Charles Bannerman

Next to no pace? During the pre season training expedition to Italy I watched the whole squad doing their 60 metre sprints on the track near Montecatini and the player who had the edge was Alan Morgan!

Row S - I note with interest the time of your original post. At the time in question, I happened to be out running and had just reached Scaniport when the rain descended big time. I can therefore confirm it was very wet. It seems that the pitch takes about 5 hours to clear significant wetness and Laura... don't worry too much about the wind. that will actually help a huge amount to dry things up. Glad you're having nice weather on the North Coast. I suppose most of the time it's "'eriboll"!

Derry's Walls were apparently being defended in very large numbers from the South Stand within the first five minutes of the game.

prendergast... Celtic1Caley3 is being economical with the truth! The club is actually called Caley THISTLE. Despite having had slight Howden End sympathies when I was a lad, I'm a stickler for the Thistle bit. It has a lot to do with why ICT is here at all.

Scotty's average figure is correct and precise (to the nearest 0.3 of a fan). It so happens that SoS agrees with Scotty's official figures.

In inaugural season 94/95 the average was 1275. In 95/96 it was 1579. Both of these seasons were entirely at Telford Street. The first half of 96/97, which included the opening of the Stadium in November 96, yielded 2300. It was 2676 for the second half (with the winning of promotion, the Third Division title and the trophy presentation - don't say that just the OF attract glory hunters!), giving an average of over 2500 for that whole season. (Ref "Against All Odd" pp128 and 132.) Into Divisions 2 and 3 these averages dropped, partly due to the loss of the novelty factor, partly due to less frequent victories and also due to the disappearance of derbies for some years.

Thanks Stevie. Overnight I've checked out the same statistics from a different source and the only other points that I'd make are, as you've shown, there are only TWO non County crowds of above 3500, both of them for special occasions, and also that even these were a result of the combined effects of the title and the novelty of a new stadium. Interestingly there weren't even 3500 for either the clinching of promotion or the title in earlier recollection of the average for 96-97 is a bit low - it was nearer 2500, including the four crowds of above 3500. I also have a memory of a crowd of over 4900 at Telford Street in January 1996 for a postponed New Year derby. There was much of an SPL card on that night two but Inverness produced something like the third biggest crowd of the night.

No you didn't. Typical averages in 96-97 were, off the top of my head, around 1700-1800, boosted to there the 5000 or so for Highland Derbies and by rather bigger crowds for special one off occasions like the opening of the Caledonian Stadium and the presentation of the Division 3 trophy. There was a temporary upsurge when the stadium had just opened, such as something like 2400 for Montrose but I doubt if there were much more than perhaps three occasions, all one offs, outwith County games when the crowd was above 3500. I don't have a copy of my book at hand just now but I'll check and update or make another post tomorrow.

In the case of ICT, the stoiy of how the shirt colours came about is perhaps even more interesting than the colours themselves!

Thank you Scotty. As an assiduous chronicler of the merger, I have always insisted on observing what was agreed in the dying days of 1993, even though my first experience of football was at Telford Sreet. I can also say that, with only one exception, I have NEVER referred to "Caley" in any report. That exception was imposed on me when I opted for a particular final line for my Sportsound report on a certain 5-1 scoreline which read: "Super County go ballistic, Caley are atrocious."

I take it this thread should really be entitled "Caley Thistle Song" but does anyone remember in the 1960s (and maybe later) a thoroughly cringeworthy Caley song to the tune of Mairi's Wedding and under the name of "Come Away The Caley" which boasted such emabarrassing inanities as: "Parkhead, Brockville and Dens Park Found our football was no lark"? HELP!!!!! (On the other hand the pre match music in these days did include Andy Stewart and Jim Reeves!)

Thank you Mantis. As Captain Mainwaring would say ..... I was waiting for someone to mention that. And here's a bit of ICT trivia. Although Charlie Christie was the first player to 100, 200 etc appearances, he was not the first to 50. It was Mark McAllister. Charlie had a period of injury during Caley Thistle's first season 94-95 which initially left him a little bit behind in the appearance stakes.

If you think it through there were so many fine part timers (ie never full timers) at Caley Thistle. Calder, Christie (who, despite his full time employment with the club was, in effect, a part time player if you also exclude his time at Celtic), Ian MacArthur.... Paul Cherry was part time since he ran his own finance business, the legendary Herchie as mentioned, Mikey Noble, Brian Thomson... indeed so many of the side which won the Third Division title in 1997, and outwith that Paul Ritchie is the first thought. I think I would have to give top equal to Christie and Calder (football's answer to Alf Tupper!) with Ian MacArthur possibly next but I'm also so sorely tempted by many of the others I've listed. All time top part time eleven anybody? (Only players who never latterly went full time.) Calder, MacArthur, ??????, Hercher, Noble, Cherry, Robertson, Thomson, Ritchie, Christie, Ross. I'm struggling for a left back, given that Hastings is ineligible. (Vetle??!!!... NOT!) I'm also asking Herchie to play in central defence. If I didn't I could possibly put MacArthur there which would then leave the right back slot blank and also possibly force Herchie out of the team which I'd be very reluctant to do. Gringo - I think Teasdale has too long a full time pedigree at Dundee and ICT to be eligible. Memories of so many of these guys at Telford Street!!! (By the way I do admit that this is very similar to the D3 championship winning team.)

