Charles Bannerman

Yes that would have been a much more peaceful solution but, unfortunately, politically impossible since Caley and Thistle at least had current or recent individual aspirations towards SFL membership and the notion of Inverness clubs merging had also been well engraved on the local psyche over earlier decades. There was in addition the asset question, especially after it "emerged" (I would LOVE to know the real truth behind that one!) in the autumn of 1993 that Thistle actually owned Kingsmills. Personally I am comfortable with the club's double tracked pre-history and cherish it, as well as Clach (and indeed Citadel since my father was born on Shore street. And, having survived almost two decades since those terribly difficult days which came so close so often to denying Inverness national league fotoball, I really don't see ICT as facing any significant threat from these problems of all these years ago. It happened, it was for the best by a magnitude totally unanticipated at the time. Those who don't like that can't turn the clock back- nor would many want to. Don - I am interested in what your belief that consderations relating to the merger may still be holding the club back. I really wouldn't want to discuss that on here, but maybe we could have a private chat about this some time. I could even pop up to speak to you in the announcer's box when you are there to give the announcer the feedback about what people on here have been saying about him. Buckett... what I mean by an "Alloa or Arbroath" is one of these worthy Scottish football treasures which yoyos about the middle reaches of the SFL and hopes every few years in the cup to draw a top half SPL team like....... well ICT!!! And as far as the strip is concerned, that was what almost terminally hacked off INE away back in 1994 (they issued an absolutely classic "plague on both your houses" rebuke at one point) and it's a pity to see this emerge again. However, not for partisan reasons, I still like to see identifiable blue, black and red out on the pitch there (but not so much blue as to confuse with Rangers.)

Dave, even though I had slight Caley leanings as a kid in Dalneigh, I do at least partly sympathise with what you are trying to say here. What I think has happened is that the Thistle - Caley thing probably hit a fair balance from 1995 after the club's first season, but has since then been allowed to drift a little in the wrong direction. I think the crucial starting point here is what I said in post #24 about this never having been an equal merger and that at one stage it was claimed that Caley had 70% of the assets, 80% of the membership (after a great deal of recruitment by both sides in their separate internal dispute!) and 90% of the membership. I know there have been those of the Thistle persuasion who thought it should have been an equal merger and those from within Caley who were looking at a takeover. On the basis of the facts, neither of these scenarios is realistic and the only viable soloution was an unequal merger - horrendously difficult as that was to accomplish, although it eventually was! Another crucial factor here is that on 1st October 1993, SFL applications closed and the only one on the table from Inverness was a merged one. From that day on, it was the merger or nothing.... and things often came perilously close to it being nothing! Inverness had the straight choice of getting its house in order on the basis of a merged club or continuing to wear a groove in the A96 with the Highland League. I will give Thistle chairman Charlie Cuthbert and his fellow committee members a lot of credit for their bravery in temporarily accepting a pretty duff deal while both sides got themselves sorted out during that first 94-95 season of the "predominantly blue" (aka "Caley") strip and their belief that things would get better, which they did. The strip still means a lot to people and in 1995, 25% black and red was achieved, and much more imaginatively than a "Sampdoria" band. But, as with everything else, Thistle have always been the minority partners, which is inevitable. However some years' strips have been bettter than others and, even though I formerly had slight Caley leanings, I still think some have been too "blue". Apart from the lack of black and red, this also makes the ICT strip look too much like Rangers in my view. The other unfortunate thing is the possibly predictable tendency for people to use the easy short form of the name as "Caley". This is another part of the process which has drifted more and more over the years and I still frequently haul people up on it! So yes, an unequal merger, but one whose outward signs have drifted a bit further in the wrong direction. Let me conclude with what the purpose of this merger was - to bring Scottish League football to Inverness at last, where creating another Alloa, Arbroath or maybe Airdrie would have delighted a lot of people. So to have an Inverness team sitting where it is, having accomplished what it has in 19 short seasons is ample proof that the end has far more than justifed the means.

Quite simply it bought the "Royal" bit off George III, for quite a few quid I'm led to believe, in 1793, the year after it was founded. Simple as that. The royals had the habit of raising a few bob by selling royal charters to the plebs (am I allowed to use that word? ) Mind you, by 1793 poor George was probably well and truly barking. There is no problem carrying the name on since it goes with the institution not the building. this will be the Royal Academy's fourth building since it was founded in 1792.

I am sure Caley D will pass on your comments!!!

Before I ask "which one", could someone confirm that that's George Junior rather than Dougie behind George Senior? I think it's "young" George but both Messrs Rodgers, whoever the younger one is, indeed do look very happy - and rightly so. It's a good book on Clach in which I think Rodwill Clyne may also have had at least a hand. I'm guessing the photo may be of the celebrations after Clach winning the Highland League title in 1975. There's an interesting post script to that, beacuse the League Flag, normally raised on the first day of the season at home, wasn't raised in 1975 at Grant Street until into September which is a fact I stumbled across purely by accident a few weeks ago. The key to this mystery is possibly in who Clach's opponents were that day. Beacuse the away team was none other than Caley and my theory is that the Clachers delayed the ceremony until they had the opportunity to perform it right in the faces of their neighbours and local rivals!

Something like "damaged file". It was the same both on Preview and Adobe Reader 9 Hackers with blue Santa Hats muttering "Bah Humbug" to blame maybe?

Amazing the effects of Scotsmac and licking stamps!!

Witty, charming, intelligent and devilishly handsome. ;-) I think you're just saying that to exclude IHE!!

(subject to satisfying the natural and commendable curiosity of some of the youngsters on this thread who want to know where their club came from.)

Kingsmills.. yer jokeenmun! There is no way Kingsmills Park could ever have accommodated 7000.... even including the bacteria in the away dressing room!! And to suggest that this was for a midweek friendly seriously redolates of the Horlicks ad! But you do make the important point that attendances have significantly dropped right across the game in recent decades.

I know a few who claim they don't attend ICT "because of the merger"....but when pushed on the subject it transpires that they rarely ever went to the football pre-merger anyway, so would hardly count as a lost fan. It's almost as if it's just a convenient get out clause for many local OF supporters when challenged on why they don't support their local team as well. The truth is, as I pointed out, the real "stay aways" are few and far between and are certainly have no significant impact on current crowds. Donald.... I can also back that up since it's something I have also heard from time to time. (I know this must look bad and uncool, you and I agreeing with you so often... but what the hell - it's Christmas!!!

Love it! This is one of several excellent posts on this thread. The merger really is history and needs to recede into an honoured place in the past. But equally when refusenik propaganda raises its head again, it needs to be answered. I also read with interest good contributions from - lukemackay and ajsict92 - how refreshing it is to hear young lad like that make such positive and constructive comments about the manner in which SPL football has been brought to Inverness and the Highlands. Alex MacLeod - I agree absoluely. At the very, very best, Caley MIGHT have been a yoyo team between Divisions 1 and 2 but Inverness would have had nothing like what it has experienced in recent years. Sorry Buckett, I just can't buy into the notion that Caley would have done just as well on their own. Their fan base would have been so much smaller, Caley actually weren't that popular and indeed were even actively disliked in Inverness outwith their own orbit, they would not have had the universal appeal that ICT had, would they have got in on their own in the first place?, and if they did they would only have had a fraction of the resources that ICT had. For instance, of the £4.8M stadium budget, at least £1.8M would not have been available to Caley since there was a lot of public funding they wouldn't have got and they wouldn't have had Thistle's asset contribution either. Renegade - by its very nature this was never going to be an equal merger. Caley always were significantly the bigger partner, although this never gave them the right to monopolise. At one point it was said that Caley had 70% of the assets, 80% of the membership and 90% of the fundraising capacity. As a result they deserved the political advantage - although I really would like to hear the name "Thistle" used a bit more these days! This was also pointed up by yngwie (many of whose posts entertain me massively on a weekly basis by the way!!) And the blue/ blac and red "bias" brings me to.... Tichy BlacksBack - yes I know! I used the blue analogy in my last post but there was a very deliberate reason for that! What I was doing was satirising the fact that the great majority of the bitterness and propaganda myth seems to originate from those of the former Caley persuasion!

The reason you are surprised to hear this is that the merger has NOT actually kept very many fans away from supporting ICT at all. This is and always has been a complete myth which a tiny rump of Cyber Rebels attempt to perpetuate through various social media, including on here, and when they occasionally meet face to face in plenary session in a phone box on Telford Street. It's a wee bit like the myth about Celtic supporters in Seville, except about 20,000 times smaller. If you are one of the younger members of the ICT fan base, let me summarise what happened from the autumn of 1993 in a very few sentences. (A more detailed account can be found in "Against All Odds" online on this site.) Some Caley and an even smaller number of Thistle fans objected to the merger and the manner in which it was achieved. It is important to understand that attendances at games in these Highland League days was tiny (a few hundred) compared with nowadays since in between a large number of new fans with no interest in the merger in the first place have come on board. In the case of Caley, it is also very important to understand that in any case, no more than 226 people ever voted against the merger, even though recruitment by the anti merger faction was exhaustive. Of these:- * Very many still came to games and even helped out behind the scenes when the club got under way. * Some more have drifted back over the years. * Some more have left Inverness as would have happened anyway. * Some more have died in the intervening 19 years, as would have happened anyway. The numbers in Thistle's case were a good deal smaller than that. So, almost 20 years on, this residual small fraction of what, by modern standards, was a very small number in the first place, is really a drop in the ocean. However the more successful Caley Thistle has become in its transition from the Third Division to the top quarter of the SPL, the more and more bitter this tiny awkward squad has become and also the more laughable their cyberfiction. As a result, this Christmas, with this highly successful team sitting where it is, there will rather more "Bah Humbugs" than usual in that phone box on Telford Street. The merger, fascinating though it was to observe, is long gone and its product is now riding high in the very top tier of Scottish football. So this Yuletide, beware men with "predominantly blue" Santa hats, telling fairlytales, bearing grudges and with back numbers of LSM sticking out of their predominantly blue santa suits!!! EDIT - and I thoroughly agree with Caley D who posted as I was writing!!!!!

