Charles Bannerman

Yup... it's called Ben Nevis.

Didn't Ally MacLeod make a similar prediction about the 1978 World Cup?

In fact was the strip with the very narrow stripes not what they had in the early 90s up to the end, with the last broad black and red stripes immediately preceding that? I remember going to the launch of a Thistle strip in the Haughdale just before the merger and that might have been the narrow black and red one. I have a particular memory that lunch was outstanding but I also recollect a green away strip seeing the light of day on that occasion. That, I believe, might have been Jags' very last away strip and I'll tell you why. I'm sure that was what Mark Mitchell (ultimate Jags Rebel) was wearing on Cup Final afternoon in May 1994 when Brewster scored the only goal of the game for DU v Rangers and the Wickers were demolishing the Jags enclosure and loading it up on a lorry. I was doing interviews about this when a tearful Mark Mitchell, wearing that green away top, came up, wished Academy all the best in their new career in the Highland League, and disappeared along Kingsmills Road.

Except that there wasn't a Thistle strip for 1994-95!

I agree. Someone has done a very goos job of condensing the while thing. Just perhaps a couple of quibbles I might have. It says that the SFL application was lodged "after" acrimonious warngling,. i could equally argue that this should be "in advance of"! There is also a sort of implication that Telford Street became the new stadium but all in all that is very good indeed, given the extent and complexity of the subject matter.

"Black and red" and "Predominantly blue".

ICT you could very well be right. It was certainly well back into season 96-97.

CH2... you're about 6 months too late!

SP...I put in my tuppence worth (2d rather than 2p to someone of your vintage!) at the top of the "Brewster in perspective" thread. As reagrds the spelling ang grammar at the top of this thread, apart from what's very probably a typo ior two, it looks reasonably "up to IRA standards" but it wiznaeme! As for the Board, I take the view that Caley Thistle, from a very inauspicious start, seems to have come a very long way in 13 years for the Board to have been deficient over that period - give or take the odd ?2 million debt!

This thread was NOT initiated by anyone on the board nor by anyone with a particular interest in the manner in which the board is perceived, nor by anyone directly linked with Caley Thistle (nor by me!)

What appears to have happened is that the power had to be switched off at Broadcasting House Inverness all afternoon as part of a huge rebuild that's going on there. It would appear that the 103.5-105 Radio nan Gaidheal frequency must be routed through there and could not be used as a result. I suspect that production in Glasgow was not aware of this technical issue in Inverness. On reflection, this was maybe one of the better games for Caley Thistle fans to miss commentary on. I'll perhaps just add that the BBC is now able to broadcast commentary on up to six matches on a Saturday - three on national frequencies plus three more local to Caley Thistle, Aberdeen and Gretna.

Scotty... you're right as ever. It was indeed the penultimate Saturday in August but by no means as big an error as the Chancer otherwise known as Mantis describing himself as a "teenager"!!!! at that time.

Already... it seems like just yesterday! The book was published on the last Saturday in August 1997 and culminating in the Division 3 Championship which featured so many of the prospective Hall of Fame members who will be on show at the Legends' Night which is now just two weeks away. The launch took place on a day when the team lost 1-0 to East Fife in its first Division 2 home game. And if you think this season has been a bit slow to get going, 98-99 took something like 9 games to produce a win. It got much better after that... and eventually led on to much better things. So don't panic Captain Mannering!

I'm just a little bit dismayed at the incredibly negative comment on this forum about the return of Craig Brewster and I believe that at least some of it may be the result of misunderstanding and misinformation. I believe that there's a lot of (unjust) anti Brewster feeling because the nature of his departure in January 2006 has not been fully understood. Weeks before he left, he was unfortunately "ambushed" into indicating that he was at ICT to stay. Then a very persuasive Eddie Thomson came in with an offer he couldn't refuse. I was there when Brewster made that first statement - which was solicited rather than volunteered - and he really couldn't have said anything else, nor could he have read the future. Then when he did leave, it was only after a great deal of persuasion, a great deal of thought, yes, a very good financial offer but who wouldn't be influenced by that? Then most of importantly of all, he refused to leave unless Caley Thistle got very generous compensation. This last fact is not very well known and the cash concerned created that year's profit. There are also complaints about his record and his style of play. His results at Inverness were pretty good and you cannot take into account his poor statistics at Tannadice. He did not suddenly become a bad manager overnight, but he did move into a much less positive football environment overnight. I don't believe many of his United players (despite their hefty pay cheques) were prepared to put in the work he demanded and I think that when he went there, working under Eddie Thomson was not quite what he expected.... as many other managers have found. On the other hand the Brewster - ICT combination has already been proved to work. If there is concern about his style of play, don't panic. You may very well find a positively different and more experienced Craig Brewster from the one which left 19 months ago. But he will certainly not have changed in his desire to produce a fit team. I also think that some of the anti Brewster sentiment has been generated by the fact that the new man will NOT be Neil Warnock. For some reason a lot of fans seemed to be drawn into a storm of pro Warnock hysteria... but on the basis of what? A statement from Warnock which smacked seriously of the shop window? Did the directors ever really rate him as a realistic option? Would his financial requirements have been realsitic? How big a risk would there have been of him being away in months to the Premiership or the Championship? Does he really know much about Scotland outside the Old Firm? If fans feel deprived of their high profile manager, think back to Jim Leishman and Sergei Baltacha. These were both high profile managers taken in by Thistle and Caley in the early 90s and both proved to be failures. Apart from the refusal of both to relocate to Inverness, neither understood football at the level at which they were managing and this was the main reason for their failure to produce. I believe Neil Warnock may well have fallen into the same trap and then we might well have got a lot more of the dressing room dramatics which someone at Wednesday night's meeting said they witnessed on U Tube. Craig Brewster is here... or at least he will be on Monday. I don't really see much reason for Caley Thistle fans not to get solidly behind him and the team who really do need to feel a positive message from their supporters and not carping about the new manager.

