Published: Thursday, 22nd January, 2009 9:20am

Football never ceases to amaze with Rangers draw

by Forfar So Good

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BEING first out of the hat in the Scottish Cup draw almost ruined the anticipation but the names that followed certainly made up for it.

With Rangers still to play St Johnstone and ourselves still a home tie against Forres Mechanics any dreams of the big tie had to be repressed in case reality came and took a grip.

St Johnstone had beaten Rangers before in the cups and certainly could do again while any tie you have against a Highland League team is always almost a complete unknown.

Certainly, the only thing to do would be to concentrate on the game at hand and worry about the next round later.

That desire was sharpened further when the back pages of the Monday morning papers had Forres players claiming they had already been taking requests for tickets for the Rangers game.

The story was met with a mixed reaction as it obviously wound us up that we had apparently been overlooked in favour of a possible Rangers tie.

On the other hand for the poor guy who came out with the statement it was probably just the first thing that came out of his mouth, said tongue in cheek and the reporter pounced on it.

If any extra motivation was needed it certainly provided it for us and we came storming out the traps, taking a 5-1 lead at half-time.

At 3-0 up and standing near the touchline one helpful Forres fan decided to pass on the news that St Johnstone were winning 2-0 and were romping away with the win!

Thankfully for those with dreams of playing against the Gers, specifically the Forfar accountant, it was not true and we got our dream tie.

Rumours of Forfar training sessions consisting of a practice 6-4-0 formation are as yet entirely untrue.

One helpful fellow suggested we do a no-show on the day of the game and tell them we thought it was at Ibrox.

The week before the cup tie we travel to Albion Rovers to play at the post-apocalyptic playground that is Cliftonhill.

The following week we are live on Sky at home to a team that was in the UEFA Cup Final last year.

Football never ceases to amaze.