Charles Bannerman

In that case more people should take their trade away from Tesco. I have certainly done so, apart from occasionally using Tesco Inshes as a convenience store - and the place is so hopeless that it can't even hack it as that, never mind aa a Supermarket.

Not if you drink in Wetherspoons. Nor the Caley Club nor Tha Leejun. On the other hand, and in contrast, there will be a few establishments in town whose prices for a pint of premium "larger" will probably now nudge above £4

As it happens I write this shortly before leaving for Grant Street Park for today's Clach v Fort game.... Yes - the Inverness teams in the Highland League. Now there's a paradox! The original Highland League comprised seven teams. (It was actually eight for the first couple of months before Ross County resigned. Now my Dingwall based colleague John MacLeod insists it was because the Inverness teams weren't well enough behaved but he would say that, wouldn't he! :biggrin: ) Anyway, the seven teams were Forres Mechanics plus no fewer than SIX from Inverness - Clach, Caley, Jags, Union, Citadel and Cameron Highlanders. Union and Camerons disappeared at a very early stage, Citadel in the mid 30s, Thistle and Caley in 1994... leaving ONLY Clach of that original six and here's hoping that their jacket will succeed in hanging on a progressively less shoogly peg as 2011 proceeds. It's been a real change around for the town where the Highland League was founded in the Working Mrn's Club on bridge Street in 1893 going from having six teams in the league to a significant danger of having none at all. Yes, I really would like to do some research into early Inverness football and will have to add that to at least two other major projects I've got lined up for after I hang up my blackboard duster. But it's something I would very much like to do.

Correct - you ARE wrong! It was merely a totally unsinister and spontaneous query, prompted by your post and based on my recollection of what was agreed at the Shareholders' meetings in question which I attended some years ago - presumably along with yourself? And do not fret! When I need verified information for "work" purposes (such as who owns the stadium :biggrin:), I have sources which I can go to which don't include you good self! And there ends my input here on this issue.

Yes IHE, and probably against my better judgement. I think the best policy on running stories is not to intervene at all, not even to ask questions on factual matters.

Such as when I cross examined you during your very many previous postings on the issues of stadium ownership/ arrangements for the ICT Trust etc etc?

This is a running story on which I am reporting so, as always, I won't be contributing to this thread on it. However, as a one off, I do have to ask a question. Was the "Tulloch Directors" arrangement, which was eventually agreed in 2001, not a five year agreement which expired in 2006 although in practice a number of the individuals involved there are still on the Board of ICTFC?

Aye ma loon.... Bothy Nichts wi' the Kennethmont Loons an' Quines John Mearns. It wid mak ye cringe back in the days o' Jimmy Spankie, Douglas Kynoch and June Imrie on GTV. I think it was indeed 1961, creating competition for the likes of Cliff Mitchelmore, Judith Chalmers and Fyfe Robertson on the BBC.

What about the wireless or the horseless carriage?

I did once hear it alleged that Jimmy Chisholm also used to work there (hence probably about the same time) and used to play football with the pies and put bolts in some of the others for a laugh. Pure pantomime mun! Were you also involved in such practices IHE? And dermas... Edgar's bakery was in Church Street. I well remember collecting the empty Mackintosh's lemonade bottles after "joopeen in" over the back gate at Telford Street to save the 9d that it cost through the turnstiles!

Yup... and the outcome of this trial is the suggestion that Bru'ur Toammy seems to have "achieved his ends" rather more often and with rather more people than he was letting on in the original defamation action!

First we had Citizen Smith on the TV back in the 80s - then the SSP came along and we realised that Wolfie Smith was more real and much less a satirical caricature than we thought. These lefties really do behave like that. The SSP was pure pantomime with the nasty side that you always get in extreme politics where there is bitter infighting. This occurs at both extremes of the political spectrum - for instance there was the intense rivalry between Stalin and Trotsky on the far left and the Night of the Long Knives with Hitler and Roehm on the extreme right. This seems to be a feature of groups which hold extreme beliefs - look also at the amount of splitting and disrupting the Free Church has undergone. Similarly we saw the infighting within the SSP played out in the court room over recent weeks and that is the one thing that slightly worries me about this verdict. Those who were opposed to Bru'ur Toammy gave one definite kind of testimony and others who have turned against him like Sistur Rosy and Coamrade Foaxy gave quite the opposite. However the jury, and also importantly the judge, will hopefully have weighed that up and come to a considered opinion. My own view of Mr Sheridan is that he is an incorrigible attention seeker with an irrepressible ego who thinks nothing of lying to achieve his ends. In retrospect you can only wonder at the extent to which the Scottish electorate espoused such a bunch of lying chancers, returning no fewer than SIX SSP MSPs at one point. And such thoughts also help you to understand how Germany managed to elect Hitler as Chancellor in 1933. What rather depressed me during this entire trial was the "lose - lose" situation which it created. Because if Bru'ur Toammy was goanny get done for telling porkies, then the down side of that was that there would be a victory for Murdoch's News of the Screws. But yet, David Cameron is content to have a former Screws Scottish editor, who was in post there during episodes of phone tapping, as his right hand communications man. Then there's poor old Vince Cable who speaks out of turn and whose jacket goes on to a shoogly peg because he has said something which I think a large precentage of the population would applaud - that he was out to stop Murdoch. The UK is meant to have one of the cleaner political systems but throughout we find it riddled with rot. On which subject, to move on to Signor Berlusconi....

