The picture regarding Town's Worthington Cup programme is gradually become clearer with the Football League provisionally moving Town's second round Worthington Cup match to a week earlier than the rest of the competition to avoid conflict with a possibly UEFA Cup first round game.

As we've been reporting for some while, Town will not play in the first round of the Worthington Cup and could still receive a bye through to the third round - if Fulham and Aston Villa fail to qualify for the UEFA Cup via the Intertoto Cup.

The Football League have eight byes to the third round set aside for European qualifiers. Seven of these are already taken up with the final one going to one of Villa, Fulham or Town.

Should both Villa and Fulham qualify the Villans would get the place, while if neither make it Town appear to be ahead of West Ham, who, in normal circumstances would get the place.

Where no club qualifies for Europe via the Intertoto Cup then usually the next highest side in the Premiership not to qualify for Europe gets the bye, in this case West Ham.

Football League spokesman John Nagle said yesterday: "It is all calculated on a hierarchical basis on where clubs finished in the previous season. Ipswich won their place on the back of a Fair Play award and finished lower than the other two. Therefore they would only get a route through to the third round if Villa and Fulham fail to qualify."

The draw for the first round of the Worthington Cup is scheduled for early August.

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