Charles Bannerman

On the first part of the above quote, your place seems to be a lot worse than mine, which seems bad enough! On the second part, agreed totally but at least there is one thing of which we can be sure - the Curriculum for Excellence is simply another transient bandwagon like all its predecessors. So before long it too will be consigned to fester in that great bandwagon graveyard in the sky as the next set of shiny juggernauts forge their way along the educational super highway. As Macbeth said of the Curriculum for Excellence in his Act V soliloquy: "out, out brief candle.....a poor player who struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot - full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." :biggrin: However I am in danger of dragging this discussion on Trades Unions off topic so let me return to the original theme of Unions by stating that I am uncertain whether to vote "Yes" for strike action or to abstain in the forthcoming EIS vote because I will not be striking myself should the vote be in favour. I have three reasons. 1) I am well within my pensionable period so going on strike would not only cost me pay like everyone else, I would also lose cash from my lump sum and my pension would be diminished, albeit slightly, for the rest of my life. 2) To a large extent the EIS would be closing the door after the horse had bolted if it goes for strikes. They have already sold out a whole raft of conditions of service to COSLA back in the spring when they recommended to members to accept the loss of a number of elements and wimped out of action following an inconclusive vote. Now the pension threat emerges and Professor McCormac has come calling and looking for more concessions on conditions. 3) The EIS owe me one from way back in 1987 when, along with many others, I was still manning the barricades and John Pollock suddenly made calling off the action a resignation issue because his chums in the Labour Party (back in the days when they were Socialists ) told him to pull the troops out because they had delusions that Neil Kinnock had a chance of reaching Number 10 in the election of that year.

I also really, really hope this doesn't happen. It has been threatened a few times in recent years, but thankfully hasn't come to anything. I am a member of a union and fully believe in the principle of unions, but I would hate to be put in a position where I had to decide whther or not to strike. I wouldn't want to be seen as a scab, but at the same time I would find it incredibly difficult to live with myself if any of my pupils' exam results suffered as a consequence of my being on strike. I think it is probably more than likely that some strike action will take place in schools but I would be surprised if it was at all extensive and even more surprised if it was extensive enough to mess up exam prospects. To be honest, and I'm definitely not saying we will but I think you could have at least five days of strikes without affecting Higher or Advanced Higher results and ten without affecting the two year courses in third and fourth year. That's because if you have a number of days with no education for anyone it's not actually too difficult to speed up a little bit to compensate for the lost time. In my view, a far bigger problem in terms of missed classes is already inflicted within schools themselves when pupils are taken out of classes in penny numbers for this "jolly" and that, to the extent that schools are shooting themselves in the foot. University visits are a particular pain in the bakcside. What happens here is that the education of those who are still in school has to go on and those who are out here and there come back and have stuff they have missed which often doesn't get caught up. Having everybody off at once is far less damaging. I know it's sometimes difficult for teachers to get a lot of sympathy given the hours which some are PERCEIVED to work but the situation at the moment is that it's been one thing after another with threats to salaries, pensions and MULTIPLE threats to conditions of service. COSLA in particular seem determined to undermine teachers' situations as much as they can. What I think may happen is that teachers will get more and more scunnered, will do less and less above what they have to and will become seriously demotivated. That, in my view, is a far greater threat than any strikes. Also in my view, one of the best ways of putting the wind up employers would be for teachers to take all possible action (within their contracts) to mess up the Curriculum for Excellence which I think is a bit of a joke anyway. The Powers that Be get seriously wound up, pupils don't lose out because the whole thing is pretty tacky anyway - a win - win situation! But to return to the general question, this discussion simply wouldn't have happened in its present form before the 1980s since the default position was that so many people were in unions and indeed in many cases union membership was an absolute necessity because many workplaces were closed shops. Legislation has changed all that but that was legislation which was completely predictable given the way that many unions had behaved for decades before that.

