Charles Bannerman

My understanding from quite a few years ago when Peter Swanson was in charge of County's property interests was that they had organised things so that VP could be upgraded in a timescale of weeks for a small 7 figure sum to the 6000 requirement. I am hoping to be through there tomorrow (unless the shinty decider is switched to Kingussie which means I'll have to go there) and this is a question I will be asking. Presumably a few weeks' groundsharing at TCS would sort the problem should the eventuality arise. But let's not cross bridges (if you pardon that pun in relation to Ross County) before we come to them. But I wish County all the best in their quest for SPL status. Two Highland clubs in the SPL would be two fingers up to the central belt as far as I am concerned.

Well there were plenty of copies in the shop last time I was in there about two weeks ago.

I can't say I detected too much horror in the bit of Open All Mics that I heard OCG but I wasn't across it all afternoon. What I did hear was pushing on towards half past five whilst on my way back from Dingwall and Chic was speaking what I thought was very positively about the possibility of two Highland teams in the SPL. But there will indeed be those who will already be wringing their hands in despair at the thought since of course we all know that it's FAR further from the Central Belt up to Dingwall/Inverness than it is in the opposite direction. I must say that I was very impressed by County yesterday - they really look the business and I hadn't seen them for a few weeks since the fixtures are so badly arranged this season with both teams either at home ro away far too often. On the other hand I didn't quite see the entire game since there were times when I was seriously distracted by Steven Pressley's astonishing dress sense which kept reminding me of Dr Who. If these were his working clothes, what on earth does he wear on a night out?

I think if the full road had gone ahead, demolitions in the Fairfield Rd and Bruce Gardens areas would have been inevitable. But responses to this thread have been excellent and I'm certainly learning a lot - not the least that Dalneigh seems to have progressed as far as Columba Road by the war and that the rest was built apparently by 1954. That's with the exception of the houses and shops between St Margarets and St Mungo which are early 60s since I remember these going up and in fact my mate Dallas Fraser fell in the foundations one day and made a right mess of his face. As it happens I took a detour round Dalneigh this morning and noticed something I never noticed in 14 years of coming home from the town and indeed to and from school up to 4 times a day for six years! What I spotted is that Dalneigh Road takes a very slight bend to the left at the Laurel Ave roundabout and again when it becomes St Andrew Drive where I lived! It was the RAF photo that alerted me since the original Dalneigh Road points straight at the farmhouse - latterly the manse. On the other hand St Andrew Drive is about 50 yards adrift of that and it's these two bends that do that. The extrapolation of the beginning of Dalneigh Road would actually go through my old back garden which backed on to the manse. I also realised that I didn't have a name for the thoroughfare which runs from Laurel Ave across Columba Rd and Dochfour Drive to the back entrance of the High School. But I now realise that this is because it doesn't seem to have a name - presumably because there are no house entrances on it, only the sides of gardens.

Thank you Padrino. That certainly seems to help. That photo appears to show that as at Dec 45 (and therefore presumably also Sep 39) they had got as far as Dochfour Drive, Dalneigh Crescent and Columba Road and no further. I do have one concern, though, and that is the pale coloured rectangle on it, running parallel with Columba Road and its top right corner apparently cutting out a section of Caledonian Road. Is the rest of it obscuring something? There does seem to be a hint of that and - sod's law - the rectangle seems to cover where Laurel Avenue would be. On the other hand, the smaller scale/ larger area photo does seem to suggest that there would be little if nothing in that differently coloured area and that there is no Laurel Avenue. What's the source of these photos?

