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We need to talk about the Renfrewshire Cup


TRVMP

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I just found out it's the fifth-oldest annual tournament that has never formally ended. The others are the FA Cup, the Scottish Cup, the East of Scotland Shield (formerly Edinburgh Shield), and the Sheffield & Hallamshire Senior Cup.

It's been running since 1879. It is a dreadful shame to let it fall into abeyance for no good reason. I'd like to see Morton take the lead in reviving it, even if the SPFL sides who take part do so using youth teams.

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5 hours ago, TRVMP said:

I just found out it's the fifth-oldest annual tournament that has never formally ended. The others are the FA Cup, the Scottish Cup, the East of Scotland Shield (formerly Edinburgh Shield), and the Sheffield & Hallamshire Senior Cup.

It's been running since 1879. It is a dreadful shame to let it fall into abeyance for no good reason. I'd like to see Morton take the lead in reviving it, even if the SPFL sides who take part do so using youth teams.

Did Imrie not say in one of his interviews or podcasts that they were bringing it back this summer? It definitely rings a bell but watched too many interviews with him to pick out where and when he said it. 

Good people will do good things, bad people will do bad things, but only with religion do good people do bad things!

 

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I understood the reasons why they didn't bother when we were in the same league but it would be a good chance for some of the younger lads to show what they've got in front of a bigger than normal crowd. Even if it's a "glorified friendly".

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I've been looking a bit more into this. The last version of the Scottish Football Almanac that I have is 2016-17. In that year the following were played:

East of Scotland Shield
Fife Cup
Glasgow Cup (as a U-17 competition)

One fixture of the previous season's Forfarshire Cup was played in summer 2016, a 5-0 win for Dundee United at Brechin; no other fixtures for either that previous or contemporary season were played.

The Renfrewshire Cup and Stirlingshire Cup were in abeyance, and the Ayrshire Cup and Lanarkshire Cups were completely discontinued.

It's time to bring it back.

The Renny's structure, as I'm sure we all remember, pitted the two finalists from the Renfrewshire Victoria Cup - an amateur competition - against Morton and St. Mirren, for a spot in the final. As far as I can see from the excellent Scottish Football Historical Archive (http://sfha.org.uk/renfrewshirecup.htm), it has been this way since 1928-29, the last time three rounds were played.

Back in the early 1920s there were four rounds and of course back in ye even older days there were several clubs involved - 18 in the 1883-84 season and even more before that, peaking at around thirty.

I'm not sure if the Renfrewshire FA really exists anymore. If the Renfrewshire Victoria Cup is still contested, I'm not sure who administers it.

Because of the Junior split the Cup was in this weird case of containing a bunch of Sunday League/amateur teams and two SFL (SPL, SPFL) clubs. Now that the West Juniors are now under the senior umbrella, it's not clear to me who would technically fall under the "Renfrewshire FA", such as it is. (This is even more complex now that the SFA regional setup includes both Renfrewshire and East Renfrewshire.)

But leaving all practical considerations and common sense aside, it would be a corker to have a tournament like this:

Two Amateur sides enter after winning whatever Cup they have (if the Renfrewshire Victoria Cup is still contested); if not, maybe the two highest-placing teams from the relevant Amateur leagues. (Some are in Greater Glasgow, others are in Paisley & District, others are in in the SAFL... and it just occurred to me that Inverclyde is one of the very few places that still has an active Welfare league. Or at least it did prior to Covid. So maybe they can be involved too?) That would be the preliminary round: amateurs and welfare.

Then the first round would be anyone Tier 5-8 (LL and WOSFL) and they'd do battle until there's just two teams left, at which time Morton and St. Mirren join for the semis.

Actually the more I type this out this is a crazy idea because it would take months and most teams wouldn't be interested. Just let us play Arthurlie and St. Mirren can play Port Juniors or something, then we'll bring Cham back for the final.

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Last I heard of Cham was a year or so after he left us when he signed for tiny a semi-professional team from somewhere on the coast (maybe De Panne, can't even remember), who had somehow found themselves in the 2nd tier for that season. Despite being the whipping boys of the league he didn't register one appearance, never mind a goal. Don't know if it was because he was injured or just shite, but I suspect the latter. No idea what happened to him after that, but he either chucked it or went down to amateur level.

