Charles Bannerman

No, merely to achieve some clarification of the significance of statements about the local media made on a club-related website by someone who has official responsibility within the club for media matters.

I can possibly explain - at the risk of further complaints about undue local media interest in ICT's financial affairs from the club's media coordinator, whose earlier intervention now has me wondering if that was therefore an official statement of the club's viewpoint on this issue? In other words, would it now be appropriate to run the headline "ICT SLAM CASH-OBSESSED LOCAL HACKS"? The name of the consortium was actually Muirfield Mills and as I recollect the money, which was for the purchase of shares, was duly paid prior to May 31 2013 and hence appeared in the appropriate place in the 2012-13 accounts. In return, the Muirfield Mills consortium were also given a place on the ICT board for their representative who is Richard Smith. Any clarification of what, if any, role the Tulloch shareholding had in this process and what percentage of the voting rights Muirfield Mills now controls would be interesting. So, having doubtless exceeded the degree of interest in ICT's financial affairs deemed appropriate for a local journalist, I will turn to the OP of this thread. That states - Could it be that a multi-purpose stadium with a synthetic surface is being earmarked for the use of ICT plus others at Torvean - plus a shared indoor centre for training purposes ? As far as I can see, that is simply kite flying since this highly speculative statement is neither made in any context, nor is it based on any direct information. As Alex also appears to have done, I can only assume that it is based on recent reports that a possible share for Inverness of a £20M pot of cash could lead to a multi purpose indoor facility and a synthetic all-weather surface. This could, reportedly, include training facilities which could be used by ICT along with facilities for many,many other sports clubs in the local area.. At no point has anyone mentioned the facility kite-flown in the OP which is light years away from what the Council has in mind and several points up the Richter Scale of costs. The possibility of a replacement for Fort George as a training venue for ICT has apparently been formally raised though, so it would be relevant to discuss this.

That is also my understanding - with "bidding for a share" being the operative term. Caley Thistle already have a stadium at a location of the club's own choice which has effectively already had two separate contributions of public money - when it was built in 1996 (£1.8M) and the tax concessions when the ICT Trust was set up in 2001. On the latter subject, I seem to recollect that one of the legal requirements for the ICT Trust to be set up in order to gain these concessions was that it should benefit all sports and not just football. I am not so far clear of the extent to which sports other than football have benefited from this requirement so far. Priority number one has to be the multi purpose indoor facility to which Alex refers. There are sports across the area crying out for such a facility. On the other hand if a training area for ICT and other football clubs can also be provided, all well and good. In terms of location, Fort George is far from ideal and who knows - any indoor facility may save a trip to Dingwall when the snow arrives. On point one....it's fairly well known and accepted that the "public funds" received in 1996 were nothing more than a means for the local authority to pay for infrastructure improvements from funds other than those earmarked for such things. Whilst technically accurate, the reality is that it did little to directly assist the club...they were merely the vehicle through which the money was shifted. In regards to the Trust that was set up to take ownership of the stadium....that had little/nothing to do with tax concessions. Even if it was, I would be surprised if it has ever benefited from any tax concessions which would not be afforded to any company with trading losses. It could actually be argued that the most tax efficient thing to have done would be to leave the stadium and debt within the club so that those losses could have been offset against the clubs tax bill. Since the Trust hadn't (up to the last time I checked) turned a profit, then there's no chance of any surplus existing to be distributed to any sport. Always amazes me that members of the local media pay such close interest to financial operations at ICT (whilst constantly drawing the wrong conclusions) but very rarely spot (or would it be more accurate to say, take such public interest in?) the more obvious goings on elsewhere!! What a promptly composed and remarkable historical revision! On point one, it's fairly well known that the budget for the Caledonian Stadium, even after economies were made, was a million pounds short and without the £900,000 which eventually came from the Inverness Common Good Fund its viability would at best have been highly questionable. Added to that there was Objective 1 cash, money from INE and also from the Football Trust and HRC which made a total public purse contribution of something like £1.8 million. Of course we all know that the road which was part of the planning requirements for the stadium has also been a Godsend in terms of creating access to the harbour etc, but you can't get away from the fact that one third of the cost of putting the stadium there was met from public funds. Money well and appropriately spent, but public funds all the same. These are my gleanings from the several Council meetings I sat through and it is also consistent with the account in Against All Odds which was approved prior to publication by the ICT Board, one member of which is also currently an ICT director should you want to take the opportunity to confirm anything with him. In regards to the Trust, it is also an inescapable fact that one of the legal conditions for the Trust to be set up around 2001 was that it would be obliged to benefit all sports and not just football. Irrespective of its profit and loss situation, that was the way it was and it was well documented at the time. Distribution of any surplus was never specifically mentioned but I have always wondered how the Trust might be in a position to fulfil this part of its obigation. I also note with some interest your more recent somewhat changed viewpoint on the Trust and allied matters even though, given the current security situation, it must be some time since you have been in a position to holiday in Damsacus

