Cup draw hands Falkirk first game ever against Lowland League champions Spartans

Gary Oliver on the ball for Falkirk during their 5-0 home win against Peterhead in March (Pic: Michael Gillen)

Manager John McGlynn’s Bairns are the only League 1 side in group B and they line up alongside the Scottish Championship’s Partick Thistle, the Scottish Premiership’s Dundee United and League 2’s Peterhead and Spartans.

Falkirk’s last meeting with Partick was a 2-0 SPFL Trust Trophy victory at home last September, though their game prior to that, in League 1 away in April 2021, went the other way by 5-0.

It was also in the championship that Falkirk last met Dundee United, losing 2-0 away in April 2019.

The Bairns won all four of their fixtures against Peterhead in League 1 last season prior to the Angus outfit’s relegation – by 3-1 in May and 4-0 in October away and by 5-0 in March and 3-1 in August at home.

Their upcoming match agaist Edinburgh’s Spartans, last season’s Scottish Lowland Football League champions, will be their first.

Stenny are the only representatives of League 2 in group A and they’ll face the premiership’s St Johnstone, the championship’s Ayr United and League 1’s Alloa Athletic and Stirling Albion.

A fixture list and TV selections are yet to be confirmed following yesterday’s draw but group games will be played from the middle of next month for two weeks.

The eight group winners and three best runners-up will join Celtic, Rangers, Aberdeen, Heart of Midlothian and Hibernian in the last 16 on Saturday and Sunday, August 19 and 20.

Quarter-finals will follow at the end of September, semis in early November and this year’s final on Sunday, December 17.