The Worst Penalty Shootout Record In Scottish Football

Kilmarnock won a penalty shootout this week. This is rare.

The World Cup has not yet finished, but the Scottish football season is already under way.. The Scottish League Cup group stage is already well under way, with several clubs having played twice.

The competition features 45 teams in all. The five clubs who qualified for Europe are exempt from this stage, leaving 37 SPFL sides plus three invited guests:

• Highland League champions Brora Rangers, who lost the SPFL promotion play-off 3-1 on aggregate to Edinburgh City.

• Lowland League champions Linlithgow Rose, who did not meet the SPFL’s bronze licence criteria and therefore forfeited their promotion play-off place.

• Highland League runners-up Brechin City, a former SPFL side.

Those 40 clubs are split into eight groups of five. The eight group winners and three best runners-up join the five European entrants in the last 16. The last 16 takes place on the weekend of 15/16 August, with the quarter-finals less than a month later, the semi-finals at the end of October and the final on Sunday 13 December.

In the group stage, it is the usual three points for a win and one point for a draw. If a match is level after 90 minutes, it goes straight to penalties, with a single bonus point on offer to the shootout winner.

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Kilmarnock’s Penalty Hell

After a 0-0 draw with Raith Rovers, Kilmarnock fans could have been forgiven for fearing the worst when the players stepped forward for a penalty shootout. Killie's record from the spot over the years has been grim to say the least. In fact, as this article will now show, Kilmarnock have the worst penalty shootout record in Scottish football history.

Despite Joe Hugill missing the first kick, Kilmarnock recovered to score their next four and win the shootout 4-2, securing the bonus point in their first competitive match of the season.

Remarkably, this was only Kilmarnock’s second penalty shootout victory since beating Alloa Athletic in the League Cup in August 1984. From their next shootout, a League Cup defeat to Dundee a week later, through to this week’s win over Raith Rovers, they have had 16 shootouts and won just two, a win rate of 12.5%.

Back in 2021, they ended the worst shootout losing streak in Scottish football history by defeating Greenock Morton at the same stage of this competition. That ended a run of ten straight shootout defeats in the major competitions covered in this article. Since then, Killie had lost four consecutive shootouts, until this week.

Max Stryjek was the hero. The Polish goalkeeper returned to action in April after missing a large chunk of his first season at Rugby Park following open-heart surgery. Signed from Jagiellonia Bialystok last summer by Stuart Kettlewell, initially on a one-year deal, Stryjek has signed on again for the upcoming campaign. He has already earned a small place in the rarest of things in Kilmarnock folklore: a penalty shootout hero.

The full record for Kilmarnock, and the other 41 current SPFL teams, now follows. The graphics are sorted by win percentage, from lowest to highest, starting with Kilmarnock. They cover the Scottish Cup, League Cup, Challenge Cup, League Playoffs and European competition only. You can read my previous writing on Scottish European shootouts here.

The record ignores leagues below the SPFL, friendlies and regional cup competitions. For example, Kilmarnock were involved in a penalty shootout after the second leg of the 1970-71 Ayrshire Cup final, but that type of tournament is not included here. Within the major competitions covered, Kilmarnock's first counted shootout is the 1979-80 League Cup quarter-final against Greenock Morton. Their Scottish Cup shootout history starts with the 1990 defeat at home to Stranraer, which they lost, of course, 4-3 on penalties. Similarly, Celtic beat Rangers on penalties in the Drybrough Cup final of 1974/75, but that tournament is also one I’ve not included.

Kilmarnock

Cove Rangers

The Spartans

Clyde

Dumbarton

Dundee United

Annan Athletic

Partick Thistle