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Had this very discussion with friends over here recently. I dont watch the Champions League religiously like some folk. I may cherry pick the odd game here or there if the teams interest me, but when you step back and view it for what it is - a pure money-making machine for the elite clubs of a handful of countries - it kind of loses its shine. I think it should be renamed the 'Pigs at the Trough Trophy' or the 'Blatter Bowl' (where everyone is a winner). As a supporter of football rather than filthy lucre, I would go back to the scenario where the "champions" league required you to actually be champions of your country. If UEFA want multiple teams from one country then I might stretch it a little and allow cup winners into the competition as they too could be called 'champions' of a competition in their country, but not this ridiculous situation where you can finish 3rd or 4th in your league and go straight to the group stages whereas a true champion of a "lesser" country is forced to play 3 or 4 qualifying rounds to get that far. its not fair, its skewed against smaller nations has nothing to do with sporting achievement but everything to do with money, power and sponsorship. never going to happen though so I guess we just get on with it. I look forward to the day when ICT and TFC playoff in the Club World Cup !!!

In fairness to central belt there are many kids of today missing out on great times due to their parents stance on what happened in 1690 and 1921. Many local clubs miss out on local fans for all the wrong reasons.

It certainly brings a smile to you face to think that the 2 Highland league local clubs have brought the Scottish cup home to Inverness. A thought worth savouring. The foundation of both clubs and all the fans who have followed since then, has resulted in over 15,000 seeing our great team lift the cup. Highland league to Europa league, wow. Instead of chasing up the abstainers of years gone by, I would rather look after and appreciate the existing fans young and old of today and the years to come.

you will note that the "upcoming events" in the sidebar now links to our calendar ... we will be adding all matches to the calendar with relevant links to matchday threads, travel info and a map. You will be able to leave comments and also RSVP to say if you are going. The calendar should hopefully manage to replace the 'roll call' threads and perhaps the away day travel thread as a source for information. I have added September to the calendar so you can see what I mean. We can also add club or fan events such as bowling nights, parties, end of season ball etc. so feel free to submit an event for inclusion. http://caleythistleonline.com/calendar/events/2015/08/

The top 4 teams in England have got to be in the Champions league. No question about that Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester United , Manchester City, Could give any team in the world a good game. Of course there should be a question. If they don't progress as well as teams from nations who have less places, why on earth should they continue to have four places? Teams should be there on merit. The real scandal to me is the way that failure in the Champions League system get a 2nd bite of the cherry in the Europa League. The name of the tournament is the 'Champions' League. Arsenal haven't won the English Premier League for about a decade. A couple of years back, Spurs were in it. They haven't won it since the 1960s! Hardly 'champions' to take part in the Champions League. Seems awfully unfair as well that a team in one country wins their league and have to go through a couple of qualifying rounds while another can finish 4th...4th! and get straight in. If Uefa want to include these teams, they should really look at expanding the Europa League or even bringing back the Cup Winners Cup.

With all due respect to your Facebook friends 'most of those who attended Caley Park and kingsmills(sic)' were having the time of their footballing lives at Hampden. Those bitter few who chose to stay at home and seethe were the losers in every sense of the word..

Sorry if I got it wrong just said what ive been told sorry. I've never used bus from caley club or smithton just go to town then walk or take car. But if bus was to go from culloden I'd certainly use it and know many others who would. Some only on Facebook so certainly be worth setting up a Facebook page.

IMO, the Champions League has done more to damage world (not just European) football than anything else. It's almost solely responsible for the ridiculous levels of money that gets paid to players at the selected "Top Clubs", whilst the rest of the footballing world is left to feed off the scraps. There was very little merit in England acquiring the number of positions they did in the beginning and the co-efficient and allocation of places is engineered to ensure that they maintain that privilege. It's a competition that is run purely for profit...much like the English Premier League these days....and as is, and probably always will be, the case, people buy into the marketing and hype. It's a scenario that only serves to syphon an even larger portion of the money towards the chosen few who were lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time when it all kicked off. It's unlikely to ever change as those with the money are the ones who call the shots and there's not a hope in hell they will ever vote to give that up....so Que Sera

I expect the times and even the days will be confirmed based on TV and obviously the SPFL will ensure we will have a good few Sunday games to accomodate our Europa League group games.

