snorbens_caleyman

Sorry! I predict that I'll get things wrong, as usual...

...and of course we are always saying how knowledgeable about football the BBC are

In case you, or anyone else, is interested, I have just posted some stuff under the heading "Highland Orphanage - Culduthel Road".

A little bit more, in case you or anyone else are interested. The Orphanage was at 71 Culduthel Road. If you are going up Culduthel Road away from the town centre, the driveway is on the left, about 200 yards after the right hand curve at the bottom of Temple Crescent. It is two conjoined buildings in an L-shape. The first was opened in 1877, the second in 1887. It closed in the late 1950s, and the 18 or so children still there were transferred to Carroll, on Island Bank Road. I have never investigated the history of the Orphanage. I have heard that, perhaps unsurprisingly, that it wasn't a happy place - but I have also heard the opposite. I used to know the well-known town Councillor Tom McKenzie, who lived in Hilton, but I don't think I knew at the time that he was a child of the Orphanage. Perhaps some of our elder citizens here - Scarlet or Jock Watt - know more about it? One of my earliest memories is sitting in my grandparents' house on Daviot Drive, which overlooks the site, and seeing the children streaming out of the schoolhouse in the Orphanage grounds. In the late 50s, the Orphanage was converted by a local builder - Campbell, I think - into 9 flats, and the schoolhouse was converted into two semi-detached houses. As part of the deal, the same builder also put up the two blocks of flats which constitute Drynie Terrace, just over the wall from what was now called Culduthel House. We moved into one of the flats in either 1960 or 1961, before I started school in 1961. My mother moved out in 2008, so she didn't quite make 50 years. The flats varied in size, but most were spacious, with good-sized rooms and high ceilings. We were in an upstairs flat, so we also had loft space running the length of the flat - which we converted into rooms, including a bedroom for me - and also some basement space and a double garage. When my mother moved out I took three months off work to remove nearly 50 years' worth of accumulated possessions and arrange a move to a much smaller flat - and I needed most of that three months! There was a communal area of grass at the front of the house, which was great for small games of football. It was surrounded by bushes and trees - great for climbing. As you will see from one of the photos below, not all of the residents cultivated their gardens, so as a consequence there was a great deal of safe space for us kids to play in. I used to hop across the wall - or through it, when there was a big hole in it - into the field in Daviot Drive, to join in with the football game that was usually under way there. Future Caley player Ritchie Mackay and his older brother Brian (keeper for Lossiemouth, IIRC) were regulars there. Another who moved into a newly-converted flat was Maude Anderson (although probably still unmarried and thus Maude Yuill), who was a physics teacher in the Academy. To say she was bossy is putting it mildly, but she was OK as a neighbour, and her husband Ian was a lovely man. Guitarist Tommy Torrance, well-known on the Inverness music scene, lived with his wife Wilma in one of the flats at the front for a while. The only other resident of note was, for a year or two, Malcolm Slater, who played on the wing for Caley and won the league with them in 1970-71. There are three photos of the front of the house at https://her.highland.gov.uk/Monument/MHG15455 They appear to be copyright Highland Council, so I haven't reproduced them here. There is an absolute gem of a film at https://movingimage.nls.uk/film/1535 , showing a gigantic chocolate Easter Egg being taken from Mario's shop on Eastgate, and delivered to the Orphanage. The two pictures below are from the mid-70s, showing the front and then the back of the house. Our flat was the very last one upstairs at the right-hand end of the house. The single window was at the top of the stairs, the windows on either side were in what would now be called "reception rooms", and, at the back, overlooking Temple Crescent, were two double bedrooms, kitchen and bathroom. Below are a couple of our own photos. The first is from about 1986 or so. The second one shows the view from my loft bedroom - some of the gardens cultivated, some not, Drynie Terrace on the left, the garages constructed from the Orphanage playground shelter, and Daviot Drive straight ahead. Beyond that is what I will always think of as "new" Hilton - it was cornfields when we first moved in.

Love it!! "a regular love-in", a "beat marathon" - you couldn't make that up. Great line-up. Kim Simmonds is still fronting a band called Savoy Brown. Brinsley Schwarz's bass player was Nick Lowe, and Brinsley and another later went off to join the Rumour (as in "Graham Parker and ..."). "If" were formed by legendary sax player Dick Morrissey (of Morrissey-Mullen fame). I saw a version of Atomic Rooster last year, but I think that was based around a couple of later 70s members. Only one I'd never heard of was Blacck Wido, but I see that there is a Wikipedia page - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Widow_(band)

Well, he is a director of Brora. Noticed that earlier this year - don't know how long he has been there.

