Something's got to give at the Pennypit

Spartans have already been crowned as Central Taxis Premier Division champions and picked up three of the four cups on offer - the SFA South Region Challenge Cup, the Image Printers East of Scotland Qualifying Cup and the King Cup.

The League Cup was introduced in season 1987-88 and since then both Spartans and Whitehill Welfare have won four of the five trophies available in one season. Prior to the introduction of the League Cup both Gala Fairydean in season 1965-66 and Selkirk in season 1975-76 completed the haul of all four trophies that were competed for at that time.

"The fact that Spartans can create history tonight will not be on our players' thoughts before the game and all we will be concentrating on will be on beating Edinburgh University," said Spartans co-manager, Mike Lawson. "The main concern for Sam Lynch (co-manager] and myself is that even at this late stage we do not know what our line-up will be as we are waiting to see if Omar Kader, who works in London, will be available to play."

Spartans will definitely be devoid of some serious firepower in the shape of David Etale, Keith McLeod and Alex King which could mean a starting berth for Chris Smith. "We have shown that although our squad is small the boys who have played have got results through resilience," added Lawson. "Tonight is the end of a hard season and this is our 46th game - in fact it is our 25th game since the beginning of March. On Tuesday night we had a training session and all we asked the players to do was walk and jog.

Of course, Dougie Samuel's Edinburgh University side are not meekly going to turn up as part of a Spartans party. His side have their own trail of silverware to pursue in this, their 48th club game of a remarkable season which has seen them lift the inter-Scottish Universities Queen's Park Shield and lose narrowly 4-2 to Hartpury College in the final of the British Universities Cup.

"Whatever happens tonight, both clubs can enjoy looking back on what has been an excellent campaign," stressed Samuel. "Spartans are certainly the standard bearers in East of Scotland football but we go into the game with confidence based on our previous results against them this season. They have beaten us in two other cup competitions, both of which were very close including an extra-time winner. Both games could quite easily have gone our way. This cup final might just be the game where we come out on top."

Samuel will be without Benji Antoni while striker Peder Beck-Friis is trying to re-schedule his flight back to Sweden to enable him to play tonight, his last-ever appearance for the students. The action kicks off at the Pennypit, Prestonpans at 7.30pm with admission prices 5 for adults and 2 for concessions.