Charles Bannerman

Who needs Mike McCurry? Reporting Scotland have just interviewed a blind man from Larkhall.... who is presumably the referee! :004:

I did.... including an extensive and revealing conversation with Deryck Beaumont!

BC... beg, borrow or steal (but not from the ICT Shop!) a copy of Against All Odds. The whole merger story is there... warts and all.

I don't really think you have opened old wounds inasmuch as the only people likely to take offence at reference to the merger this long past the event are the rump (and believe me, there are not nearly as many of them as some urban myths suggest!) who refused to have anything to do with ICT from the start. If people want to discuss from time to time the important sequence of events in the history of Inverness which ultimately brought Premier League football to the Highlands then I think there's nothing wrong with that.. as long as folk still remember that the way ahead is forward. If the Buenos "Chicky Allan :026:" Hornells of this world take offence then tough... but they should feel free to discuss the issue at their next Battle of Rose Street Revivalist Meeting which I understand is to take place in one of the telephone boxes which have recently been declared surplus to requirement. (Perhaps someone could let off a large commemorative firework during the proceedings. :015:) Regarding Kingsmills' comment about the proportion of fans who have no former allegiance to either club, I would suggest that even his estimate of one third is on the low side, given the number aged under about 22, the number of incomers, the death rate among former Thistle/ Caley fans over the last 14 years and the fact that both clubs enjoyed massively smaller crowds than turn out nowadays. Perhaps a larger proportion of the older HL fans log on here? I also wonder if, in the wider community, some people who claim to be "lifelong Caley or Jags" were in fact of the armchair variety whose loyalty was based on the time they queued for tickets for games against the likes of St. Johnstone and Kilmarnock whilst gleaning results from the Football Times. I have to say that the extremely subtle sarcasm :004: in the reference to the Thistle court action had me giving that post a double take too for a few seconds! Just in case anyone is in ANY doubt, the Caley Rebels indeed grabbed most of the headlines and there were far more of them than there were Thistle refuseniks. But one Thistle fan - Martin Ross who was 18 at the time - did obtain an interdict in June 1994 which seriously restricted what Thistle could do with Kingsmills Park until the case was decided by Sherriff James Fraser in May 1995 (and Ross then lost his appeal in the July). This legal action not only starved CT of assets for a year but also put Thistle so far on to the diplomatic back foot that it very nearly forced them out of the merger and Inverness out of Scottish League football. I could argue (but I won't go into it at the moment) that Martin Ross's action brought the merger scheme closer to disaster than the Caley Rebels ever did. By the way, Martin Ross was then liable for costs for that action, which I believe ran to about ?10,000. I have repeatedly heard it alleged that he departed Inverness without paying them and have never been aware of any subsequent payment having been made.

Not to mention that Caley Thistle's major shareholder is also a Hilton loon, and an ex Jags fan. On one occasion he told me that when he was a lad he used to have to stand on the terraces at Kingsmills because he couldn't afford to go into the stand. :015:

I tend to be a bit backward at coming forward, but if the younger generation want to find out about how Caley Thistle came about there's a book available.... I don't know if there are any copies still left in the club shop. In response to those on both sides of the previous divide who reckon they were "robbed" I will simply quote the statistic that at the end of 1993, Caley contributed 70% of the assets, 80% of the membership (OK after something of a freak "recruitment" campaign by both Caley's pro and anti lobbies) and 90% of the fundraising capacity. Hardly an equal merger, but not grounds for a monopoly either, and that's the way it turned out. Wonderul comment about that Old Folks' Home which is the ICT Social Club.... and not a little truth in it too. :015:

:rotflmao: :rotflmao: :rotflmao: :rotflmao: :rotflmao: You know there's a message in this thread. There is now a whole new generation of Caley Thistle fans who are young enough really not to have any clue who Thistle and Caley were. Indeed my 22 year old son was only 7 when the merger started and is probably one of the youngest people to remember the separate clubs (and he still has his little blue MacRae and **** strip at home! :003:) The day isn't far away when it's going to become like searching for World War 1 veterans and we'll be trawling the old folks' homes, looking for those very rare survivors who stood on the Howden End or patronised the black and red pie shed.

I'm not obviously in a position to check all of these but I do wonder about the "appearance" ones in the first attachment. As it happens I've been across the leading appearance and goals figures over the last couple of days in connection with something I'm doing on Barry Wilson so that set me wondering. According to Ian's latest stats following the Gretna game the top three are Ross Tokely on 438 total appearances, Barry Wilson on 336 and Richard Hastings on 334. The figures quoted above are a good deal higher (474, 364 and 346) and that may also be the case with other players (eg Charlie Christie is 314 and not the 371 quoted there) although I don't have time to cross check. Could one of the "sub on" figures have been added to the real total in error or something like that?

Or possibly the working class man has decided to dispose of his income in other ways... such as Sky TV which is becoming an increasingly popular way of watching football. I often sit in the stand at Grant Street and observe what must be among the highest densities of Sky dishes in Western Europe... 11 crammed into the short distance between penalty boxes along the back of the houses in Kilmuir Road! As it happens I'm just back from a wee tour around my old stamping ground in Dalneigh and the first thing that hit me in St. Valery Avenue in particular was again the sat dishes of which there are dozens. I could also guess that many of these are hooked up to large screen plasma TVs. etc. I think it's perhaps more a case of how the so called "working class man" chooses to dispose of his income which in relative terms has increased greatly over the last 30 or 40 years. Since I don't actually have to pay to get into football matches (even though it's because I'm working) I won't develop my other point which, as diplomatically as I can put it, would have been that, even though admission prices are frequently branded as "ridiculous", they still raise only a fraction of the cost of entertaining the people who have to pay them and the rest is heavily subsidised.