I'm not convinced that there's a completely rigid correlation between population density around a football ground and attendances although the sprasity of population in the Highlands does make it that bit more difficult. However I must pick up on the reference to the number of people that Celtic (and Rangers) attract to their stadium. I think there are three factors here. 1) Yes, the OF are based in by far the largest conurbation in Scotland where there may well be of the order of 10 times as many people within 50 miles of their grounds as there are with 50 miles of the Caledonian Stadium. This is bound to have a significant effect on their crowds. 2) Both Rangers and Celtic, whether they like it or not, have become focal points for the political and religious divide which has been imported across the Irish Sea. This further enhances support for these clubs. 3) Largely because of 1) and 2) above, both Rangers and Celtic have acquired a critical mass which draws in other fans from across Scotland. With them comes their money. Not only does this further strengthen the OF's financial clout, it leaves every other team in Scotland disproportionately under supported and under resourced. As a result you have two very large clubs (who are still abysmal is Europe and one of which at least still lives beyond its means) and a number of others who typically attract between (ballpark figures) 3,000 and 12,000 to home games with the lower end of that range being the more common.

This all goes back to Bruce Hare's 1993 report on possible stadium sites which initially looked at 11, seven of which were very quickly rejected leaving West Seafield, Inshes, Stratton Farm and East Longman. West Seafield (police reservations and infrastructure costs) and Inshes (where the land was too expensive) also departed the contest, leaving a head to head between Stratton Farm (which miraculously went from bottom of the four to top of the pile in a second appraisal by Hare!) and East Longman. This led to a head to head in the spring of 1994 between the club (who favoured EL) and INE (who strongly preferred SF which was on the Golden Mile which they wanted to kick start.) After many convolutions, EL became the designated site and the rest is history. It's all very well to talk about relocating the stadium - but where to? The original report itself shows that there are very few suitable places in Inverness. You will note that NONE of the short list of four is on the west side of the river and of the original eleven the only one west of the Ness was.... Torvean Quarry!! Quite simply west of the river offers very little choice in terms of stadium location and that's before you even consider the fundamental of getting traffic across the Ness Bridge in the absence of an extended distributor road. Remember that Caley (sic) spent much of the pre merger years looking at alternative sites on that side of the water and failed at venues as diverse as Kinmylies, the Bught, Canal Field and the Carse. I'd also just like to comment on the extensive discussion earlier in this thread about the funding of ICT and would suggest that two dominant factors are the way that football goes about its business and the nature of the game in Scotland. In the case of football as as a whole, so much of the available funds are going into the very biggest clubs that there is not a lot left for the rest to pay players etc and apart from that just about every club in the land lives beyond its means in order to try to compete. This leads to the expectation that rich individuals will in effect make large donations to clubs to allow them to operate in a fundamentally lossmaking manner which no sane business would contemplate. Also, specifically in Scotland this is much worse because we have two clubs which have been able to acquire black hole proportions because they are based in the largest conurbation in the country and also function as focal points for the religious and political divide which has largely been imported from across the Irish Sea. (By now Highland News readers may have identified this as an argument I expressed in my Sportsview column a couple of weeks ago.) Black holes of course suck in a great deal of surrounding matter and Rangers and Celtic are able to do this because of the critical mass they have been able to acquire (yes, I know I'm slightly mixing my Physics metaphors!). As a result, vast amounts of money pour into the Ibrox and Celtic Park coffers in the armadas of buses and cars which converge on these places on Saturdays from all across the land. Now for some reason, despite these massive advantages, the Old Firm are still ***** in Europe but that's their problem. However the effect on the rest of the country is that local clubs - such as ICT - are left disproportionately under supported and under resourced. The way I see it is that ICT has got three options or a combination of 1) and 2). 1) Increase income. 2) Reduce expenditure. 3) Accept a long term existence outwith the SPL. Hoping that one off windfalls will continue to come along indefinitely to keep the wolf from the door isn't a realistic strategy and there aren't really any assets left to sell off. The family silver cupboard is now more or less bare.

And I've just realised that I've among all these "highlights", I've forgotten to mention the Rebel Bus!!!

