Charles Bannerman

That is a REALLY impressive post!!!

Radio Scotland news reporting at 4pm that the Minister has resigned.

Is that not in danger of being cancelled because the likely participants are all away auditioning for Still Game?

I find myself in quite strong agreement with a number of points which Starchief has made here. He hits a number of nails on the head but none more squarely than exposing the Government's complete non argument that graduates should pay for their education because they earn more. If they earn more then they do indeed pay more tax, most likely at 40% so why should they be hit TWICE for having a degree? The Government's problem is that it is stuck with the policies of the last couple of decades or so of rapid expansion the university sector. However there have been two significant flaws in that policy. Firstly, so many people are now going to university that these institutions are now recruiting from so far down the ability range that too many people coming in simply aren't of graduate calibre in any meaningful sense of the word. There is a limit to the nation's brain power and I think it has been exceeded by recent recruitment policies. Or as the comedian said (with many a true word being spoken in jest): "I passed my old Primary School today... it's a Univerity now...." The whole University sector seems to be carried away with rampant inflation. It's not all that long since a 2-1 was regarded as a very good degree and a First was a rarity. Nowadays if you don't get a 2-1 you're regarded as not quite having made it while they seem to dish out Firsts like sweeties. Or is this because what is nowadays coming in from the schools is suddenly of massively higher brainpower? Can't say I'd actually noticed much of a change there across the 30 plus years I've been in the classroom, but look at the kind of degrees they seem to be dishing out. Secondly, there are far too many "junk" university courses. For instance do we need the rakes of sports scientists which we are producing in order to keep leisure centres stocked with attendants? Do we need all these Sociologists or graduates in Jewellery Design? Apart from the "junk" degrees there are also areas which have been unnecessarily academicised which formerly and quite rightly were the province of good old fashioned Tecky Colleges. If they would cut out worthless courses, restrict entry to those capable of what can meaningfully be called a University Degree and concentrate the money they have on what is left then they mightn't have the problems they're having now. And Danny "I signed the pledge" Alexander mightn't have the re-election headache he appears to be rapidly acquiring in his Inverness constituency.

I recollect being at a big meeting in the Caley Hotel ballroom, chaired by Norman where the speaker was Nat Lofthouse. Lofthouse had considerable experience in club fundraising and the meeting led to the formation of the Centenary Club. I would suggest that for Caley's 8 remaining years and ICT's 17 to date, the Centenary Club has had a massive impact on the way football has unfolded in this city. Certainly by far the most profound spin off from Caley's centenary in 1986.

"Father Jack" got hiself into a right fankle on the radio this morning. He had tried to blame the weather forecasters but he was played three clips of forecasts and a forecaster which showed that the Met Office had predicted PRECISELY where and when the heavy snow would fall. Incredibly, he then appeared to try to blame some other unspecified source of information for the catastrophe but the top and bottom of it would appear to be that the road clearing services, for which the Scottish Executive is ultimately responsible, could not keep traffic flowing, despite having been told exactly how much snow would fall where and when. But politicians, especially ones with a wafer thin mandate to govern and an election imminent, are of course never to blame. It's always somemone else's fault. I suppose poor Father Jack also felt all the more exposed on this occasion because he couldn't blame Westminster for the snow.

10,000 people travelled on mountain roads to Scotland's Ski Areas on Sunday from all parts of Scotland and beyond. Should the ski areas have stayed closed to stop these folk travelling for their own safety and to prevent any possible incidents that the emergency services have to deal with? Steady on ski freak. The general point you make may well be relevant but you have grossly overstated the figures. The official statistics I got from Cairngorm Mountain on Sunday afternoon were 2000 for both Saturday and Sunday. Nevis Range quoted 800-900 for the weekend. These are official figures released by the resorts. Glencoe was closed and I doubt if the Lecht and Glenshee would have made up anything like the difference between reality and what you are attempting to claim.

When my Hut 68 escape tunnel emerges on the far side of the Inverness Royal Academy perimeter fence, I may well get back to you on that. But nah! I've been watching too much of Colditz on the "Yesterday" channel and the analogy became too tempting. I'm not all that desperate to be gone but I suspect that the point at which it becomes possible may just about correspond with the stage when the Curriculum for Excellence begins to irritate me terminally. That might be a cue to start researching into Citadel instead.

I am now thinking that when I eventually manage to cast of the shackles of employment, some research into the history of Citadel FC might be a worthwhile project. And as I said earlier, with my dad having been born at 37 Shore Street, this might be quite appropriate. The problem will certainly be lack of sources. There will be very few people left who can remember Citadel since the club went defunct in the late 1930s and I don't expect documentation to be all that abundant. For instance I would doubt if any minute books survive although I believe Alex Main managed to write Caley All The Way without any pre 1950 minutes since these were destroyed in the first of the three grandstand fires which assailed Inverness football over the next 40 odd years. Someone spoke earlier about a 20 page booklet and inevitably there will be newspaper sources as well as old Highland League records. Sounding like a bit of a challenge.

