Legendary Caley Thistle manager Steve Paterson will return to the Caledonian Stadium to lock horns once again with former Ross County rival Bobby Wilson in a unique extra attraction at ICT winger Barry Wilson's five star testimonial against Liverpool on Monday August 18th. The two managers, who set Highland football on its way to its current place in the two top divisions in Scotland, will meet head to head once again. But this time it will be in a half time challenge match in charge of seven a side teams of "legends" who graced the colours of both clubs in the vintage years of the early and mid 1990s.

Paterson, who signed Bobby's son Barry for Inverness in 1996 and took the Highland Capital team from the Third Division to the top half of the First via victory at Celtic Park, has since had spells at Aberdeen, Forres and Peterhead. For this special challenge on August 18th his resources will include Jim Calder, Charlie Christie, Alan Hercher, Graeme Bennett and Duncan Shearer.

Bobby Wilson, who signed Barry as a teenager for Ross County in 1988 and played a massive part in the Dingwall club's election to the SFL in 1994, will correspondingly have golden oldies including Gordon Connelly, Robbie Williamson, Billy Ferries, Chris Somerville, Gary Campbell and Johnstone Bellshaw.

"It's great to have an attraction like this at half time in my testimonial which is going to be a fantastic night," said Barry. "I somehow don't think I'll go into the dressing room at all because I'd much prefer to watch all my friends kicking lumps out of each other once again. These half time challenges are usually a laugh, but I somehow think this one might turn out to be a bit more serious! To get my dad and Pele to manage the two teams is wonderful as well and I'm very pleased that so many great players of days gone by have come forward for a challenge which will give an already great friendly an extra edge."

Steve Paterson and Bobby Wilson are both synonymous with the early days of intense rivalry between Caley Thistle and Ross County in Scottish League football. But, following a number of clashes when Paterson was in charge at Elgin and Huntly, they only actually faced each other in the SFL for a single season in 1995-96.

However it was some season. Inverness finished third in Division 3, just missing promotion by 6 points, which was more than they dropped to County who were a further four and a single place behind that. In terms of head to heads in the league it was advantage Wilson since County had two victories, 2-0 and 2-1 in Dingwall, while there were two 1 all draws at Inverness's Telford Street Park. The January midweek encounter at Telford Street pulled in a Third Division record crowd of 4950, surpassed nationally by only two games on a night when there was also an SPL programme.

But for Inverness fans the high point of that season was the Inverness Cup Final in December 1995 between the two sides which brought a modern day record crowd of 3000 to Grant Street Park to see Paterson's men take the silverware 5-2 with the help of an Iain Stewart hat trick.

It is grsat moments from the past like this which will be relived on August 18th, on an occasion for which tickets are still selling rapidly although still available, including online at "www.ictfc.co.uk".