| Sport | Football |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1941 |
| Ceased | 1945 |
| No. of teams | 8 |
| Country | Scotland |
| Last champion(s) | Aberdeen |
| Most titles | Aberdeen (5) |
| Related competitions | North Eastern League |
The North Eastern League Cup was a regional Scottish football competition held during the Second World War, due to the suspension of Scottish Football League. Held between 1941 and 1945, the competition was played in two stages each season (autumn and spring), mirroring the North Eastern League.
Aberdeen dominated the tournament, winning five times overall. Indeed, they appeared in six of the eight finals, only losing the second series in the 1941–42 season. Rangers 'A' (the Glasgow club's reserve team) won both series in the 1943–44 season and Dundee United won the remaining tournament.[1]
The North Eastern League Cup helped to contribute to the present-day Scottish League Cup: it was also merged with its Southern equivalent in the 1945–46 season, with the nationwide competition proving popular (the final, won by Aberdeen, attracted a crowd of crowd of 135,000 at Hampden Park).[2][3] It was thus continued on those lines on an official basis from then on.
As the war ended, regular league football returned in 1946, with the regional leagues and cups disbanded.