Motherwell midfielder Blair Spittal is hopeful the Steelmen have what it takes to emulate the club’s Cup winning heroes of 1991, starting with a tough test against St Mirren.
The 27-year-old, who has already suffered Cup heartbreak at the hands of Celtic in 2015, feels that under the reign of Stuart Kettlewell his side can make a dent in both domestic cup competitions this season.
He said: “We’re under no illusion of how tough it’s going to be. They’ve had a good start to the season but we’d like to think that we have as well.
“We’re going into the game full of confidence and we know what we have do to get into the next round.
“In terms of league positions, if you finish at places third or fourth then everyone remembers the teams that have achieved something.
“Everybody talks about the Motherwell team that won the cup in ’91, they’re still spoken about to this day, they’re held in such high regard.
“It’s something for us as players to look up to and hopefully we can achieve success similar to that.”
The ex-Queens Park ace was on the bench for Dundee Utd against Celtic in 2015, and he recalls the warning not to take trips to the national stadium for granted.
But he believes this could be the season the Steelmen can go all the way to the final at Hampden Park.
He said: “In the league cup, when I was at Dundee United, in my first year we were lucky enough to get to the final, Celtic beat us 2-0 but having experienced that its something you want to do again.
“That was my first year in full time football, you get a taste for it in the first year. You’re told at the time to take advantage of these experiences because they don’t come around often.
“You do feel as though these opportunities will keep coming but obviously it’s shown that they don’t. It’s up to us this year to create a bit of history of our own.
“We’re going to have to go to tough places and put together results.
“It’s massive for every club in the league, the league is the bread and butter but it’s a nice distraction to get away from and give yourself good opportunity to try and win silverware.
“Over the past couple of years its been dominate by the old firm and its up to clubs like us to break that mold.
“As a club we’re in a really good place, there’s been a lot of change this summer but the new boys that have come in they’ve started well they’ve hit the ground running.
“It’ll still take time to play how the manager wants us to. The boys who were here last year will help to drive the standards. We feel as though we have a squad who is capable of competing.
“We think we can put on a good cup run in both competitions and hopefully we can get back to Hampden this year.”
