Cup Draw Simulator — Excel Edition

Ever watched a cup draw on television? I’m sure you have. Arguably, the most famous one is football’s FA Cup.

I’ve built the virtual equivalent in Excel. Of course, it cannot replicate the experience of picking balls out of a bag, pot or capsule, but it’s the next best thing!

I’m giving you free and unfettered access to the workbook so you can run your own draws and customise it as you require. That’s right, you can view and edit all the formulas and VBA code!

Let’s have a dekko at the workbook.

Worksheets

Setup

Before commencing with the draw, you must decide on the round and participants.

The process is:

1. Choose the round from the dropdown.
2. Input the club names into the table.
3. Click the Proceed to Draw button.

A green circle and the Proceed to Draw button will only appear when the table is fully populated.

Draw

This is where the draw takes place.

The Draw Menu contains a group of Form Controls that determine what happens on the canvas.

1. Reset

Clears the canvas completely.

2. Instant Draw

Runs a complete draw immediately.

3. Shuffle Draw

Similar to Instant Draw, except it recalculates a set number of times based on the Shuffles value. Use the spinner to increase or decrease it in increments of five.

4. Interval Draw

Runs the draw with a pause between each drawn club. The Interval (SS) value decides how many seconds this is. Use the spinner to change it.

Tick the Dynamic Canvas checkbox to make the canvas resize whilst the draw is taking place. This doesn’t affect the other two draw types.

A separate section on the left shows the current ball and the remaining ones to help you keep track.

Other Information

The following applies to both worksheets.

Modes

There are two modes: Admin Mode and Presentation Mode.

Admin Mode has the ribbon, gridlines, formula bar and headings switched on.

Presentation Mode does the opposite. It’s ideal when you’re running a draw in front of people. They won’t even know it’s Excel!

Backstage Panel

Helper columns assist with the action on the front stage. Unhide them by pressing the + button. This will then change to –, which does the opposite.

VBA

As archaic as VBA is, it wouldn’t be possible to do everything you’ve seen without it!

Press Alt + F11 to open the Visual Basic Editor and access the objects and modules.

Final Thoughts

I didn’t set out to build an FA Cup draw simulator, but it just happened to be the direction I veered towards. If I had built a generic one, it would have been plain, dull and boring. Yes, functionality matters most, but if it’s going to be projected on a wall in a clubhouse, the presentational aspect is important, right?

Don’t consider this a finished product — version 1.00 is just the start. I will listen to your feedback and see what keeps springing up.

Here are a few of my ideas:

• greater personalisation — add the ability to change the colour scheme and logo
• additional draw types, such as group and single elimination
• option to include two clubs for a single ball in cases of not-yet-played matches

If you have any other suggestions, please do leave them in the comments. Likewise, report any bugs if you spot any.

Download

🔗 Cup-Draw-Simulator-v1.00.xlsb

A Windows desktop version of Excel for Microsoft 365 is required for maximum compatibility.