absent friend

Real town characters like Donnie Fridge, Kanses and Maplebeck. I'm sure a new thread could be set up just for stories about them - if they could be repeated! Like when one employed all his pals to do a 'job' for a few weeks and stamped their NI cards each week with Brook Bond Dividend tea stamps!! Something else you don't see anymore!

A true Invernessian must be a clairvoyant! ''How you dooin Dan?'' ''Och, ya know yersell''

See, we can't discuss the Hill District without someone bringing the tone down, with references to Dalneigh!

Is this the same CC that was leading ICT out of the SPL not so long ago - according to many, many posters on this site! Hasn't he done well??

Just two doors up Kingsmills road, towards the Mecca of football, aka Jags Park, from Ross the chemist's, resided Miss Macdonald - the primary teacher in Culcabock School. She was the person that soothed the childhood fear of leaving the secure home and entering this new world of learning. And a super job she made of it too! I don't recall if she ever taught anywhere else as she seemed to be attached to the infant room as if it were her second home. Even as I write this, the contrast between this angelic lady who was so warm and the headmaster with his love of warming our hands with the belt, flows back and to think they were only two classes apart - P3 to P6!

Frolicks!!

To quote that little magician Now That's MAGIC!! Especially the appreciation at the end.

The Drapers in Thurso was called R Slater and Son and the son went through life called 'Head First'

Financial advising here in Aberdeen for the last 25 years! Please God don't let the oil dry up for a few years yet, till I retire!!

Backroom staff should be more aware of a players potential than any spectator but it is annoying for us if it is not happening on the day. Mackie, at Aberdeen, still 'enjoys' the boo boys when he is playing and he has now produced the goods on the park but he did have a fallow time. I have yet to meet a Dons fan with a good word to say about him but his manager keep his belief in him. Maybe, as he is a bit younger than Mackie, the boo boys are getting to our Rory. If you are under additional pressure, whither it be a driving test or a written exam, I defy anyone to produce a performance that compares with your natural ability. Maybe he just needs someone else to be the target for the boo boys and give him peace to produce. I still think he is two seasons away from the maturity he needs to be a good striker. Rooney, since he was mentioned, was born mature, in my opinion!

Just a small thought. There may be others like me that saw this thread and passed it by as we have read it all before, ( I thought) It was the amount of traffic on it that made me look at it in more depth. Perhaps it is worth starting a new thread - Singing Wing - so that this worth while experiment gets max exposure. (As you will maybe get in the Singing Wing if our current Summer leaves us)

Scotty Report sharing! The mind boggles! Rig and IHE are job sharing:- Rig 'and the play flowed passed CC urging on his team from the touchline.' IHE ' and the play flowed passed TMTMBS(the man that must be sacked) trying to hide on the sideline.' Rig 'Wilson backheeled to Rankin who crossed and Bayne, getting in front of his marker, nodded home. to completed a winning run that has again given CC the Manager of the Month award! IHE ' Wilson stumbles over the ball and as it squirms behind him,.. another bad signing by TMTMS, Rankin, toe pokes it into the goalmouth where a poorly coached figure, in the shape of Bayne or the poor shape of Bayne, rescues TMTMBS again, by luckily glancing the ball into the net. This is the sixth lucky win on the trot for TMTMBS. The football authorities must look again at this identity mix-up between TMTMBS and Gordon Strachan for the Manager of the Month award!' Bring Ian out of retirement!!

No doubt there will be posters on the Man Utd website questioning whither Alex Ferguson will be able to face the next games and achieve the results they wish for - so maybe CC is in good company!! As a reader and not much of a poster on here, I do enjoy the varying stances that are posted but must agree that negativity appears to be more popular than positive posts. I do not feel that you must be at a match to offer a positive comment on the result especially when you are aware that it came about by astute substitution, according to the reports. Just think back to the flack that CC received when he made the huge(?) mistake in his substitution choice against Celtic, according to the posters on here BUT as I have stated, this balance does not appear to be here when the situation is reversed. I therefore have some sympathy with the topic heading.

It is sad but it is the market we now live in! BIG MAC comes with an incentive - mobile phones come with an incentive - credit cards come with an incentive - etc. all hoping you will stay with the product in the long run. Lets hope 'free' kids do the trick for us.!

If the referee had blow his whistle two minutes earlier against Celtic and we were still in the cup, the above critics would be still in the woodwork. CC a bad manager!! Can I assume that the 88 minutes I watched at the Celtic game was played by a team that was not managed by CC? Can the last minute, 'get out of jail' goal by Lovell make CC a bad manager? Can the injuries to his key attackers, with our limited squad, make him a bad manager? Does being two points away from 7th place make him a bad manager? CC has offered the fans a change away from the punt up the field, to a passing game as we have witnessed, this change can not be implemented without some cost and this can be seen in the lack of ability of some of the players. It is now up to management to recruit new players for this way of playing and off load the ones that are not suited. Sounds easy but all changes take time and as the old saying goes ''fools and......?..... criticise a job part done'!

Can we really look at 'free child tickets' in isolation? Could this new 'free' child perhaps take a new parent, or two, along as well? Assuming they pay the full price, does this not then impact on the 'free' cost of the childs ticket? I find it difficult that say, 300 children turned up without parents and indeed none of the said 300 children will not want to return or if they dragged along grown ups none of them would not want to return. I make the point accepting that it was the wrong game to sell as a good day out. I do feel therefore to make a case against 'free' child seats using the limited edition point is a tad blinkered, is it not a bit more like complaining about buy two, get one free being unfair.