And for the record, from the top left we have: - Daimler SP250 - 1960 - Shelby Cobra - 1972 - Jensen CV8 - 1965 - Iso Grifo Series 2 - early 70s - Vauxhall Victor - 1962 - in 1974, I passed my test (first time!) in a 1962 Victor similar to this one - Chevrolet Corvette - very late 1950s - my favourite - I'm not normally a fan of American cars, but this one was drop-dead gorgeous. My next door neighbour in St Albans used to keep an Interceptor in his garage, as "an investment". However, the galloping tin worm was advancing rapidly across it. And the engine, when he fired it up, sounded like a collection of nuts and bolts inside a tumble dryer. Now I can't remember what happened to it. Going back into the mists of time, our family car was once a black 1953 Velox, identical in appearance to that Wyvern, with all that metalwork at the front. We once collided head-on on our driveway* with a Post Office Morris Minor van. There wasn't a mark on the Velox, but the front of the Moggie van was in a very sorry state. *driveway - not as posh as it sounds - we lived in a flat in what used to the Highland Orphanage at 71 Culduthel Road.

So will they train with ICT, except on the days (more likely evenings) that Fort William train? Will they train with Fort William at all? I remember that when Caley and Thistle (and others) had many Aberdeen players, they all trained together in Aberdeen, and often travelled together on the train to and from matches.

Very well, since I used to live about a mile up Culduthel Road. (To be precise, it was a mile from Barneys, so a little less from Hetty's.)

The Rotary Club in the next town up the road, Harpenden, had their annual fund-raising classic Cars on the Common event a couple of days ago. A mixture of the exotic and what was once everyday. Here are a few pics.

Ford Cortina Mk 1, Ford or Commer van, Hillman or Singer or Sunbeam, Riley or Wolseley ... oops, sorry, wrong thread. Haven't been in it for years either, but it's another piece of old Inverness about to disappear. Years ago, the standard advice for anyone arriving off the sleeper from London was to head to the Castle Snack Bar. It was about the only place open at that time of the morning, and the breakfast was, apparently, very good.

Well, Cove are outnumbered if there is a punch-up on the bench

Hi Danylo. There used to be three whisky distilleries in Inverness, but they all closed down a long time ago - in the 1980s I think. Their names were: Glen Mhor - this distillery was quite literally at the end of the ground of Caledonian FC (Caley), one of the teams which merged to form ICT. Glen Albyn - very close to Glen Mhor - both distilleries were at the side of the canal in Inverness. Millburn - at the east side of Inverness - the distillery is now a hotel, and I was staying in it last week ? Because the distilleries closed down so long ago, the whisky will be very hard to find, and you will have to pay a lot of money (maybe hundreds of UK pounds) for a bottle. I have tried them all, several years ago. I think my favourite was Millburn, although I also had a special single-cask bottling of Glen Albyn which was really good. But none of them was as good as the best whiskies that you can find easily today - Highland Park, Springbank, Macallan, etc - so if you can't find any, then don't worry. You won't be missing anything special.

Please tell me you will be attending all games this season. You have a clear and effective influence on the team.

A google for "30 Old Edinburgh Road" reveals that it is, or was recently, known as Flora Macdonald House. I don't know why. But it might be that the heads on either side of the door are meant to be Charlie (not Bannerman!) and Flora. The heads, and the stonework immediately above the door look quite unweathered - ie relatively modern - to me. One might suspect that the initials could be 'C' for Charles and 'FM' for Flora Macdonald. But I think that's unlikely - I would have expected at least an 'S' for "Stuart", and more likely 'McD' or a conjoined 'MD' - ie with the M & the D joined together - for MacDonald.

Freddie Nield with two different coloured boots, so that he knows which foot is which... (cont on "Old Highland League Days")

Right midfield, with Fat Bob in defence, Wee Eck out on the wing, and Soapy Soutar as slippery striker.

