The Snag in Cup Competitions

Whilst Southport started their Lancashire Challenge Trophy campaign with a hard fought win over Daisy Hill earlier this week, it is not yet clear whether there will be any Liverpool Senior Cup games this season. With no fixtures as yet published by the Liverpool County FA and scheduled dates seemingly been and gone without comment it remains to be seen whether or not we will be taking part in both competitions.

Last season (2020/21), the FA had apparently asked County FAs to relax the requirement for teams to play in Senior County Cups and requested that clubs aren’t penalised if they don’t enter, with several County competitions cancelled as a result. The 2019/20 competitions failed to complete due to the early cancellation of the season, and therefore Southport’s last game in the competition was the 4-1 Quarter Final win at the end of January 2020, little over a month before the pandemic, and lockdowns, hit. 

With this latest development it does lead to discussions arising regarding the usefulness of the competitions in today’s football. As a breeding ground for younger players they do serve a purpose but as competitions for a full strength senior club, they often have more drawbacks than benefits.

It’s not a new problem however, and we can find plenty of evidence of their existence being called into question from a financial standpoint as we look back through our history. 

Here are a couple of articles from back in 1938.

 

Should the competition take place this season it will be a return to a competition that we first entered back in the 1880s. At the time is was dubbed the Liverpool Challenge Cup and has seen many name and format changes over the years. It is a competition in which we have an excellent track record and have some very fond memories

DJH