I was a delivery boy for Donnie McGillvery, (previously Ernie Westcombes), the butcher, across Crown Street(?) from the Bakers and as I delivered the meat for the pies to their bakers, I received a large bag of goodies from them when I finish work at lunchtime. A treat indeed back then. Across the road on the Culcabock side of Union Road, up a couple of steps from the pavement, was Ross the chemist and they stayed in a bungalow opposite McEwan Drive, up past the Thistle park. Sad to relate that Jock Ross, the chemist's son, died in the last year down in Edinburgh, where he had lived for many years. Miss Youdells(?) was across from the chemists, a Post Office I think, an old lady with her hair tied back in a 'bun' And lastly, two doors down from the Post Office, towards the school, was Adam McGillvery's shoe shop. Not a bad recall for a young laddie as I was back then.

Well Mac Your last posting makes you a big person, in my book!!

Charles, it was the 4th that was defending the Empire - our drill hall was right next door to it!!

Charles, it is evident from your last line of the above posting, that your Westcoast/Gaelic genes are well and truly gone - if indeed they were ever there in the first place!! You should realise that the remedy is amber, liquid and excellent for any occasion from a ceilidh to a wake and makes any singing voice most acceptable.

The Empire offered greats (Scots) entertainers like Robert Wilson of' Down in the glen' fame - Andy Stewart of 'Donald where's your trousers' fame - Sydney Divine of 'Murder that song' fame and , of course, Will Starr, the foremost accordian player of 'Often imitated but never bettered' fame. Edwin Heath, the Hypnotist, who married a local girl, also had a very good stage act - good clean fun. We also had that great Gaelic singer Callum Kennedy who could change the mood of an audience by the first line of a song - a Scottish treasure for sure! Yes I also remember the BB concert, with a sketch from Emergency Ward 10, where a make belief operation was being carried out behind a thin see through screen, with arms and legs being cut off and sewn back on and the anesthetic being a hammer! If I remember correctly the fourth also did a club swinging routine with lights on the end of them and this act was performed in the summer in the Islands, for the tourists.

Hello to Scarlet. Sorry for my delayed reply. Indeed I do remember the cottage - still standing as you described it. This was our gathering point when I was a boy, we all sat on the cottage wall and watched the traffic go bye. One car an hour back then! I had my bicycle with me one evening and was doing circles on the road, no doubt trying to impress and the one car per hour came along and knocked me for six and then it hit the gravestone of King Duncan that was built into the wall on the opposite corner, across the road from the cottage gate. However, no great harm done, my ego dented and the front fender of the car, made in circa.1/4in steel in those days, absorbed the impact. Your discussion regarding your uncles was very interesting - I did not know that the brothers had a sister, so I am not sure where the SP came from! I was so much younger than your uncles, they being my dads age, so whilst I knew them as local personalities within the village I don't remember speaking to them. One stayed in the cottage, the other in the house at the foot of the golf course brae, at the junction with Diriebught Road, looking right up the 10th fairway of the golf course. Did the third brother stay just 100yards down Diriebught Road on the left, below McWilliams sand quarry? The Mill I had to go to to buy our meal and it was measured out on a big weighing machine that was used for sacks of meal, so my little brown bag looked very lonely sitting on this big scales. My Grandmother lived in the house on the middle of the two braes across from the mill so watching the mill working when I was young was a big event that I witnessed as my mother and Granny enjoyed their 'fly cup' on our way home from the town. Anyway enough for just now as I need to know where SP comes into this picture! Thanks for bringing back memories!

Alex, regarding the last part of your post - I feel certain that there is a problem, overall, with fitness now. We were great in the latter part of matches going back to Brews days, match any team for work ethic and I feel certain (some one will confirm this or shoot me down in flames) that we did not let in late goals as we do now. Your point about Black and indeed to a lesser extent Wilson, being unable to do the full 90 mins does point to a training problem. We can not compete with the buying power of the top teams but surely we can hone the players we have to give us their best for 2 hours +. Now I accept that there are players who do not have the juice in their tanks to last 90 mins and indeed some of the best players I have seen have been this way(Liverpools supersub with the red hair circa 1995, comes to mind) but this calls for another management skill, to recognise this problem and take action before the player ASKS to come off! One of the top managers once stated that when tiredness crept in the first thing that was lost was natural skill. We cannot afford to drop any of the natural skill our guys have due to being undertrained if this be the issue.

To back up the point above made by RIG and backed up by Charles, it was the most wonderful/nervy feeling for so much of the game. The pundits acknowledging our game plan was upsetting Celtic - in fact at one point a comment was made that 'Bayne is far too strong for Pressley to handle' - however that does not take away the horrible, horrible after taste of 'so near and yet so far' This was compounded by having to share the 5.10 Aberdeen train home with a crowd of Celtic rowdies. Cards on the table - I predicted a 3-1 defeat due to the gulf in league points we are away from Celtic, the calibre of player they have and the stage they play on(Europe) in comparison to us. Misscall the manager?? He should get all the credit going for giving us 88 mins of belief - we were so, so close!!

The late, great, Big Davie Mackay - barman at the time in the Plough in Rosemarkie bringing tears to all locked in on a Saturday night In an ''Ol' man river'' style and voice, he sang his heart out and the only bit of the song I can remember is:- Oh God hear my plea, when you come to judge me Take a look at those hard working hands! This bit was sung with all 20 stone of him kneeling on the bar counter, looking up to the Heavens, (well the smoked stained roof to be precise) and the tears coming down his face. Never to be forgotten - the guy and his craic!