Exaggerating as usual. It was only 19. Clach didn't do so well - beaten 17-0 by Queen's Park. google for scottish women's cup football - google seems to be more up to date than the official website

You need the SFA licensing requirements and the SPFL rules. The SFA licensing requrements set the requirements for each level - USH is only at gold level - and the SPFL rules which who say what level is required for each league, as below: "D4.4 any ground which a Club or the Candidate Club registers or is deemed to have registered as its Registered Ground, must, by not later than 31st March preceding any Season and for the whole of that Season: D4.4.1 with respect to Clubs entitled to play in the Premiership and the Championship have achieved and maintain with respect to stadia criteria at least the Bronze Standard set out in The Scottish Football Association National Club Licensing Manual in force and as amended or supplemented from time to time; D4.4.2 with respect to Clubs and Candidate Clubs entitled to play in League One and League Two have achieved and maintain with respect to stadia criteria at least the Entry Level Standard set out in The Scottish Football Association National Club Licensing Manual in force and as amended or supplemented from time to time; D4.4.3 with respect to Clubs entitled to play in the Premiership and the Championship have had and have adequate winter pitch protection, as provided in Rule H10; ... H10 Each Club shall provide, maintain and use in such manner as to ensure its efficient and effective operation an adequate winter pitch protection system. Such systems shall be fully utilised by the Home Club before any League Match or Play-Off Match where there is a reasonable possibility of its pitch otherwise being frozen or covered in snow or ice so as to ensure that the League Match is able to take place at the venue and on the date and time scheduled notwithstanding such possibility."

I was checking up on it while you were asking the question! Apparently the requirement for undersoil heating was dropped - along with the requirement for 6000 seats - when the SPL and SPFL merged a few years ago.

Maybe we should have a referendum on that I say that because I have lived in England for over 40 years now, and, with no intention of moving back to Scotland, I wasn't bothered about not having a vote in the indyref. Quite a lot of my friends and colleagues down here thought that I should have had one. In fact I thought it would be wrong if I had a vote. It would put me in the same boat as, for example, all those who have retired to Spain and yet still vote in the UK. Doesn't stop me from having an opinion about independence, of course. Different maybe if you intend to move back, but how could you ever tell between someone who is genuine about that and someone who is just saying it? And just think of the logistics of trying to give a vote to every Scottish-born person all around the world!

Don't forget the Challenge (Irn Bru) Cup!

I didn't used to be a supporter of independence. My father, being a old-fashioned Highlander, didn't have much trust in people from the Central Belt, and thought that there wouldn't be much difference in the Highlands being governed from Westminster or from Edinburgh. In fact he reckoned that the huntin' shootin' fishin' brigade from England probably knew more about the Highlands than many folk from the Central belt. He wasn't impressed with the Scottish parliament when it was first set up, reasoning that the if the MSPs had wanted to stand for office, then they had already had three other opportunities - local government, Westminster parliament and European parliament - and so they must have been the scrapings from the bottom of the barrel! I guess that some of this rubbed off on me, but since I had left Scotland in 1978, with no thought of returning, I wasn't much bothered about the whole independence thing. Although my wife and I did notice the big change over the years after devolution, from a nation whose main identifying characteristic was hatred of its nearest neighbour, into a self-confident, forward-looking country. After two or three years of Cameron's first government (the coalition), the word I most often used to describe them was "incompetent". So, as the indyref neared, I found myself thinking what I would do if I had a vote. And, given the shambles that Cameron's government was, and the mess they were making of running the country, I realised that I was thinking "You're better off out of this. Go for it!". And I came to realise that I supported independence. The years since then have revealed new and unimagined depths of incompetence in Westminster. I don't think that a change of government would help. Before the indyref, I saw on TV some economist who had been asked whether the average family in Scotland would be £1.5K better off or £2.5K worse off, or whatever the numbers were. "Look," he said, "no one knows. However, what we do know is that at the end of the day, Scotland would still be a reasonably prosperous country in north-west Europe. Of course there are differences, but on the whole all countries in NW Europe have pretty similar standards of living. There's no reason why Scotland should be any different.". So there you have it. Yes there are serious questions about an independent Scottish economy, which need proper answers - not least about trade with England. And it's easy for me to say "Go for it!", because I don't live in Scotland. But I'd still say it.

I could see a right-wing Brexiteer PM giving Scotland more devolved power, with Westminster having less control over Scotland than it does now. I suspect that none of the usual suspects - Johnson, Raab, etc - cares a jot about Scotland. Since they would draw virtually no support from there, they could be happy to give it more power if that was the price to avoid being remembered as the PM who oversaw the break-up of the Union. You would still lose the benefits of EU membership, of course. But a cunning PM could certainly make independence a very difficult question.