Quote Asgardian13="Asgardian13"The delay is because, after extensive consultation with all stakeholders, a change in the way the draw is to be made has been agreed. The purpose of the change is to make sure that each 'draw' from the bag is truly competitive and open to all clubs, and that excitement and intensity in the draw will be maintained right until the end of the process.
The draw will work like this:
The 8 quarter finalists' tokens will be divided into two groups of four and placed in Bags A and B. A second token for each team will be placed in a third Bag C.
Richard Bacon will draw one token from Bag A, Jimmy Carr will draw one token from Bag B. At the end of four draws, we will have the provisional line up of quarter finals. QF1, QF2, QF3 and QF4.
Graham Norton will then draw from Bag C. Provided that the first team drawn from Bag C matches one of the teams in QF1 ( in the order drawn by Messrs Bacon and Carr ) then that match will go ahead as QF1. If the team drawn by Mr Norton does not match the Carr/Bacon draw, then Norton's draw will be the away team in QF1, and the previously drawn away team will go back into the bag to be redrawn. Norton will then draw another team to match to QF2, with the home team this time being subject to substitution if there's no match. This will continue until Norton has drawn all teams from Bag C.
The revised QF drawn teams will all then have their tokens placed in the National Lottery Draw Machine to see if anyone has won the jackpot.'"
Shsh. Don't give them any ideas.
So the draw's on Saturday between 7 and 9. What idiot decided on that.
I think the draw on national TV is a good idea. You want to expose what's going on in our game to as many people as possible. But if we can't, then the next best idea would be to do the draw on North West/Yorkshire local Tele or even the radio.
The thing is though, it should be consistent. Either after the matches on Sunday or probably better, on a Monday Evening. Do that for every round and everyone knows where they stand.
To have the last round's draw, midday on a Monday afternoon on National Radio. Presented by someone who has no interest in the sport and turns it into a laughing stock, to this round, presented by god knows who, at god knows what time on a Saturday morning. Who is coming up with this?
What next? The semi final draw done at 4am on a Thursday morning on North Norfolk Digital Radio. Saying that, Partridge would fit right in but he doesn't work the early shift any more.
