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If you are suggesting that those not born and brought up in Inverness or who happen to be women, of whatever age or background are somehow less worthy or less valuable fans than native born Invernessian men then this particular native Invernessian man could not disagree with you more.

Eh.....nope. No, we're not. But whatever! No reason why we can't get a good result on Saturday to set us up for hosting Sevco. Onwards and upwards!! #comeonthecaleyjags #prideofthehighlands #caleyaway

Doofers Dad - HELGIN SHITTEE - In January, 1967, City unveiled their brand new floodlights with a 2-0 replay win over non-league counterparts Hawick Royal Albert to set up a first round home clash against Ally MacLeod’s First Division Ayr United. A super-charged 9,500 crowd, again under the Borough Briggs floodlights, were rewarded with a memorable 2-0 victory to set up a second round trip to Glasgow and another crack at Celtic. A year on and the Scottish Cup records were about to be rewritten. Preliminary round wins over Albion Rovers and Tarff Rovers, followed by a first round success against Forfar, set up a mouthwatering home second round tie against Arbroath. A record Borough Briggs attendance of 12,650 celebrated a fantastic 2-0 victory to take City into the quarter-finals, the first – and as yet, only – non-league side to reach that stage of the national tourney. And CB is showing his true colours - One of the "Traitors In The Stands" - used to freebies as long as they stuck by the profiteers. It just sticks in his throat that we are right. Many of the "Invernessians" were the refusnik Caley and Jags fans.

I listened to the coverage of The Rangers first ever visit to Pittodrie on Sportsound on Saturday afternoon and was struck by two things. Firstly; I could clearly hear vile sectarian singing almost from start to finish including 'The Billy Boys' with it's most offensive lyric. By all accounts the away section was awash with the body fluid of Irish Catholics and the Pontiff was being frequently sexually abused. Such conduct, apart from being grossly offensive, is in breach of UEFA rules, in breach of the SFA's rules, against the rules of the SPFL and contrary to the criminal law. The old club inhabiting Ibrox came to be regularly sanctioned by UEFA for such conduct during European fixtures with the supine SFA and then SPL never taking any significant action. Our supporters have been warned off relatively harmless and non malicious banter with our local rivals in the form of 'The Wheels On Your House' yet this disgraceful conduct on the part of a five year old club who's predecessors brought shame and financial pain to the whole of Scottish football not just for their bigotry but financial impropriety which may yet be established to be criminal seems to be turned a blind eye to. Secondly; I note that the BBC have yet again been excluded from Ibrox presumably on the basis of yet another paranoid petulant huff. The BBC have a contract with the SPFL which provides valuable income to all clubs which, I suspect, stipulates the right to broadcast from all stadia and to pre and post match interviews with players and management. The Rangers are putting the organisation at risk of being in breach of that contract with the potential, if not for damages for breach of the current contract, for any future contract to be negotiated on reduced terms. Rangers caused their own demise and, in the process, caused great harm to the reputation and finances of Scottish football by their conduct in their previous incarnation. Surely The Rangers can't be permitted special treatment to be allowed to do the same again. Scottish football is potentially a great product and could and should enjoy a much higher and more positive profile furth of these shores but until the game is administered and regulated for the benefit of all rather than two large Glasgow clubs, one of which is in it's first season in the top tier, they will always drag us down. The latest manifestation of this bias is the scheduling and venues for the two League Cup Semi finals obliging Aberdeen fans to engage in a 300+ mile round trip for a lunch time kick off whereas Celtic and The Rangers get to play in their own back yard kicking off two hours later no doubt affording two hours additional drinking time to fuel the vitriol on both sides. Time now for the other clubs to put aside petulant threats of boycotts and get together to put an end to the Weegie tail wagging the Scottish football dog.

Link to article below including reference to radio interview to be broadcast later today. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/37501055

Well if you beat a fairly buoyant St Jones Town, fashion a worthy draw at Aberdire and come from behind to grab another well deserved point against the Champions elect the remainder of September and October should hold no fears. Dundee, Sevco, Killie and the Jam Tarts at home and only two away trips to Hamilton and Muvversmell. I would take 13-14 points from that lot. Interesting quote from Foran yesterday was that his main man management task was to keep the players who are not getting a regular game happy. I think that should be a bonus as I cant remember such competition for starting places for many a year and with people on the bench quite capable of fitting in. That of course means that everybody has to maintain a level of performance to ensure that they keep their places whilst the others have to be ready to take their chances. The back five basically now picks itself. There is lots of scope to change things in midfield and hopefully to play teams to fit in with the opposition we are playing against. I feel that pushing Draper forward was a masterstroke as it allows both he and Tansey to play their own games instead of vying against each other. Lets just hope that the last three games are not just lifting ourselves against the better teams and we can show the psyche to dominate some of the "lesser" teams. This is a great opportunity to cement ourselves in the top six and provide early breathing space from the anxieties of a relegation battle. And what a feckin difference from the shocking display in Embra

