County Cups

[DanHayes]

I thought a club just had to be a member of their county FA to enter the FA cup

This has had me down a rabbit hole....

FA Cup Eligibility Criteria:

5a
Participation in the Competition shall be open to the first team only from Clubs competing in:
(i) The Premier League
(ii) The English Football League;
(iii) Steps 1-5 of The FA National League System; and
(iv) Step 6 of The FA National League System subject to availability (as determined by the Professional Game Board in its absolute discretion) and the relevant Club conforming to the requirements of Competition Rule 13.

5c
A Club not participating in The Premier League or English Football League Competitions must be competing in either The FA Challenge Trophy or The FA Challenge Vase Competitions in the current season as well as competing in a League for the current season which is considered to be acceptable for entry into the Challenge Cup Competition as per Rule 5(a), in order to be eligible for participation in the Competition.


And in terms of its organisation...
4
a) There shall be a Qualifying Competition and a Competition Proper.
b) The Competition Proper shall consist of the following numbers of Clubs:
(i) 92 Clubs selected by the Professional Game Board and exempted from playing in the Qualifying Competition.
(ii) 32 Clubs from the Qualifying Competition.

C) The Qualifying Competition shall consist of all Clubs admitted to participate in the Competition, in accordance with Rule 5, except the 92 Clubs referred to in Rule 4(b)(i)

And the FA Trophy for completeness...

Eligible Clubs
5
(a) Participation in the Competition shall be open to the first team only from Clubs taking part in Steps 1-4 of The FA National League System.

In a nutshell
There is nothing in the rules for either the FA Cup or FA Trophy to state that you have to enter a county cup, but all clubs have to be affiliated with a county FA.

We are affiliated with Lancashire FA. Affiliation means we can enter a league. We are at Step 2.
Therefore we can enter the FA Trophy.
Because we can enter the FA Trophy and are in a League at step 2, we can enter the FA Cup.

[Olá]

What are charnock Richard affiliate with lancashire?

[PortInTheSouth]

#AbolishTheCountyCups

[Ralphy Rylance]

Update: I now have the Liverpool CFA Senior Cup Rules and they state that:
Rule 2B
The Competition shall be confined to the Everton, Liverpool and Tranmere Rovers Clubs and other such Clubs as the Board of Directors or Competitions Committee may invite to enter.


Rule 4H
No Club shall be allowed to withdraw from this Competition without the consent of the Board of Directors or the Competitions Committee.

When did Liverpool last enter it?
Seems ludicrous that they are automatically included if they regularly withdraw with the board's consent.
Just tell them they're no longer invited.

[Paulisi]

With Everton's new ground due to open next season, they will need test events.
I wonder if the Liverpool Senior Cup final might be one.

[portexileinbath]

With Everton's new ground due to open next season, they will need test events.
I wonder if the Liverpool Senior Cup final might be one.

Don't you think it would devalue these prestigious () cup competitions by holding the finals at what may well be a Championship ground ?

[Ralphy Rylance]

With Everton's new ground due to open next season, they will need test events.
I wonder if the Liverpool Senior Cup final might be one.

Don't you think it would devalue these prestigious () cup competitions by holding the finals at what may well be a Championship ground ?

Don't recall anyone complaining about Lancs Trophy finals at Bolton or Preston.

[DanHayes]

James attempted to get a more definitive answer to the County Cup discussion via his AL3 Twitter account. Safe to say the response was equally as mixed there as it is here.
I also ran a poll, from which which the results suggested more people than not saw county cups as second class fixtures, but it was far from unanimous.

Whilst I waited for the poll results and debate to play out I checked out some old programmes for county cup games in the 60s to see how they were seen then. Back then we were in the Lancs Senior Cup. In the mid 60s Lancs FA opened it up to senior non-league sides to enter (as it has done on a few occasions). At the time, the expectation was that First and Second Division sides would enter their reserves, whilst Third and Fourth Division clubs would enter their first teams.
All in all....there doesn't seem to be a global consensus.

should any of these count as first team appearances?
Welsh Cup, Northern Premier League Shield, Presidents Cup, President's Inter-League, Cambrian Cup, English Jubilee Fund, Lancashire Floodlit Trophy.

