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I'm sure some of the pro photographers will have a better shot, but managed to stitch this together from the photos I took at the time....feel free to use/share if you so wish.

OK, now that the dust has settled, here's my stab at player scores for the final - I'll ignore the temptation to give them all 10s! Esson - 7. Nothing he could do about the goal and was a safe pair of hands....apart from a terrifying moment when he mucked about with it on his own line! Shinnie - 6. Not his best game, but obviously playing out of position. A couple of dangerous crosses in the first half. Devine - 8. a really solid match, except when he was beaten to it for Grant's goal. I'm not sure you can say he was at fault, though. Meekings - 8. Dependable as ever. Great ball through to Watkins in the first half. Tremarco - 5. I thought he had a good first half, but he'll have flashbacks about that mistake for the rest of his puff! Draper - 6. Was surprisingly quiet throughout. Good header out to set Watkins on his way for the winner. Tansey - 6. Unusually quiet. A couple of decent free kicks. Christie - 6. Not his best game and definitely faded in the 2nd half. Doran - 8. I thought he had a great first half. His slip pass to Watkins for the first was outstanding and I thought he was going to skin Grant for another before half time - superb tackle in the end. Inevitably, the winger gets sacrificed after a red card! Ofere - 6. Playing in the hole didn't really suit him. Had some decent touches, but tended to hold on to it too long after making space. Didn't get a sniff in front of goal. Watkins - 9. Could not have worked harder for the cause. Probably should have passed instead of shooting for the 2nd....but the right result in the end! Yogi: - 7. Was dealt a bad blow when Dave the Rave was ruled out. Not sure the shake up at the back really worked, but there weren't many other options. I don't think Ofere in behind Watkins worked and he should have been pulled early in the 2nd half to shore up the midfield which we were losing. But, hey - you only went and won the cup for us Big Yogi! Collum - 9. Got all the big decisions right. Special mention has to go to Vincent: I know he was fresh on as a sub, but that run to catch Watkins and still have composure to finish was astounding. The payers often say he's the fittest boy there - I believe it now!

An extra 500 at an average of maybe £15 a head for 19 home games is over £140,000 in one season which is significant cash for ICT. Some may suggest that gates going up by 500 as a result of this is too modest a target, and indeed, if you take a ballpark figure of 12,000 of Saturday's ICT support not being current attenders, it only amounts to around 4% of the potential market. However I don't think St Johnstone experienced the boost they deserved when they won last season and ICT will need to work hard to capitalise on this opportunity. What has been decidedly unhelpful in terms of keeping the momentum going is that national media coverage almost instantly turned away post-match to cover a game the following day which two teams were playing effectively because they had both been failures. I think it's completely wrong to have anything else in place as a potential counter attraction or indeed distraction from the Scottish Cup final. When that distraction involves one of the Old Firm, then national media interest in ICT and the Cup melts away even faster. And when this degenerates into a disgraceful punch up, that interest spontaneously evaporates. So even by the time you get to the Monday papers, ICT is getting seriously sidelined and I really do think that Caley Thistle have been seriously short changed by this scheduling of a game between one team which couldn't avoid the bottom two in the Premiership and another which couldn't win the Championship. On the other hand, if momentum is going to be maintained on this success, the crucial element may well be the local media, who have no such OF obsession.

Scenes as the City of Inverness Celebrates......

Red Card Riley, "Gloria", Johndo and Yogi and his stunt double talk putting the Highlands on the map and picnic baskets...

I think I was one of the few who openly supported Hughes from the start and without going down the "I told you so" route, I said there was something about him I liked. As a player, and then when he was on the management team at both Ayr and Falkirk I enjoyed his banter with the crowd from the sidelines. I met him briefly at the stadium just a few weeks after his appointment and my initial feeling was confirmed. Having said all this, I do have to admit that I never thought he would take us this far this fast. Yes, he inherited a great bunch of lads from the previous management team, and most of those guys are the players who won this for us, but he came in, changed the style and philosophy and got those guys to raise their game a notch or several so he has his stamp on the team too. Sometimes it wasnt pretty and I think many of us expected some growing pains but the only pain right now is on my face from smiling so much. Also want to take a moment to say some people should also perhaps say the same thing to Kenny Cameron. Our chairman took a bit of a verbal pounding at the time Hughes was appointed .... but yet again he, and our board has been shown to have made the right decision at the right time. Our various chairmen and boards have made perhaps a handful of bad decisions over 21 years but they do have a pretty good track record. That is another reason why I was comfortable with the decision at the outset. I have known Kenny for donkeys years and I don't recall him making a decision that he did not think was for the good of the club or the fans.