Whether they're some of the best teams in the world or not is neither here nor there, they're not 'champions'. Next you'll be telling us the English Premier League is the greatest league in the world...

Yeah, it looks a decent start (on paper!) Overall, we've 16 Home and 17 Away games, which may-or-may-not 'even up' after the split! With a view to average attendance, it's a pity we've only one certain visit from Celtic - but that could be offset by having both Aberdeen and Hearts coming here twice. Also, we're at home on both of the Saturdays before xmas - perhaps the Killie game could be a pay-what-you-can to tempt the shoppers away from the Eastgate! Just one visit scheduled to our bogey ground, Firhill! We're away to the Dons on Boxing Day with County first-footing us on 2nd January. Our first match since winning the cup is very much a bread-and-butter fixture at home to 'well. The central-belt media will be looking at the attendance more than the score in that, I guarantee - ready for a cheap shot. Would be great if we could attract 4,500+ to ram it back down their throats! Right, that's been looked at - roll on Monday's Europa draw!!

An opportunity next season to hit the ground running.....

Jimmy Calder all day long. And I'd probably put Ryan Esson second. He won the 1st division with us in style and let's not forget a certain cup too! I'd say Jimmy is my favourite ICT player of all time. (love a bit of nostalgia!)

The Champions League is much more about making even more money for the wealthiest clubs and much less about fairness and sporting merit. The European Cup,where the league champions of each of the European nations competed against one another on merit and on an equal footing was an inspired post war idea and served the continent well until the accountants started running the game. The view that ' Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester United, Manchester City could give any team in the world a good game' is an utter irrelevance.

I really struggle to understand why some folk still don't see the remarkable achievements of ICT as a ringing endorsement of how successful the merger has been for football in Inverness. In reference to IHE's post regarding it is not just the "Rebels" but their offsprings I find that really sad that some youngsters are missing out on the greatest ever time in the Highlands football history due to their parents stance on what happened over 20 years ago. In answer to the posters original question I don't think that they feel any different and probably never will, but then again thats their choice.

I would just like to endorse the comments of both Sneckboy and 12th Man above. More or less from the day it was founded in 1893, the Highland League, and hence the entire North of the country, had a glass ceiling imposed on it because the area was frozen out of the national game by the central belt who wanted to keep it all in their own little kailyard. That attitude still exists and was recently manifested by those down there who wanted Ross County to be relegated last season. That Highland football got to the level that it did in terms of the quality within the HL and the not infrequent cup runs is a tribute to the efforts of many. I do not believe that ICT could have done what it has now without its extremely sound pre-1994 background and the expertise of the many who contributed to that, some of whom are still involved at ICT. To refer to the Highland League as "pub football" in uninformed nonsense. The glass ceiling was finally shattered in 1994 and the two clubs which decided to join together have in the intervening 21 years made this famous Highland League to Europa League, Qualifying Cup to Scottish Cup transition. That would not have been possible unless there had been a pre-existing proud football tradition up here and also the expertise to implement such a massive advance in such a short time. So, for reasons possibly related to youth and a complete lack of knowledge of what happened up here in the Highland League, "I am the Captain" is way off the target and indeed his shooting is so poor that he must instantly accept demotion to Lance Corporal. I would also like to supplement Sneckboy's list of founding fathers with Charlie Cuthbert and Jim Falconer, who is the only one of these four gentlemen who bore the brunt of the merger who is still alive. He must be pinching himself at the thought that, as ICT's football secretary, just over two decades after exchanging team lines with the likes of Rothes and Lossiemouth (no disrespect) he is now undertaking the administrative preparation for an Inverness team to enter Europe. Finally, and I'm not going to argue this one in detail here, I believe that no single Inverness club would have made it to the levels currently achieved. It has been claimed that Caley would have done just as well on their own. I just can't see how that could ever have happened since ICT has long since become much greater than the sum of its constituent parts.

It's taken the club a few years to stabilise the finances and get a workable and sustainable balance with the budgets. I'd personally prefer to see any new investment being used to improve facilities and encourage income growth which would, in turn, create additional funds to be invested in the squad.

