Leaderboard

I just wanted to offer my thanks to the Club & MFR for the Video updates that are posted each week. Both Pre & Post match Interviews with players & TB are fantastic and a huge difference from just a season or so a go when we had very little. A lot of us moan about things a lot but few of us manage to congratulate the club when credit is due! Finally with a gelled team and a great league position; this should end up being a season to remember, no matter how it ends! Keep it up ICT

Likewise, spent a day getting pissed at Headingley v West Indies. Test cricket is incredibly dull and slow, but the old Western Terrace banter was good. One very memorable moment : sitting next to me was a buxom and not-unattractive young lady, never met her before, but she turns and says "Do you think I should do a streak? I've always wanted to." It was inevitable that if she did it she'd be caught and arrested. So I gave the same advice any sensible man would and said "Course you bloody should, you'll never get a better chance! Here, let me help...." And off she went, starkers, and got half way to the wicket before being rugby tackled by a steward. I'd like to say I ended up marrying her, but alas I never saw her again, and she never even came back for her knickers.

Yes, at the moment, we'd be a bit of a scalp for them, wouldn't we?

Quite frankly who gives a flying f**k about the merger, we have been a successful club putting the highlands on the Scottish football map and I am happy for it. It's a bit like 20 years after marrying your wife still obsessing about the the guy she pumped before you met.

Funded by their royal family and currently trying to sign Beckham? The similarities are incredible.

Ok, 6 against St Mirren and 7 against the seething shadows.

He's talking to himself! Finally he's resorted to attempting to convince himself on the merits of his arguments because clearly even he doesn't believe the rubbish he spouts. Makes for good Christmas entertainment though.

5 against St Johnstone and 6 against the seething shadows!

maybe a paper round?

(subject to satisfying the natural and commendable curiosity of some of the youngsters on this thread who want to know where their club came from.)

We've got a few on the verge of coming back, so not overly concerned about cover. Butchers comments on the winter break being like a new signing, I believe, were in reference to getting some of these guys back.

this huge but dormant caley support, has never been anything but a fairytale. why did only a couple of hundred turn up to save the club from death? the truth is that there were always dormant football fans in inverness, they just didnt support any of the teams. the same folk would go and watch any inverness club in a scottish cup game and out number the regulars at least 5 to 1. I'd say its fair to assume that if any of the 3 inverness clubs who existed at the time of the merger had gone it alone then they would probably have a similar level of support we do now. the extra assets available because of the merger were wasted, so the loss of those and the 200 or so fans of the other non merger club can be overlooked as arguements against a single team eventually getting to the top flight. this is an old one but i still say the location of le stade de calais is still the number one reason more people don't turn out (at least it ranks way over the merger as an excuse). obviously moving somewhere less ridiculous and hopefully to a facility that more closely resembles the real thing, will never happen unless somebody else foots the bill. we missed our chance years ago and have been paying the price since.

No! Since I finished work for Christmas earlier, Mr Glenfiddich has tried to stop me from working with numbers, but I would still think that we'd require more than that for Mr McKay. The way I understand it, 6th place to 2nd is about 7.5% of the SPL fund, or over £1.3M, so if he can make that difference for us, he's worth (at least) that £1.3M by the end of this season alone.

Or somebody with a bit of savvee ? And I do NOT refer to me as I was a part time supporter by then. Again Dougal has a point but delivers it, as usual, in the wrong manner. In 20 years there wont even be a phone box - apart from an Immortal - who will leave an answering message.

Let's face it dougal caley like the jags were at times medium size fish in a small pond. Today they are in the big pond and not doing too badly. Neither would have been as successful as the current set up whatever we like to imagine. Those that stay away are part of an ever reducing group which in reality if they actually bothered to turn up would make no real difference to the income of the club. Sad but that's how it is.

Isn't the purpose of a forum to enter into discussion on a relevant subject which interests you? And put your views and opinions across? Whenever the subject of the merger comes up, a lively discussion always follows, and Mr Bannerman is perfectly entitled to share his views, as are you and everybody else!

That sort of mentality is how I ended up getting married. :D

Red, Black or Blue Not just for the few Together longer and longer Like the team we get stronger Not just Inverness Thistle (or Caley) But Inverness Caley Thistle ;-) Anon (1885 -1994)

Just another 50 years or so to go before everyone who has some prejudiced view about the merger is dead and buried and ICT can finally get the City united behind it.

I was never a fan of the pre-merger teams and would have had no interest in going to see either Caley or Thistle if they had joined the SFL. I'm sure there are dozens more theoretical refuseniks just like me.....

Got 1 against Hibs, 2 against County and hat trick against United. Fair to say if he dosent get at least 4 against Dundee.....he's benched.

In Glasgow supporting their true love.

I know of 4 supporters, 3 Caley and 1 Thistle who never went back to a game while I would have prefered Caley to have gone it alone ICT were and are still ahead of our shadows and have a Premier Team to follow which is great for the youngsters of Inverness and surrounding areas. You are right in saying quite silly, they are the ones that are missing the great football now! If only the Jags had been voted in ahead of Ferranti Thistle we would be red and black champions of the world by now !

The reason you are surprised to hear this is that the merger has NOT actually kept very many fans away from supporting ICT at all. This is and always has been a complete myth which a tiny rump of Cyber Rebels attempt to perpetuate through various social media, including on here, and when they occasionally meet face to face in plenary session in a phone box on Telford Street. It's a wee bit like the myth about Celtic supporters in Seville, except about 20,000 times smaller. If you are one of the younger members of the ICT fan base, let me summarise what happened from the autumn of 1993 in a very few sentences. (A more detailed account can be found in "Against All Odds" online on this site.) Some Caley and an even smaller number of Thistle fans objected to the merger and the manner in which it was achieved. It is important to understand that attendances at games in these Highland League days was tiny (a few hundred) compared with nowadays since in between a large number of new fans with no interest in the merger in the first place have come on board. In the case of Caley, it is also very important to understand that in any case, no more than 226 people ever voted against the merger, even though recruitment by the anti merger faction was exhaustive. Of these:- * Very many still came to games and even helped out behind the scenes when the club got under way. * Some more have drifted back over the years. * Some more have left Inverness as would have happened anyway. * Some more have died in the intervening 19 years, as would have happened anyway. The numbers in Thistle's case were a good deal smaller than that. So, almost 20 years on, this residual small fraction of what, by modern standards, was a very small number in the first place, is really a drop in the ocean. However the more successful Caley Thistle has become in its transition from the Third Division to the top quarter of the SPL, the more and more bitter this tiny awkward squad has become and also the more laughable their cyberfiction. As a result, this Christmas, with this highly successful team sitting where it is, there will rather more "Bah Humbugs" than usual in that phone box on Telford Street. The merger, fascinating though it was to observe, is long gone and its product is now riding high in the very top tier of Scottish football. So this Yuletide, beware men with "predominantly blue" Santa hats, telling fairlytales, bearing grudges and with back numbers of LSM sticking out of their predominantly blue santa suits!!! EDIT - and I thoroughly agree with Caley D who posted as I was writing!!!!!