Charles Bannerman

That would be Billy Nelson. He still does the Clach PA and often plays tracks from his own CD, including the legendary "Westering Home To The Ferry."

That was the original request from Inverness District Council when they granted the 99 year lease of the site but it was only a request and the term "Caledonian Stadium" was needed instead as a means of appeasing the Caley side at a time when the whole merger plan looked likely to hit the buffers.

There was never a thistle in the name. I dont even think calling it Caledonian Stadium had anything to do with that club but more with Caledon that ancient name for these lands and the fact we sit pretty much at that end of the Caledonian Canal. The title "Caledonian Stadium" is a legacy of the torrid time the merger went through late 1993 and early 1994 when it came within a hairsbreadth of extinction and with it Inverness's prospects of Scottish League football. There were protracted negotiations, which also involved INE and on which the future of the club depended, and these came up with the vital agreement that the club would be called Caledonian Thistle and the stadium would be called the Caledonian Stadium. There was never any "Thistle" part of the stadium name but the deal as a whole was designed to reflect the fact that Caley were the bigger partners. There were eventually other features as well such as the notorious inaugural "predominantly blue" strip but what finally came out in the wash, especially after the black and red was added to the strip in 1995, probably reflected quite fairly the unequal nature of the merger. I often think the Jaggies got a bit of a bonus out of it though since "their" bit of the stadium was named the Kingsmills Suite. As it's turned out this is one of the most heavily used and therefore best known parts of the Caledonian Stadium.

Apologies, I didn't realise that this was an older thread. It's not like people on here to complain, is it?

Not one of your better attempts at stirring up trouble or discontent. The attendance, which was officially declared by ICT early in the second half, was 4005.

Not the first reaction to that particular experience which would actually have occurred to me.

The only part of that description I match is the "left footed" bit.

According to my colleague Jim Spence at the BBC in Dundee, much of the snow there has gone and Tannadice is expected to be absolutely fine, if a bit heavy. Can I just take this opportunity to advise that there WILL be live commentary from Scott Davie and Brian Irvine on Radio Scotland 92-95FM in the Highlands and Islands area. On this occasion the rugby is on 810 medium wave and not on FM, thus freeing the FM frequencies which can be opted out to give commentaries on more than one SPL match. This commentary is also online (I don't know if there are any restrictions for the diasporate) and the Open All Mics option is on 103.5-105FM where the reporter at Tannadice will be Jim Spence, Robbo being at Tynecastle.

Birdog... absolutely no offence taken at all! At the time I had the same John F Kennedy Moment as many other people from Inverness who could not be there. (In other words when Paul Sheerin took the penalty I remember stopping my car in the middle of Culduthel Road to catch the commentary.) Indeed far from underestimating the achievement, I look on it as a major springboard for the series of momentous achievements which led to entry to the SPL in 2004, and as such part of a bigger picture. For various reasons I was unable to be there (just as I had to miss Thistle's 3-0 defeat of Kilmarnock and Caley's penalties win over Airdrie). However a colleague on the Glasgow newsdesk happened to know I was still in Inverness that night and I was duly dispatched to the Phoenix to record one of the most memorable vox pops I have ever done. However, I did happen to be there on the Saturday and had a press pass so got into the ground and stood on the pitch watching the "fluttering guttering". That, as it happened, gave me the opportunity to do a pile of interviews with players/ management/ directors which led to a huge PARADISE LOST back page headline in the Courier. I also managed to eat my fair share of the 20,000 spare pies Celtic needed to get rid of... and Inverurie thought they had a problem with 2000!

I could take elaborate exception to the first few words of the above quote but I will avoid the temptation. I'm actually rather more concerned about the danger of Caley Thistle being remembered as a one result club due to an over emphasis of that one match. I'm also a bit concerned that the real reason for the years of attention it has received from outwith ICT at any rate has more to do with the fact that it was Celtic that ICT beat than with the intrinsic value of the performance. In other words I do tend to write off a certain percentage of the hype about this which originates externally as more of a statement about Celtic and somewhat patronising towards ICT. As for the "few pre merger rebels" I really don't think there have ever been enough of them to have had any significantly adverse effect and if I wasn't worried about them in the mid 90s I certainly am not now. My view was that the omelette in question was never going to be made without breaking a few eggs and that the benefit gained from what has happened has outweighed the loss by many orders of magnitude. Like Scotty I respect the fact that they are entitled to their view but am at the same time thankful that they did not succeed in preventing what has happened and that they are now no more than a footnote in history and really a product of their own delusions of their own significance

Mmm.. that's maybe another over rated myth that's even more over used and overstated than Wembley 1966 and Archie Gemmill's goal. Which telephone box are they holding this year's AGM in?

Great though it was at the time, is 8.2.00. not in danger of becoming as bad as Wembley 1966 and Archie Gemmill's goal?

I think it has. Sounds to me remarkably like Jud, Jasper, Gordy Bus and Freddie Driver.

