Barnsley have been drawn at home in the First Round of the League Cup for the fourth time in five seasons but will face Championship opposition at this stage for the first time since 2005-2006 when they faced Preston North End.
The hope is the tie will be played on the weekend of the 4th-5th September, one week before the Football League season is set to commence and would be the first time the Reds have played a League Cup tie on a weekend since 2012-2013 when a 4-3 win at Rochdale in the First Round opened that particular season.
Barnsley are hoping to progress beyond the first stage for the first time in three years whilst their opponents Nottingham Forest have not been eliminated at the first hurdle since 2015-2016 and have reached at least the Third Round in the subsequent seasons.
This will be the first meeting between the two sides since a memorable Oakwell encounter in July when in the Reds final home game of the season a 94th minute winner from Patrick Schmidt went a long way to securing the Reds safety whilst also putting a massive dent in Forest’s ultimately doomed play-off bid.
It will also be the first time that Barnsley have finished an Oakwell campaign and started the next one against the same opponents since finishing 2003-2004 with a 1-0 defeat to Bristol City and starting their 2004-2005 home campaign by winning 2-1 against the Robins.
This will be the first ever League Cup meeting between the two sides and indeed the first cup meeting of any sort since a Zenith Data Systems Cup Northern-Section Quarter-Final in January 1991 which Barnsley won 2-1 at Oakwell. (Barnsley went on to reach the Northern-Section Semi-Finals where they were eliminated by Everton)