Charlie Christie, Ross Tokely and Grant Munro often get touted as stalwarts of the club whose dedication and loyalty epitomise the Caley Thistle spirit but there is another person, usually in the background, whose contribution has been just as immense and that is Club Historian Ian Broadfoot who has decided to hang up his quill at the end of this season after many years of meticulous record keeping and match reporting.

Ian has kept records of every competitive match that Caley Thistle have played since their formation in 1994 and most of the non-competitive ones as well. He has also been responsible for supplying official match reports and a weekly, monthly and yearly set of statistics that is used by this website, the club and media outlets around the country. 

If you visited the club shop in its early days (before it moved to the portacabin) you would find Ian in there along with Peter McCallum volunteering their time to assist both the club and fans by running the shop for the club. If you have ever picked up a set of team lines, chances are it was Ian who wrote and printed them for you.

In 2004, Ian became the second person to write a book about Caley Thistle. Charles Bannerman’s book “Against All Odds” detailed the tangled and painful path that led to the formation of Caley Thistle whilst Ian’s book “Going Ballistic” chronicled the first ten years of the new club and he was lucky enough to have the perfect ending to it provided for him by the team as they not only won the Bells Cup but were also crowned first division champions and promoted to the SPL in the final chapter !!

More recently, Ian was involved in the formation of the ICT Supporters Trust and has also acted as the press liaison at the club on matchdays. To be totally accurate (as an article about our meticulous statistician must be), the formation of the trust took place ‘more recently’ but the discussions about forming one began many years ago and Ian was a part of this from the very beginning as a representative of the members’ club.

In short, you may not have known much about him but if you have ever read a report, looked up match or club stats, read his book, watched a member of the press interview Charlie or one of the players after a match, or joined the supporters’ trust then his service to the club and attention to detail have probably enhanced your enjoyment of following Inverness Caledonian Thistle FC.

On behalf of the site and its users we thank Ian deeply and sincerely for his contribution to the club and its fans. I would also like to thank Ian personally as it was he who first gave this site legitimacy by allowing us to use his reports. Because of Ian’s reports we were able to persuade people such as Programme editor Bryan Munro to supply player profiles, Gordon Gillespie and Ken MacPherson to supply photographs and the club to eventually recognise us as the official site. As everyone knows, we have gone through a few changes since then but it was Ian who helped us establish the site without ever being directly involved and for this we are extremely thankful.

Although Ian is retiring from both his ‘normal’ job and this ‘weekend job’ he will not be leaving the scene entirely.

He has been asked to help in the creation of the proposed Inverness Football Museum. The museum idea has gained prominence recently with the club endorsing it and suggesting it can find space at the stadium to house any artifacts, but it is something that has been close to Ian's heart for a few years now because of all the memorabilia he has collected personally or has been given over the years that will be donated to the museum. We are sure he will tackle this as enthusiastically and as meticulously as he did with his reporting and stats.

Ian is also helping Clach Football club to bring their historical records up to date and will continue to supply his ICT statistics. However, he will not be at the stadium each week in any official capacity and will no longer be able to supply the official match reports which will leave a big hole that the club and this site will need to try and fill …….