Nickname: The Sheep's Bags (due to the fact that sheep grazed on their pitch as the slaughterhouse was near by)
Kit Colour: Maroon
Ground: Shore Street Park
An item on Citadel's (or as they were affectionately(?) called "The Sheep's Bags") famous Qualifying Cup triumph:
Citadel wrote their name indelibly into the record books by becoming the first winners of the North Qualifying Cup. The team from the dockside of Inverness, with six of their players all living in Shore Street, within sight of their pitch, were in magnificent form as they swept through to be surprise finalists. It was almost an all-Inverness final, but Inverness Thistle were thrashed 4-1 on their own Kingsmills pitch by Murrayfield Amateurs in the other semi.
Ironically Citadel played in the final in a strip borrowed from Thistle as both they and Murrayfield wore maroon. Over 5,000 fans were at Pittodrie to see a 3-3 draw in that final. The replay was fixed for the same venue a week later and again it was a deadlock, this time 2-2, before 3,000 people. Intriguingly, both Citadel goals came in the dying minutes and both, scored by Henderson and Paterson, were obtained by shoulder-charging the goalkeeper over the line after he had saved the ball, which was then a perfectly legal tactic.
The SFA were asked to fix a neutral venue for the second replay - and triggered Highland anger and Inverness disbelief when they named Easter Road, Edinburgh, making it virtually a home match for Murrayfield. This only served to stiffen Citadel's iron resolve, despite the fact that they had to make an overnight rail journey to Edinburgh, hardly the ideal preparation for creating history.
Yet they were Murrayfield's masters in spirit and skill and 3,080 fans paid ?110 in gate receipts at the Hibs' ground to see Citadel storm to a 4-1 victory, an achievement that still rings proud down the decades.
Two goals for 'Poacher' Henderson and one each from John Henderson and Innes Whyte, to a Macdonald goal for Murrayfield, gave Citadel immortality in North football lore. Their team was:
Philip Smith; 'Oggie Munro', Tommy Brindle; Jocky Munro, Kenny MacLean, Bobby Reid; Bobby Logie, Arthur MacKenzie, John Henderson, Innes Whyte and John Paterson.
Sabbath observance was fierce in Inverness at the time, but over a thousand people were at the railway station the next day to greet the conquering heoes. Skipper Logie, bearing the trophy, was hoisted shoulder high as the Citadel players proudly marched behind a pipe band down to their stronghold at the harbour.
Though over 11,000 spectators had watched the saga of the final, Citadel made a profit of only ?6 on their triumph and shared it among the players, whose feat still lingers lovingly in Inverness football folklore some 60 years after Citadel's last ball was kicked.
Source: Highland Hundred by Bill McAllister, pp46-47
and on their demise:
Sadly, Citadel were in difficulties, the new housing estates springing up in Inverness favouring the other local clubs and leaving their harbour fastness faced with relentlessly smaller crowds, not helped by the fact that the wind whipping off the Firth made their exposed Shore Street pitch not attractive to neutrals. The league granted a free day on April 20 (1935) to allow the sympathetic North of Scotland FA to field a Select against Kilmarnock in a fund-raiser to assist impoverished Citadel.
....the AGM rejected a plea that they (Citadel) be allowed to play the next season on any local ground which was available, due to the poor gate drawing facilities of Shore Street Park and the club's desperate financial plight. Huntly and Forres moved that this be not discussed as every club must have its own ground and this prevailed by four votes to three over a bid by Thistle, seconded by Citadel themselves, that the request be considered.
It was to prove the death blow for the club which had been a founder member of the league and which only a few years earlier had basked in the admiration of Scotland for their triumph at Easter Road. Citadel slipped out of the Highland League and though they spent some time as a junior club, the decline was terminal and a great club shuffled off its mortal coil.
Source: Highland Hundred by Bill McAllister, pp53-54
Don't the comments about Shore Street Park seem as strangely familiar today as they were back in 1935.... :024:
