Motherwell players to dress down for Betfred Cup final

The manual nature of their endeavours would make the Reservoir Dogs slogan of 'let's go to work' a fitting mantra for Motherwell. The fact that the Fir Park players have rejected the chance to stride across the Hampden surface at this afternoon's Betfred Cup final besuited as those cinematic protagonists has engendered great intrigue.

Motherwell manager Stephen Robinson is happy for his players to wear tracksuits to Hampden. Picture: Alan Harvey/SNS

The club’s manager Stephen Robinson, pictured, will adorn himself in such threads, and he revealed there are several threads to the fact that his players will not.

It isn’t simply all about symbolically demonstrating they are more interested in honest artisanship, though that figures highly.

“We gave them a choice. Carl [McHugh] spoke to all the boys and they said, no, we want to go like we did at the semi-final; we want to go like we did to the quarter-final; we want to go in our tracksuits. We don’t want to get carried away with ourselves and walk about in our suits and don’t turn up and actually play football. We are coming in our tracksuits; we are coming to play football, we are coming to win the match. Perhaps a little bit of superstition came into it but I think what it is is that you have such a down-to-earth group of boys.

“Carl did say a couple of clubs he had been with had gone to play-off cup finals in suits twice, and lost twice, while twice he had been to finals in tracksuits and twice they had won.

“But I think it keeps people grounded to what we are about. We don’t pay massive wages, people aren’t getting life-changing money here I can assure you.

“It just keeps them grounded in their work ethic and I love it and think it’s great.

“They are not turning up to look good. They are turning up to win a football match. And on the day, if they produce a performance like they did last Saturday against Aberdeen [in a 2-0 win at Pittodrie], we’ve got every chance.”