Charles Bannerman

I used the words “in effect” to cater very briefly for that very complex scenario. Ross Morrison (unless his charge is declared invalid) has priority ahead of the club with regard to the stadium and that part of the lease - UNLESS he gets his £1.65 million back and the charge is satisfied. That level of control could include agreeing to write the debt off or accept a possibly modest percentage repayment…. or asking for his pound of flesh (albeit without any blood!)

The entire portfolio of club assets at East Longman is already currently in effect under the control of one entity, in that Morrison holds security over the stadium (unless that’s successfully challenged) while the car park/Bermuda Triangle lease belongs to him and to Cameron who is also owed £410K…. although it’s not clear why they should have wanted to acquire that lease from a third party in a deal that produced no money for the club. I’m sure RM and DC would indeed be willing to discuss a deal over the car park etc lease, but I would like to know just how hard a bargain they would be likely to pursue regarding this asset which they own. Meanwhile I can’t get away from mystification at why, for a period of years when DC and in particular RM held responsible roles, the club was allowed to sleepwalk more and more deeply into ever increasing debt, much of it, with security, to the chairman who also presided over a decision to try to sell the club to the obvious fantasist who was Ketan Makwana. Was it just that they didn’t feel the bullets tearing into their feet?

I’m surprised that there was such a furore over this week’s Companies House filing, which has been something of a red herring since it simply seems to be a formal indication of what we pretty well knew anyway - administrators and creditors have an agreement about how to go about trying to come to the real agreement about liabilities. I see the main issues there as follows. 1) The debt - now quantified at £3.8M, although strictly this is the amount claimed rather than definitely owed, because the likes of Gardiner’s £70K are simply claims. This to me falls into two categories. a) The £1.65M owed to Morrison which I see as distinct because it has a security amounting to the stadium attached to it, and the loan in question was also made under his chairmanship when he was principally responsible for avoiding getting the club into a precarious financial situation. Importantly, the administrator has expressed doubts over the validity of the security, and future ownership of the stadium may hang on this. b) The rest of the debt where six of over 140 creditors are owed (or are possibly just claiming) £100K or more. It’s worth highlighting here the £410,000 owed to David Cameron, since this isn’t his only role in this wrangle (see below). Presumably a CVA will be sought, but if this can’t be achieved then liquidation perhaps becomes more likely. In this event, those creditors who played a role in allowing such incredible debts to accumulate probably need to take a good look at themselves. 2) The lease of the car park and the ”Bermuda Triangle” at the far north of the site. This was bought in 2023 by David Cameron, after he left the Board, and Ross Morrison while he was still chairman. This purchase was made effectively from Tulloch, who appear to have held on to the “Propco” after handing the rest back some years after their rescue of the club from its crisis of 2000. As a result, the club made no money from this transaction, so I am still searching to understand why Cameron and Morrison acquired this interest. It appears that for as long as ownership of these parts of the lease remain outwith the club, a sale would be more difficult. It therefore emerges that Cameron and Morrison are the two biggest components in relation to BDO’s efforts to restore ICT to the status of a going concern, and it may well emerge that the club’s fate is in the hands of these two individuals who also occupied important roles as the club spiralled more and more deeply into debt. There has also been speculation that the lease of the current East Longman site may, in a worst case scenario, be acquired by parties external to the club (leaving the club, if it still exists, with the difficult task of finding another home) and desirous of using the land for some development purpose. It’s at this point that Highland Council, as custodians of the Common Good Fund which owns the land, may have a role. I am in little doubt that the original 1994 lease (which was contentious within the Council at that time) was given specifically for the purpose of bringing Scottish League football to Inverness and indeed the club also paid £1.3M for the approach road which subsequently revolutionised the entire waterfront round to the harbour. We therefore have to ask whether, in extremis, the council would permit any other use? It’s been suggested that the council may not feel very well disposed towards the club, given the uncivilised manner in which the council were treated over the battery farm. However it also has to be noted that those who were involved in that unwise backlash are no longer involved with ICT. I think the next month or so could be crucial to the club’s future, and to whether or not it has one - with David Cameron and Ross Morrison the two major players in whether there can be life after administration.

