Aberdeen U21

There's no fixture Aberdeen's under-21s look forward to more than any other. Opponents in the Scottish Challenge Cup come out of a draw that reaches into the lower tiers of Scottish football — Forfar Athletic, Fraserburgh, Keith, Turriff United, Invergordon — part-time sides with no history against a development team, thrown together for one season and not the next.

That's because the side isn't really a club in its own right. It's Aberdeen FC's development team, known for years as Aberdeen Reserves, built to move players toward the first team rather than stand apart from it. It plays in red and white and answers to The Dons, the same nickname used at Pittodrie, because the point is continuity, not a separate identity.

It has no ground of its own either. Matches are played at Balmoral Stadium in Cove Bay, home of Cove Rangers — 2,602 capacity, 410 of those seats. Training is done separately, at Cormack Park in Kingsford, a pitch built for work rather than for crowds.

The one trophy came in the SPFL Development League, in 2014–15; the side had reached the final twice before that, in 1994–95 and 2012–13, and lost both times.

On a matchday, then, it's Cove Bay rather than Aberdeen proper — a borrowed stadium, a few hundred seats, and whichever lower-league side the draw has sent that week.