Leaderboard

Dear England, As your nearest neighbours we would like to offer condolences for your sad loss. At times like this it can be hard to find the right words, so we've made a short video instead. http://www.joe.ie/football/world-cup-2014-brazil/vine-scottish-fan-goes-absolutely-nuts-celebrating-suarez-second-goal-with-uruguay-fans-in-brazil/

Wyness101. is the winner of the pennant. I will announce the star prize of the coveted cup final top signed by the players in a few hours when I get home. Just to make the final draw more interesting we have Skype set up with Scotty. 25 identity tags with all the entrants names will be attached to 25 Wild Salmon. they will be released into a Canadian river and the 1st Grissly Bear to lift one out of the river will be announced the winner, all Scotty has to do is take the salmon from the hungry bear and show the tag to the web cam. Im not sure if this will be done with force or by distraction, IE asking the bear what they thought of the merger or have they read Charles Bannermans book. etc Back in a few hours.

Mike was there at the time of the merger and is far more qualified than most to make such statements - I would suspect that the main thing that irritates a lot of the pre merger fans is that many posters tend to suggest that it should just be forgotten. But these things were and are important issues in the lives of the survivors. At times it still feels like a loss - a death. There will always be the thought "what if ?" - I know I have said it before but it could be comparable to ICT and Ross County merging. Now some, if not many, may scoff and laff at that - but Caledonian FC was an institution. It was a passion, it was a love, it was a family. To many it was a case of Caley til I die and forsake all else. Although many pre merger fans may disagree - I view ICT as a resurrection of Caledonian and I feel that I can continue to say Caley til I die - and feckin sing it. Jeggies were more of a banter rivalry and the merger only served to overemphasise and catastrophise the divide. Mike appears to believe that the merger still has an effect - of course it does. Who do the offspring of the hundreds of original dissenters support these days - NOT ICT.

Any excuse to show this again (Scotty's the fat one):

NO tippy tappy tiki taki poopy woopy passes from Uruguay then, one big punt from the goalie & bang goes in Suarez`s 2nd goal !

20 years on, I really prefer just to boil the merger down to four brief statements. It happened. It was controversial at the time. It worked. It has brought football in Inverness on light years since 1994.

Plan A and Plan B are both correct and are evidently linked. I never alluded to thousands but hundreds of born and bred Invernessians who are influenced by the experience and bitterness of the older generation in their families. They are being brought up to look at ICT as being an inbred establishment born out of local politics and power building and those individuals are more prone to follow the big teams originally followed by their forefathers and spreading the anti ICT message to their friends and probably to their offspring. I have never suspected that this explanation to be understood by the posters who have never been part of that family or privy to the psyche since the merger. Sometimes stories are more about the fans rather than looking at the politics and the management, especially when displaying them as saviours and beyond reproach - a bit like Terry Butcher perhaps ? And when you have a historical following of separated cheese and jam locally but can savour a menu of delicacies at a national level - you encourage others to go for the latter - especially if you feel that you have been forced to eat the cheese and jam whether they like it or not. And there is only one monster and that is the individuals who wear blinkers about the merger and get paid for writing fairy tales.

I see that Yogi tipped Spain on the basis that they play football the way football is meant to be played. I'm afraid I disagree. In 2014 they won the world cup by scoring just 8 goals in 7 matches. All 4 of their games in the knock out stages were 1-0 victories. There is no doubting the technical abilities if their players but other teams have moved onwards and are wise to the style of play. The Dutch destroyed them with the quality of their counter attacking play whilst the Chileans totally out-thought and out-fought them. They took the game to Spain but constantly pressed Spain when they had the ball. When Spain did get forward Chile put 5 narrow at the back to stop them going through the middle and Spain simple did not have the players to go wide and get behind the defence. Notwithstanding that the tactics eployed by the Netherlands and Chile produced winds against the World Champions, the attacking play of the Dutch and the Chileans was simply far more entertaining to watch than anything Spain could produce.

The winner of the signed photo is. The Mantis.

Thistle and Caley were robust rivals but to say that they were from the same communities is saying that about Wednesday and United or City and United or Athletico and Real. It may well have been to the financial benefit but that does not lessen the hurt and the feeling of both sets of fans that there was hidden agendas and a serious lack of consideration of the effect on many. Just read the last two paragraphs of the CB response. The only thing I agree with is that football clubs need fans and mergers have little attraction to them. That is why we have so many refuseniks who continue to influence their friends and their families.

ROLL ON !!

I think Rednapp is one of the most over hyped managers ever, the media like him because he gives them what they want.