Don't you believe it OCG! From the moment that INE announced in May 1993 that they were going to try to broker a merger right through to April 1996 when the then new Highland Council finally agreed to honour the former District Council's commitment that £900,000 was "payable", it was almost a story a day with one twist following another. I still have a large reel of audio tape on which I have kept a lot of the key interviews and reports from that vibrant period in the history of football in Inverness. Some of the best stuff came from the Rebels such as being at the Clach Park when news filtered through by that new gadget the mobile phone that there had been a pitch invasion at Rothes. Next day I was in Finlays for the Rebels' inaugural meeting when Young Brooman lamented the recent passing of Diggar MacGillivray and rightly wondered what Diggar would have had to say. Then there were manic discussions with Beaumont and the time he sought me out personally to do an interview after he had unilaterally declared himself Chairman of Caley in a fashion jointly reminiscent of Lenin arriving at the Finland Station in 1917 and Christ cleansing the Temple. I also found myself in both the Muirtown and the Rannoch Lodge on that historic night of September 9, 1993 when there were two "yes" votes and then off to interview Fiona Larg about the outcome. Then 4 months later the "league election" party at INE HQ - actually on the very same spot on Bridge Street that the Highland League had been founded almost exactly 100 years previously. Humorous moments too such as the Rebels mooning at Jock McDonald after the illegal Urquhart had scored the winner in the last Inverness Derby and the time they painted the Caley Park unrinals black and red. Fireworks being thrown in Rose Street Hall and Fiona Larg banned from a Kingsmills meeting because she was a woman. It was three solid years of one bizarre story after another with innumerable instances of arriving home in the early hours of the morning and thinking.... "nope... this ISN'T going to happen." But it did.... Against All Odds.

Johndo... when you are "home alone" next weekend, maybe we should meet up for a wee while in one of these places where "old people" drink which you were seeking in the Olde Sneck section and have a right good blether about "the way it was". Or even if you are in the Caley Club post match I will most definitely catch you there from about 630. I'll tell you something - 1993-96 when all of this was going on were probably the most interesting years of my life!

In actually think that the entire question has long since become academic anyway given that the merger project - once realised - brought the previously inconceivable benefit of SPL football to Inverness in a decade. That, however, doesn't make the story any less worth telling almost two decades on. There were those who were for the merger, there were those who were against it. The pro merger view prevailed and Inverness has what it has as a result. OK someone may well come back with the "but Caley could have gone it alone" line and I really don't want to get into a debate in this area so far along the line. So I'll just say that there will be a lot of people out there who are very glad that the last 17 years has had a lot more to offer Inverness than going down to Telford Street (or some other similarly modest venue had Caley's quest for one been any more successful than Inverness City's) to watch games against Alloa, Brechin and Arbroath. Remember Caley did have a great support but also had an element of unpopularity in the town. So going it alone, without INE's support, without a very large slice of the £1.8 million of public money eventually realised and without Thistle's half million pounds of assets would have been no picnic - had Caley been elected to the league in the first place. However I've already said more than I intended on a subject which I now think history reduced to little more than an academic curiosity many years ago. "Against All Odds" was actually Dougie McGilvray's choice of title, made a few weeks before the book went to print. Whilst writing it, I used the working title of "Blue, Black and Red" which did appear a burning issue at the time, but with the benefit of the wider perspective over the years, I think Against All Odds is a much better title. Finally, and I think I can safely associate the CTO publishers with this viewpoint, I am highly delighted at the very positive response to this initiative and thank people for their kind comments.

Yes, I think that is the answer to the original question. There's a large cabinet in the front foyer of the Social Club and the original Boardroom is also fairly well endowed with them. Some in the sports bar would indeed be a good idea. What still intrigues me is the fate of the two large plaster footballs which stood above the entrance to the Caley Park until 1996 and spent some of their latter days flanking the notice "Welcome to Telford Street Park - Property of Caledonian FC". They seemed to disappear without trace. As it happens, more of the fabric of Thistle Park still seems to exist with certainty since, as far as I know, the enclosure and floodlights are still at Harmsworth Park Wick. The Jags pie shed also lived on as a garage near the Bught until a couple of years ago when housing was built on the site.