Yes, quite a few shops did "penny boxes" and in fact the Post Office in Laurel Avenue had ha'penny, penny and twopenny boxes. Jocky Lawson also had a penny box when he ran the van and then opened the shop on St. Margarets Road opposite Christison's. Lawson's was never so busy because that bellicose old bag Mrs Lawson used to antagonise so many customers. Amazing what you could get for a penny in the early 60s (that's approx 0.4 New Pence we're talking about here.) You could get whole variety of stuff ranging from a HUGE McCowan's Penny Dainty (which wasn't in the least dainty) to the Penny Banger at Guy Fawkes time, which packed a fair punch if thrown on to somebody's front step, to explode just as you escaped round the corner. Aye, there's been a whole lot of inflation in the last 45 years or so. Back in the early - mid 60s you could get into the front stalls in the Playhouse, the Palace or the La Scala for a shilling, into the Caley Park as a kid for 9d (although we usually climbed over the back gate), a Mars Bar for 6d and a hardbacked Enid Blyton "Secret Seven" book for 6 bob.

A short life but a glorious one, The Scene! I think it only survived for about a year around 1968. It was in what used to be the old laundry on Haugh Road (just out the road from the Haugh Bar)and in these days I was just in 3rd year in school. As a result we never went there in the evening but they had special "after school" discos for kids and we would troop down the Godsman's to get there from up the hill. It was a bit strange because the blackout wasn't very good and you would get bright shafts of summer sunshine all over the place. It also felt very strange when the disco was over and you came out into a lovely summer day. However I only have a recollection of it during that summer of 68 and I don't think The Scene lasted that long. Maybe ia "discotheque" was regarded as a bit too revolutionary for Inverness in that era!

3-0. February 1985 I think. 0-6 at Celtic Park in the next round. Les Fridge in goals (I think) and Jimmy Calder substitute striker. Also seem to remember an incident during the Tic game where danny Mcgrain fouled one of our players and the physio came running on and gave Mcgrain a right good shove which he didn't like. I wasn't there but it was Murd Urquhart and the version I heard was that it was a wee bit more than "a right good shove"!

Would that be Jimmy Wilson's?

3-0. February 1985 I think. 0-6 at Celtic Park in the next round. Les Fridge in goals (I think) and Jimmy Calder substitute striker.

Are you sure about that? Threepence for a cigarette..... and an extra ha'penny for a match! By the way, I think Caley Mad in Berks may be of a vintage before the "sweet shop" he refers to belonged to Frankie Jew and was run by an old guy called Tom Galloway. I think Frank took over in about 1965. (Sorry if you're younger than I thought CMIB!) For the benefit of the long term disapora, these premises have for many years now been a gents' barber.

Yes, you used to get the smell of the distillery at the Distillery End at Telford Street.... and a very similar smell in the Howden End!

I realised that it was late evening on December 22nd and there was still no sign of this Festive regular on here which gives Sneckie folk all over the world a seasonal opportunity to get moist eyed about the place in their younger days.... so here we are. Traditionally the mods have been tolerant and left what should really be a "Memories" thread on the main site at this time. And unless they are in "bah humbug" mode, I would hope that this Christmas tradition can continue. So to set the ball rolling.... Santa in Benzie and Miller's/ Arnotts. Nights out at Dillingers. "Scratchy" nights out in the La Scala. Dancing in the Caley Ballroom. Haircut in Diggar's then an ice cream from Salvadori's. Playhouse Cafe Disneyworld at Christmas (you have to be at least 40-something for this one.) Granville, Toich and Willie Bell. Ok then folks.... over to you......

aka Corky wasn't he. I met Davie Milroy at the Rangers game and he reeled off all the names to me. I still can't get over IHE looking such a nice, civilised little lad!!!

I had a vague recollection that shinty outlawed heading the ball a few years ago.

For the less brave who are sticking to their own firesides - live commentary from David Begg on Radio Scotland 92-95FM. No Open All Mics today - not enough games have survived the weather.

Delighted that MFR have got "Baynie" on their team. He is a true gentleman and getting that injury was a tragedy. I believe it was plantar fasciitis - inflammation of the surface beneath the foot - which is painful and notoriously difficult to get rid of. Graham made a big impact on football in the Highlands and I am sure will best be remembered for his winner at Ibrox in, I think, October 2006. I remember meeting a group of ICT players on Academy Street one lunch time a day or two after that game, and whilst issuing a general greeting I simply stretched out and shook Graham's hand in the passing. Nothing more needed to be said as to what the gesture was about. In similar vein, Ryan Esson seemed to be the object of a great deal of spontaneous congratulation when he came into the Social Club last Saturday night!

In the last of four minutes of stoppage time, I believe.