Sandy.... as one of the local media "behind glass in a heated box", could I just perhaps point out that you forgot about the O'Brien's sandwiches? Delicious! ICT look after us very well and I think we reciprocate. Can I also point out that this "story" appeared in the news and not the sports pages of Tuesday's Sun? Sports journalists on newspapers not uncommonly get thoroughly fed up with their news colleagues pressurising them to connive at raking muck within football clubs. I certainly don't want to comment on the Sun's story, apart from remarking that it is fundamentally and dramatically inaccurate in a number of respects. But what I can say is that the minute the Sun appeared on Tuesday, the spontaneous and virtually unanimous reaction of the LOCAL media was not to touch this with a barge pole. (The local media, by the way, Sandy, are the privileged eight or so sandwich munchers with our personally allocated seats "behind glass in a heated box" who gererally have an excellent and mutually beneficial relationship with Caley Thistle and who have reported on/ photographed the club and attended twice weekly press conferences for years.) My final comment on this sorry issue is thoroughly to agree with the first ten words of Sandy's last post. This thread now seems to be the only thing that's keeping this unfortunate pot boiling. Drop it for God's sake!

Perhaps I can clarify the matter here. All of the newspapers you are talking about are owned by the same company, Scottish Provincial Press, to serve their local areas on a broadsheet/ tabloid basis. Within SPP there is the Highland News Group which are all tabloids and all edited in the same room - the HN which serves INVERNESS, the North Star which serves Ross shire and the Lochaber News whose catchment area is obvious. They all have the same editor and sports editor (Paul Chalk) and a few common pages but the football in particular is directed towards the local readership. The arrangements for broadsheets are a little different. The Courier and the Ross shire Journal are based in Inverness and Dingwall and are completely independent of each other. They are quite rigidly directed towards their local areas and indeed just about the only anomaly is that the Courier carries a limited amount of Ross County coverage. But they are completely separate papers covering their own areas. I therefore don't understand why an exception should be expected to be made in the case of this cup victory (about which I am very pleased for Ross County btw). People in Inverness, wanting to read about truly local football and indeed other sports as well would be rightly annoyed that their opportunities were being reduced by a large football report about a nearby team. I don't imagine the North Star or the Ross shire Journal would have carried much when ICT won the Challenge Cup in 2003 and quite rightly so. There was reference above to the fact that I covered the final extensively on the BBC. Of course I did. Ross and Cromarty is a significant part of our transmission area which covers all of the Highlands and Islands as well as Moray. On the other hand I would imagine I would get quite a few complaints if I started giving large chunks of air time to Aberdeen FC, the team next door. The local media is just that - local - and there are designated catchment areas.

TMFTJ... there's only one problem with that last post... the commentator was Bill Leckie! In fact I am in at the BBC just now lifting slices of Bill's excellent commentary to use in my sport review tomorrow morning. I must add my sincere congratulations to Ross County. I am delighted for them. The two Highland teams which came into the SFL in 1994 certainly haven't disappointed.

David ...was it the 5th Seaforths? That was who my father was with, although he was actually at HD 152 Brigade HQ, but he was right through the whole thing, including the battle for Caen which we also visited while over there. I have to say that by far the most emotional moment was the visit to the Ranville cemetery and the inevitable thought that had one man's war gone just a little differently, I would not have existed to have that experience. I also couldn't help but muse over the amount of money the Gondree family have made in their cafe over the last 60 years, just because they were the first family in Europe to be liberated......

Strange, isn't it, that when Armistice Day comes around there's this preoccupation with the First World War while WW2 and other conflicts seem almost to be ignored. TV keeps churning out reruns of the Battle of the Somme, the poetry of Owen, Brook and Sassoon is wall to wall and of course there are the lines from Binyon (they shall grow not old....) I suppose that for the first 20 years or so WW1 had the field to itself and observing Flanders etc became something of a tradition ...and indeed military casualties there were huge. We also continue to observe Armistice Day in November rather than May or August. In terms of British lives, there were about 3/4 of a million dead in 14/18 and around 400,000 if you include civilians in 39/45. But globally far more people died in WW2 compared with WW1.... 50 million as opposed to around 10. One thing that does annoy me when there's talk of WW1 at this time of year.. people keep saying that these soldiers died in the trenches "so that we might be free". That's just simply not true. There was never the remotest chance of Britain being occupied by the Germans in 1914-18. Britain went to war in 1914 to preserve the integrity of Belgium in accordance with the Treaty of London. WW1 was essentially a continental war which almost happened by accident after massive rearmament and which Britain could have avoided, but which morally it was obliged to join. WW2 is completely different. The freedom of the nation most definitely was at stake there although once again the war was entered in support of the territorial integrity of another country, Poland. I hope this doesn't sound like a history lesson, but I always have mixed feelings about November 11th.