....the first goal was class from start to finish. Six wonderful quick passes down the right and through the centre and a clinical finish. If you want Hughes' philopsophy summed up in <10 seconds of football, that was it.

Mrs G and me were so pleased to have helped lay out the cards on Friday afternoon even it was just for a short while. A fine effort by everyone. That includes the fans who were at their seats before the team came out..it wouldn't have worked otherwise.

Don't know what your problem is, but I thought the Northern Meeting Park thing was really good. Some people are never happy...

agree. this is crucial. if we can convert a few hundred or even a thousand to come along regularly it will have a pretty significant impact on our turnover

In too good a mood to moan about narrow minded erseholes who cant be bothered giving extra media coverage. We won it in the hard way. We did 5 in a row knocking out 3 SPFL teams including our league bogey team, St Mirren, Celtic and 2 Championship teams. We didnt get lucky draws to make the final like Gretna. We didnt need to go millions of pounds in to debt to be there. We didnt need a wealthy billionaire to get us there either. We earned the right to be there, even with the resources that we have and we still won it, because of that Im Proud, very Proud. Now if the BBC Scotland cant be bothered covering it for local evening TV viewing and choose to cover a few thugs hitting each other instead and you don't need any special skills for that. Then perhaps the BBC has lost a bit of credibility.

I'm still dehydrated, and I'm not sure whether it is from the drink or from the several pints of water it felt like I cried at full time. Didn't really expect it, I must admit - I'm usually a bit more stoical than your average X-Factor or Masterchef contestant - but I think it was a combination of the dream coming true and a release of the tension of the previous 20 minutes or so; I'd convinced myself we were going to blow it from the moment Tremarco was sent off, even after we went ahead again, and my legs totally went from under me when the final whistle blew. Absolutely magical day though, and one of the best things about it was being able to spend most of it with a combination of the close friends that I started going to see the team with in 1996, and the close friends I have made over years of ICT away days.

A lot of us were on the same boat. It looked like the cheap option, but boy what an amazing job he has done. I don't buy this 'it's not his players' malarkey he has done a sensational job at transforming our style of play into the most entertaining in the country, whilst helping our players develop even further. He's just such a great person too. My Nanna(a very wise woman) met Butcher once and said he looked straight through her as if he was above her. She met Yogi about a month ago, spotted her staring and smiled and said hiya. That's the difference. Yogi is a genuinely good guy, as well as being excellent at his job - the players seem to love playing under him.

Here's one signing I would love to see us make... find it incredible he hasn't been snapped up by a bigger team - his record for us was pretty incredible: http://www.express.co.uk/sport/football/580728/EXCLUSIVE-Steve-Marsella-believes-Inverness-can-cure-his-Wembley-woes

Swan Vesta is a recognised striker - sure to light-up any match!

Not as much as if there was a "rangers" in some guise or another in the top flight. We all need one. Allegedly. Armageddon... Or something.

'Stand By Me' - grab that for the club anthem perhaps ? Every time I hear that from now on I'll think of when we won the Scottish Cup

No call up for Cammy Bell?

Ach, just use the classic CTO journalism http://caleythistleonline.com/page/index.html/_/reports-2014-15/scottish-cup-final-2015-r1279

CTO Cup Final Report published complete with some video footage http://caleythistleonline.com/page/index.html/_/reports-2014-15/scottish-cup-final-2015-r1279 :smile: What a moment to be a Caley Thistle fan. 21 years in the making but a combined 239 years of magnificent history.

Well done folks, the card display was excellent, great work by you all

No. It was your eyes watering. We had a great support and huge numbers but they had a few thousand more but, from my vantage point in the South Stand, we had, by far, the better card display and the other thing that we had in the end that they didn't was the cup...

Take a bow Peter Paul.

They are doing things with the trophy but the players are on holiday so probably community coaches just now. I'm running a schools football tournament in Invergordon on Thursday and they are coming up with the trophy for an hour and a half. They had provisionally penciled me in depending on result in final and seemed like they had provisionally made other commitments as well. Have to say I'm pretty excited!