I think,at times, it just spread hate for everything and everybody it could! Strong on being hubristic and self righteous about Caley's 100 plus years of history. But very weak on knowing and understanding very much about what that was before the glory days of the 80s. But at the same time, it was often very well written!!

Tut-tut. Evidence please. There you go..... http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/fear-anti-english-racism-on-rise.19649937 Four days ago in The Herald. But let's not allow things to drift off topic. The point I was making was that people from both England and central Scotland tend to think and write patronising drivel about Highlanders and The Highlands, but to some extent we ask for it through the manner in which we caricature ourselves.

For a few minutes, sitting in the stand at Dingwall but listening to Open All Mics, I also was remembering the Ayr United game!!

What a load of pathetic, patronising drivel!! On the other hand if, as a community (and it does), Inverness promotes itself through the media of a mythical water creature, people irritating the hell out of the locals by incessantly playing the bagpipes on the High Street and the most misunderstood battle in British history, we deserve everything we get. But please don't subscribe to the Anglophobia which apparently has been on the rise in Scotland in recent years. Central belt Scots are just as capable of tarring us with the Brigadoon brush which - unfortunately - we are very good at asking for.

Do these remnants include Davie's pocket - with Billy Urquhart in it? Come to think of it Johndo, in the course of a very long life, Forres Pies are probably just one of a very large number of things to which you have said "Aye"

In equal fairness to "Dingwall", they issued a press release on 28th November advising that tickets for the January 2nd derby would be available from Monday Dec 3rd. Ross County issue very regular ticketing press releases which tend to be used quite liberally by the media. On the other hand I'm not sure what the precise arrangements would be for the "away" end on January 2nd. In equal additional fairness, Caley Thistle, until Tuesday, would have been quite legitimately up to their ears with ticket sales for the Cup replay. See these Highland Derbies? Three of five or six down - two or three to go! Wonderful occasions. Did there used to be an institution called the Old Firm?

Pardon me if this fairly obvious point has already been made on a thread which is really far too long to read in detail - but on the issue of filiming, you get filmed each and every time you walk up the High Street and a good deal more, so what's all the fuss about?

I think you should move house!

The Castle Restaurant used to be called the Castle Snack Bar and, as far as I recollect, existed as such from at least the early 60s and in its early days was a very popular venue for local youth. It is still run by the Lipton family and Brian, the older of the two brothers, has been in charge for years. It has, as Dougal suggests, a very good reputation locally. Brian Lipton is actually Alan Savage's son Paul's father in law. Does anyone remember the Chinese restaurant below street level on High Street? I think a snooker room was in there before. When it was a Chinese there used to be a rumour that 20 minutes before they brought your food you could hear dogs yelping And of course we all miss the Italian cafes - the Locarno, Ness Cafe, Dorandos and, as already mentioned, the Rendezvous where used to nip in for a pee on the way home from BBs until the wifie caught me. Morrisons in the market was also pretty good and of course just round the corner there was the Cafe George and the one in Queensgate beside what is now Fraser the butcher. Nowadays we have to rely far too much on supermarket cafes which in Inverness are universally poor. The Tesco Inshes one is a nightmare where equipment breaks down on a regular basis and they take weeks to get it sorted. Tesco's regular excuse is that it's a franchise run by somebody else so not their fault but I'm sure they're happy enough to take the rent and in any case this is just another example of the contempt with which Tesco have treated the people of Inverness for years. I would have thought Asda might have taken the opportunity of cashing in when they opened but, quite frankly, their cafe is downright awful as well. One morning their breakfast service was in such disarray that they were giving them away for nothing but you would actually have had to pay me quite a lot to eat the disgusting cold gelatinous mass which they handed me. And not even Morrisons can fully upstage these twin disasters. The food is actually a fair bit better than the others because it is individually cooked, but the service is so slow (as it is in the rest of the shop because they are understaffed throughout) that you can sometimes wait half an hour for your food. I actually miss the old Safeway cafes - especially the one in Margaret Street - which were the best Supermarket cafes in town. But for a really decent breakfast and by far the biggest and best bacon rolls in town - Cobbs at Highland Industrial Supplies!

I was actually thinking in terms of items a good deal more unpleasant than that! Interesting to note, though, that football fans need to be treated with similar seriousness to Al Quaeda operatives!

Thanks to Scotty for getting that message from Ross on (above )by roundabout means when my computer wasn't letting me. Thanks also to Scotty for telling me how to fix my computer! Interesting post #32 from Don as well since his cameraman activities certainly also make him one of "them scoundrels"

Alex... terribly sorry to deflate your euphoria, but in "results away to the other team" you seem to have forgotten a certain 4-2 to Celtic at the TCS in August. That would make the "results away to the other team" tiebreaker 4-3 to Celtic on aggregate!