Apologies.. brainstorm on my part and in haste I quoted the dates that the resignations were filed at Companies House rather their actual dates. It does seem a long time between resignation and notification in Cameron’s case. On the one hand, that may not be surprising by the standards of competence exercised by the club at the time, but more importantly it does highlight Cameron having become joint owner of the Propco whilst simply a private individual.

Thanks BBB! I tried to include that video in my OP but my technical ineptitude let me down!

I don’t think the Bught is even a starter here, and for one or two reasons, Cherly. Back in 1993, INE commissioned a study which eventually led to the choice of the current stadium site, but the Bught never even figured. Agreed, the West Link has appeared since then which might appear to improve access to close to the Bught, but in terms of immediate access, the area is already a traffic nightmare, made worse by everyone trying to pile out on to Glenurquhart Road because you can no longer drive north along the riverside because of that £2.5M cycleway that nobody uses. The other big problem with the Bught is that the land is all already committed to other purposes and - to be blunt - people aren’t going to be prepared to be dislodged simply to accommodate a football club that’s failed to run itself properly. The Bught Stadium itself would be a complete no-no since it is currently undergoing a multi-million pound upgrade as a national centre for shinty. You mentioned sharing with the rugby club or the athletics track. Both of these are HighLife Highland facilities so any football club would simply be tenants and there would probably difficulties with advertising signage. But, more fundamentally, the rugby club doesn’t even have a stand while, although the running track has a small one, spectator areas are quite limited. Also, there is no running water at the track past the sports centre which is the only location of toilets and, with field event areas on the infield, the Queens Park isn’t actually big enough to accommodate a football pitch. And then there’s the issue that Highland RFC and Inverness Harriers both have their own fixture lists which they wouldn’t be prepared or indeed able to have disrupted, and the same goes for both clubs’ weekly training sessions which would clash with midweek football fixtures. What the 1993 report showed was that Inverness wasn’t, even then, well provided with potential sites for a football stadium so - apart from possible greenfield areas outwith the city boundary - I don’t see that having become any better over the last 30 years of development.

I have now managed to establish the route by which Cameron and Morrison acquired control of the ICT Property Company and hence of the lease of the car parks and of the so called Bermuda Triangle at the far end of the North car parks. This was purchased from a body that was effectively Tullochs, which also tells us that about 8ish years ago, when the stadium was given back to the club by Tullochs, they retained the car park lease under Propco whose two directors, before Cameron and Morrison took over in August 2023, according to Companies House, were George Fraser, former Chairman of Tullochs and a Cesidio de Ciacca who appears to have been a minor Propco shareholder. This means that, contrary to what many, including myself, had thought, the club gained nothing from the acquisition so the transaction was not apparently made as a bail-out. So why, then, did Cameron and Morrison acquire this intangible but potentially valuable asset if it wasn’t to keep the club afloat? In Cameron’s case, it’s especially mysterious since the gentleman is 82 years old and there are other gestures he could have made that might have helped the club more. As for Morrison, five months after he acquired his share of that lease, he also made a loan of £1.65 million to the club, but with the security of the Stadium plus the land on which it stands and right out to the pavement. As previously mentioned, this security (Charge) may, in the opinion of the administrator, be subject to challenge, but as things stand, Cameron and Morrison - who resigned as club directors respectively in July and May 2024 - potentially have complete control over the stadium and all that surrounds it. It was also made pretty clear at the administrator’s press conference on December 23rd that Cameron and Morrison - respectively based in Aviemore and Broughty Ferry - have been attempting to play hardball over the car park lease, leading us to ask whether they are looking for pretty big bucks for it? It is therefore very clear that these two former directors pose the biggest obstacle that the administrator has to clear as he tries to ensure that this club survives and moves forward. As a post script, it was my firm understanding back in 1994 that the Common Good Fund granted the original lease specifically for the purpose of taking Scottish League football to Inverness so any attempted change of use might rank alongside the query over Morrison’s loan in terms of what is going for the club here.

