup (which is correct).

In reality these 36 from those four/five divisions do not really vary from year to year as entry is limited to certain teams. With Annan joining the SFL, it is now actually only 35 automatic entries though occasionally a non-automatic entry will enter as a league winner (Crichton this year). If that doesn't happen again next season then the Scottish Cup will have a 1st round bye for one club. It's probably simpler to code the bye or program a wildcard from those leagues.

The following teams enter every year and will do from now til kingdom come unless they go bust:

4 teams from the Scottish Junior Leagues plus...

The North Caledonian League (1/10):

Golspie Sutherland (no other club from that league will ever enter)

South of Scotland (4/14):

St Cuthbert Wanderers

Wigtown & Bladnoch

Threave Rovers

Newton Stewart

East of Scotland Premier (8/12):

Whitehill Welfare

Edinburgh University

Spartans

Edinburgh City

Preston Athletic

Dalbeattie Star

Coldstream

Selkirk

East of Scotland 1st Division (4/12):

Civil Service Strollers

Gala Fairydean

Vale of Leithen

Hawick Royal Albert

Highland League (15/15):

Cove Rangers

Keith

Deveronvale

Buckie Thistle

Fraserburgh

Inverurie Locos

Huntly

Forres Mechanics

Nairn County

Clachnacuddin

Wick Academy

Rothes

Lossiemouth

Brora Rangers

Fort William

Other automatic entrants (3):

Burntisland Shipyard

Glasgow University

Girvan

The only way I can suggest to ensure this works is to ONLY have the above teams in the respective leagues and in the case of the 'others', add them. I tried removing all the other teams from those leagues, setting them to 'lower division' but that did not work and Scotland as a league wouldn't load up.

But then I stumbled onto a solution.

Basically having studied it closely, the game for season one picks as follows for the non-league entrants:

1st Round

The 4 highest rep 'Scottish Junior Leagues' clubs

The 12 lowest rep Highland League clubs

11 highest rep East of Scotland Premier clubs

The highest rep East of Scotland 1st Division club

6 high rep South of Scotland clubs

2 highest rep North Caledonian League clubs

2nd Round

3 highest rep Highland clubs

Highest rep South club

Now, as my original post said, this means that clubs who will not enter the cup do so as there are teams with a high reputation in the db such as say Lothian Thistle who don't ever enter as they're barred from doing so.

The way around the above errors is to:

make a number of Highland clubs (Locos, Cove, Keith, Deveronvale and Buckie I'd suggest) have a similar rep (say 1700) to randomise the 3 byes (it should only be two but hey, who cares about Scottish football, right?)

All the other HFL sides will be picked up for the draw.

Only Golspie should qualify from the North Caley, so to get around the 2nd team being picked in error, take out one and add Burntisland Shipyard, automatic qualifiers from fife amateur football. Set them to have clearly the highest or 2nd highest rep in the league. The clubs selected from the NCL will now both be correct as cup entrants.

The East of Scotland is a bit of a mess, Scottish Cup wise. As the game in the 1st season selects 11 designated as East of Scotland Premier and 1 from the 1st Division, I's suggest making the 12 entrants the highest rep clubs in the set-up, and putting 11 of them in the top division (which has 12 in the db), with a very weak non-entrant making up the numbers or remove the last side altogether, shouldn't impact at all. Set a clearly highest rep side as the 1st division entrant.

For the South, the games picks up more sides than it should, so put Girvan and Glasgow University in there with high reputations to ensure they're picked up. Either take out the non-entrants like Nithsdale or set them with a very low rep.

Summarising:

Highland: 3 teams with highest rep selected for 2nd round, the rest in 1st round

EOS: Need to ensure that 11 of the 12 entrants are in top division with highest reps, and the 12th entrant must be in EOS div 1 with highest rep.

SOS: Highest rep team gets 1st round bye, game will add 6 additional high rep teams when it should only be 4 so add in the omitted Girvan and Glasgow University with high reps.

NCL: Put in Burntisland with a clearly high rep so they and Golspie are selected.

Juniors: 4 highest rep teams picked

Hoss, did you try my fix?