With the UEFA Cup first round draw tomorrow we thought we'd have a go at explaining it. Town are amongst the seeded teams and cannot play any English side. However, we could end up playing Kilmarnock or Hibernian or an Irish or Welsh side.

The draw is at the Grimaldi Forum, Monaco on Friday and is on Eurosport (11am). UEFA will also cover it via their website (www.uefa.com).

There are 96 clubs involved and the draw is based on geographical criteria, as well as in line with UEFA's ..ahem... 'club coefficient ranking list'. Town's is 25.643, the 28th highest in the competition.

The 96 clubs are divided into six groups. There will be two pots for each of the groups, one for the seeded clubs and the other for the unseeded, eight clubs in each. Balls containing the names of the teams will be placed in the appropriate pots

A ball is removed from each pot and put into a third until then empty pot. Then these will be shuffled about before the balls are drawn. The first drawn gets the home leg first.

This is then carried out for all the groups.

The first legs will be played on 13th September and the second legs on 27th September. Any reversals and/or changes will be appear on UEFA's site at 1pm after the draw. Further details (venues, KO times etc) will be sorted by the end of August.

John Wark said that George Burley will hope for a tie with a side close to home. Perhaps a game at FC Utrecht in Holland, KVC Westerlo in Belgium or IF Elfsborg in Sweden would be to his taste. Elfsborg would particularly please European Scout Simon Hunt as he used to play there.

Burley will want to avoid Genclerbirligi Ankara in Turkey or the likes of Chernomorets Novoross in Russia.

Photo: Action Images

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