That is also my understanding - with "bidding for a share" being the operative term. Caley Thistle already have a stadium at a location of the club's own choice which has effectively already had two separate contributions of public money - when it was built in 1996 (£1.8M) and the tax concessions when the ICT Trust was set up in 2001. On the latter subject, I seem to recollect that one of the legal requirements for the ICT Trust to be set up in order to gain these concessions was that it should benefit all sports and not just football. I am not so far clear of the extent to which sports other than football have benefited from this requirement so far. Priority number one has to be the multi purpose indoor facility to which Alex refers. There are sports across the area crying out for such a facility. On the other hand if a training area for ICT and other football clubs can also be provided, all well and good. In terms of location, Fort George is far from ideal and who knows - any indoor facility may save a trip to Dingwall when the snow arrives.

Two points before I withdraw from this topic on the grounds that it has become just as intolerant as the one on the Referendum. Firstly, criticising journalists for not having to pay to get into their place of work is just about as unimaginative and mindnumbing a view point as it is possible to put forward. What will you be wanting to do next? Charge John Hughes and the players as well for access to that same place of work? Dispense with media coverage altogether and just forget about the resulting publicity and the broadcasting fees which substantially subsidise your season tickets? Secondly, it is quite clear what is meant by gloryhunters here. Whenever a club reaches what its support and local community perceive to be a "big game", attendance at that game on the part of that support and local community increases to a greater or lesser extent. Typically this leads to a 2 or 3 fold increase in "support" for that team. When a Highland League club met a "big team" in the Scottish Cup, the increase was more like 10 fold because of the enhanced novelty factor. Much of that increase comprises people whose interest in the club concerned is at best marginal and fails to prompt them to attend more than once in a blue moon. However it seems that IHE's creative arithmetic motivates him to include people like that who might have gone to watch Caley once every three or four years or whatever as merger "refuseniks" and hence "lost fans" - which is clearly ludicrous. In simple summary - the decision in 1993-94 for Thistle and Caley to merge has created for Inverness a rise from the Highland League to the top half of the SPFL Premiership and a five or six fold increase in typical attendances at matches. But instead of simply enjoying that scenario, a small minority seem obsessed with wallowing in 20 year old grievances. If a few eggs have chosen to break themselves in the course of achieving the meteoric progress which has been realised in Inverness, then that is a small price to pay.

In the latter days in the Highland League, Thistle's and Caley's typical combined attendance might have been in the ballpark of 600. In an era when a Scottish Cup tie against the likes of St Johnstone or Kilmarnock was considered a rare novelty, that could rise 10 fold thanks to the presence of a correspondingly large number of glory hunters who attended Thistle and Caley games once in a blue moon so played no effective part in the clubs' support. I would also agree that in Division 1 in 03-04 it was about 2000, as it had tended to be for much of that period in D1. Move another rung up the ladder and indeed you do now have around 3500 which is around a 5-6 fold increase alongside the rise from the Highland League to the top half of the Premiership over the period that the pro-refusenik lobby bemoans so much damage having been done. I find it interesting that the linked article suggested that progress up the leagues had been slower than expected, given the universal ridicule attracted by Dougie McGilvray's "Off The Ball" statement that ICT would reach the SPL within 10 years - ie by 2004 - whch it did. As for the "prawn sandwich" type references in other recent posts, the old chestnut about journalists not paying to get into football matches really is getting very tired and weary. The reality is that many of the organisations for which journalists at football matches work pay a lot of money for broadcasting rights etc. Similarly what some fans like to dismiss as the "prawn sandwich brigade" in corporate hospitality also pay for this service. The main effect of important incomes like this is that they actually subsidise the season tickets of supporters since the lunatic economics of football are such that gate recepits do not come close to meeting running costs of football clubs.

It really looks to me as if this thread has partly degenerated into the argument that, in order to achieve a meteoric rise to the top of Scottish football, it has not been worth losing the opportunity to make a complete @rse of yourself in the Howden End on a Saturday afternoon. There is a lot more to supporting football than the rather 70s fads of swigging Scotsmac, licking stamps and a severe reluctance to admit that one's days of adolescence have long gone.

Yeh.... to the extent that the status of Inverness football has plummeted from the HighlandLeague to the top half of the SPFL Premiership.

I can just see Alex Salmond and Alastair Darling both embroiled in a stand-up fight to secure your services for their respective creative arithmetic departments!

There have been since 1994, didn't you know?

Sneckboy... believe me - the Rebels (and of course the pro merger side as well) scoured every highway and byway to get everybody they could into the Rose Street Hall that December night in 1993. Not a stone was left unturned. Look on it more like a 3 line whip in Parliament if you want to use a political analogy. On the second point, apart from apparently assuming that refuseniks unerringly breed little refuseniks who have no minds of their own, are you not also assuming that those who attend games don't also breed?

You are absolutely right Reengade. The idea had been around on and off for decades - including twice even during the decade before it happened in reality.

None of the above!

Sounds quite painful

Can't say many of your posts on here bear that out

In the case of Caley, IF there was that much bitter dissent within the ranks of all those people who were alleged to be "loyal" Caley fans, then how come - after several weeks of trawling the highways and the byways for anybody they could get signed up - the anti merger faction only managed to get 226 people into the Rose Street Hall on 1st December 1993 to try to overturn the decision of 9th September? If, as we are constantly told, there were all those thousands of people out there who were diehard Caley fans and huge numbers of them were anti-merger, and if they regarded the merger as all that vital an issue, how come they could only raise 226 votes after the frantic recruiting period during that autumn? That 226, by the way, was also the biggest vote that there ever was against the merger. It was downhill all the way for the rebels after that and even a large proportion of the 226 became regulars at ICT games. So why, 20 years on, do people keep labouring us with their Seville-like delusions? For goodness sake, if opposition was even a fraction as large as has repeatedly been suggested here, the Thistle-Caley merger simply would never have come close to being the outstanding success it has been for the last 20 years. It's sort of like trying to claim that Brazil's single goal was some kind of mortal blow to Germany. There's also a further "merger dividend" which for some reason has never been mentioned here and that is the fact that the merger eradicated at a stroke the pretty widespread unpopularity and dislike which there was specifically of Caley in the local area, outwith their own fans. Unfortunately the club took with it a sort of Rangers-like aura of hubris and arrogance to the extent that had Caley tried to go it alone, one of many factors which would seriously have limited its progress would have been that Caley would signally have failed to be identified as "Inverness's" team - which ICT most certainly is.

Possibly the main thing this thread has to commend it is that it provides a (relatively) welcome escape from the Referendum and the Queen's Baton Relay, both of which now feel as if they have been going on for even longer than discussions about the merger. The effect of the merger has been to have several times as many people in Inverness watching alevel of football which is light years ahead of what was available 20 years ago and with a worldwide profile which would have been unthinkable in the Highland League days. So even if that doesn't suit a few people, then it's a small loss because this new deal clearly suits hugely more than the old one did. Frankly it's getting to the stage that if a few people don't like the vastly improved fare on offer, I don't really care and (with no disrespect to the other Inverness team which I love dearly) if that is the level of football they prefer then they could do a lot worse than go down the Clach Park. One further apprehension I have about this thread is that it is often difficult to discern when and whether IHE is being serious and when he is trying to provoke his fellow posters into stances ranging from longwindedness to blind fury.