Absolutely Dougie. I think this was very much the post war philosophy which also embraced the likes of Garden Cities. Certainly the house we lived in on St Andrew Drive had a pretty big garden, bigger than average for Dalneigh I suppose, with a back lawn which itself was 10 yards long and then there was a vegetable patch before you reached the back wall of the St Ninian garages. And that was just half the garden. There was another chunk parallel to that which was like a wee croft running down to the minister's hedge! The Swedish houses are all 3 bedrooms and all identical to or mirror images of each other. The bedrooms were pretty large, especially the "master" bedroom at the back and the one above the livingroom also had a fireplace. The other rooms were big too and there was lots of cupboard space. In fact I was just today relating a tale of a previous era when the large collection of fireworks which - aged 10 - I had bought used to be stashed in the cupboard beneath the stairs! (Aye... the "lobbing bangers into front porches" craze culminated one year in one headcase putting a Roman Candle in Mrs Anderson the P5 teacher's front hedge!) Other friends of mine (such as Beys and Kavvies for those who remember Inverness and Caley football of a bygone era) lived in stone houses on St Valery Ave and St Fergus Drive and these were pretty big too. The "electric flats" were maybe a bit different. The streets were also quite wide - especially the bit of St Andrew I was on which had the transformer.

At the canal. Yes, very good! :biggrin: But maybe I didn't actually specify very well what I meant. I'm talking about the sector of council housing bounded by Fairfield Road, the canal and Bruce Gardens - or even Glenurquhart Road of you want to include Maxwell Drive/ Lindsay Ave/Smith Ave/Park Road. I have a feeling that some of that great swathe of abodes was built before the war - starting, I would imagine, near the apex of the triangle at the "County Buildings" - although much of it was post war. Presumably construction stopped during the war - but with what stage during the whole building programme did that coincide? What is pre war and what is post war?

It would seem that they most definitely did think of it at a relatively early stage since the dual carriageway has been there for as long as Laurel Avenue has and as far as we can ascertain, Laurel avenue was built - at the latest - immediately post war. There's something in the back of my mind that the Swedish houses which I lived in on St Andrew Drive (from 1958) were built in 1949 and these, I believe, are the newest part of Dalneigh - apart from the strip of housing between St Margaret's Road and St Mungo Road including the former Christison's and Jocky Lawson's shops which were put in there about 1962. I always go on the assumption that Dalneigh spread along Bruce Gardens and Dalneigh Road towards Laurel Avenue etc. In fact this discussion has opened up a wider question for me about the general evolution of Dalneigh. For instance it's structured a bit like a loop - up Bruce Gardens and then enclosed by the top of Bruce Gardens, St Valery Avenue, Hawthorn Drive and Lilac Grove (or arguably Fairfield Rd), with Laurel avenue cutting across the middle. But within that loop are contained a lot of Swedish houses and I wonder if they are a year or two younger. Presumably house building stopped for the war and then resumed big time to address the post war housing shortage. Where did it stop though?

When I read this, I just had to check who had actually written it since I fully expected the post to be marked "Enid Blyton" But certainly one or two interesting observations on this thread already and I must get a hold of Sheila MacKay to see what she can make of it all. Not being much of a techno, I hadn't thought about looking at Googlemap but I now have at both ends of the Avenue. At the cemetery end it does seem that there's a pretty direct link to Glenurquhart Road, latterly along where Bruce Avenue now is, as long as you cut off what is now the far edge of the cemetery. I must check the dates of the stones in that area to see if it was part of the cemetery at the time in question which I do indeed now think was immeidately post war. The Caledonian Road end is even more intriguing because there's that odd block of houses which, if it had been left out, would have offered an extension of Laurel Avenue at that point. Thereafter, what would the planned route have been though? Whatever the plan, something on Fairfield Road would have had to have gone. I wondered about linking up with Lochalsh Road but that doesn't seem wide enough to dual. Or could they have put a dual carriageway in between Lochalsh Road and Telford Gardens? However I'm also attracted by Scotty's diagonal to Harrowden Road which in turn leads to what has always been a major junction on the Kenneth Street/ Telford Street interface (complete for many years with horse trough!) at what was MacVinish's yard. But Harrowden Road is also a bit on the narrow side for this. After all what's the point in having a great wide dual carriageway with a pinch point at the end? So maybe that's one of the reasons why they started it but didn't finish - there wasn't enough room to get through to the A9 at that end? Or did they simply want to make Laurel Avenue a wide Avenue so you would get plenty of warning that the Finlays, the Kirkhams and the Smiths were coming to chase after you?

