Charles Bannerman

Absolutely not 25 years Scotty. It's more like half of that since, as I recollect, the "Tulloch" tag appeared after the January 2005 upgrade to 6000 seats. I'm not sure about the originally agreed duration of this deal, but the 2001 deal for control of the board through "Tulloch" directors including the chair was originally for 5 years but in practice extended to 10 or maybe more. For instance DFS took over the chair in 2000, passed it for a time to Ken Mackie who then passed it back to DFS who held it until 2006. Then "non Tulloch" Alan Savage held it for less than two years 2006-08 before Tullochs' George Fraser had it until 2011. Apart from AS, these are "Tulloch" chairmen from 2000-2011, and thereafter you could debate whether Kenny (2011-17) was a "Tulloch" chairman or not. In the case of the Tulloch-ICT association to date, I see the rough "balance sheet" for 2000- early 2018 (but this won't quite be exhaustive) as roughly reading:- THE CLUB HAS RECEIVED - around £2.5M of debt removed, £730,000 in working share capital, a stadium upgraded by two new stands to SPL standards, the gift of everything within the stadium perimeter, the gift back (to the Trust in 2011) of 730,000 shares, the benefit of some very good chairmanship (for instance Ken Mackie was hugely influential in negotiating SPL status during that fraught summer of 2004),absolution over the years from part of the stadium rent and other odds and ends such as the random Tulloch employees who kept appearing to fill gaps at busy times. TULLOCHS HAVE RECEIVED - control, since 2011, of Propco which owns the stadium and holds the lease, control of the Board for approaching 10 years (approx.), naming rights for the stadium for around 13 years, 730,000 shares (until given back in 2011), rent for the stadium and site, a lot of goodwill and positive publicity in the earlier years of the association and........ a whole lot of grief from people who either don't understand or decline to acknowledge that Tullochs have not only put a lot more into the club than they have taken out and that, were it not for their involvement, there is every likelihood that the club would have died in 2001.

MJ.... have you ever considered the alternative to the Tulloch involvement? What would you propose should have been done instead, if the Tulloch deal really was that awful? It strikes me that you are complaining about your free lunch, to which the alternative was starvation, because someone has asked you to wash the plates.

Along with Tesco Value Christmas jumper?

Methinks, Caleyboy, that you have an axe or two to grind with Tullochs!

I don't see it that way at all. The common bottom line is this - were it not for external financial intervention, neither club would have achieved a fraction of what it has done. In Ross County's case, the appearance is that there's been a constant, generous financial drip feed of funds which have allowed infrastructure to be built and wages to be paid at such a level that it has been possible to achieve Premiership football in 2012 and then sustain it, including top six finishes and a national trophy win. Otherwise, what might County have become? A Championship - League One yoyo club? In the case of Caley Thistle, the assistance - which may or may not total less than in County's case but has been far more life saving - has simply worked differently. This is because of the critical mess the club got into in around 2000 with its approximately £2.5 million debt. No amount of revisionism will alter the cold fact that if that debt had not been taken away, the club would have gone into administration or receivership. As we all know that debt was removed by Tullochs, the only game in town, who also provided working capital and then upgraded the stadium. The net effect of Tullochs' £5.3 - £6M intervention was, in five years, to effect a transformation from virtual bankruptcy to playing SPL football, debt free in a fully compliant stadium. However, two issues have intervened to alter the perception of that process in the eyes of far too many. Firstly, there has been a failure to realise, or to accept, that Tullochs aren't a philanthropic society although they have accepted a significant net loss by becoming involved with Caley Thistle. And secondly, we are back to the delusion that's too often held in football that the world somehow owes the game a living. Back in 2000, Caley Thistle had hugely overstretched its means. To be brutally realistic, I would also have to add - very reluctantly indeed because he also did a huge amount of good for the club - that this was under the chairmanship of one of the main complainers about the manner in which salvation from a potentially fatal event was then achieved. The club's future existence was secured by Tullochs, but what I seem to be seeing now is some kind of revisionist view that it might have been better after all if their considerable assistance had been rejected and oblivion had been allowed to ensue.

I don't think the home support was great at Hamilton either..... the total crowd figure is 1272.

You mean not totally unlike ICT being baled out by Tullochs?

KOB is correct. It should perhaps also be remembered that the world doesn't owe football a living.

What it needs even more is a greatly increased and sustainable turnover.

So is the possibility emerging of an ICT v Ross County play-off for Premiership status next season, then? IF County were to finish 11th in the Premiership and Inverness were to make their way through the jungle which is the battle to become the single Championship side to contest the honour, then you have the Mother of all Highland Derbies! EDIT... written while Polo Chick was posting similarly above.

The term "investment" implies a reasonable expectation of financial return for the investor. Like it not, and I don't particularly, the realistic term is "subsidy".

"Sorting" the problem is in the hands of the game itself and would require serious reductions in what players are paid at all levels. However I just can't see that happening and fear that football has painted itself into a corner from which there is no escape.

I'm not sure I can agree with all of that. Certainly it is very much business now, one major reason being that football's economics of the madhouse has led to clubs attempting to live outwith their means. This has in turn led to the need for business to become involved, simply to bail out clubs from their excessive spending - in which they are under huge pressure to indulge from the artificial market causing players to be paid well above their realistic value. It's a bit like Marks and Spencer expecting Bill Gates or the Duke of Westminster to make large cash donations to cover Marks' losses resulting from them paying their shop floor staff £25 an hour. It pains me to admit this, but what football fans pay for their product doesn't scratch the surface of the excessive amount that product costs to produce - hence the need from donations from "business".

