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Meeting with the Chairman 30th Aug


RedCard

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13 minutes ago, Charles Bannerman said:

The title Caledonian Stadium is perfectly neutral - in context - and hence suitable. The problem is that Caman is taking this in isolation and not as part of the more comprehensive and complex package which the merger became. I don't know how familiar he is with the merger process ("Against All Odds", its official history, is available online on this site) but the most important fundamental was that it was an unequal merger. Caley were considerably bigger than Thistle, but the clout of the two as a combined entity was far in excess of the sum of their constituent parts. Indeed it was said at one point during the merger that Caley were providing 70% of the assets, 80% of the membership (a questionable figure given that this reflected Caley's major, effectively artificial twin recruiting drives for internal reasons) and 90% of the fundraising capacity. Inevitably, the shape of what emerged from two years of difficult bargaining had to reflect that considerable disproportion.

That deal included the club name (initially Caledonian Thistle until the "Inverness" was added to honour pledges made to the Council), the title of the Company (Inverness Thistle and Caledonian) and the stadium name. It took until the beginning of the second season, 1995-96, for the strip to reflect disproportional representation of the two in the form of an agreement for 25% black and red to be incorporated into the "predominantly blue" original. The delivery of this was a masterpiece, because everyone expected a "Sampdoria" black and red band round a blue strip. However what materialised was the complete integration of fairly broad red verticals and narrower black ones into a strip which had blue as its main colour - a visual representation of a union rather than two separate colour schemes cobbled together.

I initially wanted to call the book "Blue, Black and Red" and that was actually the working title I used during the writing, but I was overruled by Dougie who wanted "Against All Odds", which I have for long also preferred myself. (The ONLY other thing they overruled me on was calling Ian Fraser "Coffin John". So revered was "the Coff" after his £300K plus investment in 1996 - shares which eventually found their way to the Hospice and hence now to the McGilvrays and Alan Savage - that they joked that they would only call him "sir"!)

What I have said therefore effectively overtakes Caman's question which is not the relevant one. What I referred to was what the club colours were, not what were involved in this season's choice of home strip which has blue and red. All 3 have been involved there on plenty of past occasions and he will of course also note that this season's away strip has a great deal of black in it.

Charles, I am aware of some of the history, the allegedly 'free' season tickets handed out to Caley folk for Season 1993-94 so they could vote re the merger. I was at Rose Street Hall for meetings leading up to the merger, but FFS that is all history.  History is not a derogatory word!!

I am for a re-branding for the future with the points mentioned above. I won't change my opinion and I think the 25th anniversary would be a good time to lay some of the 'ghosts' to rest and move forward. Respect the past, move forward into the future!!

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20 hours ago, Caman said:

We still have too many things/names etc that refer to pre May 1994, which cause animosity. ICT are over 23 years old now and we have sufficient history under that brand. I would like the following to change. 

1. Stadium name. Apparently the Tulloch bit will be going. Why not at that time re-name it Longman Stadium, Capital Stadium, Inverness Stadium. Neutral and part of the re-branding that is required. 

2. Kingsmills Lounge in main stand. Re-name it Firthview Lounge or something neutral. Or how about 'Right Enough Room' (only joking mun). 

3. Remove all pictures of Caledonian FC and Inverness Thistle FC days as there are a lot of these. Consign them to a museum room or corner. Replace with ICT era pictures. 

4. The cabinet thing in the Board Room is from Telford Street. Not neutral so stick it in the museum room. But don't ask me to help lift it!!!!

5. Controversial. Change colours to mainly purple, with green and gold piping. Purple and Green from Thistle, Gold from Eagle on club crest. The crest is historically complimentary to the pre-merger clubs and is unique enough to ICT to be acceptable. Away strip to be mainly Gold, with Purple and Green piping. Fiorentina shade of purple is a striking colour. Colours are unique and would end arguments of too much blue, not enough red etc etc. 

6. Remain as ICTFC, as opposed to Inverness FC which I have previously suggested. 

Thoughts on above? 

What a heap of sheeiiiite

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53 minutes ago, RedCard said:

Very refreshing meeting with some of the board today. I will have further information in due course but the ideas I put forward were well received. 

Interested to hear what ideas you put forward

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16 minutes ago, caleyboy said:

Interested to hear what ideas you put forward

Cheers caleyboy. I'm sure the club will communicate the ideas in due course. All I will say is that they are listening to the fans and know that certain things need to be changed asap. 