Did they all go to Seville instead?

One of the main reasons I withdrew from this thread several months ago was that, apart from the conspicuous exception of a couple of individuals who have always been entirely courteous, the quality and tone of the pro-Separatist comment has degenerated into little more than abject Cybernattery. Long experience of ovserving the SNP and fellow travellers tells me that such behaviour is par for the course, along with the rather puerile mass posting up of stickers and placards to make it look as if their support is a lot greater than it really is. By "a couple of individuals" who have been commendably gracious in their presentations, I would specifically mention Alex MacLeod who has always posted his views in very civilised terms, as has Oddquine - albeit somewhat more longwindedly and with the odd hint of not being very keen on "Westminster", "Whitehall" or "London" or whatever SNP High Command's euphemism of the day for "the English" happens to be. Doofers Dad's largely neutral views have also been outstanding. Otherwise, comment has degenerated into more and more embittered and intolerant rhetoric on the part of a caucus of arrogant, self righteous Ultranats who seem to think theirs is the only view which should be tolerated and that anyone otherwise minded should be regarded as some form of Untermenschen. But, as has been commented by other posters in recent weeks, keep up the good work lads. Your comments and the manner in which you express them, are a huge asset to Better Together. In fact it's almost in the same league as the hairy guy swathed in tartan, looking like an unemployed extra from Brigadoon and with a targe on his back proclaiming "Aye" who wanders the streets of Inverness and joins Yes Scotland canvassers in the High Street. A veritable modern day Willie Bell More seriously... it's people and comments like this who make the future of Scotland after any yes vote look chillingly dystopian. So if my withdrawal from this forum has contributed to its degeneration into an increaingly embittered discussion only among Separatists, then I am glad to have made my contribution to saving Great Britain in this manner. The more undecided voters who log on here the better. Time to withdraw again then....

You'll get a MacFatwah from Big Alec and a tartan handbagging from Wee Nicola for calling it that But you are dead right Bughtmaster. There were times in earlier years on here when it seemed that an account and evaulation of Caley Thistle's origins seemed relevant. Sometimes it is still helpful to clarify certain historical facts about the formation of the club. But the case for the "Union" is now long proven beyond all conceivable doubt and revisiting the same old stuff again and again has become overwhelmingly boring. The only mildly interesting - or perhaps rather amusing - aspect of more recent discussion is the manner in which the refusenik case has shifted. It used to be that the few hundred who used to attend Thistle and Caley games were staying away in their thousands. Now it seems to be that their children and their children's children are staying away - along with thousands who never went to Telford Street or Kingsmills in the first place It just gets more and more bizarre as time goes on.

Johndo... FACT - around SIX times as many fans attend ICT games now than Thistle and Caley combined for many years prior to 1994. So next time you knock back an opportunity to convert £1000 into £6000 after start-up costs have been paid, please let me know because I would be very pleased to take it up.

Poor Dougal He really is having such difficulty coming to terms with the stunning success of the merger-catalysed transition from a few hundred fans shouting abuse at each other in the relative anonymity of the Highland League to a high profile team in the top half of the Scottish Premiership.

20 years on, I really prefer just to boil the merger down to four brief statements. It happened. It was controversial at the time. It worked. It has brought football in Inverness on light years since 1994.

Playing for which team?

I find it interesting that the "refusenik" theory, having failed with Plan A, now seems to have moved on to Plan B which is the claim that the second generation of this proven tiny minority are now apparently staying away in their thousands. The big problem, even with the original argument, was that if refusenikism ever was a significant factor, far more people would have had to stay away from TCS than ever went to Telford Street or Kingsmills in the first place! Look.... it's the tourist season. Why can't we just content oursleves with that other local myth which is the Loch Ness Monster?!