Charles Bannerman

Yes, the tone of ICT Social Media has been revolutionised. I think this is simply one very significant symptom of the very positive Wind of Change that has swept through the club since the old regime departed. The steady change in morale has been palpable and the increasingly upbeat tone of the Social Media has played a big part in that.

Whilst browsing through some of the events since the trauma of relegation, I came across this unfortunate faux pas published by HN Media on 26th July of last year. At the time, I was thoroughly alarmed to see a dire situation made worse by Makwana being mistakenly referred to as “the owner” when it was clear to just about everybody else apart from the Board - doubtless egged on by Makwana’s now “business associate” SG - that KM was a totally delusional chancer. I don’t know how close the club actually came to being taken over by Ketan Makwana, and hence the liquidator, but looking back across the last year or so, this was without doubt Inverness Caledonian Thistle’s darkest hour. The irony of that headline is painful, and on the day the club’s salvation has been confirmed, I just wanted to look back on the absolute low point and give thanks for what has since transpired.

I am sure that Tommy, wherever he may be, is looking on with relief and great satisfaction, now in the knowledge that football will continue to be played on (what several of Caley Thistle’s foreign players must have thought was the standard English expression for a playing surface)… “ma f***en pitch”. Tommy absolutely loathed Gardiner and I am told that it had been his fervent desire to live long enough to see Gardiner leave the building. Unfortunately Tommy didn’t quite make that but - again wherever he is - I am sure that he will now be just as fulfilled in seeing that wish also granted…. commendably abruptly by Alan Savage!

I am very much with you there, Buckett, although it’s worth mentioning that ICT has also had a lot of money thrown at it, albeit far more unobtrusively. The problem is that after around 2018-ish, the good financial work done during the previous years was basically pi$$ed against the wall by atrocious mismanagement. You also raise an intriguing point about County’s dependence upon Inverness. That has probably increased since ICT were relegated in 2017 before going down the toilet. Meanwhile County, with more, and more predictable external financial backing than ICT, have been in the Premiership apart from 2018-19. In particular, newcomers to Inverness won’t fully appreciate that these two clubs are very distinct from each other and won’t see a trip to Dingwall on a Saturday as a particular hardship. I wonder if, with ICT’s renaissance alongside County’s relegation, the next couple of years may see any shift back in the position of this particular pendulum? Not for the first time, I couldn’t help but smile when listening to Off The Ball at the weekend, where a discussion (among central belters) seemed to predicate County’s support entirely on the population of Dingwall (once they eventually established that this was actually approaching 5500 and not 2500!)

Alan Savage gave a talk to this morning’s Inverness Football Memories group (where Danny Devine also gave an excellent inside account of the Scottish Cup win 10 years ago). Alan’s talk was both autobiographical, as well as informative in terms of progress on administration. It seems that all conceivable obstacles are on the point of resolution and it’s highly likely that he will be owner by June 6th. He also gave an insight into possible money making initiatives (whilst strongly emphasising the need to concentrate on football) as well as several cost cutting possibilities such as low energy floodlights. The autobiographical part was also rather interesting, highlighting his origins effectively as a technician in the Manchester area before relocating North after a “temporary” assignment to oversee equipment at Ardersier. Orion followed on from that, helped by a range of breaks such as staff becoming surplus at McDermotts and in need of re-employment, to an unexpected windfall from a contract near Singapore.

Yes, I’m pretty well in tune with your tuppenceworth, Cherly! I don’t think it was quite foreseen in the 1990s that both clubs would develop to the extent that they did, and I now believe that the Highlands are unable to sustain two clubs that became infinitely larger than the pair that entered the SFL in 1994… even with the vast amounts of other people’s money that both clubs have gone through. We of course have to factor in the gross mismanagement of Caley Thistle over the last few years that has contributed to its decline but (as I’ve probably said too often on here) despite what I reckon is a ballpark £35 million of unearned subsidy between the two of them, we have a situation where Caley Thistle declined to the threshold of League Two and Ross County, after several years of teetering on its edge, have now fallen into the abyss of the lower leagues.

