Founded 1887 Number of teams 5 | Region Glasgow Current champions Celtic | |
The Glasgow Cup is a knockout football tournament open to teams from Glasgow. It was competed for annually by senior Glasgow clubs from 1887 until 1989. It is now competed for between the youth teams of Celtic, Clyde, Partick Thistle, Queen's Park and Rangers.
It was dominated by the City rivals, Rangers and Celtic, who have won the competition 48 times and 34 times respectively. The advent of European football tournaments led to the Glasgow Cup becoming less valued, and the tournament did not take place at all or was not finished several times in its later years.
History
The Glasgow Football Association Cup used to be seen as an important competition, on a par with the League or the Scottish Cup. It was contested by the senior clubs in the Glasgow area, with the winners receiving a globular silver trophy. The competition was dominated by the old rivals of Celtic and Rangers, but the others, Clyde, Partick Thistle, Queen's Park and the now defunct Third Lanark all enjoyed relative success.
The competition's status diminished after World War II, with European competition seeming more attractive and important. The competition was normally played early in the season, until 1960. After the demise of the Charity Cup, the fixtures would be put in any available space with the final being played at the end of the season. After 1971 the Glasgow Cup was not played until it was re-introduced for the 1974–75 season, but it was generally seen as unappealing, and was even left incomplete on occasion, otherwise the final was often held over until the beginning of the following season. In the event of a Celtic v Rangers final both would still usually put out full-strength first teams. This remained the case up to 1986 when a crowd of over 40,000 saw Rangers take the trophy with a 3–2 win over Scottish Champions Celtic, courtesy of an Ally McCoist hat-trick, to give manager Graeme Souness his first trophy days after taking charge. After that it essentially became a reserve team tournament.
Rangers retained the trophy the following season in another old rivals final; only 15,000 were there to watch what were effectively two reserve teams. The following season's contest was never completed. Officially there were no suitable dates available to fit ties in; the competition had become irrelevant. In 1988 the competition was abandoned, and the final competition was played out in 1989 with Partick Thistle becoming the final winners of the competition in its original format. The Glasgow Cup was subsequently relaunched in 1990 as an Under-19 tournament competed for by the youth teams of Celtic, Clyde, Partick Thistle, Queen's Park and Rangers. It then became an Under-17 tournament in 2008, competed for by the same teams as previously.