The 4th qualifying draw has now been made. 32 matches, so without Bury there will be an odd number of teams in the first round proper. I suppose that means two ways to resolve this. Draw the team to get a bye first, or the bye is the odd team left at the end. Any other ways of doing this?

Might end up with a "lucky loser" situation similar to the year that Man Utd elected to go play the World Club Cup instead of play the FA Cup.so, draw the round as normal, and then draw one name from the pool of teams beaten in the most recent round.

Not sure what the actual process would be, but there's at least a precedent for that!

1) Include a numbered ball for the bye.

or

2) Complete a draw from the knocked out in a replay teams from the last round. They get a second chance and take Bury's place.

Just give the bye to Mansfield who were robbed in the first place.

rncfc wrote:Just give the bye to Mansfield who were robbed in the first place.

rncfc wrote:Just give the bye to Mansfield who were robbed in the first place.

How were Mansfield robbed In the F A cup

daftasfxxx wrote:

rncfc wrote:Just give the bye to Mansfield who were robbed in the first place.

How were Mansfield robbed In the F A cup

Well they weren't, but they were robbed by Bury in general. Fair is fair.

rncfc wrote:Just give the bye to Mansfield who were robbed in the first place.

Good strike breakers

njbh86 wrote:Might end up with a "lucky loser" situation similar to the year that Man Utd elected to go play the World Club Cup instead of play the FA Cup.so, draw the round as normal, and then draw one name from the pool of teams beaten in the most recent round.

Not sure what the actual process would be, but there's at least a precedent for that!

That sounds better than my options. Reinstate a 3rd qualifying loser. At leat they have competed in the competition, maybe for more than one round. The possibility of giving a freebie to a league two team before they have kicked a ball wouldn't be right.

If you have 32 teams, draw the bye number first. Many a time I have had to do a darts competition draw with either 15 or 31 players in the hat.

It is then 1v2, 3v4 etc. The teams (players) are then selected one after another and one of them will eventually have the bye. Sorted.

As Wrexham are bound to be knocked out in the Fourth Qualifying Round, couldn't they be reinstated so that we could knock them out in Round 1?

But that basically allows one team to skip a round. Reinstating a loser is far more fair.

Incidentally, Pembs, how do you organise a darts knockout with say 25 players?

excessbee wrote:But that basically allows one team to skip a round. Reinstating a loser is far more fair.

Incidentally, Pembs, how do you organise a darts knockout with say 25 players?

Good question mate. What I do for a 25 player draw is this:
Put a space on the draw sheet next to 32 numbers for all the players. Then draw out 7 numbers as byes. It is better if this is done in blocks so that the byes are evened out across the 32 numbers. Then draw the 25 to fit the empty spaces.

For 27 players you have 5 byes etc, etc.

Correct. Always a good question for a maths class. Select any awkward number and organise a fair draw. e.g. for 100 entrants, 28 byes and 72 play a preliminary round.

As a Football Manager competition editing veteran, planning ridiculous numbers of drip-fed different-round entering seeded competitions is a bit of a speciality of mine.

I'd go with a lucky loser in the 4QR to get the competition back up to 40 first round matches, failing that draw the bye at the end of the round, the one left in the fishbowl gets the free pass. Or just draw Bury (as they've entered) and then kick them out for failing to fulfil a fixture - though the EFL already said they wouldn't be able to play, not that it's up to them anyway.