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4 hours ago, RedCard said:

Cheers caleyboy. I'm sure the club will communicate the ideas in due course. All I will say is that they are listening to the fans and know that certain things need to be changed asap. 

Why the secrecy all of a sudden red card?

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12 hours ago, caleyboy said:

Why the secrecy all of a sudden red card?

No secrecy caleyboy. Some commercial ideas were well received and they will act on them. Don't want to announce anything just yet until they are set in stone. 

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I don't agree with all the old supporters continually bickering about the old days I never supported either caley or thistle and have only been a ictfc fan to me and the subsequent generations my own sons included our stadium is the caledonian stadium our colours red and blue this is not caledonian or thistle it's ictfc. The merger was done it's been in place for 23 years. This is our identity now and for me always should be.

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2 hours ago, MorayJaggie said:

I don't agree with all the old supporters continually bickering about the old days I never supported either caley or thistle and have only been a ictfc fan to me and the subsequent generations my own sons included our stadium is the caledonian stadium our colours red and blue this is not caledonian or thistle it's ictfc. The merger was done it's been in place for 23 years. This is our identity now and for me always should be.

I agree, we have too much history now as ICTFC - yes, there probably was a time for a name/colour change (for me, 1997 would have been right - when we added 'Inverness' to the club name, should have just left it as 'Inverness FC' ...& I speak as a former Jaggie!).

Only complaint I have with club colours is - red white & blue, c'mon! Can't we at least have red black & blue! Less negative connitations with Sevco!!

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35 minutes ago, jingsmonty said:

Can't we at least have red black & blue! Less negative connitations with Sevco!!

JM... if you look back a few posts, you will see what I have said about blue, black and red all having been there for over 20 years.... and about the unfortunate similarity with the Rangers strip. 

One very similar example of how two clubs have come together and retained their joint past is Sampdoria which is the product of a 1946 merger between Sampierdarenese and Andrea Doria, and also retains features of both partners' names. The main difference is that although Sampdoria and Inverness Caledonian Thistle both have blue, black and red as their colours, ICT has realised this joint heritage visually on the strip in a far more imaginative and unifying manner. Sampdoria also have a bit of white and, although white was part of Caley's colours, its status seems to have been lost at the time of negotiations although it has in practice been present ever since. That was very possibly because the many on the Caley side were far too busy stressing about "blue".

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6 minutes ago, Charles Bannerman said:

JM... if you look back a few posts, you will see what I have said about blue, black and red all having been there for over 20 years.... and about the unfortunate similarity with the Rangers strip. 

One very similar example of how two clubs have come together and retained their joint past is Sampdoria which is the product of a 1946 merger between Sampierdarenese and Andrea Doria, and also retains features of both partners' names. The main difference is that although Sampdoria and Inverness Caledonian Thistle both have blue, black and red as their colours, ICT has realised this joint heritage visually on the strip in a far more imaginative and unifying manner. Sampdoria also have a bit of white and, although white was part of Caley's colours, its status seems to have been lost at the time of negotiations although it has in practice been present ever since. That was very possibly because the many on the Caley side were far too busy stressing about "blue".

Fair enough - at least we seem to have stuck with stripes, which helps. We had a red black & blue striped home top a few years ago, which was fine. I can't bring myself to buy the current home top at all (do have the away one though..).

I wonder how many other people out there have been put off buying red white & blue ICT tops as well? 

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Should we not all put this merger thing behind us once and for all? I will always call ICT "Caley" and others will call us "Jags" but that is through personal choice. Personally I want to remember Caledonian FC with fondness  and I don't see anything wrong in memories through this merger of two great Inverness institutions. Let's just leave things as they are and hope our club lasts as long as Caley and Thistle. I am not for any changes as I don't see any need - just the same as the wording on our badge/crest which I still think was a terrible, terrible decision.

Edited by caleyboy
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22 minutes ago, caleyboy said:

Should we not all put this merger thing behind us once and for all?

 

I don't see anything wrong in memories through this merger of two great Inverness institutions. 

Agreed ... and agreed. One of the reasons I volunteered to write the book was to get the story out there so everything could move on. However there remains a tiny and overstated rump of refuseniks who unfortunately, and especially on here, emerge from their blue and white phone box on Telford Street and their even more thinly populated black and red one on Kingsmills Road to persist with vastly overstated claims that this remains some kind of controversial issue.

