Caley Thistle book republished on CTO with new extra chapter

The story of the formation of Inverness Caledonian Thistle Football Club has now been republished free on this site - with a further chapter added to reflect the past history of both Inverness Thistle and Caledonian FCs from the clubs' origins in the 1880s.

Charles Bannerman's "Against All Odds" was originally published by the club in 1997 but the book sold out several years ago. Now Caleythistleonline  ('CTO') has stepped in with an offer to host an online version with an extra introductory chapter about Inverness's days in Highland League football..

The extra chapter reveals that controversy goes as far back as the 1880s and takes the story through both world wars to the likes of King Willie's days at Kingsmills Park, the great Caley teams of the 1980s, the Howden End and the Half Time Harriers.

"I've regretted quite a lot over the years that I didn't say more about Caley Thistle's Highland League pre history and of course the book has been out of print for quite a while now," said the author. "Then during the summer yet another request for the book on Caleythistleonline kicked off a series of events. The upshot is that CTO, through its co-publishers Scott MacKenzie and Don Johnstone, is now carrying an electronic version of the original book plus the extra chapter which I've just written, with free access. Scott made the very valid point that new fans and those too young to remember the tumultuous days of Caley Thistle's formation will always be appearing and wanting to know where the club came from. Now they can do so with an added bonus."

Regular CTO contributor Neil MacKenzie stepped in with an offer to scan the entire original and that has now been placed online along with the additional chapter. "Against All Odds" can be accessed, free to CTO members and non members, on this site.

Caleythistleonline was founded by Scott in 1994, has over 2200 active members and receives over 4 million page views a year. Don came on board in 2003 as a co-publisher, both to help with the day to day running of the site, and also to help drive it forward and take it to the next level.

"Caleythistleonline is a highly popular website which is an established focal point for ICT fans across the world and I'm very happy that the book, now extended, has become available once again thanks to Scotty and Don," said Charles. "I've been a regular follower of the site for ten years now so am especially pleased to be associated with it in this way."

As detailed in the original book, the creation of a merged football club in Inverness playing at the Caledonian Stadium was the product of a fraught three years between 1993 and 1996 which saw controversy, high drama and brinkmanship at venues as diverse as football grounds, meeting rooms, solicitors' and Local Enterprise Company offices and even the appeal court ... and it has now emerged that there is even controversy over which is the oldest club in Inverness.

"Whilst researching the new chapter over the summer, I discovered claims from both Thistle and Caley that they were the oldest clubs in the town from back in the 1880s," said Charles. "So the disagreements of the merger period were nothing new and there was one occasion when both clubs seem to believe they won the North Cup! But I'd better not say any more and leave people to read this all for themselves on Caleythistleonline."