In terms of these "other" competitions...the results were a bit more definitive. Welsh Cup, NPL Shield, Presidents Cup, President's Inter-League were all organised by either a National FA, or the League we were part of, so most consider them first class.
Cambrian Cup, Jubilee Fund and Lanc Floodlit Trophy, firmly in the second class category.

[PortDan1121]

With Everton's new ground due to open next season, they will need test events.
I wonder if the Liverpool Senior Cup final might be one.

Don't you think it would devalue these prestigious () cup competitions by holding the finals at what may well be a Championship ground ?

Hilarious, everyone is laughing

On a serious note, its a fair point, Everton are hot trash.

[portexileinbath]

With Everton's new ground due to open next season, they will need test events.
I wonder if the Liverpool Senior Cup final might be one.

Don't you think it would devalue these prestigious () cup competitions by holding the finals at what may well be a Championship ground ?

Hilarious, everyone is laughing

On a serious note, its a fair point, Everton are hot trash.

Phew, thank goodness you saw the funny side.

They will soon be knocking on the door to ask if Liam W is a available to replace........

[David_1276]

Whilst we're on the subject, this evening I went to Daisy Hill (our opponents in the LJC about 2 or 3 years ago) vs Rochdale 'first' - and saw something really quite harrowing.

A group of, say, 30 Daisy Hill (Bolton) yoofs had come down to watch their local team, as had a few Rochdale fans and everyone was quite agreeable aside from the obvious odd bit of back-and-forth until one of the Rochdale fans (who had previously headbutted one of the yoofs), perhaps in his early 20s, didn't take too kindly to something said and subsequently threw a punch at an older Daisy Hill fan which resulted in about 15 - 20 yoofs swarming him and ultimately leaving him unconscious on the little grass bit at the end of the far side of the ground.

It appeared as if one of them had kicked his head whilst he was down and he had blood and mud all over his face when he was eventually stretchered off, still out cold to the ambulance which had been called for him. I've seen people get knocked out at football before but never anything like that and never for a game that little old Southport barely consider a competitive fixture. He'd been taunting the Bolton fans all game and had generally been antagonistic but he could well be left with serious injuries after the incident and it honestly shook me up a little that something could get so out of hand so egregiously and no-one deserves to leave a game of football without the ability to even lift a hand. The game was temporarily halted but play resumed in front of just a few remaining spectators (myself included) but the ref blew up on about 87 minutes. Expecting players to play after some of them went over to help him out of the ground seemed like such a stupid decision.

I really hope the lad is okay and I don't really know why I'm posting this but I suppose it highlights how a game of such little importance can result in such aggression from both sides.

[Tangled Up In Yellow]

Is this the first ever use of the word "egregiously" on Portchat?

[SteH90]

Is this the first ever use of the word "egregiously" on Portchat?

No. It’s a Southport FC forum and multitude egregious occurrences have seen it’s wide use on a regularly basis!

[Portoldie]

Apparently the home game against Chester on the 24th October has now been postponed as they are playing Stockport Town in the Cheshire Senior Cup the night before.

[Olá]

Apparently the home game against Chester on the 24th October has now been postponed as they are playing Stockport Town in the Cheshire Senior Cup the night before.

Does the league not take priority

[Happy to be here]

Think the club will be happy to re arrange game to a Saturday. Could increase the size of the gate and generate some much needed funds to re fresh the squad.

[Exiled Port Fan]

Apparently the home game against Chester on the 24th October has now been postponed as they are playing Stockport Town in the Cheshire Senior Cup the night before.

Does the league not take priority

County Cups are FA, Leagues are not.

[PortInTheSouth]

Showing P-P on BBC Sport, but doesn't appear to be any info from either club.

It's farcical to have important league games called off in favour of a tinpot trophy