The draw for the first round of the Carling Cup will be announced at 9.15am this Thursday, 8th July.
Round one consists of 70 clubs, comprising 22 Championship clubs*, 24 League One clubs and 24 League Two clubs (*a bye to Round 2 was given to Leicester City, and a bye to round 3 was given to Millwall).
The first round of the competition sees seeded clubs playing unseeded clubs, initially split on a north-south basis; 38 clubs from the north and d32 from the south, with the seedings based on the 2003/04 final league placings.
The draw itself has three parts:
– to determine whether the seeded club will play at home or away for each match number
– to allocate a seeded club to a particular match number
– to draw the unseeded team to face the seeded team.
The seeding and north/south split details are as follows:
NORTH – seeds
1. Leeds
2. Wolves
3. Sunderland
4. Wigan
5. Sheffield Utd
6. Stoke
7. Nottm Forest
8. Preston NE
9. Rotherham
10. Crewe
11. Burnley
12. Derby
13. Walsall
14. Bradford
15. Hartlepool
16. Port Vale
17. Tranmere
18. Barnsley
19. Wrexham
NORTH – non-seeds
20. Blackpool
21. Oldham
22. Sheffield Wednesday
23. Stockport
24. Chesterfield
25. Grimsby
26. Notts County
27. Doncaster
28. Hull City
29. Huddersfield
30. Mansfield
31. Lincoln
32. Bury
33. Darlington
34. Macclesfield
35. Rochdale
36. Scunthorpe
37. Chester
38. Shrewsbury
SOUTH – seeds
1. West Ham
2. Ipswich
3. Reading
4. Coventry
5. Cardiff
6. Watford
7. Gillingham
8. MK Dons
9. Plymouth
10. QPR
11. Brighton
12. Bristol
13. Swindon
14. AFC Bournemouth
15. Luton
16. Colchester
SOUTH – non-seeds
17. Brentford
18. Peterborough
19. Rushden & Diamonds
20. Wycombe Wanderers
21. Torquay
22. Northampton
23. Yeovil
24. Oxford
25. Swansea
26. Boston
27. Cambridge
28. Cheltenham
29. Bristol Rvrs
30. Kidderminster
31. Southend
32. Leyton Orient
With thanks to the Football League for the details.