The card display was amazing! Well done to all involved....when I saw the pictures of it I choked! I think Falkirk tried sonething similar but it was a bit phish....or maybe they were waving the white flag!

yup. had a wee tear in my eye yesterday .... last time that happened was 22 months earlier when my little guy was born. A few medicinal whiskies later and all was fine ;) TFC also won yesterday and one of my mates from the bar is an Arsenal fan so all in all we went 3 for 3 yesterday !

Still bawling my eyes out today tbh

To everyone involved in the card display a big thanks and well done. Having now seen it on TV (as opposed from behind a card) it looked stunning and made Falkirk's look like an amateur afterthought!

I would imagine the diehards figure would be a fair bit higher. Most season ticket holders attend every home game and there must be more than 800 I would have thought

I do the off duty

Blatter has resigned ! A smoking gun ?

Yes, I heard the chat on Sunday morning on Radio Scotland around the cup win and its potential impact on Inverness and its size of support. What really bugs me about this argument is that you'd think we were the only Premiership team that had a small support and that all the others were turning punters away from packed stadia every week. In fact, Partick Thistle, Ross County and Hamilton all had smaller average attendances and we were pretty much on a par with St Mirren. You don't hear Chic Young using the Midden as an example of a club that needs to be working harder to get punters through the gate. Maybe I missed it, but was the same debate held last year after St J's cup win? Whatever the issue is with the game in Scotland and declining crowds, it is not unique to ICT. I have no doubt that Kenny Cameron and his small team will be trying everything to capitalise on the Cup triumph and I'm sure they don't need to take advice from Chic "everyone wants Rangers back in the top league" Young!

The 50 yard shot was worth a try. Would have killed the game stone dead if it had gone in.

Ofere.............what about that wonderful slip pass into Doran to give to Marley for that first goal.........worth a six at least for the big man.

Agree. The kids are the future. Wasn't in Inverness in the build up but I told that there were, for once, more kids going around wearing ICT tops than Celtic or The Rangers tops. We need to capitalize on that and make it a permanent state of affairs. When the only Old Firm tops in display in town are worn by (misguided) adults the future will be ours. It may take another decade but the initiative needs to be seized now...

Vaulks certainly did very well also.

nahh, feck off back to photobombing (or is it videobombing) the chairman.

Ignorant and wrong? Well Chic should know it when he sees it! I too am happy to be ignorant and wrong.

Given another season under Yogi and he would be EPL material. If he stays watch out for fireworks from him by the middle of next season.

My eyes watered with pride when the players were walking out, I was a bit overwhelmed by the occasion tbh. I though I would cry when we won but I just went absolutely mental when the winner was popped in. What a moment. Best day of my life(so far)

Excellent attendance and atmosphere, despite all the Glasgow naysayers predictions. A fair amount of neutrals who enjoyed a £5 ticket, and many of them apparently had a great day out. Fantastic to witness the lack of rancour, the Bairns have been very sporting, saying that if they were going to lose, they were happy it was to a team and support like us. Contrast that to the semi final!

Yet the atmosphere was electric! There weren't many empty area in the lower stands. Yes the entire upper south stand wasn't for sale but I still think it proves that you don't need an Old Firm team in the final to make it a good day.

Not really wanting to say too much other than well done guys

Remember the 'crazy guy' pointing at iain Vigurs a few years ago? Was watching the game back and the camera briefly scanned the crowd - Bingo! There he is...still looking like a cross between Liam Gallagher and a hit-man!

Exactly what Fraz said and it was a pleasure to be part of it. Just to get an idea of the monumental effort this was to achieve, it took 30 man hour to put the stickers on alone!!!!!! The squad of helpers at Hampden was amazing all working together to make the display as good as possible (and yes it was stressful especially the letters!!!) It was a huge team effort and I could not have been prouder when I saw the results. There were tears before the match even started lol.

Thank you at one point i thought it was never going to work but once i had seen the photos at half time i can honestly say i am so proud of it

You won't be in the Championship long if you keep playing like that. You have an extremely astute manager whose tactics were spot on in the second half, when you bossed the game. And Peter Grant was outstanding, saving goals at one end, and scoring at the other. You contributed a lot to an epic day. Impressive turn out.

I think it's safe to say that there are a few new junior ICT supporters in Dalneigh lately. The class of 2015 left nursery singing 'Oh Inverness is Wonderful' at the top of their voices today. I'm sure that's in the curriculum somewhere.