Caley Stan

Scottish Cup time Inverness add a new name and venue to their list of opponents as they take on Edinburgh City in the third round of the Scottish Cup at Ainslie Park, Edinburgh, the game kicking off at 3:00pm on Sunday 25th November. A heads up from Graeme the City man who mentioned he was looking forward to welcoming us all to Ainslie Park on Sunday. "I'd suggest getting there early, there's not many (4) turnstyles, so a fair old queue tends to form for larger crowds". Cheers, However, it's just us that's coming so maybe we don't qualify as a big crowd.............. Ainslie Park is actually the home of Spartans FC, but with Meadowbank undergoing some major refurbishment, City will be ground sharing until Meadowbank has been modified. Incidentally, Hibernian Ladies also play out of Ainslie Park. "The nearest place to the ground to get a pint, (exluding a carry out from Morrisons) is Here " Other than that there's not a lot about, a couple in the other direction towards Granton. Although the grounds not far from Leith/Stockbridge/west end- all probably about 10 minutes in a taxi. Graeme concluded, "Going to enjoy the day whatever happens, splashed out on hospitality. it's a pity the games been moved to the Sunday. Have the utmost respect for fans travelling out with the central belt".... Thanks Graeme, have a great day whatever. Caley Stan is yer man for the millennium man Preview, (yuppies for you Scarlet) and he has not disappointed with this one................... Who the feck are Edinburgh City? It’s a legitimate question without a straightforward answer. An amateur team called Edinburgh City existed between 1928 and 1955, including a period in the Scottish League and a 3-2 victory away to Hibs in the 1937/38 Scottish Cup First Round. The Edinburgh City Social Club continued to trade thereafter, and in 1986 gave permission for Postal United (an East of Scotland League side formed in 1966) to revive the name. The new club hopped around various Edinburgh locations before settling at Meadowbank Stadium in 1996 following the demise of Meadowbank Thistle (formerly Ferranti Thistle, without whom Inverness Caledonian Thistle would not exist!). Postal United/Edinburgh City had an undistinguished existence in the EOL, winning it only once, in 2006, but the team kicked into gear at the perfect moment with the formation of the Lowland League and its accompanying pyramid play-off in 2014. City had harboured a longing for Scottish League membership since the turn of the century, failing with bids for vacant spots in 2002 and 2008, and seized upon the opportunity to win that place on the park. They won the title in its second season by a 19-point margin but lost the pyramid semi on penalties to Brora Rangers, a certain Stuart Kettlewell with the decisive strike. The following season they horsed the league again - a 15-point margin this time and followed it up by defeating Cove Rangers and East Stirlingshire to claim a place in the SPFL. They finished 7th and 9th in their first two seasons in League Two, largely retaining the squad that had taken them up. They sound like a bunch of non-league haddies, we’ll pump them stupid, right? A year ago, maybe. But something has happened since then. Edinburgh City are on an outrageous run of form, winning 10 out of their 12 league games this season (with no draws!) and sitting top of League Two. Last week, they progressed to the semi-finals of the Challenge Cup with a penalties win over Alloa. What changed? They brought in a fair few players with full-time experience. At the back, Craig Thomson has played over 100 games at that level between Hearts and exile in Lithuania, and Conrad Balatoni played around 200 before joining City in the summer - both are just 27. Midfielders Marc Laird and Josh Walker have spent most of their careers in the English League Two, while up front, Danny Handling and Scott Shephard have significant top-level experience with Hibs and Falkirk respectively. But its Blair Henderson who’s been the star of the show this season - the 24 year-old striker was scoring a goal in every other game for Annan and Berwick but has upped that this season scoring 18 goals in 21 appearances in all competitions. Manager James McDonaugh has not been shy about taking credit for Henderson’s run, and indeed, the progress that City have made since he took over a year ago – see this interview at about 41mins on the Totally Scottish Football Show. McDonaugh, without any playing career of note, came through the ranks of the Hibs youth coaching system which means he must be a protégé of our own Donald Park. Jim Jeffries is also working for City as Technical Director. There must be money involved here but I haven’t found it. OK, but we have a glorious