You are spot on there Huisdean. Over the years, the club has had the goodwill of these major Inverness businesses through leading figures within them. It would be hugely beneficial if they could all pull together to the benefit of the club but, unfortunately, the opposite seems to be the case and long running antipathy appears to be a significant motivating factor in the current spat. One vital consideration in a saga which has now been ongoing for almost 20 years has, however, been largely ignored. In the early 2000s, the club was crippled by a debt somewhere in the range £2.3 - £3M (accounts vary). Without that being "sorted", the club would have gone into administration or even liquidation. The only thing that extricated it from that near-death experience was the intervention of Tullochs, the only game in town, who "disposed" of the debt, provided over £700,000 working capital to ease cash flow and ensured that the North and South stands were built. Some people may not like this fact, but interventions from Tullochs, valued at £5.3 - £6M (again accounts vary) ensured, in five years, a transition from a massively indebted financial basket case destined for the knacker's yard to a debt free club playing SPL football in an SPL compliant stadium in Inverness. The ICT piper has been paid pretty handsomely and I would suggest that he who has done so could have called a much more demanding tune, remembering also Tullochs' donation of 730,000 shares to the ICT Trust and offer of the stadium fabric to the club. I suppose the bottom line question has to be - what would people have preferred? Administration/liquidation in 2000/01 or, 16 overwhelmingly successful seasons later, a question over the car parks, Tullochs' response to which has included a commitment not to leave the club without infrastructure?

Sorry if the metaphor didn't resonate?

The polls were equally clear that Dr Finlay Crescent, Tannochbrae wanted to leave.... which is no more relevant in a UK-wide vote.

Woodwork was actually just about the only thing you weren't allowed to "read" at The Caddy. When they wanted to introduce a single woodwork teacher in the early 60s, apparently the staff over at The Tecky created a bit of a fuss for fear of their monopoly being challenged, the upshot of which was that The Caddy got their woodwork teacher but had to agree not to present anyone for exams in it. However, it does seem that this thread has digressed considerably from Gordy joining the Board.

I think the general answer is that the capacity of Inverness to handle the traffic imposed on it is so woeful that more or less anything is bound to create benefit - partly offset by the effect of shifting some existing problems from one place to another. I think the benefits are twofold - and considerable. Firstly, A9/96 - A82 through traffic will no longer have to go through the city centre and secondly, on a more local level, the city centre can again be avoided by a lot of people travelling between south east and south west Inverness which are now much more efficiently linked. For instance my own frequent journeys from Culduthel to the Sports Centre will be hugely reduced in time, distance and CO2 output and thousands of others will enjoy similar relief. However there will inevitably be some down sides. Traffic on the Distributor Road will increase considerably, with extra pressure in particular on the already difficult Inshes roundabout. The indirect effect on the nightmare two odd miles comprising Halfords - Harbour Rd - Millburn roundabout - Perth Rd - Inshes Roundabout - Simpsons remains to be seen. All that can be said with certainty here is that this thread of road is currently it is completely inadequate to serve the huge number of large concerns next to it. The crux, I think, is going to be the Inshes roundabout in a city where we were told 20+ years ago, when INE were keen to locate the Caledonian Stadium on the Golden Mile, that the effective centre of Inverness was going to move eastwards. In the intervening years this has to a fair extent happened, but without the foresight to deal with the resulting increase in traffic.

Then you have the projected loss for the current year of around £300,000.

Long Haul Coll.... there's a nickname before you start.

In the Championship, are you obliged to conform with the ubiquitous and frequently fatuous "SPL rules" - formerly applied to keep out the riffraff - which said you had to use USH? Why spend thousands thawing out a pitch for a game which is bound to lose thousands more by taking place in weather which will keep people away in probably still freezing conditions? Why not instead play the SPFL Jobsworths, whose geography apparently stops at Castlecary, at their own game?

So, in these times of internal political uncertainty, what mechanism exists for casting the 10% of votes to which the supporters are entitled in the event of a poll in the foreseeable future?

Ok... politics in general (except maybe that the Greens sell hairy hand knitted woollen jumpers). One lot are as bad as the other. That's also assuming you can define politics as a "business". The worry there is the relatively high level of integrity you tend to find in business.

The question then arises: do you want them to be represented on the board because they own significant shareholdings - however acquired - or because they have money which you would like them to donate or gift to the club to maintain, or perhaps rather to achieve, its solvency? Whichever way you look at this question, football's dependence on gifts and donations - terms which tend to masquerade under the misnomer of "investment" - is inescapable. I can't off the top of my head think of any other type of business which depends on donations from wealthy individuals to stand between its otherwise unsustainable business model and financial oblivion.

Merely an exercise in capricous Devil's Advocacy on my part Ronaldo ? (Albeit with a bit of realism about football economics in general.) As for the ICT set up, it sometimes reminds me of the Schleswig Holstein question of which Lord Palmerston once said that it had only ever been understood by three people - the Prince Consort, who was dead; a German professor, who had gone mad; and himself... and he had had long since forgotten. So is it perhaps perhaps being proposed that ICT should go the way of Ross County, but with Orion/Weldex money rather than Global's?