Charles Bannerman

Yes, all CATW says is what is common knowledge anyway which is that Alec went to Leicester in the 50s. I think it's very likely that this earlier game would have been part of that deal.

1955/6 - Inverness Select 0 Leicester City 2 Anything to do with Alec Bowman?

Go on!! Have a good blubber!

I dont think theres any arguing about it. For my money, he had the most illustrious career. Capt of leicester City. Played in Liverpools double winning team (might have even been a european cup final appearance too. Think he was even Capt of Coventry for a while too....not to mention Managing Aston Villa in the modern day EPL. Only blot on the landscape was his time playing for Rangers 2012 lol OBVIOUSLY tho....the high point would have been playing for the mighty Caledonian Fc!! Yes I think I'm with SMEE on that one.... and into the bargain his dad gave me my first mortgage! In fact Doxers was also instrumental in getting me an early scoop as a rookie BBC reporter when he got me in contact with Kevin on the phone for BBC Highland in these pre mobile days right off the back of his double win with Liverpool in I think 1985 or maybe 86. I've checked "Caley All The Way" and can't find any reference to the Leicester game itself but there are a few paragraphs about Kevin's move to Leicester. Alex Main explains that it was actually himself who signed Kevin for Caley on semi professional forms in 77-78 and gave him his first appearance in 79. Moving on then into Willie Hunter's era, Kevin made 56 appearances, scoring 22, 10 of them penalties. (Clearly penalties were more easily obtainable for Inverness teams in these days! ) Hunter then recommended him to Jock Wallace and a HL record fee of £26,000 was paid. Alex then comments that although Caley were happy enough with the fee, it was also an excellent deal for Leicester who got a captain and ultimately £450,000 from Liverpool who regarded him as a replacement for Graham Souness. Kevin of course was also present at the Hyssel disaster in 1985 and I'm sure Doxers had gone over to the game since I have a recollection of him telling me how harrowing the whole thing was.

I don't have my copy of Caley All The Way to hand at the moment but I'll check this when I get a chance (unless someone else can do the job quicker?) But I do, like Yngwie, recollect that it was linked with Kevin MacDonald's move from Caley to Leicester?

Deepest sympathy to Laura and the family.

I really wouldn't go into too much detail and agonise too much here over the ifs and buts - because this will NOT happen. This is simply our old friends "SPL Rules" in operation where it seems that by 31st March (ie weeks before you actually get promoted) you seem to have to have an actual rather than a projected home available. So the agreement with ICT has to be there in principle just in case they encounter any flying pigs. Work at Dingwall starts on April 1st. It is scheduled to be completed before the end of June, several weeks before the season starts. Ross County will not be playing home games in Inverness. It's just the SPL being pompous jobsworths again.

Quite frankly that is pure, uninformed rubbish. Until the collapse of the Soviet Bloc in the late 80s, drugs abuse was a major problem in athletics, but also in a lot of other sports since the Soviet Bloc countries were the worst offenders because drugs abuse there was institutionalised, and indeed enforced on many of their performers - not only in athletics but in every sport they did. A lesser problem still persisted, with the USA having much but not all to answer for, and a great deal of that has been addressed by extremely rigorous testing procedures which can require athletes to state their whereabouts in advance so they can be visited at any time for extensive random testing. Yngwie... if you thing athletics is all about strength and "stamina" (whatever that means) with not a lot of "skill" (whatever that means as well)... then you should stick to watching the fitba son! And since I am sitting within Inverness Royal Academy writing this over the lunch hour, I have been able to check the school records and can confirm that on April 23rd 1973, a J. MacKenzie did indeed cover the 100m from the Lochgorm to the west door of the Hayloft in 10.25 sec. However he was disqualified - not for drugs abuse but for spilling some of the beer in the glass he was carrying.

A strange but sensational end to this game. County stuttered a bit early on but on the half hour Iain Vigurs did some great work down the left to set up Michael Gardyne. Then on 57 minutes Richard Brittain hit a wonderful free kick from 25 yards out on the left for 2-0. Any third goal looked as if it would also come from County, with Steven Craig and Gardyne in particular missing out.... until sub Archie Campbell pulled one back on 87 minutes for "KUM - ON - YEEE - TONNN". (ICT fans please note... some clubs' songs and chants are even worse than yours! ) Then in the THIRD minute of stoppage time Morton got a penalty for what the ref judged to be a hand ball by Scott Boyd - about which Derek Adams, after seeing the video, insists the player could have done nothing at all. 25 games unbeaten... lead stretched to 12 points with 9 games left... but still an understandably downbeat atmosphere about VP at the end of the night. Roll on Saturday!

You mean these people are even worse than those battalions of Spectre agents and Fifth Columnists who are hiding round every corner just waiting to get you and you alone?

Long term serial cheat in that he took the stuff for years and would have continued to do so for as long as he got off with it. Thankfully he was caught. Should have had a life ban from everything on the spot. Only became repentant after he was caught and needed to become rehabilitated. As the coach of an athlete who many years ago (1986) would have won World Junior gold in the high jump had she not finished "behind" rivals from three Eastern European countries which were later exposed as promoting instututional drugs cheating, I have no sympathy with any of these abusers.

Yes, very good! But as it happens "anus" with one "n" is also the Latin word for an old woman, so in classical terms, HM actually is... an "anus".

Gabby... I think what SMEE is talking about is kids playing on computers instead of playing football as opposed to this affecting attendances. However, you are right to comment that this affects the whole range of developed, affluent countries - which is excatly what I was suggesting earlier. And I don't know if it's specifically just computer GAMES. There's now a whole range of computer based activities in addition to a plethora of TV channels. Facebook seems to take up a huge amount of people's time.... time they don't spend exercising or practising sports. In fact if you also listen to the complaints of pub landlords, maybe we are becoming a society which now spends most of its time in front of computer or TV screens getting tanked up on cheap supermarket drink.

