If you follow us on Twitter, you may have seen us banging on about the Greatest Sponsor Ever tournament we've got lined up. Well, now we've finally decided on the classic sponsors that have made the cut. It's going to run as a knockout tournament, pitting classic sponsor against classic sponsor over several rounds. Think of it as the FA Cup, only ironically about sponsors, not ruined by one... ;-) To make the numbers even, we had to whittle down our initial list of over 120 classic sponsors to 96 on top of which we've seeded some so they won't have to scrap out the First Round.
So it'll go like this:
Round 1
32 sponsors v 32 sponsors (all 64 being 'non-seeds')
Round 2
32 sponsors v 32 sponsors (64 participants made up of the 32 seeded sponsors and the 32 non-seeded winners from Round 1)
Round 3
16 sponsors v 16 sponsors (all 32 being the winners from Round 2)
Round 4
8 sponsors v 8 sponsors (all 16 being the winners from Round 3)
Quarter Finals
4 sponsors v 4 sponsors (all 8 being the winners from Round 4)
Semi Finals
2 sponsors v 2 sponsors (all 4 being the winners from Quarter Finals)
Final
1 sponsor v 1 sponsor (both finalists being the winners from the Semi Finals)
The draw for the First Round will be taking place very soon and will be done live on Twitter... more details on that soon, and I can now reveal the sponsors that have made the cut. Those seeded to the Second Round are highlighted.
You'll note that McEwans has two entries and that also we've grouped the Celtic and Rangers variants (as we have done with CR Smith). This is because we felt that, as Celtic and Rangers always share a sponsor, we can't really separate the two, whereas we've left Blackburn's on its own as it has no ties to the Auld Firm's deal at all... and of course may have some specific meaning to Blackburn fans in the mid-90's for some reason ;-)
And of course, remember people, this is just a bit of fun and is all above board...if Granada Bingo happens to win, then that's just fate ;-)
So...
The Contenders (ordered by sponsor name)
(BT) Cellnet / Middlesbrough
Auto Trader / Reading
Auto Windscreens / Birmingham
Autoglass / Chelsea
Avco (Trust) / West Ham
Bass / Derby
Bedford (Trucks) / Luton
Britannia / Stoke
British Caledonian / Brighton
Brother / Man City
Bukta / Hibernian
Candy / Liverpool
Capital One / Nottm Forest
Carling / Celtic & Rangers
Carlsberg / Liverpool
Carlsberg / Wimbledon
Chang / Everton
Commodore / Chelsea
Coors / Chelsea
Courage / Reading
CR Smith / Celtic & Rangers
Crown Paints / Liverpool
Dagenham Motors / West Ham
Dr Martens / West Ham
Draper (Tools) / Southampton
Elonex / Wimbledon
Ericsson / QPR
Fads / Charlton
Finlux / Sheff Wed
Fisons / Ipswich
Fly Emirates / Arsenal
Fly Virgin / Crystal Palace
GMB / Fulham
Good Year / Wolves
Granada Bingo / Coventry
Greenalls / Newcastle
Greene King / Ipswich
Guinness / QPR
Hafnia / Everton
Hewlett Packard / Tottenham
Hitachi / Liverpool
Holsten / Tottenham
Ian Skelly / Motherwell
ICI Perspex / Blackburn
Ind Coope / Leicester
Iveco / Watford
JCT600 / Bradford
JD Sports / Oldham
JJB / Wigan
JVC / Aberdeen
JVC / Arsenal
Laver / Sheff Utd
Lewisham / Millwall
Maxwell / Derby
McEwans Lager / Blackburn
McEwans Lager / Celtic & Rangers
Mita / Aston Villa
Motorola / Motherwell
Muller / Aston Villa
NEC / Everton
Newcastle Brown Ale (star) / Newcastle
No Smoking / WBA
NOBO / Brighton
NTL / Celtic & Rangers
O2 / Arsenal
Oki / Portsmouth
Ora / Barnsley
Panasonic / Nottm Forest
Peugeot / Coventry
Philips / Man City
Pioneer / Ipswich
Poll Withey / Norwich
Rank Xerox / Southampton
Reebok / Bolton
Reg Vardy / Sunderland
Ricoh / Stoke
Saab / Man City
Samsung / Chelsea
Sanderson / Sheff Wed & Southampton
Sharp / Man United
Shipstones / Nottm Forest
Skol / Nottm Forest
Solvite / Watford
Subaru / Coventry
T-Mobile / WBA
TDK / Crystal Palace
The Woolwich / Charlton
Top Man / Leeds
Truman / Wimbledon
Unipart / Oxford Utd
Vaux / Sunderland
VG / Dundee United
Vodafone / Man United
Walkers / Leicester
Wang (Computers) / Oxford Utd
Wrangler / Notts County
