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I have posted this in the ICT Forum rather than general football as I am delighted to say that national semi finals have become of increasing direct relevance to us in the past few years and, with any luck, could well be again this season. Whilst generally a traditionalist, I think the time has come to consider the semi finals of both the Scottish Cup and the League Cup being switched to two legged affairs. If it's good enough for the Champions League, The Copa del Rey and the English League Cup it could well be good enough for us. I see a number of advantages; Firstly, there is fairness to the club and supporters. In the last three seasons we have been forced to play cup semi finals against clubs in their home cities. It's to our great credit that we won two out of three of these but the fans were still out of pocket, the team disadvantaged and our numbers reduced to about 3,000 albeit 3,000 who made themselves sound like three times as many. This season already, both St Johnstone and County have been obliged to play semi final opponents at 'neutral' venues in their opponent's back yards. I am sure that there will be revenue advantages too, grounds are likely to be full or at least fuller. I know we struggle with crowds but I have little doubt that we would fill the Main and North stands and maybe even the wee West stand for a semi final on our home turf and whoever we play is likely to cram the South Stand for such an occasion. There would be two extra prestigious games to sell to TV and tournament sponsors and the proceeds could, as now, be pooled between all four participants and both TV and sponsors would much prefer full stadia rather than the sight of Hampden barely half full even when Celtic are involved. The final advantage is that the National Stadium would be kept for finals which would make those occasions even more special and unique than they already are.