Yes, I agree it's a bit conventional but remember these lads were only in 2nd and 3rd year at that point and the Rector, W.S. Macdonald (Willie Fatlips, had been remarkably successful in his ongoing battle against creeping hair lines. However it was a battle which was inevitably destined to be lost and you don't have to look at school magazines much further into the 70s to see a big change, which in fact had begun even by around 1970 among some senior pupils. By the way, I sometimes wonder what the crack was like in the Citadel Inn the night Citadel won their only Highland League title in 1909!?

That's the one Culduthel! Thank you. I seem to recollect as well that Russell was also a basketball player. But I further recollect that one J. MacKenzie on one occasion told me that HE (IHE)had been captain of that team and hence the boss of BU and DM! :irritated:

I think there's already a link from somewhere in the bowels of the "1 Year Special" thread to this page on the BBC website but this montage of ICT goals is so good a listen that it's worth flagging it up separately with a thread of its own. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/scotland/9252583.stm

Alex, I am perfectly aware of the Canadian origins of Ice Hockey. But, having clocked the crash helmet logo and the name Ivy League on the OP and not having read the OP carefully enough to spot the term "face off", I thought it was about American Football. I would watch Ice Hockey before American Football any day, and did attend a match at Aviemore once. I would have to say, though, that it was a tad cold in the ice rink for a game which did tend to go on somewhat with interminable time outs, but it was generally OK. And indeed Captial Caley's American football song is indeed nauseous... so much so that it makes a lot of England football songs sound like works of art.

The very same. I remember going to an old house about half way up Leachkin Brae to interview him for the BBC about 25 years ago and he was about 93 then. He must have been born about 1892 so probably played for the Clach team which my Highland League handbook tells me won the League in 1911-12 (three years after Citadel, to bring this thread back on topic!) Mind you, if I recollect the state of the house, I don't think your granda missed out on much!

He's there all right. Just not as much of him as currently Hang On A Minute! That's not Johndo in the back row back on the left is it? If he's in the photo then by a process of elimination, that must be him! God, it is!!! That "harmless looking little chap" actually has a slight look of IHE! And no, that's a different Andy Smith. The one you're talking about was a financial adviser and was on the Caley Committee. He had an office on Tomnahurich Street and lived on Dores Road.

Surely not this particularly ugly looking bunch! I wonder where they are now. For some reason or other, Johndo isn't there. Maybe he was in the Heathmount at the time. I'm now wondering if he was captain at a later stage? I'm not so hot on the back row but second right is Colin MacLeod, now a lawyer in Edinburgh. Front row Andy Smith, Davie Milroy, Jeff MacDonald (Kevin's brother), Russell ????, Alan Watt, Billy Urquhart.Is Ali Smith Andy's younger sister? Anne, who is a doctor, was the oldest, then Gordon and I recollect that there was rather younger one as well. They lived in St Valery Ave - last house before the electric flats. Father owned Smiths electricians and I think was a great Caley man.

Pardon me because I am not very well up on popular culture but it would appear that some fellow whom not very many people seem to recognise claims to have been assailed by ICT fans in Glasgow. Given his anonymity, he appears to be accusing ICT of totally random attacks. Is this chap a pop singer, a disc jockey, a participant in one of these strange singing or dancing competitions on the TV where people phone in to vote... or is he on one of these bizarre TV shows where you have to eat obscure insectiverous creatures in order to survive? Or is he just a completely inadequate attention seeking t**t who thinks he hasn't had enough publicity of late?

When I was a Great Big Prefect at the Royal Academy in 1970 I had a great regard for these two wee guys in the under 14 team - Davie Milroy who was their star striker (sic!!!) and Billy Urquhart who was an ace defender (also sic!!!). As it happens the captain of that all conquering team was... as I recollect.... one John MacKenzie. Over the years I have had a large number of conversations in pubs with Davie and Billy about so many pieces of football nostalgia. One day I may also be able to achieve some clarity from their Glorious Leader on the same subject - but if the venue is a pub that looks a little unlikely. :biggrin: But to become serious again... maybe some record of the latter days in the Highland League really is required.... before these Old Gits finally disappear!

Actually.. I am now seriously wondering if that might be quite a good idea. For instance most days I sit with Derek Dewar at school lunch and there are so many anecdotes. The other day we had a long conversation about that Inverness football institution The Bankers. Now these guys are all already ordering zimmers (Corbett is probably already on one! :biggrin: ) and there is so much Inverrness football history to record. It's very easy to conclude that the era that YOU lived through in your relative youth was some kind of Golden Age but I have to say that the ladt decade or so of the Caley - Jags - Clach triangle WAs very special for a number of reasons. When I look back through Against All Odds, one of my regrets is that I didn't say enough about the latter HL days. On the other hand it was an ICT book. Maybe we should have some record of the great latter days (1983-88ish) before ICT came into force - when Inverness football ruled the North.

Nah.. it's John Cleese!! Hitler, chancing little Austrian git, was busy remilitarising the Rhineland in 1936... and bricking it at the black athlete Jesse Owens winning Olympic titles. Intriguing tale though behind Citadel (aka The Sheepbags since their ground was right beside the slaughterhouse at the far end of Shore Street). They won their one and only Highland League title in 1909 but for a short time were one of no fewer than SIX Inverness teams in the Highland League - the others were Camerons and Union which I think eventually became part of Jags. (And we are now struggling to sustain one :irritated: ) Anyway... my dad was born in 37 Shore Street in 1920 and lived there and in No 7 until 1932. He had a clear recollection of Citadel which went defunct a few years later. I just missed the bus in terms of getting an interview with an old Citadel player. I had been told that Dodo Sinclair's dad Butch - who eventually became a very senior Jags committee man - was an ex Citadel player but unfortunately Butch died before I could speak to him about it. Given that Citadel went out of existence over 70 years ago it is highly unlikely that there are any surviving players now. The oldest ex player I ever spoke to was a guy called Davie Goodall who was in his 90s at the time around 1985. He had bee a member of a great Clach side just before the First World War. (Funny how many "Great Clach Sides of the Past" there have been but you could include 2003-04 in that.) Maybe in terms of Caley and Jags we should be getting the recollections of Messrs Milroy and Urquhart etc recorded before they become too decrepit or senile to recount them. (Or maybe the Old Gits are past it already ) Mantis... I suspect you would empathise with around 50% of that suggestion! :biggrin:

Yup, two points here. * If it exists, the SPL will have a rule for it - which goes back to the days when the SPL still had delusions that they were really big fish. That is the third certainty of life following Death and Taxes - whatever it is, the SPL will have a rule for it. One of these rules is that all clubs must have USH. Along with the 10,000 seat rule (which ICT put paid to but which seems SO pretentiously absurd in the current day and age but which excluded likes of Falkirk to the benefit of Aberdeen) you could also keep the riff raff out by requiring USH. * A Catch 22 has materialised regarding USH to the extent that when it becomes necessary to use it, conditions will in any case be extreme enough for the game to be put off by forces outwith the clubs who have the USH - ie by the Police or the SPL... who will, by yet another of their rules, fine you heftily if they don't put the game off but your pitch in unplayable because you haven't used your USH.

I really couldn't care less. Why do these American type sports always have teams which have a double barrelled name? The first tends to be the place they come from and the second is usually some kind of silly vaguely "aggressive" sounding word like Tigers, Blitz, Pirates etc etc. That actually makes "Capitals" sound relatively sensible, if somewhat cheesy. Do they have a "Talahassee Taliban" by any chance? Roll on the "world series"... which usually just involves the Yanks.

Is this American Football by any chance? What a waste of good rugby players! The time outs (aka commercial breaks) would deprive me of the will to live if I ever went to a game! These guys seem to spend half their lives practising running backwards. :irritated: And why do they play their game encased in crash helmets and a cage? Is this fear of the American litigation culture? What they have done is to have hijacked Rugby and made it silly and boring. I went to an American Football game at Telford Street once (I think it was the Ness Monsters which was not so much an American Football Club, more an attempt to sell stuff for Turnbull Sports). I found it absolutely wrist slittingly tedious. It's probably the only time in my life that I have had a burning desire to get the hell out of Telford Street!!

... because Santa's elves have gone on strike. They have withdrawn their labour as part of an Elfin Safety dispute.

The SOLE purpose of USH is to do with games being called off because of frozen pitches. The additional question is whether or not the frost is accompanied by snow, which it has been on a large number of occasions in Inverness. When there is snow, it doesn't matter how effective the USH is, recent trends are for games to have been pulled on the say so of bodies other than clubs. As for the SFL games, yes, I would agree that the best chance is in the west. Ironically a lady at Glencoe Chairlift today told me that they probably won't open at the weekend because they don't expect to have quite enough snow. In general terms I'm not sure where I stand on the question of games being called off by the Police or the Elfin Safety Industry - that's in general terms as opposed to blanket call offs three days in advance of kick off. On the one hand I can accept that travelling can be considered just to be too dangerous. But on the other hand the argument which I have seen elsewhere that there would be no chance of the Eastgate Centre being closed on Police say so in the event of bad road conditions is also very persuasive.