And of course we need memories of the continuous thread of traditions of Inverness football which goes right back to the 1880s and remains unbroken today.

Edited by Charles Bannerman
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23 minutes ago, caleyboy said:

Should we not all put this merger thing behind us once and for all? I will always call ICT "Caley" and others will call us "Jags" but that is through personal choice. Personally I want to remember Caledonian FC with fondness  and I don't see anything wrong in memories through this merger of two great Inverness institutions. Let's just leave things as they are and hope our club lasts as long as Caley and Thistle. I am not for any changes as I don't see any need - just the same as the wording on our badge/crest which I still think was a terrible, terrible decision.

Totally agree and without Caley and Thistle, there would be no Inverness Caledonian Thistle

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3 hours ago, Charles Bannerman said:

Agreed ... and agreed. One of the reasons I volunteered to write the book was to get the story out there so everything could move on. However there remains a tiny and overstated rump of refuseniks who unfortunately, and especially on here, emerge from their blue and white phone box on Telford Street and their even more thinly populated black and red one on Kingsmills Road to persist with vastly overstated claims that this remains some kind of controversial issue.

And of course we need memories of the continuous thread of traditions of Inverness football which goes right back to the 1880s and remains unbroken today.

Pity you never took your own advice and moved on I suggest North Korea there you might just make a friend or two

Dougal

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This topic has lost it's original purpose. I suppose I partially contributed to that, but it shows there remains a divide. To summarise, it is evident there are generally two types of ICT supporters.

1 - Those who supported one of the two old teams pre merger. Some of those still have 'issues' with certain aspects of ICT to this day. 

2 - Those who have no pre merger links and don't 'get it' in relation to those who do have 'issues'

Basically, we are a normal 'happy family' with relatives and family squabbles that will bug us for life. 

The end!!

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2 hours ago, Caman said:

This topic has lost it's original purpose. I suppose I partially contributed to that, but it shows there remains a divide. To summarise, it is evident there are generally two types of ICT supporters.

1 - Those who supported one of the two old teams pre merger. Some of those still have 'issues' with certain aspects of ICT to this day. 

2 - Those who have no pre merger links and don't 'get it' in relation to those who do have 'issues'

Basically, we are a normal 'happy family' with relatives and family squabbles that will bug us for life. 

The end!!

Theres a 3rd lot those who supported either pre merger team but dont have issues at all...lol 

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20 hours ago, old caley girl said:

Theres a 3rd lot those who supported either pre merger team but dont have issues at all...lol 

Yeah - I'm a former Jaggie (although I wasn't a regular attendee at Kingsmills..), but I can shout 'Caley' at the games now...!

We should remember Caledonian & Inverness Thistle with fondness, but time to move on..I do know a couple of pre-merger fans(1 on each side-1 follows Aberdeen & 1 follows Celtic) who won't have anything to do with ICT - personally, I think that's sad...

The 'Inverness' part of the name is the main part for me - we are the Senior team that represents the City & look at what ICT have achieved - the whole really is better than the sum of the parts!

I'm not really in favour of changing names, etc - think the 'refuseniks' won't come back, whatever the club does.

Ideas to attract new fans to the club are what is needed & sounds like Red Card has discussed commercial ideas which is great to hear!

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1 hour ago, jingsmonty said:

Yeah - I'm a former Jaggie (although I wasn't a regular attendee at Kingsmills..), but I can shout 'Caley' at the games now...!

There are not many Jaggies do that :ohmy: Can you stand up and shout it louder at the next game :lol:

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1 hour ago, IBM said:

There are not many Jaggies do that :ohmy: Can you stand up and shout it louder at the next game :lol:

 

42 minutes ago, jagster said:

Sshhhh I do it :ictscarf:

I cannot / will not utter the c word. :wink:Though, to be fair, I do not refer to ICT as Thistle or Jags either. "Inverness" is the name I always use. I still find myself correcting people who call us "caley", reminding them that it took two clubs to form ICT!

In the 23 years since formation I can't recall ever hearing someone call us Thistle or Jags. Unfortunately it seems "caley" is the name of choice for most folk, and it still irks me to this day hearing us called that.:shrug02:

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