I would just like to take this opportunity also to extend my thanks to all involved in this project. And that must start with Born Caley! After all if he hadn't instigated the initial discussion by enquiring about a copy, this would never have happened. I was literally posting on the thread he had started when I had the "Eureka moment" idea that if CTO were prepared to host it and if I wrote the extra chapter which I'd always regretted never having included, then all we would need would be for the book to be scanned and we were in business. That was on July 16th which was less than 8 weeks ago so things have moved on fast. I would therefore specifically also want to thank - * Scotty and Caley D, CTO's co-publishers, for their huge cooperation and very prompt and efficient efforts in firstly agreeing to host the book and then getting it on here so quickly once the material became available. * Alex Main without whose "Caley All The Way" centenary book it would have been much harder to write the additional chapter. * What I understand to be various collaborators in Thistle's centenary booklet "The Hub of the Hill" which was just as useful. * Pull My Finger who keeps trying to talk down his input but believe you me, the scanning was absoultely vital. * The other copyright holders - photographers Trevor Martin, Gordon Gillespie and Ken MacPherson and the club through Kenny Cameron - for agreeing to the republication. So there we have it - the tale of how ICT was formed plus a bit more on the earler pre history, all free of charge and available indefinitely on Caleythistleonline! So a week Friday night - September 9th, the 18th anniversary of the "Two Vital Votes" which turned what had been an INE pipe dream into potential reality - I will raise my glass just a little bit higher than usual to the club that made it into existence - Against All Odds.

Johndo.... I've told you.... Tha Leejun. If you stay on post match, someone in the Caley Club is bound to be able to sign you in for Grab A Granny Night round the corner in Huntly Street! Tichy... it can't have been long after 1992 that the back bar in the Lochardil was closed. It is now but a very distant memory to me but was a social focal point in its day.

Aye, grouse shooteen is all perfectly ordinary guys wi' Unvarness ocksents kumeen off shift at the Sports Centre or a factory doon the Longman an' driveen up the moors in their Ford Fiestas an' they're dooeen it all in the name of konsarvayshun and employeen locals with not the slightest hint of enjoyment at blasting away like maniacs at defenceless birds. And of course - not a toff in sight.....

Looks to me as if the Bank is subsidising the Football Club here to the tune of a ?30 million overdraft!!!

Tha Leejun!!! (aka God's Waiting Room) Saturday nights even more so. Even I really feel quite young when I go in there.

I think the fundamental problem lies with the EU ruling. I find it absurd that countries can't fix their own charges to their own students and charge any outsiders a fee to study there. This is just another example of the manner in which national autonomy has been diluted by the EU and We British have to dance to the tune of Johnny Foreigner. University eduaction is a devolved power so if the Scottish Parliament wants to make that free to Scottish residents then it is perfectly entitled to do so. To enable this, it presumably diverts funding from other public services for which they get their block grant. It is equally entitled to do that. But what I object to is people from the outside jumping on the bandwagon and expecting to get tuition for nothing as well - and having the backing of Brussels. But I also expect that Salmond and his chums will regard this as another of these joint opportunities to make Scotland different and to stir up resentment south of the border which they value so much in pursuit of their only real policy.

I agree this would have been a far more accurate headline but lets face it journalists are good at twisting headlines From what I hear you weren't too bad at it yourself specifically at the time of the merger dougal Are you SURE you're not Buenos in disguise? As it happens the newspaper as opposed to broadcast coverage I did of the merger was relatively limited and in any case, not being a sub editor whose job it is to write headlines, I've never written one for real in my life!

Don... these are extremely revealing figures. I don't suppose you have stats for ICT for the six of the 10 years covered that they were in the SPL? So the picture is becoming much clearer, although slightly different stats based on slightly different periods give slightly different numbers indicating the same thing. This IS very largely a Celtic problem, with Aberdeen and Rangers also struggling, while the rest of the clubs seem to have held up quite well in a challenging environment. Let's take Aberdeen out of the equation and also acknowledge that this is a long enough period to see old football fans die out and new ones come on tap - during which the OF have taken a pasting and the others have held up reaonably well against that challenging underlying trend. That being the case, is there the remotest chance that a small part of this trend may indicate a modest drift on the part of the Scottish population away from the OF and towards the other clubs?? And what of the Dons? Is that bubble which is the Gothenburg Myth slowly deflating as Aberdeen fans begin at last to come to terms that 1983 and all that was a one off as opposed to a permanent condition? A better headline? "SPL CLUBS HOLD FIRM AS CELTS LEAD DONS AND GERS IN MASS FANS EXODUS" DON.... DO YOU HAVE AN INTERNET ADDRESS FOR THE 10 YEAR STATS YOU QUOTED?