history in this competition, we pretty much are this competition, why the hell are we playing these no-marks in November? I thought the Scottish Cup started in January anyway. Our star has fallen, my friend. And they keep messing about with the early rounds of the Cup. This game, falling on November the 25th, will be the earliest we have ever started a Scottish Cup season and it’s the first time we’ve entered before the rest of the elite since 1999. The bookie that sponsors the competition was tweeting earlier in the week that we haven’t lost a 3rd round tie since 1999, and while that is technically true, we have fallen at the first hurdle on two occasions since then, albeit in what is now called the 4th Round (Hibs in 06/07 and Dundee last season). Someone will write a book about our exploits in the Scottish Cup someday (hopefully not that guy who wrote ‘Against All Odds’, that was pish), but the message here is clear: We don’t lose these games. Don’t say that, I’m getting worried now. What will Robbo do? Every time I write a preview I drop a heavy hint that I think Robbo will start with a 4-4-2 and he never does but this time I’m happy to predict that Robbo WILL start with a 4-4-2. It’s how he chose to start the season, all our strikers are fit now, and it’s how we mounted our wonderful comeback last week. I’ll be genuinely shocked if two out of Oakley/White/Austin don’t start. He’s stated that we will play our strongest available team, and with Shaun Rooney back in the squad, there will be decisions to make at the back. I’m going to need a drink before this, good thing Meadowbank has loads of good pubs nearby. Hard lines. Meadowbank is closed for refurbishment and City are groundsharing with Spartans at Ainslie Park for the next three seasons. This is fitting in a way given that City/Postal, Ferranti and the old Edinburgh City spent much of their time at the nearby but now defunct ‘City Ground’, often sharing with Spartans. Ainslie Park is a bit weird for lower league travellers - it’s a thoroughly modern facility with two 3G pitches and a five-a-side cage. With no pubs within staggering distance, and a limited number of turnstiles, some of the more boisterous elements among our away support may struggle to make the first half. Edinburgh City are stressing the importance of arriving early, the game is well-priced at £12/6 with under 12’s Free, and I hear the macaroni pies are delicious. As Noddy Holder used to say, My friend Stan got a funny old man............... ?

Thistle be the day Draw specialists Inverness head to Firhill on Saturday to take on Partick Thistle in the Championship. Last weeks draw against Ross County was the seventh in a row and that extended the unbeaten run to a record twenty-three games. It wasn't for the want of trying in the derby but few watching could be disappointed in the manner with which we applied ourselves and we were unfortunate not to take all three points. Caley Stan has checked out the opposition and he has this informative preview for us........... On my way home from Waitrose the other day, I stopped for a coffee in Artisan Roast Stockbridge and quietly pondered some way to construct an opening to this preview that included a disparaging reference to Partick Thistle fans’ middle-class, hipster, bohemian, pseudo-intellectual pretensions, when who should appear out of the Mellis Cheesemonger sporting the famous red and yellow hoops, but The Hoff himself. Beyond parody. Hassellhoff has previously sought to justify his support for Thistle on the grounds that they represent something beyond geographical or tribal identity, and they must have picked up a few fans over the years by simple virtue of not being Rangers or Celtic. But with attendances at Firhill starting to sink below the 3,000 mark, I suspect we won’t see many of those folk tomorrow. I might be wrong, but I assume most Partick Thistle fans, like the rest of us, identify with the club because they grew up near the ground, or their dad came from round there. One thing’s for sure, they’re not glory hunters. With just two major honours to show in a 142-year history (the 1921 Scottish Cup, and the 1971 League Cup), they haven’t been in a major final for sixty years. This is particularly surprising when you consider that they played in the top league for most of the 20th Century, never experiencing a sustained period in the second tier until the late 1980’s. History of the Fixture Won 11 Drawn 10 Lost 13 The teams first met in the opening game of the 1998/99 Second Division season. The Maryhill club were playing in the third tier for the first time in their history, and we came into it off the back of a mid-table debut season at that level. It was a tense affair with one moment of true quality