I have to say that, having been a very strong advocate in 1993/94 of two neighbouring Highland teams getting into the league together, unforeseen subsequent events have led me to revisit that in recent years.

Which stadium is that he’s photoshopped himself on to?

Agreed! St J are just down from the Premiership, Raith Rovers were pretty credible last season, Elgin have been on a roll while local derbies can also always be tricky, and East Kilbride are an unfamiliar rising force. Brora will also have their hands full in a group with Kilmarnock and Livingston… the only group with two of next season’s Premiership sides.

It’s a long term way of life up here of which there are several instances in football alone. My favourite one is when Graham Spiers wrote in the Herald that he would eat his hat if Caley Thistle survived a season in the SPL. When they did, a mate of mine who was the athletics correspondent at the paper at the time asked me if I could get a Caley Thistle hat for him - which I duly did and even got Craig Brewster and Malky Thomson to sign it. This was duly presented to Spiers in the full glare of a very full Herald newsroom.

Excellent post Long Man! You are absolutely right about Duncan being a very decent bloke (albeit his “caber” comment is typical patronising central beltism which I resent) who was drawn into a job that was beyond him. This was result of money the club didn’t have being thrown at him by a narcissistic CEO who turned everything he touched into dust. I would also contend that part of the stick Duncan got from the fans was actually a product of growing frustration at the pig’s ear and the toxic atmosphere that were created by Gardiner. You make an intriguing point about what might have happened if Billy Dodds had stayed, and I agree that the team would probably have stayed up… but I believe that this would have prolonged even further the catastrophic Gardiner - Morrison regime to the extent that by the time it did collapse, the club would have been beyond saving and the only outcome would have been liquidation. As a result, Scot Gardiner’s ego trip appointment of Duncan Ferguson not only accelerated Gardiner’s own welcome demise, but also brought the club’s situation to a head just in time to save it from disappearing altogether.

On a similar basis, is or was Graeme Bennett not the most successful manager of all time at one point in the strength of a caretakership?

To be realistic, League One is quite far down the pecking order for there to be any full time wages at all. Football tends to live in something of a bubble in that there seems to be this expectation of payment down to a very low level. This is way out of step with just about every other sport and, while football also has more money than most other sports, much of this excessive payment is made possible by subsidy of clubs by wealthy individuals. This really is quite a false situation, and is the root cause of so many clubs hanging in on the edge of the financial precipice.

Wages are like a millstone round clubs’ necks and, as you say, there are more millstones per head in Scotland, irrespective of how you define “professional” clubs, because payment goes a long way below Tier 4/ League Two. There’s absolutely silly money sloshing around in the Highland League, for instance, because Scottish football - or football in general - has established a business model that involves guaranteed payment at very low levels of performance. Much as we know and love it, the Highland League isn’t rocket science sport, and training twice a week is pretty well minimalist… but still there are a lot of bucks to be gained. Football pays participants way, way above any other sport I know of in this country and while football also has a lot more money than any other sport, at just about every imaginable level it pays so much that clubs are continually on the verge of insolvency. However, now that these payment practices have been established, they have created a mindset and an expectation among players, so I just don’t see how this millstone can be cast from the game’s neck. In 40 years of covering a wide range of sports (Boring Old Fart alert!) and direct involvement to quite a high level in one of them, I have found that football’s values, practices, expectations etc are quite distinct from everything else that’s going.