That was the very same book. It was so vital that the Allied bridgehead remained intact from the East and in particular they had to prevent Panzers reinforcing German troops from there. The American 82nd Airborne performed a similar function at the West end of the invasion zone where (according to the Longest Day (1961)) John Wayne, despite being wheeled about Northern France with a knackered ankle, of course did the business single handedly. When I visited Pegasus Bridge I had the book in my bag. The run down the Caen Canal over Lovat's reverse route was one of thwese things you remember for years to come.

Dmacca... I had a similar experience to your own. My father, who survived the war, went ashore on Sword Beach with the Highland Division on June 8th 1944 (D+2) and while in France I took the opportunity to visit the British cemetery at Ranville which was a tremendously emotional eperience. We then walked down the hill to Benouville and Pegasus Bridge beside the Cafe Gondree, the first building in occupied Europe to be liberated. I had just been reading an account of the Pegasus Bridge operation and it was fascinating to see it unfold on the ground, down to the points where the gliders landed. Then my daughter and I jogged along the Caen Canal to Ouistreham at the eastern extremity of Sword beach, the reverse of the route Lord Lovat's Commandos took to relieve the Paras at the Orne bridges. The whole day was an incredibly memorable experience.

Not so much pies... I was thinking more of feeding Delia with a few drams and at half time handing her a microphone and directing her to the pitch!

This isn't a subject on which I would normally even want to comment, but since my name has been mentioned in connection with it, I feel I have to respond to confirm that this has NOTHING to do with me. Thank you Scotty! In any case, just look at the piece. It's not backed up by any significant quote at all and is totally wrapped round the story the reporter has decided he wants to tell. He has clearly put some kind of question to Charlie who has obviously not wanted to appear rude about Peter Grant but who still makes it quite clear to me that he's not interested in this creation of a local newspaper journalist in Norwich who then has the gall to turn it round to make it sound as if this is something Charlie is keen to achieve and wants to initiate. Given that even a firm link through David Sutherland with Sheffield United is not being pursued player wise, it hardly seems likely that this would. This happens all the time in football. A journalist decides on the story he wants, he puts the idea to the relevant player or manager and then uses certain quotes - at best out of context and sometimes even corrupted - apparently to back up his non story. In this case, it's just another of those down sides a smaller club gets after a victory over Rangers. Players and managers really get fed up with this kind of invention, believe you me! On the other hand I wouldn't mind signing up Delia Smith for some half time entertainment!

GOTP... you really shouldn't complain too much about the music. Some of us remember when they used to play "Distant Drums" by Jim Reeves at Telford Street!

I can see no way at all in which Tullochs have made direct monetary gain out of their involvement with ICT. However, businesses are perfectly entitled to expect some kind of benefit from the financial support they give sports clubs. In Tullochs' case, they have put a huge amount into ICT and, quite reasonably, have received a huge amount of positive publicity and goodwill out of what they have done. In particular, their construction of the stands in 43 days shot them to the forefront on a national scale and they are perfectly entitled to that as a return for their efforts and investment. As Caley D points out, the stadium and its contents are owned by the Trust, but so are any liabilities related to that - presumably also including any debts accruing from the stands. It was probably a major omission on my part when I was evaluating David Sutherland's contribution not to have mentioned Ken MacKie. Ken was effectively David's appointee and as such he did a marvellous job as a "steady hand" on the financial tiller. Also, don't underestimate Ken's quiet but utterly determined diplomacy during that uncertain summer of 2004 as SPL status hung in the balance. Caley Thistle have been very lucky with their Chairmen so far. Jock McDonald greatly assisted SFL entry and persuaded the powers that be that the imopossible could in fact be delivered with the merger. Dougie McGilvray played a huge part in getting the equally necessary stadium there although the latter part of his tenure was overshadowed by the increasing debt. We have already discussed David Sutherland and now Caley Thistle moves on to the era of Alan Savage.

The Duke of Wellington would have loved Caley Thistle for it was he who, after the Battle of Waterloo, said "It was a damned close run thing". That might have been a suitable alternative title for either Ian Broadfoot's book or mine because it epitomises the manner in which Caley Thistle has progressed since 1993. I'm obviously not going to retell the merger saga, but the underlying theme of my book was the tiny margins... a whole string of them.... by which the various steps in the formation of ICT were able to take place. The whole enterprise could have fallen if even one of them had not come off. Progress to the SPL has been a similar story. It was only by a tiny margin that ICT survived the debt crisis of 1999-2001, it was only "against all odds" (sorry!) that the team won Division 1 in 2004 and I believe that this would have been at least as difficult to win in many other years. The Pittodrie deal only just squeaked through and was only marginally viable and similarly it was only by the tiniest of margins that the Division 1 title was converted into SPL football during that fraught summer of politics in 2004. Finally, getting out of Aberdeen and home to Inverness in January 2005 was also a "skin of the teeth" job. So there you are... add up the close run things and you have an amazing story.