My God! That man Thomson is older than I am and his memory is still perfect! Well... almost.... I have a feeling that Sergei's last game was a 1 all draw at home to Queens Park although I believe he beat County on his penultimate appearance.... in fact was it not 3-0 which finally ended County's promotion hopes?

I can't quite agree with this since the SFL rearranging to 4 x 10 wasn't on the agenda in Feb 1991 and Leishman had been gone for a full year and a half by the time Baltacha was appointed by Caley. I do, however, think that the Baltacha appointment had a lot to do with the merger which by that time (June 93) had been launched as a project by INE and the SFL had decided to rearrange.

If that is the case then either his English has improved dramatically since 1995 or this is a reflection of the rather lower standards for entrance to teaching in England. In Scotland he would have to have a GTC approved teaching qualification which would have to include Higher English. IHE... agreed, it was a fact. The problem was that there was an element within the Thistle support which thought it should be a 50-50 merger and an element within the Caley support which thought it should be 100-0. The reality was somewhere in between and so it has transpired. Johnboy... "ICT - The Butcher Years?" You never know! Scotty.... I'm not sure it's possible to compare managers operating variously among the impoverished of the Third Division and the elite of the SPL, albeit with players at ?40 a week and up to ?1000 or so.

Kingsmills... I was expecting one former Jaggie or another to object to my comment about the smaller merger partner being "put in its (not unreasonable) place", but no one has bitten so far! If there had not been internal problems, I also wonder if he would have been appointed to Caley at all since his original appointment there was also a produce of the kind of mindset which created the internal problems as well. Scotty.... I think that maybe from the turn of 1995 - ie half way through the season - there had been a realisation that Sergei was not the man. Certainly I remember two very senior CT players telling me after the cup defeat by QoS in December that he was losing the dressing room. I therefore agree with you that Pele was probably on the radar from around mid season and I certainly remember hearing quite some time before the end of that first season that there was interest in him. However they were still so wrapped up in politics and the law (for instance the Thistle court case was reaching a head) that they must have been glad that, with relegation not an issue in D3, they didn't have to worry about disposing of the manager until the end of the season.

Sergei was a gentleman through and through and had an incredible playing pedigree but just didn't seem to make it as a manager and I note he hasn't done much (or indeed any) management since he left Inverness. I know that the players didn't like his management style very much since they were part timers and he tended to go on the full time model with a big touch of Soviet ruthlessness added in. I think Caley D's suggestion that he couldn't adapt to players of a lesser ability is also valid. There were language problems as well. Remember that his appointment to CT, and even to Caledonian before that, had significant political implications. I believe that Caledonian in 1993 wanted a high profile manager who would be an asset to them either in any bid to join the SFL on their own or in terms of getting their man into post if a merger ever took place - and so it transpired. When it came to appointing the first CT manager in February 1994, Henrik Madej, as the rather lower profile manager of the smaller merger partner which had been "put in its (not unreasonable) place" by its bigger colleague during the merger battle, never had any chance at all of getting that job. With regard to Sergei's departure, I am of the view that he WAS sacked. It was late April 1995 and Sergei was summoned to meet with Kenny Thomson and one or two others in Dougie McGilvray's office. They were intent that Sergei had to go but it was put to him that he would get a year's salary (?25K at the time) and the official story would be that Sergei wanted to get back to Perth to be with his family (his failure to relocate had been a significant issue) but the Board had asked him to stay on for the final two games of the season so he would leave then. There is no doubt that he was sacked but, given the recent political atmosphere, another controversy was the last thing they wanted so that was the way it was presented. By that time Pele was also well and truly on the radar, and the rest is history.

The only small problem was that all the bloodstained bandages I could see appeared to be white with simply a largeish circle of red at the front. They unfortunately looked a bit like the Rising Sun and might well therefore also have been taken as a tribute to Mr. Nakamura! I did mention the tribute to TB in my post match interview and he seemed to appreciate the recognition, although he did make the point that it's not perhaps a great fashion statement!

Johndo I am merely expanding on the general situation which is that there has always been a reluctance for players and probably managers as well to come up here. (There is of course the opposite problem which is the loss of local talent to the South. This is a significant problem, although not altogether universal since you get local stars like Davie Milroy and Billy Urquhart spending all or a great deal of their careers here while the likes of their Captain in the Inverness Royal Academy 1st XI deserted the Highlands, ultimately for one of the lesser regions of England, his talent therefore lost and unavailable to his native city. )