on the hour mark when a delightful through ball from Charlie Christie was buried from an acute angle by Barry Wilson. We rode our luck for the reminder of the game, Jim Calder making a number of decent saves, and departed to a stream of Highlandphobic abuse from a home support whose club had just reached a new low. Their true nadir was to come later in that season when they avoided another relegation by a single point. Meanwhile, we were promoted comfortably, winning 3 of the 4 games against them in the process. It was another 2 years before we saw Partick again, and by the end of that 2001/02 season we were glad to see the back of them as they ruthlessly re-established themselves as Scotland’s premier Thistle, winning 3 out of the 4 league games with our solitary victory coming after they had already won the First Division. We also played them in both cups, coming out on top in the League Cup 2nd Round in Inverness on penalties after a 3-3 draw – Barry Robson notching a double and scoring the winning penalty. But it was the was Scottish Cup Quarter-Final of that season that will be remembered most of all. These were the biggest games the fixture has seen, with a crowd of 8,700 taking in the 2-2 draw at Firhill and over 5,000 attending the replay despite the SFA’s controversial decision to stage the game underwater. Maryhill Mod Scott Paterson scored the only goal, a decent free-kick in fairness, though I’d like to see Nicky Walker’s starting position. After a brief skirmish in the Court of Session in the summer of 2004, the clubs reconvened on the pitch for the 4th Round of the 2005/06 Scottish Cup. The tables had turned once again, we were enjoying a second season in the SPL while they were back in the third tier after successive relegations. They came up to Inverness and kicked us off the park before Mark Roberts scored an underserved equaliser with a 93rd minute penalty that he had dived to win. The replay was turgid, on TV, and we went out on penalties. The next meeting, another 4th Round Scottish Cup tie in 2009, saw a very different Caley team run out 3-0 home winners – Felipe Morais scoring a double. That stands out as a very strange result in retrospect – Partick were having a decent season in the First Division, and we were coming into it off the back of six straight league defeats – it was the week before ‘shoes off’, a seventh defeat at Hamilton, and the final departure of Craig Brewster. The following season we shared a league for the first time in eight years, losing the first two and winning the second two in line with our form that year, and Partick joined us in the top flight for four years in 2013. Over that spell we won just two of the thirteen league ties between the sides, despite finishing above them in three of the four seasons, and, of course, knocking them out in the 5th Round of the 2014/15 Scottish Cup……. Teams and Tactics Partick Thistle fans seem to have given up trying to analyse performances recently and spend their time online howling for players to be removed/imprisoned/murdered etc. so it’s been tricky to work out how they line up. From what I can gather, Caldwell’s been playing some kind of 4-5-1. The persistence with a misfiring Miles Storey has been a particular source of frustration, while a recent injury to Kris Doolan has given opportunities to Jai Quitongo and our old friend Andrea Mutumbo, with neither making much of an impact. Robbo has persisted with the 4-2-3-1, although he’s always keen to bring on a second striker and go more direct when we’re not creating. With Oakley and Austin now fit, he may find it increasingly tempting to return to the shape that he started the season with. The termination of Riccardo Calder’s contract and the ongoing absence of Carl Tremarco with a thigh injury leaves us without an experienced left back for tomorrow’s game. Joe Chalmers has played there before, but it wasn’t pretty, and Cameron Harper’s first team experience is limited to a farcical four-minute appearance at East End Park following a team-sheet error. Robbo has stated in the past that he feels Harper is ready to step in if needed, but in the aftermath of Calder’s dismissal this week, he suggested that the club may look to recruit a free agent to cover the position. Shaun Rooney has not recovered from the knock that forced him off in the derby. The Riccardo Calder situation has been dealt with by the club and they released This Statement. In effect Riccardo has left the building. The Official Site has a Preview with more detail and Robbo chat..... League Form Thistle: LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL Thistle: DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD Prediction: zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Tannadice