It's come a long way since the days of the Aberdeen Prima Donnas, Cambuslang Hooverettes, Johnstone Red Rockets, Fife Dynamites and Tayside Toppers.

Last weekend's thrilling, three-way finish to the Scottish Women's Premier League title race attracted record crowds at Celtic Park and Rangers' Ibrox Stadium as both sides were pipped at the post by Glasgow City.

Another bumper attendance is expected on Sunday at Hampden Park - more indication of how far the competition has come since its humble beginnings.

Stop-start beginnings

When exactly that beginning was is a matter for debate.

Go to the competition's Wikipedia page and it lists Stewarton Thistle as the first Women's Scottish Cup winners in 1970, when the side from the Ayrshire town's 4-2 win left the aforementioned Prima Donnas somewhat deflated.

The Scottish Football Association's website does not start its list of past winners until Cove Rangers' 5-1 derby win over Aberdeen - some 26 years later.

Talk to Elsie Cook, who founded Stewarton in 1961 and was player-manager as her side won the cup two seasons in a row, and even she admits the first official first winners were Edinburgh Dynamos, with a 5-3 victory that left those Hooverettes dusting themselves down in 1972.

Why all the confusion? For an explanation, we have to go even further back in time.

Church documents recorded women playing football in Carstairs, Lanarkshire, as far back as 1628, while Scotland beat England 3-0 in the first women's international at Hibernian Park, Edinburgh, in 1881.

With men preoccupied at the front and women being encouraged into the work place, the game really took off during World War One. However, fearful that some women's games were attracting crowds of more than 50,000, the Football Association in England officially banned female football in 1921, and the SFA fell into line.

Era 1 - Young Reilly helps secure inaugural win

Roll on to 1970 and Cook recalls a surprise telephone call.

"From out of the blue, the presentation of a Scottish Cup was offered to me by the Sunday People newspaper journalist Hugh Farmer, asking if I could organise such a football tournament amongst the few Scottish teams playing regularly," she tells BBC Scotland.

She was only able to find "five or six" women's teams still struggling on despite being denied access to qualified referees or club or council owned pitches - and their changing facilities.

A 16-year-old Rose Reilly, who would play for both Scotland and Italy, was on the Stewarton side's wing as they went on to lift the H Samuels Trophy for the first time.

Stewarton would thrash Aberdeen 8-1 in the 1971 final, BBC football commentator Archie MacPherson doing the presentation, and there was good news off the field too as European governing body Uefa's motion instructed its member nations to take control of women's football.

However, the SFA was the only member to vote against the proposal and 11 women's clubs were still without governing body support when they set up the Scottish Women's Football Association in 1972.

Era 2 - 'Women shouldn't play football'

Having pestered SFA secretary Ernie Walker into a personal meeting with president Willie Allan, Cook felt confident that her pleas for help would be successful given the development of the game in Scotland had fallen behind England.

"I was met with this wee smiling Willie Allan in one of these men's domains with mahogany walls," she recalls. "He was very gentlemanly, but then he just shook his head and patted his chest and said 'Women shouldn't play football, Elsie'."

It was 1974 before Allan would relent. "It was only token," Cook recalls. "They didn't help us in any way, but at least we could use proper referees and proper pitches."

By then, the Scottish teams had been more enthusiastically welcomed by their English counterparts, with Stewarton, twice, and Cook's new club, 1973 winners Westthorn United, having each been beaten by Southampton in the first ever Women's FA Cup finals.

Meanwhile, Edinburgh Dynamos had lifted the first official Scottish Cup and would go on to win three more and be runners-up twice in the first eight years.

Era 3 - 'Abuse and ridicule'

Motherwell AEI, Whitehill Ladies, Inveralmond Thistle, Cumbernauld Ladies, Hutcheson Vale, Cove, Cumbernauld United all would lift the cup more than once as success was spread around the country - almost anywhere other than Glasgow.

It was still a struggle to garner publicity, with the SWFA pointing out at the time that the only promotion it gained for the cup final came from paid-for advertisements because no media picked up its press release. For one final, the tuck shop receipts made more than gate receipts.

"The abuse we had from the local and national papers, they were so derogatory and the ridicule was absolutely disgusting some of it," Cook recalls.

While the SFA had long since recognised women's football, it would not agree to the SWFA being affiliated until 1996. Hence why Cove's second of three consecutive cup final wins is the first to be listed by the national body's website.

Era 4 - City-Hibs duopoly

Glasgow City and Hibernian monopolised the Scottish Cup until last season

Kilmarnock's cup final win on penalties over Ayr United in 2001 appeared to usher in a new era.

Dr Karen Fraser, who is carrying out research into the lost history of Scottish women's football, points out that the SFA only finally allowed women's coaching qualifications in 1992 and suggests it "took a while for expertise to grow".

"There were a number of factors coming together at the turn of the century - the SFA had taken on running the national team and girls' development from the SWFA - which gave the SWFA more resources to focus on domestic football," she says.

"It is also the time of the set-up of the original SWPL, which started to attract some sponsorship, although there was no prize money until 2016."

Kilmarnock thumped Glasgow City 5-0 the following season, but when the Ayrshire side lost the 2003 final to Hibernian and City beat Queen's Park the year after that, a new duopoly where the dominant clubs would recruit players from more local sides was established.

City would go on to win eight more finals and Hibs seven by the time the Covid pandemic cancelled the competition two years running.

Dawning of a new era?

Celtic captain Caitlin Hayes and Rangers counterpart Kathryn Hill will hope to be lifting the cup on Sunday

A new era of professionalism has since changed Scottish women's football, with Rangers, Celtic and Hearts in particular benefiting from closer ties with their established men's set-ups.

City lost their 14-year grip on the league title to Rangers last season, while they were beaten by Celtic in the cup final.

Although City are back as SWPL champions, Sunday will be the first Scottish Cup final not to feature either the Petershill side or Hibs since 2001.

"The fact that they have now been allowed to use Ibrox and Parkhead and the fans are turning up in big numbers is fantastic," Cook adds. "England winning the Euros has really lifted the lassies' game. Everyone was talking about it and nobody was being derogatory any more."