The draw for the Scottish Cup quarter-finals threw up the tantalising prospect of Brechin City manager Jim Weir battling it out with his old club St Johnstone for a place in the last four.
The Glebe Park club’s reward for knocking out Buckie Thistle on Saturday is a home tie with the winner of the Saints v Partick Thistle match, which has been rescheduled for Tuesday night after being postponed at the weekend.
Dundee United will host Motherwell, Aberdeen travel to face St Mirren and the winner of the Old Firm replay has a long trip to Inverness to look forward to.
This is the first time second division Brechin have made it through to this stage of the competition, and Weir hopes their quarter-final will be televised live.
If the opponents are to be Saints, there is no shortage of a back-story.
Weir said, “St Johnstone have a really difficult tie against Partick Thistle still to play, so it’s not a foregone conclusion that it will be them we’ll be facing in the next round. But if it is Saints it will be a special game for me.
“When I went into management I knew this would happen at some stage. It didn’t while I was at Arbroath and Montrose and for it to be in the Scottish Cup quarter-final would be brilliant.
“Should Saints beat Thistle it would be great for both clubs if it was a television game. I think it should be. There’s a lot of connections, what with my wife Susan still working at St Johnstone (as a sales manager) and me being there for over 10 years.
“My assistant Kevin McGowne also played for Saints, as did a few of my players. Susan and I actually watched the draw together at my chairman’s house and we were waiting for the two teams to come out.”
Saints boss Derek McInnes made a statement of intent by calling his players into a Sunday training session 24 hours after the home Scottish Cup clash with Patrick Thistle was washed out.
McInnes is keen to ensure his squad maintain their focus and teenage striker Stevie May was pulled out of the Scotland U21 gathering to lead the line against the Jags.
The manager revealed he made contact with U21 coach and one-time Saints boss Billy Stark.
He added, “Obviously we want Stevie in the squad for the Partick game but we are hopeful he can join up with the U21s on Wednesday. It is an honour for Stevie and the club to get a call-up. It was unfortunate that part of the McDiarmid pitch suffered after the heavy rain.
“But we quickly made sure the players were brought together to start preparing for the rearranged tie.”