There was actually a faster one (12 or 19 seconds I think) in the first friendly on the Italy tour in 2006. I was at the game and saw the goal but I think the reason I'm not sure about the time was that the crowd was also an all time low, even for ICT, and I can't remember which was the 12 and which the 19.. or was it the score that was 12-0? That game actually produced ICT's fastest goal, smallest crowd and record score, friendlies included. But yesterday's goal is joint fastest in a competitive game.

mmmm - BBC and other sites listing at 37 seconds, official site listing it at 31 ........ wonder if it is joint fastest goal or second top ? Definitely 31. I looked at my watch the instant the ball hit the back of the net, had a quick word with Fiona about it (see herearler post) and then went out to check with Ian Broadfoot who had the same figure. This is Caley Thistle's joint fastest competitive goal which Ian has now confirmed as 31 seconds by Craig Dargo v Celtic on 18.12.05.

Photo 84 is a LOT more scary!!

Aberdeen fan?

FOUR tickets!... TWINS??!!... and the wedding not for several weeks yet! :018::clapping03:

Only if you bring the shoes back from last time. :rotflmao: And you couldn't work out how the bar man in Fairway knew you had been bowling. :rotflmao: **** it Laura... you beat me to that one!

At a price, I take it!

When I first read the title to this thread, I thought "Virgin Vie" was perhaps some kind of nickname for a Lady of Ill Repute who was holding a "Fundraising Party Night" :015:!

Why did Billy Urquhart, lifelong Bluenose that he is, choose GREEN AND WHITE as the livery colours for his company HSBS? :015: (OK I know this question is a bit late since he's just sold it!)

Was he equally amazed at the price of the mud huts?

I had a friend who went to Aberdeen Uni in the 80s and had a girl in his class from Peterborough. Her mother had packed a whole case with toilet rolls, and was concerned that there might be no pavements... Your point caller? I think the caller's point is to illustrate (rather well) the kind of perception that people outwith the Highlands and the North have of "up here". I have certainly found it commonplace for Central Belters to have the delusion that people in, for instance, Aberdeen, Inverness and Thurso live in adjoining villages up in what they think of as "The North" (which sort of starts when they get to Castlecary Arches). I suspect there are also some who think we also hack the heather out of each other's ears with Claymores, occasionally foray into the South to steal cattle before returning home for the monthly Brigadoon reinactment. (Now could you imagine us up here harbouring equivalently silly ideas about people in the South dressing up in white shell suits and burberry baseball caps and swigging Buckfast whilst spray painting bus shelters on their way to collect their Giros? ) Anyway, what I was getting round to saying was that a lot of central belt players will initially have a completely inaccurate perception of what it's like up here. Those who are brave enough to give it a try will find it completely different from and a lot better than what they expected but at the same time we can't get away from the fact that it's still a long way away frrom families etc for many of them to stay longer than a contract or two.

As far as I am aware, Messrs Christie and Brewster have both always been very aware of the "backup" services which are required for top level sport. For instance, CB is very particular about diet (about which he learned a lot in 5 years in Greece) and, for instance, he's not too happy to allow players to speak at press conferences after training until they've had lunch and replaced carbohydrates. Remember also that Caley Thistle also have a very good medical backup with Drs Smith, MacLeod and I believe also MacVicar as well as physio David Brandie. I think you will find that these people also have a pretty firm hand on psychology. As far as training demands are concerned, and indeed the more modern sports science based approach, I think football as a sport is actually a bit behind a lot of others, although catching up. Certainly there has been a great deal of catching up at ICT, because legend though the man may have been, Steve Paterson's views on training were quite... shall we say "traditional"! However there also tends to be a "traditional" culture among some players in football and as a result a degree of reluctance to embrace the kind of training regimes which have been prevalent in other sports for some time. I have coached athletics to a fairly high international level and have a fair idea what athletes did and were prepared to do IN THEIR SPARE TIME as opposed to part of a full time job, in pursuit of, for instance, Commonwealth Games selection. I am sure attitides are changing in football and Craig Brewster certainly seems to have been at the cutting edge of more up to date training practices in football. There was also a reference in an earlier post to "one size fits all". I really don't know what the situation is at ICT and am perhaps not best qualified to comment since my coaching experience has been in an individual sport, but I think that even in team sports, there has to be a degree of individuality in schedules. I had an interesting discussion with Peter Davidson who told me that they only gave the goalkeepers the "snatch" exercise in the weights room because only keepers need to have strength in their arms above their heads. A good example of individually tailored training. And, for instance, I couldn't imagine somebody like, for instance, Barry Wilson (even before you consider his age - serious point!), who clearly is very much a "fast twitch" machine absorbing the same volume of work as some other players who are not perhaps quite as quick as Barry was but who have far more capacity to handle activities of longer duration.

Officially confirmed now as ON.

I can exclusively reveal that they decided to give the job to Ian Black instead! Jailender... you have to admit, you left yourself wide open to that riposte from Tree! (PS - I'm once again looking forward to my visit to Victoria Park this Saturday.)

Better remember to pick up your shoes from Rollerbowl! :015:

Or, in the case of Rothes,.... DURING...... :003: