Scottish Junior Cup

Scottish Junior Cup
Founded 1886
Region  Scotland
(Scottish Junior Football Association)
Number of teams 161
Current champions Hurlford United
Most successful club(s) Auchinleck Talbot
(10 wins)
2014–15 Scottish Junior Cup

The Scottish Junior Cup, known as The Emirates Junior Cup for sponsorship reasons, is an annual football competition organised by the Scottish Junior Football Association for all its member clubs. The competition has been held every year since the inception of the SJFA in 1886 and, as of the 201112 season, 164 teams are registered to take part. The cup has an unseeded knockout format with semi-finals over two legs and the final played at a neutral venue, always that of an SPL or SFL club.

From the 200607 season, the winners of the Junior Cup Final will gain qualification to the First Round of the following seasons Scottish Cup for Senior football clubs.[1]

Hurlford United are the current holders, defeating Glenafton Athletic 30 on Sunday, 1st June 2014 at the Rugby Park, Kilmarnock.

Cup history

The Cup has been competed for since the 188687 season, when Fairfield Govan became the first winners of the competition. The SJFA purchased an exact replica in 2007, to replace the original which was showing its age.

The record attendance for a Junior Cup Final is 77,650 for the 1951 final between Petershill and Irvine Meadow XI.

In 2010, Linlithgow Rose lifted the Scottish Junior Cup for the 4th time in their history and 3rd in a decade. They now join a small group of teams that have managed to lift the cup more than 3 times.

Sponsorship

The cup's long-term sponsor, the OVD Demerara Rum company, who, as of 2006, had an eighteen-year-long association with the competition, withdrew their backing before the start of the 200607 competition. Unlike most other sponsored contests whose names change often, OVD had become so ingrained into the Scottish Junior Cup that it was often simply referred to as the "OVD Junior Cup". The Scottish Junior Football Association announced in 2006 that they would provide the sponsorship and prize money themselves, meaning the cup will be known simply as the Scottish Junior Cup. A new sponsor was found during the 200607 competition for the Semi-Finals and Final - Scottish Citylink, a long distance coach operator. The competition wss sponsored by Emirates Airline between 2009 and 2013.

Winners

External links

References

  1. Juniors make mark in Scottish Cup news.bbc.co.uk 29 September 2007