Scottish Cup: All Well At Fir Park

Motherwell 3 v 0 Dundee United

Blimey.

The curse of The Scottish Football Blog's predictions strikes again.

I said away win.

Instead Motherwell dominated proceedings, goals from Jamie Murphy, Chris Humphrey and Francis Jeffers sealing a place in the semi finals.

Motherwell's unpredictability is becoming a predictable cliche now. But still. It is quite remarkable.

So the Scottish Cup semi-finals are now set.

Motherwell play St Johnstone on 16th April with Aberdeen and Celtic meeting the following day.

It's an interesting line up. And not one many people would have predicted.

Tonight's attendance

Motherwell made the decision to charge only £10 and £5 for tonight's game.

A welcome initiative that the fans seemed to respond to, 8,337 turning out.

I've done a very quick check and leaving out the visits of the Old Firm - who regularly bump the Fir Park crowd over 9000 - I make that the highest attendance at Fir Park since 9105 watched the 1-0 defeat to Odense back in August.

Again, leaving aside the Old Firm, only twice (Hibs in August and Aberdeen in September) have SPL opposition attracted over 5000 to Fir Park this season. 7,721 were in attendance for the European game against Aalesunds and almost 6000 for the match against Breidablik.

So congratulations to Motherwell for a brave ticketing decision and fair play to the fans for responding.

Here's the thing though: If the game had been shown on Sky and 2000 fans had turned up, Motherwell would probably have made more money than they did tonight.

As ever, there are no easy answers in Scottish football.