Smee... you highlight a very valid but at the same time a very long recognised factor which relates to performance not only in football in Scotland but in sport as a whole across the entire affluent, developed world. It must be 20 years now since I dubbed this "the Nintendo factor" (a term which just about dates itself!) This is one of a number of factors in our kind of society which mean that youngsters take a lot less exercise and practise sport to a much lesser extent than they did until a generation ago. However the phenomenon is so spread out across a number of countries and variety of sports that it is difficult to identify it specifically with the demise of football in Scotland. It is very probably a contributory factor in absolute terms but doesn't help to explain the relative component of this. I also think that football in Scotland suffers from a large degree of delusional optimism and expectation that what happened during a golden age is and actually should be the norm. At club level, Aberdeen fans are also especially guilty of this. Any country which surveys its footballing past and sees, through a rose coloured mist, an ultimate panacea in Archie Gemmill's goal should take a serious look at itself.... and should perhaps also stop criticising the English for continually banging on about 1966. At least they won something there as opposed to a meaningless goal at the end of one of the most thoroughly embarrassing episodes in Scottish fooball history.

That was a very competent performance from Ross County against Partick Thistle last night. Three good goals including the Vigurs free kick which was another masterpiece. However a couple of minutes before that there was an extended episode of sheer brilliance from Michael Gardyne which came extremely close to producing what might have been Scottish football's goal of the season. However the way the First Division title race went two years ago has completely revised my view of both promotion and relegation issues in football. Although I'm still capable of looking at things from a balance of probability perspective, I subscribe much more these days to the "it's not over until it's over" philosophy. However the prospect of County bottling it like Dundee in 2010 AND of Falkirk or Dundee finding a charge like ICT did does seem quite remote.

By my reckoning, County's 2-1 win over QoS on Saturday was their 22nd First Division game in a row undefeated, hence surpassing ICT's 21 in season 2009-10. On the other hand ICT may well have taken more points from their run since there were very possibly more wins.

I thought you just got stuff like this on "Only An Excuse"! :lol: The tone of the comment and commentary were straight out of the old newsreels from the Soviet Union.

These players, who have been in well paid jobs for some time, will have a pretty good chance of getting a job elsewhere and as free agents they come without a transfer fee. A huge fuss has been made about them, but I am more concerned about the cleaners, ground staff, catering staff etc etc who are ordinary working people, not all that well paid and whose employment prospects in the current climate really won't be all that good in the event of non playing staff also being disposed of.

I have to say that judging by the photo on the OP, Tabitha doesn't really look 75 at all

OK so let me play Devil's Advocate here. From the quote above, it would appear that both the management and the players (who have also changed almost totally since 08-09) are being eliminated as possible variables in this question. So what does that leave, then, as a possible cause if there is disquiet about home form? :biggrin:

I am even more reliably informed that it's an Inverness Royal Academy scarf that Terry was given by a Johndo MacKenzie who used to be made to wear it to school on cold days.

I agree with your first point BC - I can't see Ross County losing it now either. But rather than the momentum being similar to ICT's in 09-10, it's actually almost a mirror image so far. I've managed to locate the points totals for County for their 21 games so far this season and for ICT in 09-10 and the comparison is as follows - After 5 games - RC 6pts, ICT 8 (including a defeat by County at TCS). After 10 games - RC 19, ICT 13. After 15 games - RC 34, ICT 22. After 20 games - RC 41, ICT 31. After 21 games (ie to date) RC 42, ICT 34. Both clubs had a relatively slow start and while ICT's progress remained sluggish up to about half way through the season, County had a brilliant second quarter, winning nine in a row from games 7-15. You'll see that after 15 games, County are 12 points (more than 50%) ahead but this is now narrowing. On the other hand for the bit of the season which hasn't happened this time - games 22-36 - ICT took an incredible 39 points out of 45 and this was the real guts of that title win. Mind you, as late as the first Saturday in March, games 24, I remember walking along Princes St listening to ICT beng pulled back to a 2 all draw at Dens and thinking.... NOPE! (How wrong... I wasn't one of those who "believed! ) This season so far has been very much front loaded for County with the points take reduced of late by a series of draws although they have gone 19 unbeaten. ICT's was very much end loaded. So although County have definitely had momentum this season, I would suggest that it has not been all that similar to ICT's - so far!

On the first point, the original comment was indeed made from the point of view of the said Govan Dandies and although I haven't been to Alloa in particular, there have been others like Arbroath and Forfar where I would share your sentiments absolutely. Similarly I enjoy a trip to Clach Park as much as I used to treasure visits to Kingsmills and Telford Street. On the second point.... did the Police arrest him for that?

I quite deliberately omitted Dingwall from the list of lower league grounds which Rangers "in a certain eventuality" might end up visiting! In the frist place I was looking at some of the decidedly less luxurious ones and VP in that context is pretty up market. And in the second place, I am trusting that VP will not be a lower league ground next season!

Perhaps I can help with an eye witness account since I was trackside when the game was postponed at 7:10. On Saturday the pitch was heavy but playable and it remained playable until just after tea time. However there was a lengthy burst of very heavy rain early evening and that put paid to the game. Having driven through that on my way to Dingwall and got soaked by it when I got there, I can confirm that there was a lot of water falling. This was a case of a huge concentration of water at just the wrong time. However Falkirk and Dundee both dropped points tonight.