Before I launch into a minor update, two brief related comments. Firstly, for a thread which turned out to be a red herring on here since the report didn't refer to ICT, it's become quite interesting. Secondly, I note that a number of media have been reporting this in terms of "600,000 fans" so this may well be the way it's stated in the original report. But anyway... I have since established that the 600,000 drop IS as I thought it was, and it represents a fall from 3.7M to 3.1M total season attendances at SPL matches over five seasons. That's a drop for the entire SPL of 16%, but as an average it is - as I said before - rather meaningless. Now if we take Celtic's attendance at the start of the period as an average of about 55,000 per game, then that gives them about 1.05M for the season. That's about 27% of the total for the SPL. It has also been stated that Celtic's attendances have gone down by 21%. Combining these figures tells us that Celtic's contribution to the drop is about 5 of that 16%. So the rest of the SPL, INCLUDING THE MAJOR UNKNOWN VARIABLE OF RANGERS has dropped on average 11%. The Dons' 19% fall will pull that slightly lower again for the other SPL clubs but the indications are that Celtic look like a significant although not overwhelming factor in this decline. In other words - Celtic down 21%, Aberdeen down 19%. The rest of the clubs outwith these two down something between 10 and 11% on average. Final question - why do these football economic studies always surface so long after the period to which they refer? This "latest" one is about the season before last!

I think this forum is moving into a new golden era when I find myself serially and seriously agreeing with Don! The terminology used Attendance figures show that almost 600,000 fans have stopped attending SPL games in the past five years. is ambiguous and clearly can't mean, as Don states, that 600,000 fewer individuals are now attending games. But what is really meant is also a bit unclear. The best I can make of it is that it is meant to mean that the total number of attendances at SPL matches in 2009-10 was 600,000 less than it was in 2004-05. There are 228 (6 x 38) SPL games in a season, so that's an average of around 2630 fewer fans per match, or around 15800 fewer fans per six game card. However when you are talking about the SPL, average is a totally irrelevant concept since you have two clubs which are so much bigger than the rest. In a newspaper - well not quite, it was the Daily Mail - I saw it stated that Celtic's attendances are 21% down. That's something of the order of 11,000 per home game which is almost two thirds of the 15800 for the whole card when Celtic are at home. Aberdeen's are down 19%. What will that be? Maybe a couple of thousand plus off their gates. I don't know the situation for Rangers but I suspect that a large chunk of the fall referred to is attributed to the drop at Celtic Park. I also suspect that some of the lesser lights may have dropped as well but maybe only by a few out of the 3000-4000 the likes of St J, ICT, Kille etc typically get. I couldn't guess what these percentages would be. The most meaningless statistic I have seen in relation to all of this is that the average SPL attendance is 13,926. Given that this comprises two clubs at around 50,000 and the rest nowhere near these levels, this is a totally useless piece of information. In summary - how much of this problem is a Celtic problem?

So, after all these years of trackside advertising in this cup for "Coca Cola" and "CIS", what's it going to be this year? "THIS TIE COMES COURTESY OF 'D' WING AT BARLINNIE"?

Well at least he was half right. I did see him in the Social Club. But at least I was able to update him on a few things apart from Asda getting started which have happened in Inverness since he left - such as the arrival of the railways and the building of a canal. :biggrin:

Where have you been Donview? (Apart from Aberdeen. :biggrin: ) There is now a massive and ever increasing hole in the ground opposite the Gaelic School. It also looks to me as if Roddy Ross has been doing all right out of it because his lorries have been very evident on site since the very start. The shop is, I understand, due to open in September 2012. The Thornbush? I take it you are having a laugh? Next time you are in the Social Club post match I will update you on what has been happening in Inversneck since the Battle of Culloden. And dougiedanger.... fortunately back in the days when "chuuups" were a regular feature of school dinners, they weren't served with vinegar - "special" or otherwise. I couldn't speak more highly of the Hil'on Chupper. Excellent product, one of the cheapest in Inverness, service with a smile from Caley D's brother Mike. In fact my daughter worked there for a couple of years when she was in school and Mike Guibarelli was an excellent employer.