Still, he has the Renfrewshire Cup medal and the boast of a goal in the final to impress the ladies with, and he'll never have to buy a pint in the Norseman ever again.

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Haha, amazingly, he has a Wiki page. The team in question were KVV Coxyde and their one season in the 2nd tier was 2015-16. They fell into obscurity and no longer exist, having merged will fellow wee diddy outfit K.V.V. Oostduinkerke in 2020 to form K.V.V. Koksijde-Oostduinkerke. Kabba himself was playing for Royal Cappellen as recently as 2020, who are in the 2nd amateur division, which is the 4th tier. He's no longer listed as a player on their website, no idea who he plays for now, if anyone.

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I was over visiting when he played and was sat behind the goal when he scored that long range effort. He couldn't have hit it sweeter if he tried. 

He was plodding and rubbish otherwise. Still, two league goals is a better return than some other forwards have managed here. 

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Thought the big man ran St Mirren ragged that day and after his 2 goals I was straight to the bookies, convinced he was going to fire us to the title. That worked out well.

Motherwell will still think he was a player after his 3 goals in 2 friendlies against them.

These boys will also have fond memories of the Renfrewshire Cup. They were parading with the flags and the weans as if they had just won the Scottish Cup.

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9 hours ago, TRVMP said:

I was over visiting when he played and was sat behind the goal when he scored that long range effort. He couldn't have hit it sweeter if he tried. 

He was plodding and rubbish otherwise. Still, two league goals is a better return than some other forwards have managed here. 

You not getting mixed up with Reece Hands??

Cham scored a couple that day but weren't long range efforts.

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I actually thought Peciar was a solid centre half. However, I often think about how the standard in these divisions have improved drastically in recent years. 

We are also massively missing out that our current gaffer had the whole of Paisley on strings in the famous 4-2 result. Dougie was disgustingly good that day.

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1 hour ago, ChampTon said:

I actually thought Peciar was a solid centre half. However, I often think about how the standard in these divisions have improved drastically in recent years. 

We are also massively missing out that our current gaffer had the whole of Paisley on strings in the famous 4-2 result. Dougie was disgustingly good that day.

Going to be a hard disagree there.

 

Peter Weatherson is the greatest player since Ritchie, and should be assigned 'chairman for life' 


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3 hours ago, GiGi said:

Going to be a hard disagree there.

I think the standard of player we are able to attract is superior to say the early 2010s. May have some fond memories of select players. Tidser, Bachirou, Hardie, Peaso etc but a lot of them were also rather guff. 

Again you could say that about every squad we've built in the last 20 years. I think we were one cultured midfielders such as a Michael Tidser off a play off spot this season (under Imrie). It was absolutely within grasp.

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29 minutes ago, ChampTon said:

I think the standard of player we are able to attract is superior to say the early 2010s. May have some fond memories of select players. Tidser, Bachirou, Hardie, Peaso etc but a lot of them were also rather guff. 

Again you could say that about every squad we've built in the last 20 years. I think we were one cultured midfielders such as a Michael Tidser off a play off spot this season (under Imrie). It was absolutely within grasp.

I think you've argued quite successfully against yourself there, tbh. Admittedly our budgets have dropped etc, but nonetheless the likes of Pease and Hardie were simply echelons above Blues, Oliver et al. 


Edit: On a broader note, I just can't see a play-off spot in itself necessarily being a mark of achievement. If you get promoted through it then yeah, sure, that's great but if you finish 4th out of 10 it marks you out as being a decidedly average side. If a team is genuinely serious about aiming for promotion as opposed to somehow scraping their way there, then it surely has to be setting its sights on being amongst the best couple of teams in the league over 36 games. The chances of getting through the play-offs if you just about scrape into 4th place are surely very slim indeed. 4th place might give you an outside chance but it's not a huge amount to shout about in the context of a 36 game season between 10 teams.

AWMSC

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6 hours ago, Madton said:

You not getting mixed up with Reece Hands??

Cham scored a couple that day but weren't long range efforts.

Aye, I must be getting mixed up. I do remember Cham's fist-pump celebration but that was right next to the goal, so it couldn't have been for the long range effort. 

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