The SPFL BetFred League Cup draw has been made for 2017-18.
It will form our opening four fixtures of the new season in the lead up to the opening of our record breaking fourth successive top flight league campaign.
The League Cup is in a group stage comprising 38 SPFL teams (the four clubs competing in UEL and UCL qualifiers do not take part till the 2nd round), plus the Highland League winners (Buckie Thistle) and Lowland League winners (East Kilbride FC). This gives eight groups of five teams taking place between Friday 14 July and Sunday 30 July (six games are live on BTSport, but none from our section). Each team plays two home and two away games and has one free fixture date.
We are drawn in Group G with East Kilbride FC (Lowland League side, not EK Thistle juniors), Stenhousemuir, Albion Rovers and Queen of the South. Amazingly, of the five teams in the group four of them play on artificial surface! The fixtures are:
Sat 15 July East Kilbride v Accies & Stenhousemuir v Queen of the South
Tue 18 July Albion Rovers v Stenhousemuir & Queen of the South v East Kilbride
Sat 22 July East Kilbride v Albion Rovers & Accies v Queen of the South
Tue 25 July Albion Rovers v Accies & Stenhousemuir v East Kilbride
Sat 29 July Accies v Stenhousemuir & Queen of the South v Albion Rovers
The group stage uses three points for a win and one for a draw – however all drawn matches go straight to penalties where the penalty shoot out winner gets an additional bonus point. The eight group winners and four best runners-up advance to round two, where Celtic, Aberdeen, Rangers & St Johnstone enter.
Round 2 – Tue 8 & Wed 9 August
Quarter Final – Tue 19, Wed 20 & Thur 21 September
Semi final – Sat 21 & Sun 22 October
Final Sun 26 November