As someone who was involved in Caley at the time I can catagorically say there was no fraud! As Mantis says tickets were numbered and accounted for. It was different days no stewards taping off sections to control numbers standing in any particular area of ground this creating an illusion of "rammed" compared to terraces today. I remember the ST J physios wife took ill that day and they were shocked at how little medical staff were present at the match. Got a bit heated for a while with their mood not helped at us gaining a draw. Sorry this bit totally off topic!

But Tearlach wasn't in the Howden End but maintains the whole place was 'packed', and goes on to imply that some kind of fiddle happened. So either extra tickets were printed (unlikely, since I still have mine and it's numbered, so the printers would have to be in on the scam too), or a cash gate was opened (which surely couldn't have gone unnoticed at the time, or if it did, would surely have come out anecdotally over the next quarter century amongst some of the fans or the people who have been namedropped above).

I was in the Howden End that day, and remember this game well, and whilst Jeremy Corbyn might describe it as 'rammed', there was certainly adequate room in most areas. The closest TCS came to this was the cup game (replay?) against Dundee Utd I think it was in the early days when the stadium capacity of stand and terracing was somewhere around 6000. the stand was full and the terracing was also jammed ... we scored an injury time equaliser but I think we were beaten in extra time.

Why? It was set at a modest 5500, all-ticket. 1992, not 1952. If you had been in the Howden End you would have seen it wasn't even all that crowded. In fact, if you had ever been in any of the larger stadiums before the Ibrox disaster, instead of playing croquet or whatever it was you did back then, you would have filled your kecks

Best of luck with your audition for the next Hovis advert.

I would hope it is indeed abundantly obvious where my allegiances lie, they lie, in football terms almost entirely with ICT subject to a soft spot for Clach who were my late father's team. I confess that as a young child, I did briefly have a 'big team' and that team was Rangers. I was a child and knew no better. Thankfully. I do now.

I have actually been in similar crowds - possibly bigger - when we played Elgin, Ross County, Cup Finals and even Huntly. "Glory Hunters" perhaps - but like our (ICT) major cup games they came from wide and afar. And feckin respect to them. The swarms of crowds going in the piccie was for a Caley v Thistle Derby. My post was not about Caley although we drew the bigger support. It was a bit of proof that Sneck could draw big crowds when successful as I tried to emphasise in the original post. Caley drew 4000+ in the Perth replay. The "greatest" atmosphere EVER as far as I am concerned. The hairs on the back of my neck still bristle at the thought. CB really has never understood the "real" story, the "real" feelings of the old Caley and Jags supporters.

It's a pretty sad state of affairs when any reference to Inverness football in the early 90s has to be sniped at as an alleged reference to the m****r. This thread has now drifted away off topic, mainly due to misleading photos which weren't even of Highland League matches being used to imply that Highland League crowds were much greater than they actually were. And that was before the next bright red herring of attendances for Elgin City's all time most famous Scottish cup campaigns in the 1960s. The point I was making was that Highland League attendances spent a number of years dying on their backsides and, in the case of Kingsmills and Telford Street, to appraise that we clearly have to adopt the end point of the early 1990s, by which time things had become pretty thin indeed. I am sure there must be some recognised clinical diagnosis for a fixation with looking back to an earlier phase of your life with an exaggerated fondness and delusionally inflated perception of just how good it was. "Hovis Syndrome" might suitably apply. "Who mentioned profiteers?".... YOU did IHE. Take a look at the penultimate paragraph of the post five above this one! Then we have very interesting views from dougal and dougiedanger respectively about the ethnic integrity and ideological soundness of "real" fans of Inverness football. First we have DD who seems terribly concerned about getting "the right kind of chap" through the gate. Only the ideologically sound. Only the "Inverness minded" perhaps? Then we have Dougal, who for all we know may well be an Albanian or an Eskimo who has never visited Inverness in his (or indeed possibly her) life. Dougal is clearly very concerned about the Aryan credentials of people gaining entry to Inverness football matches. Given that this time round, measuring nose length wouldn't provide an indication of ethnic Invernessian purity, might he instead be proposing placing "real" Invernessians at the turnstiles who would only admit those with "acceptable" vowel sounds...... "righ'een naff". Clearly the xenophobic, parochial tribalism of the old Inverness football remains alive and well.