Aidan Smith: League Cup needs rediscovered with some of our love

Last week, a grand old Scottish institution began its long hibernation, uncertain of its future and whether it could be loved any less. The League Cup is in urgent need of a new sponsor and new friends, in high places and also low places, such as the tartan meeja hack-pack.

On Radio Scotland, four gentlemen of the press tossed around the idea of the competition doing without a winter break and running right through to conclusion. Your correspondent was screaming at the wireless: "That's not new, idiots. It's what used to happen!"

When did the League Cup lose its lustre? Probably around the time European competition got more bling and Scottish clubs, with their swarthy foreign imports, started fancying themselves as serious, regular Euro participants. Extra Champions League places and the like pushed the League Cup further down priorities, and the competition itself lost its qualifying spot for the old UEFA Cup. Well, look at our Euro aspirations now.

So, like recession-hit staycationers obliged to dig out the windbreaks again, should we be re-discovering this dour wee trophy? I think we should. If we don't love the League Cup a little bit more, some fool could make a bad decision and we could lose it. That would be oor fitba pared down to just the leagues and the Scottish Cup. A two-stop shop, marginally better than a poundshop though without the Winalot multipacks and the hen-night feather boas. Is that what we really want?

Obviously the League Cup isn't as grand or as old as our other competitions, but it does have a history and a personality all its own, a place in the affections of fans whose very first game was an old-style LC group-stages season-opener. It even has its very own Celtic-minded conspiracy theory: 1957, when the lens cap stayed on the TV camera for the bulk of the goals in the 7-1 thumping of Rangers.

It began in 1946, so you can imagine the hope and the optimism that were around back then. The first winners were Rangers, then East Fife began their weird semi-domination of the tournament, victorious three times in seven seasons. Try telling a Bayview boy the League Cup doesn't matter.

Or a Hibby. Not counting the Drybrough Cup (I don't - Sports Ed), Hibs have won just three trophies in my fantime: the 1972 League Cup, the 1991 Skol Cup and the 2007 CIS Cup. Same cup, of course, and I'm fully prepared for them not winning anything else. You take what you get, and so should oor fitba. We're not so good that we can do without the League Cup, or kick it about, mess with the formula, add bells and whistles and wacky offside amnesties and subject it to a longer break than even the Champions League, then expect it to be all perky on its return without the great glamour of Cristiano Ronaldo, Jose Mourinho and Adrian Chiles.

Ditch the break. Play it like in '72 and '91 with the semis in November and the final in December.The '07 win was memorable - not least because I was half-hoping to hear the Hampden announcer read my name to 50,000 people, me luxuriating in the moment before remembering the alert was because my son was about to be born - but the other two were played in deep winter and so were more atmospheric. A silver pail in the hands of your captain looks so much better with the glint of the main stand lights on it, and the sky behind him all dark.

The football in a December final can be more exciting because players are fresher. Scanning the League Cup roll-of-honour I'm reminded of plenty of December classics, such as Rangers 4, Hearts 3 in 1996 and before that some cracking Rangers-Aberdeen finals. How many great Scottish Cup finals have there been recently? Our season is so long that come May everyone - players and fans - is just too knackered.

No supporters - outwith the Old Firm, of course - are more dismissive of the trophy than Jambos, who tease Hibbies about it being the "diddy cup". There's an irony here, for which club alone in Scotland celebrate it in their official song? Answer: Hearts ("We've won the League flag and we've won the League Cup ... ").

Diddy, very possibly - but it's ours.