Lets face it. Caley and Thistle were 2 diddy highland league teams. With the occasional cup flourish. Nothing more. Now some ambitious figures came along and wanted a team in the Scottish leagues, with an eventual aim of being a top flight team. That was the dream. It would never have happened had either team tried alone. Without the merger there would be no league football. No SPFL, no cup finals. No Scottish cup final wins. No European football. None of that. If you're happy watching glorified pub football then fine, the merger and subsequent success might not be for you, but it was the only way to bring Football success to Inverness. Now if those 12 old men who still have a grudge about it don't like it then fine. Because it's young fans and families and people enthusiastic about Inverness Caledonian Thistle and the city of Inverness doing well that we want to join the ranks. To come along and watch and help the club grow. Some people are just bitter.

Aye they did Charles. Every weaving machine they smashed up had to be rebuilt.

Not, in my view,ahead of the legend that is Jimmy Calder.....who, apart from anything else, unlike Mark Brown,was brilliant at saving penalties and who could build you a conservatory into the bargain......

Like most Thistle or Caley fans ( I was a season ticket holder for may years at Kingsmills but not at the time of the merger), I think IHE has made a valid point. A lot of these supporters had a "big team" as well as a local team. I was an Aberdeen supporter as I was born in Aberdeen before moving to Inverness as a child and started to support Inverness Thistle. This did not stop me going through to watch Aberdeen games however. After the merger however, which I still think was the best solution, I decided that as an adopted Invernessian, ICT would be my team and have been ever since. I am sure that many people also did this but the "rebels" just decided to support their big team to their great loss.

Our clubs success is built on signing under-appreciated players from the lower echelons and giving them the coaching and platform to develop. Just because we've finished third and won a Cup doesn't mean we should start acting like the 'big' clubs. A classic mistake. Rather than competing for players who are the finished article (a competitive, inflated market), there's much more value in searching for players with work ethic and potential. We have a great coaching team, have faith in them!

I assume he was a part-timer at Cowdenbeath? Well, he's 'won-a-watch' with this - but a big step-up from preparing for a season in League One with trips to Albion Rovers, Peterhead and Brechin, he's now signed for a club in their zenith, who are preparing for European football! He probably can't believe it himself!

Using my Facebook news feed, on Cup Final day, as a Judge, suffice to say, that most of those who attended Caley Park and kingsmills back in the highland league days, and who are on my freinds list, were pretty hostile about ICT lifting the cup. There seems to be a certain mentality among many of those football fans who i grew up with in the 70s and 80s, which seems to breed a lot of hostility and negativity. Funnily enough, a lot of these people were Old Firm Fans for the most part. The thing i find amusing is....many of those who act the most hard done by (ie, Caley Rebels), I dont recall many of them attending run of the mill Caley games during the 80s. I recall many of them attending their "big teams" games Some of the comments i read on Cup Final day, were bordering on Pathetic, as lots of posts were somehow trying to suggest that teams with reserved fans, are crap and dont deserve to win anything. this was coming from otherwise intelligent people!

If a genuine question.. it doesn't deserve to be shot down like this. The merger and the people that didn't support it are all still part of our history and possibly gave us the steel we needed to become as successful as we are today There was a good interview with Sergei Baltacha on BBC Sportsound leading up to the final and although Tom English didn't ask half the questions I'd like to have, it was the first time I had heard anything from his perspective. I was only 12 at the time of the merger so the season ticket bought for me at Telford street was the first time I had a season ticket for any club. I was completely oblivious to all the hatred that surrounded the merger but you can definitely hear that Sergei is still affected by his experience at that time. I don't know if someone else has posted up the interview but if you haven't heard it's worth a listen

​He's called FakeFan - must be a hint there somewhere. Maybe doogull has forgotten his login details. Anyway, don't feed the trolls. My name, is FakeFan but I'm a inverness born and bred ict fan. Genuinely wanting to know how these people feel. ​Then you better ask them....This is a site for fans of ICT

​He's called FakeFan - must be a hint there somewhere. Maybe doogull has forgotten his login details. Anyway, don't feed the trolls. My name, is FakeFan but I'm a inverness born and bred ict fan. Genuinely wanting to know how these people feel.

Done PF

zzzzzzzzz Laurence, try reading the previous 7 pages first ?