Raith Rovers have been drawn to face Cliftonville in the SPFL Trust Trophy.
Dundee United v Dunfermline may be the pick of the round on paper, but given they will play each other a few times already this season, the real intrigue lies elsewhere.
Once of those ties will be at Stark’s Park when Rovers host Cliftonville in the third round of the competition next month.
The Northern Irish side entered last year for the first time and are one of this year’s four cross-border teams invited into the Challenge Cup along with Coleraine and Welsh sides Bala Town and The New Saints.
Last season they fell at the first hurdle at home to Queen’s Park, losing 3-2.
Who are Cliftonville?
Cliftonville are a Northern Ireland Football League (NIFL) Premiership side hailing from a suburb of North Belfast and finished fourth in the division last year behind Glentoran, Linfield and champions Larne.
Like in Scotland, their league season is only a few weeks old and Cliftonville have taken maximum points from their first two matches.
Their most recent was on Tuesday night, a 3-0 win away to Newry City.
The Reds have won the NIFL Premiership on five occasions – though the first of those was shared – and last did so in 2014.
More recently they won the country’s League Cup, defeating Coerlaine in the final in March last year.
SPFL connections
Since the start of June they have been managed by former Southampton and Sheffield Wednesday midfielder Jim Magilton, who also represented Northern Ireland dozens of times.
His assistant manager Gerard Lyttle signed a professional contract at Celtic Park in 1994 and turned out for the under-18s and reserves though never made the first team.
On the playing squad are the familiar SPFL names of Connor Pepper and Joe Gormley.
Pepper, now 29 years old, signed for Inverness in 2012 under then-manager Terry Butcher.
The midfielder made 14 appearances for the Highlands side before his release and move to Morton, where he played 60 times over three years.
He moved to Northern Ireland in 2017 and played with Glentoran and Linfield before moving to his current club.
Danger man: Joe ‘The Goal’ Gormley
His team-mate, nicknamed “Joe the Goal”, had a less fruitful spell in Scotland
Gormley signed for St Johnstone in 2016, on loan from Peterborough United.
He had signed for the English club the previous year on the back of a prolific spell at Cliftonville but missed the majority of the season with a knee injury.
Things weren’t much better during his loan stint in Perth. Gormley made just two appearances before returning to his current club.
He definitely feels at home at Cliftonville and soon returned to his goalscoring self within no time.
Across two spells at The Reds, Gormley has scored a whopping 197 times in 366 appearances – around a goal every two games.
He is already off the mark this season, netting a double on the opening day versus Glenavon.