Part of the problem is the Central Belt mentality which has an aversion to travelling and which in some cases also has little conception of the world north of Castlecary Arches. Around three quarters of the Scottish population live within about a 40 mile radius of Falkirk (by coincidence Pressley's ultimate stopping place) and have become used to getting to a large number of Scottish destinations very quickly indeed. This is the case to such an extent that I have frequently heard complaints within another sport from the Glasgow people when the national championships are in Edinburgh - and vice versa. There is the additional factor that Scotland only has this single concentration of population which means that those who live outside it sometimes tend not to matter. After all, this is not a new problem. Remember 1973 when works team Ferranti Thistle got into the SFL ahead of the Jags? England is different. The South east certainly has a lot of people but there are also big concentrations in the likes of the West Midlands, the North West and the North East so they are a bit more used to the concept of large chunks of the populace not being close by. I suspect there is something of a cultural aspect to this too, which I believe goes back many centuries to the time when the then Gaelic speaking Highlands became culturally and politically divorced from the rest of the country. I really have found it not uncommon for some people from the Central Belt simply not to understand that "the North" is rather more than some homogeneous collection of communities situated right next door to each other and that we do not in fact live in adjacent mud huts a stone's throw from Brigadoon and see everybody else in the Highlands every day. For instance I have a hilarious recollection of being at a meeting in Glasgow and being handed a letter with the request that I should hand it on to Soandso. The trouble was, Soandso lived in Thurso!!! It is not at all surprising, therefore, that there is either a reluctance to come up here, or players want more to do so, or they do their "time" up here and then go back down south after a couple of years. By coincidence I had a discussion on this very issue with Michael Grant of The Sunday Herald on Thursday. The piece he was researching is on P18 opf today's Sport section and well worth a read.

I can assure you that no local football reporters were harmed in the making of that programme! Rather enjoyed the banter actually and I simply wasn't going to go any further and fudge the line between what I know and what could be considered as speculative... not for Traynor nor for anyone. :thumb04:

Far away?... Inverness from Glasgow? Not really. It's the kind of journey that teams like Inverness, Ross County, Elgin City, Aberdeen and Peterhead do, and further, on average fortnightly. There are actually several even longer trips in the Highland League. It's only a long way if you have Central Belt Syndrome and hence, for instance, have a moan if maybe Livingston rather than Clyde, win a cup replay, which means you have to travel something like 50 rather than 25 miles in the next round. I used to have a lot of time for Partick Thistle in the days when I simply perceived them as a worthy third team in Glasgow, a civilised alternative to Old Firm hype and some of the excesses shown by certain of their supporters. However the extreme bad grace with which Partick refused to accept the natural order of things in the summer of 2004 and simply would not depart in a civilised manner to the Scottish Football League changed my perception entirely. Whay can't Partick Thistle fans just get over it and accept that they are no longer big hitters in the Scottish game? It's a fate which has befallen others such as Raith Rovers, Dunfermline, St. Johnstone, Dundee etc. They have all been in the SPL, were relegated and have remained in the lower leagues and that is something they have accepted with a level of grace which, shall we say, has not been so apparent among a disappointingly large proportion of the Partick Thistle whose views I have experienced. Of course it is not by any means inconceivable that Caley Thistle could also be relegated this season. However I am commenting here on a match which took place last Saturday - ie in the present where the situation is that Caley Thistle are an SPL club of five years' standing while Partick Thistle have spent almost all of the last decade or so in the lower leagues during which period I believe they have undergone three relegations.

Not a nightmare draw for County or Elgin I would have thought. And inevitably on the likes of last Saturday there will be a poor gate when the visitors are a minor outfit from the lower leagues and therefore a pretty weak crowd puller, rather than the kind of SPL club to which Inverness has become used. I would be really disappointed if this kind of stuff was typical of The Herald which I thought had higher apsirations than being West Central Scotland's answer to the Nairnshire Telegraph.

I really think The Herald aspires to be rather more than a local Glasgow paper along the lines of the Carnoustie Guide and Gazette or the Nairnshire Telegraph. It's a quality national broadsheet but on this occasion has failed to live up to that reputation. Apart from the general tone of the article, the bit I actually found most hilarious was the statement Travelling to the other end of the land in January, and the expense this entails... Er.... this is the kind of journey Caley Thistle, Ross County and Aberdeen do fortnightly and Glasgow is actually nearer the "end of the land" than Inverness is. The only problem seems to be that the end of the land Inverness is nearer is the one of which far too many people have difficulty conceiving when Castlecary Arches seem like the north west frontier to them. There does appear to be a very resilient perception down there which mirrors the Aberdonian 1983 timewarp. The difference is that this one involves the delusion that Partick Thistle are still big hitters in Scottish football. Perhaps they should smell the coffee a bit more vigorously and remember that their recent history includes time in the Second Division. No disgrace at all... that kind of thing happens to a lot of clubs - it's just that in this case there seems to be some kind of lobby that finds that reality a bit difficult to accept. Even though it was almost five years ago now, I think a lot of people up here still remember Partick Thistle's "QC in the dugout" mentality during the summer of 2004 when Caley Thistle faced (and overcame) the most vigorous of rearguard actions in an attempt to keep them out of (and relegated Partick Thistle in) the SPL.