The Football League Cup

To celebrate the competition’s Golden Anniversary, The Football League is asking fans to nominate their favourite League Cup moments, with 50 pairs of tickets up for grabs for this season’s Carling Cup Final. The League will reveal the all-time Top 50 League Cup moments in the lead-up to the match at Wembley Stadium on February 28.

Whether its Ben Foster’s iPod inspired penalty heroics in last season’s final, Ronnie Whelan’s glorious curling winner for Liverpool in 1983, Dennis Tueart’s stunning overhead kick for Manchester City in 1976 or Division Three Swindon Town’s famous win over Arsenal in the Don Rogers Final of 1969, The League wants to hear your views.

So get your thinking caps on, I am going for the classic 1967 final when QPR came back from two down to beat West Bromwich Albion 3-2 in the first league cup to be held at Wembley.

Send your nominations for your special League Cup moments to;  leaguecup@football-league.co.uk

All you need to do to take part in the competition is simply predict the score of the Carling Cup matches for each round. It’s free to play, and winners from each round will receive a case of Carling, a Carling sports bag and t-shirt.

The overall Carling Cup Predictor champion will receive 2 tickets to the Carling Cup Final at Wembley Stadium.

Fans are also invited to set up a mini league with their friends.

Rob Salmon, Marketing Communications Partner at Carling, said: “We wanted a fun way to give fans a chance to get involved in the Carling Cup and we hope the Carling Cup Predictor Challenge will do exactly that! It is up and running now on the official competition website so why not take a few minutes to pay a visit to www.carlingcup.com and demonstrate your skills at predicting football scores and results?”

Fancy Your Chances? Here are the rules:

The Predictor Challenge deadline for round one fixtures is Monday 10th August, so enter now to be in with a chance of winning.
The Carling.com website and the Carling Cup Predictor Challenge are only open to people over the legal drinking age.
To play The Carling Cup Predictor Challenge or find out more, visit www.carlingcup.com. Terms and conditions apply.

The young Scottish striker scored two goals, one at the beginning of each half; and though Burnley also have their young Danish goalkeeper Brian Jensen to thank, they deserved to beat Arsenal 2-0 and go through to the League Cup semi-finals.

Burnley have now beaten three Premier League teams in this season’s League Cup – Fulham, Chelsea & Arsenal and must be confident of a trip to Wembley. Football league betting also expects them to be there or there abouts in the league, so it could be two trips!

Unfortunately, as always, Arsene Wenger missed the chance to praise Burnley’s plucky performance and simply stated that Arsenal didn’t deserve to lose, in his post match interview.  A shame because all too often Arsene Wenger complains in defeat that teams kick Arsenal off the park and stop them from playing the beautiful game.  But last night at Turf Moor is sub-zero temperature, Burnley turned up the heat and simply out-played Arsenal’s young team, something Wenger should have admired in defeat.

Burnley are currently fourth in the Championship and very much in contention for Premiership promotion this season.  But after last night’s performance, 20-year-old Kevin McDonald has put himself well and truly in the shop window marked ‘January Sale’.

The other League Cup quarter-final played last night between Stoke and Derby also resulted in a Championship team beating a Premier League side; but this game was decided by a striker at the other end of his career – Nathan Ellington.

Both Stoke and Derby had several chances to win the game, none came closer than Ricardo Fuller’s shot that was saved by Derby’s veteran goalkeeper Roy Carroll in injury time, just before Derby were awarded a penalty in the 94 minute after Andy Griffin was alleged to handle the ball by referee Rob Styles.

After the game Stoke City manager Tony Pulis disputed the penalty while Derby manager Paul Jewell simply said, ‘if it wasn’t a penalty we deserve a bit of luck’.

Derby make it into the League Cup semi-finals for the first time in 40 years, whie for Burnley it was 1983.

Another Championship team will attempt to book their place in the last four tonight when Watford take on the League Cup holders Tottenham.  The other quarter-final sees Manchester United play struggling Blackburn Rovers.