Go on... tease us with the names of these capitalist multinational corporations which are queueing up to pour their resources into a Caley Thistle run by a People's Soviet of Fans' Deputies.

That sounds to me suspiciously like what Board has already done with Tullochs!

The fans already have a 12% stake in the shape of the Supporters' Trust. It would require of the order of millions to add a large stake to that, or at least rather more than could be raised through car boot sales or whatever. So are we to understand that some fans, in addition to those who appear to be convinced that they can run the team better than the manager, also believe that they can run the business side better than the Board? PS - could you perhaps give us some insight into the basis of your conclusion that a "sizeable majority have voiced concern"?

Sorry but Paul Sheerin already has it booked to take him to the Legends' Night.

I am reliably informed (to use a Johndoism) that there is in fact a large quantity of shares still available for sale which means that someone could in principle acquire a sizeable stake. However it would still take a great deal of money to acquire 50% and three times that to acquire the 75% needed for complete control.

So THAT'S what Midge55 and Smee... Charlie Christie's biggest knockers... look like then?!

This is a complete non starter but to answer Latviaman's question, literally it would actually not take all that much to take over the directors' interest. I believe that, apart from Sandy Catto, none of the directors' is a particularly significant shareholder in the club... certainly not in comparison with Tullochs/ David Sutherland and David is not currently a director. I have a feeling that the Tullochs/ Sutherland holding is around 42% so they are not, as Yngwie suggested, actually the "owners" of the club, nor even the majority shareholders - just the "biggest" shareholders. Tullochs also have control of the Board until the 5 year agreement expires next month. Remember also that the Supporters' Trust have a holding of around 12% and this makes them one of the bigger players. Caley Thistle have always been a club where the directors have been there because it has been believed they were good for the club, not because of their financial input, although as it happens David Sutherland provided both finance and expertise. I don't know what the club's entire equity amounts to and it's complicated because the Supporters' Trust figure (which reflects the input of the original merger partners) is one which is fixed by the Articles of Association. However I could guess that the total amount paid for the purchase of equity since shares began to be sold in 1996 is a small number of millions. In terms of launching a takeover bid for Caley Thistle - forget it - it's a non starter. To have real control (change of Articles of Association) you would need 75% of the equity. I can't imagine the people concerned selling and the only other way to achieve that would be to snap up all of a further share issue (which the current shareholders would have to agree to) and that, I'd guess, would cost something above ?5 million, perhaps knocking on ?10 million. And, as Yngwie says, you would not even get the Stadium for that since it's owned, along with ?2M of debt, by the ICT Trust, with whom I suspect the backers of a hostile takeover would find it rather difficult to achieve a working relationship.

Kencar... to be fair to the BBC, that was last night's (Tue) programme. We did have an extended (around 10 minutes) slot on Monday evening's Sportsound with Jim Spence, two guests in the Glasgow studio, myself in Inverness and clips of Graeme Bennett from the press conference. It got a very extensive airing and at that time Craig Brewster was the only candidate on the radar. That would appear to have changed since yesterday.

So are you suggesting that Smee and Midge are Charlie's two biggest knockers?

"Nowhere close to three figures"... agreed. On the subject of ticket prices, as someone who doesn't have to pay to get into matches (because it's in line of work) I'm a bit reluctant to comment. However the cost of maintaining a squad of 24 plus a number of other backup staff is high againt only one earning opportunity per fortnight so prices will as a result also be high. If income were to be maintained in an environment where prices were reduced, demand for tickets would have to be sufficiently elastic for attendances to increase enough to compensate for the reduced unit price.

The problem is that "a bus", even a double decker with perhaps 90 people, would only be a drop in the ocean. Even 20 buses would not shift the 2000 which might constitute a major upward hike in attendance.