That’s a JFK moment for me since I remember I was on the car outside BandQ in the Carse listening to Sportsound when the original tie ended, but I couldn’t remember the actual score.

I was reminded of one of Inverness football’s finest moments - a decade before the Celtic Park epic whose silver jubilee approaches - when I saw this January 1990 photo of snowbound Telford Street in today’s PandJ. There’s a fair chance that this was taken in relation to Caley’s Scottish Cup replay against Airdrie on a snowy night at Telford Street, where the team from the Highland League edged its Scottish second tier opponents 5-4 on penalties after a 1-all draw. The outcome, a decade before going ballistic, was another episode in Inverness’s proud Scottish Cup history. One of my great regrets is having had to miss this legendary occasion. The game started 7 minutes late to allow a 3485 crowd in and Caley went a goal down but Wilson Robertson equalised to send the tie to penalties where John Docherty missed Caley’s first one. Airdrie also missed one, taking the shootout to sudden death where Danny MacDonald (the current manager’s brother-in-law) buried Caley’s sixth and Hamish Morrison saved Airdrie’s next to send Telford Street wild. This was a golden era for Inverness in the Scottish Cup since this game came just a few years after Thistle beat Kilmarnock 3-0 at Kingsmills to earn a trip to Celtic Park and Caley played both Rangers and Hearts - although I recollect that at least two of these games ended in 6-0 defeats. Then in 1992, Caley held visitors St Johnstone to a draw and that was just four years before Caley Thistle reached the quarter finals against Rangers. Fast forward another 3 and 4 years and we have back to back semi-final appearances at Hampden… and there were still two finals to come. Putting that lot together makes quite a Scottish Cup saga across four decades!

I remember Alfie’s grandad Mitch Bavidge playing for Keith in the 80s during a period of intense Highland League rivalry with Caley.

Perceptive, as ever, Cherlie! Although there is still some information to be uncovered - and in particular exactly how and from whom Caley Thistle Properties and hence the car park lease was acquired by Morrison and Cameron - the last six months or so have gone a considerable way towards revealing what has been going on in the club in recent years. (I would also emphasise that this has been happening while minimal information has been given to shareholders and other interested parties with for instance the Board defaulting on the holding of AGMs.) We now realise that for a period of years, the latter part of it under the chairmanship of Ross Morrison, the club has been allowed to sleepwalk into a massive amount of debt with some aspects, such as the Cameron Harper Carlisle move and the absurdly large Puma contract, so extreme that they still need credible explanation. And while this unsustainable way of operating hurtled, latterly under Ross Morrison’s chairmanship, towards administration, Morrison kept the ever more ricketty bandwagon on the road by a process that made the club heavily indebted to him. However he did so by means which, should the train hit the buffers during or immediately after his chairmanship, ensured (or so he thought) that he had an iron personal grip over the assets in the form of a Charge on the stadium and joint control of the car park lease. Basically he presided over a situation where the club was allowed to sleepwalk more annd more deeply into debt in a manner where he continually covered it, but knowing (or perhaps believing?) that he would get his money back in kind if (when?) it all went pear shaped. That’s a scenario that doesn’t sit comfortably with me insofar as he protected himself from liability in a dangerous situation which he played a leading role in creating. However I do see one possible chink of light which is the statement from the administrator that the Charge may be invalid due to some technicality about its timing that I don’t understand. But how on earth this could have been allowed to progress as far as it did in full sight if the rest of the Board (who had far more access to information than shareholders and fans had) is beyond understanding.

Longstaff’s through ball before the first goal was a work of art!

Do you not mean “anus horribilis”?

The Homer Simpson illustration along with catchphrase “D’oh” is quite a well known allegory for incompetence and messing things up. Setting it alongside these very similar photos of the three main protagonists of Caley Thistle’s disastrous 2024 was therefore just too good an analogy to miss!

Courtesy of an additional photo from the Courier, I can now upgrade the one in the OP.