test Inverness head to Tannadice this weekend and Caley Stan is yer man with a Preview to set up this clash for you. Dundee United are now spending a third consecutive season in the second tier of Scottish football. It feels weird to write that. Even though I don’t remember much about the eighties (youth not drugs), their incredible achievements throughout that decade (League Champions, UEFA Cup finalists, European Cup semi-finalists, perennial conquerors of FC Barcelona) formed a veneer of great stature around the club that barely seemed to diminish through the many years of mediocrity that followed. But relegation, boardroom wrangling, falling crowds and home defeats to the likes of Dumbarton and Ross County have taken their toll. Csaba Laszlo was sacked with the club on its knees, staring down the barrel of a fourth year out of the top flight, their grand history looking more and more like a curiosity, the answer to an obscure quiz question. Dundee were once European Cup semi-finalists too, you know. Isn’t that funny. History of the Fixture Won 16 Drawn 17 Lost 18 We first played Dundee United in the Scottish Cup Fourth Round of 1998 when a Paul Sheerin goal saw us lead at for the best part of an hour at Tannadice before a late Kjell Oloffson strike forced a replay. The replay was unforgettable – Gary McSwegan appeared to have finished the tie when he put United 2-0 up in the 85th minute. Then, in a turn of events that was typical of the Pele era, a quickfire Brian Thomson goal was followed, in the dying seconds, by the best goal of all time from Mark McCulloch. Lars Zetterlund won it for United in extra time, but the crowd of almost 6000 (yes, 6000 for a midweek replay) left elated – we had just gone toe-to-toe with an established top tier side for the first time in our history. The two sides didn’t meet again until 2004, and we failed to get the better of them in our first six attempts following promotion, though goals from Liam Fox and Barry Wilson saw us come out on top in a 2005 League Cup tie in Inverness. Our maiden league victory over United took place at Tannadice in February of the following year, and in some style. Craig Brewster had left Caley to take over there just a month before, threatening to take some of our best players (and David Proctor) with him. But Charlie Christie had us purring at the time, and while United led twice through two stunning free-kicks from Charlie Mulgrew, Darren Dodds headed home in between to keep us in the game before Wyness and Dargo ran riot - each getting on the scoresheet before Alan Morgan sealed the 4-2 victory. There have been some cracking encounters since, like this 4-0 stroll in the Caley Park, the time we went 3-0 down after 8 minutes but still felt gutted to leave with a point, and another time we did them 4-0 at Tannadice that I can’t find on youtube. League Form Dundee United Last 6: DDWLLW ICT Last 6: DWWDDD The two sides are tied on 14 points, though we have a game in hand and a superior goal difference. Our 19-game unbeaten run started 7 months ago with a 1-1 draw at Tannadice, but it’s starting to look tired. United won at Firhill last week in Robbie Nielson’s first game in charge after consecutive defeats put Laszlo out of his misery. With over a thousand Arabs making the trip to Maryhill, and a big crowd expected to welcome the new manager, it feels like circumstances might matter more than form on this occasion. Basically, it’s a crap time for us to be going there. Teams and Tactics Robbos’s faith in the White-headed 4-2-3-1 that was so effective at Dunfermline seemed to finally waver in the second half last week, with the half-time introduction of Daniel MacKay and subsequent sightings of Calder and Austin. However, I still fully expect to see the same starting eleven and shape – it’s at its best away from home against proactive opponents and is therefore ideal for this game. George Oakley is back in training but won’t feature tomorrow, while the existence of Angus Beith remains unconfirmed . Neilson played a 4-4-1-1 last week with Fraser Aird and Billy King in the wide positions and Paul McMullan playing off Slovakian internationalist, Pavlov Safranko. On paper, they look a cut above the rest of the league, with Fraser Fyvie anchoring the midfield and an enormous centre-half pairing of francophones Rachid Bouhenna and Frederic Frans, combined height – 12 feet and 7 inches. The Shed We’ll be back in ‘The Shed’ tomorrow, a wonderful throwback to a different era of stadia, with a sixty year-old corrugated iron roof that acts as effective amplifier and visible reminders of the terracing that once stood beneath it. Prediction Ach, it’s only a game. Win, lose or draw you’ll get home to your bed just the same.