Oops... sorry about the lack of capitals in the topic title which can't be changed but this question popped back into my head yesterday afternoon as I was running down past the shops heading for Caledonian Road. I have a fairly clear recollection of reading somewhere that dualling Laurel Avenue was part of a plan which was eventually abandoned, to link the A82 and the A9 which, pre Kessock Bridge, went out of town via Telford Street. Certainly if you were to extend Laurel Avenue at the cemetery end and maybe give it a slight twist to the left, it would run along the edge of the cemetery and intersect with Glenurquhart Road there. At the Caledonian Road end a correpsonding extension would take it out on Telford Street perhaps just on the town side of the former Caley Park. If this was indeed the plan, does anyone know when this might have been on the go? When was Laurel Avenue built? Was it immediately post war along with most of the rest of Dalneigh or was it just pre war, or interrupted by the war? The A82/old A9 link has of course now been made by General Booth Road at Kinmylies for some time, although the Kessock Bridge has changed the relevance. Does anyone know the history of a Laurel Avenue link plan - and were the deliberations anything like as tortured as the current ones about the Holm Mains - A82 link up?

I've just had a tip off, and have checked it out as correct, that a seller on Amazon is trying to offload a second hand copy of Against All Odds for...... ?118 Now that makes Mr Leakey sound like a philanthropist. Somebody wants to tell them that it can be obtained on here for nothing!

It might be a bit easier to play if they would run forwards instead of backwards and take off these crash helmets and wire netting suits with the BIIIIIG Kenny Everett "Bomb the B*st*rds" shoulders. Might make it into more of a man's game too. :biggrin: But on the other hand if the poor souls got a wee injury, the American litigation culture would ensure that swarms of ambulance chasing lawyers descended on the game. I also suppose the big suits also keep them warm while they wait for those dozens of commercial breaks which continually interrupt the matches.

You have an STI? And you also got an ICT fixtures guide when you acquired it?

I think that football as a whole has progressed a lot over the last decade or so in terms of attention to conditioning, nutrition etc and Craig Brewster certainly was at the forefront of that movement and I also had a few good discussions with Charlie Christie on the subject. Getting the balance in football between the necessary fitness to last a 90 (120) minute game with random episodes of high intensity throughout whilst also maintaining the necessary skills and technical abilities is a huge task and different formats seem to work for different managers and teams. On the other hand I wonder if football players in general are regarded enough as individuals as opposed to being part of a group undergoing a "one size fits all" training strategy? Certainly as an athletics coach with 35 years experience at all levels from primary schools up to Commonwealth Games and other major international champoinships, I don't envy football managers and coaches what is a very difficult task to balance. I noted with interest the section of Capital Caley's post which I have quoted above. The extreme, almost Messianic fervour with which the "no static stretching" bandwagon was driven through sport a few years ago was intriguing and it was interesting to see the sheer intolerance accorded to anything other than complete agreement with this latest Holy Grail which was going to be the final saviour of sport. As with all its predecessor Holy Grails, this has not turned out to be the case any more than education's current Holy Grail, the Curriculum for Excellenece is going to be a final answer there. Basically this is someone's latest career enhancing bandwagon and the case has, as so often happens, been over stated. I think the case against static stetching did have some merits with regard to LONG static stretches which understandably can fatigue muscle but I really don't see anything wrong at all with repeated shorter (5-10 sec) static stretches. Also, if this Holy Grail really had genuine Canine Testicle status, I would have thought that its implementation would have caused an instant drop in injury levels and increase in performance levels throughout sport - which I am not aware of having happened.