I don’t think anyone at ICT is really in a position to make “Uncle Roy” observations, given the extent to which ICT has also burned through other people’s money over the years. Fair enough, Roy MacGregor has put vast amounts into County and in recent seasons that’s typically been over a million a year. But Caley Thistle, from the very start, hasn’t exactly been paying its own way either and since the club was founded, I’d estimate that it’s gone through a ballpark £15 million of money it hasn’t earned in order to get where it is just now - ie broke for the second time in its history and playing third tier football. Once you add the £5 million Tullochs put in during the early 2000s to £3.3M of non- Tulloch share capital, the £4M of debt that’s about to be written off and the roughly £2M AS will have put in (£800K purchase price plus admin costs plus coverage of current losses) and add other significant odds and ends chipped in as a matter of goodwill by various wellwishers, then you are pretty well at £15M. And that doesn’t include sources of public money such as £900K from the CGF and other substantial six figure contributions from the likes of the EU and the Football Trust. However there are two main differences, apart from Roy having very likely put in a fair bit more even than what’s gone into Inverness. Firstly, County’s external subsidy is overwhelmingly from a single, known and (for as long as it lasts) reliable source while, especially latterly, Caley Thistle have had to engage in a constant scramble round various sympathetic wealthy individuals, never knowing what the outcome might be. And secondly “Uncle Roy” will doubtless be running a very well managed ship over there, whereas between around 2018 and last August when AS appeared, Caley Thistle was an ever deepening administrative shambles with expenditure totally out of control. And therein lies what I believe will be Alan Savage’s greatest challenge - creating a business entity that can be sustainable in the long term, but in a sport where it’s accepted and normal practice for players to be consistently paid above their market value. As a result, clubs sail perilously close to the financial wind… so close in fact that it just needs an episode of incompetence such as ICT has just endured to bring the entire house of cards crashing down around everyone’s ears.

Ticket prices are an inevitable consequence of player payment practices throughout the game.

I’m glad that Billy had the season’s final say in terms of goals. It’s been quite a tough one for him. What a season!

It depends on what kind of Great Escape you want to include - the entire Tom, Dick and Harry project or Steve MacQueen trying to get the motorbike over the barbed wire. County 3-0 down with 20 minutes to go is a desperate situation to be in, but I might actually give the crown to ICT existing at all. Interviewing Jock McDonald on the lawn at the Glenmoriston 24 hours before the first friendly v St Mirren is just one of several “we’re doomed!” moments in that saga!

A great day, but in terms of Great Escapes I think we need to look across the bridge to County coming back from the dead v Partick a couple of years ago.

Here are some stats. With one game to go, ICT have won (as opposed to currently have) 55 points, which represent 1.57 per game and currently correspond to second place. Under Duncan Ferguson, 10 games yielded 1.20 points per game and under Scott Kellacher, 25 games have yielded 1.72. Scott’s contribution is equivalent to 62 points across the full 36 game programme. However these numbers don’t give the full picture of Scott’s achievement since from the moment he took over when administration began, he’s had to work with a squad that the Administrator was obliged to weaken considerably and which the club has had very little scope to shore up. I think that’s an important and underestimated factor when it comes to this season’s magnificent achievement.

And Elgin?? The Immortal One would have been waxing lyrical about that albeit maybe remote possibility!

He scores when he likes!!

If you are correct about Annan being done over by Arbroath (who on the other hand may be in beachball mode) then the difference between one point and all three for ICT would be enormous since a win would effectively secure safety by a minimum of goal difference.

Apparently since he did the turn for ICT, he’s been advanced to Celtic’s first team squad and is no longer available for loan.

Good on you for raising this, OCG! This is something I’ve never “got” about football and it begs the question of why a certain proportion of crowds actually go to games. To enjoy the sporting action? To support a team? Or simply to seek some personal gratification or reflected glory - and if they don’t get it, then it’s got to be somebody else’s fault? In an unfortunate number of cases it’s the last one and you do wonder what goes on in these people’s heads and what their world-views are? They seem neither to understand nor care that when they shout abuse at the team they claim to support, it’s worse than having no effect at all - it undermines the side and actually makes the outcome they seek less likely. ”Normal” fans sitting close to idiots like this need to make their views known to them and tell them to shut up… with “I’ve paid my money so I can shout what I like” absolutely no excuse. These people are a liability.