The wasps are coming Player manager Jim Goodwin will take his Alloa Athletic side North on Saturday to face Inverness at the Caledonian Stadium in the Championship. It's a 3:00pm kick off with Inverness looking to remain unbeaten and keep the Wasps winless. I notice that Alloa have the most appropriately named keeper in the league. You've guessed it, his name is Parry, but let's not dwell on that. Keeper Neil Parry was voted onto the League one team having completed 13 clean sheets last season. That aside, what an appropriate name for a keeper........ just saying. Caley Stan has been doing his homework and the result is this informative Preview for us all to read.................... Alloa, known globally not just for its brewing but as the unlikely setting for a popular sitcom set during the French Resistance, lies on the north bank of the Forth where some say it ceases to be the River Forth and becomes the Firth of Forth. Fittingly, the town’s football club continually refuses to accept the place in the Seaside League that usually serves as the pinnacle for a club of its size. Under the chairmanship of local tycoon Mike Mulraney, The Wasps have enjoyed a period of unprecedented success, beginning with the appointment of Paul Hartley as manager in the summer of 2011. Hartley oversaw successive promotions and Alloa went on to spend 3 consecutive seasons in the second tier. Now Player-Manger-Master of the Dark Arts, Jim Goodwin, has led them back up at the second attempt with victories over Raith Rovers and Dumbarton in the play-offs. History of the Fixture Won 14 Drawn 10 Lost 6 We played Alloa 28 times in the first 9 seasons of our history and have faced them just twice since. Our first victory came at the fifth attempt – a 5-0 win at Recreation Park in which a Charlie Christie hat-trick and an Ian Stewart brace provided the first sign of the free-scoring fun that was to follow over the next 7 and a half years. By the end of that glorious period, Alloa had been the recipients of a series of unremitting pumpings, and Pele’s last visit to ‘The Recs’ fittingly saw us run out 6-0 winners, with hat-tricks from both Dennis Wyness and Paul Ritchie. I’ve always wondered who got to keep the ball. For all that, it’s a defeat that lingers most vividly in the memory. The 1999 Challenge Cup Final in Airdrie was an epic 4-4 draw that saw The Wasps victorious after a penalty shoot-out. Paul Sheerin, whose hat-trick in the game had included 2 from the spot, missed our opening penalty in the shoot-out and the loss was complete when Mike Teasdale had his saved. To add insult to injury, Alloa keeper Mark Cairns who saved Teasdale's penalty, scored the one before it. It may be difficult to imagine now, but it was a gut-wrenching defeat at the time – just 5 years into our history and in our debut season in the First Division, we were competing in our first final, bringing around 3000 fans down to a less than neutral venue. But in retrospect, with everything we’ve gone on to achieve, it’s difficult to begrudge Alloa a success that takes pride of place in their 140 year-old honours list. And lest we forget, it was not just a victory for Alloa Athletic Football Club, but a significant milestone in the integration of duffel coat wearing headmasters into mainstream society. The teams last met in the Second Round of the League Cup 2 years ago, with Alloa running out 1-0 winners. The defeat turned out to be a harbinger of things to come under the stewardship of Richie Foran and our descent since then has been steep. A maiden victory for Alloa at the Caledonian Stadium would represent a new low. Form Alloa Last 7: WDWLLLW ICT Last 7: WWWLWDL Form is in the eye of the beholder here, as it can be argued that the all competitions figures above don’t tell us much about confidence in the respective squads. Although Alloa have lost their opening two league fixtures, those games have been tight and they have performed well in the cups. There’s little to suggest that they will suffer as Brechin did. From our end, we remain unbeaten in the league since the 13th March, a run of 13 games, but the manner of our departures from the cups, combined with the failure to score against an Ayr side that played over an hour with 10 men, leave the impression that all may not be well. Teams & Tactics Like Dumbarton before them, Alloa’s chances of staying in this division are largely dependent on their ability to supplement a part-time squad with full-time loan signings. That makes August a tricky month, with clubs reluctant to loan players out before the transfer window closes. However, that process has stepped up this week with the loan additions of midfielder Liam Burt from Rangers and forward Dario Zanatta from Hearts. All accounts suggest that Alloa are playing a stuffy, narrow 4-4-1-1, with experienced lower league journeyman Alan Trouten in support of Greig Spence up top. At the back, captain Andy Graham has decent experience at this level and his partnership with Bulgarian Zdravko Karadachki has impressed so far this season. We also seem to be playing a narrow 4-4-2, with a settled back 4 that sees Shaun Rooney pushing up high on the right when we’re in possession. Tom Walsh has made a bright start to the season on the left of midfield, while Liam Polworth and Joe Chalmers are fixtures in Robbo’s starting line-ups. That leaves 3 places up for grabs with Charlie Trafford and Sean Welsh competing for the remaining berth in the centre of midfield, and Nathan Austin, George Oakley and Jordan White all in contention to play up front. It’s difficult to see where Aaron Doran fits into this system and Robbo has made it clear that he sees Daniel MacKay as an impact sub at this time. Angus Beith remains injured and Zak Elbouzedi was absent from the bench for our last match.