Should this poll not have been given an exemption and extended to Top 10? :biggrin: Even then I think there would still be a big diversity of opinion! There is a LOT to choose from.

This story, and a bit more, actually broke first as long ago as Friday of last week on the BBC local news after I spoke to the Muirfield Mills consortium's Inverness based representative Richard Smith. Among the details Richard remains unable to discuss are the precise value and the timescale of this proposed investment which I am not convinced are totally fixed yet. I've done a review of the situation in my "Sportsview" column in this week's Highland News, published tonight (Wed).

It's a perfectly good word in my book... not that I've used it in any of them but may now do so in my next one! It means the state of being disheartened which, as far as I can see, is exactly how you meant it.

The vocabulary I would want to use in response to that would be bound to attract the serious disapproval of the mods!!!

You know I was just thinking the other day that the edge had gone out of the ICT - County banter. I suppose it needs an old Highland Football Cold Warrior like Mantis to keep these embers glowing. Are you still in the land of the Employed by the way?

I agree Dee. No big hitters around these days at all. Good anecdote from Sorted. I seem to remember a famous clip of some folk at some party gathering scrambling around for the words of something. It might have been that. I do, however, think that a huge fuss has been made about Miliband forgetting the guy's name. We all do this all the time and he was in the middle of a massive sequence of interviews at the time. I do it frequently in my line of work, even when I'm talking about the Caley Thistle manager ... em.....Sergei....er... um....ah.....

I've just heard the end of the Labour Party conference on the radio. They're STILL singing The Red Flag For God's sake... Brand Spanking Shiny New Labour abandoned Socialism in favour of Electability nearly 20 years ago!

Indeed. Greece has got so many ancient relics like the Acropolis, the Parthenon and Prince Philip that I'm sure they could easily part with some of them to help shift what successive Greek governments have borrowed. After all, these governments have borrowed this money to give the Greek population a standard of living, large and early pensions etc which is way beyond their GDP and they shouldn't be allowed to get away with it. An international "Privatise the Parthenon" campaign should be set up. If you run out of readies in monopoly, you have to mortgage Park Lane or a station. It should be the same for the Greeks... and also the Italians who also seem to have run up a debt the size of Mussolini's ego or Silvio Berlusconi's libido. Cash in the Colosseum! I mean, it would never happen in football, would it? Clubs becoming unable to pay their debts and being allowed to ignore a large chunk of them whilst playing on in the same division? And yes, I am totally fed up with these parasite companies who do everything from ambulance chasing to trying to find a loophole in people's debt arrangements in order to make a quick buck.

So it seems that the Greeks are going to be alowed to "default" on 50% of their debt - ie simply not pay back half of what they have borrowed and owe. Hang on a minute... they are a country so they have lots of assets. Why should they not give up some of their national property to repay what they owe and I don't just mean tell us we can keep the Elgin Marbles. Maybe they could hand over the island of Rhodes.... or perhaps the Acropolis.... or maybe even the Duke of Edinburgh whose missus is meant to be worth a bob or two!

It was being quoted that the odds against anyone beingh hit by a lump of this thing was 1 in 3000. That's actually 4600 times more likely than winning the Lottery.

I suspect you mean "premature", and on that basis I strongly agree with you. Certainly Barclays have firmly denied that the weather problems at July's event at Castle Stuart had anything to do with their pulling out of the sponsorship and they cite the current financial climate. You could say "they would, wouldn't they" but it really doesn't surprise me to see a bank pleading poverty the way things are going. On the other hand maybe Barclays need the cash to pay executives' bonuses but whatever the details, I think the biggest concern has to be that Castle Stuart isn't seen as the fall guy in this scenario. They were so badly affected by what really were freak weather conditions and this should be fully realised. So should the fact that, apart from the weather, the championship gained a great number of positives from taking place there. Was there not also some kind of commitment to stick with Castle Stuart?