Charles Bannerman

I reckon he won't be a kick in the bum off 60. In any case, most dentists could probably afford to retire at 40.

What's the top end of Laurel Avenue like these days?

Nah.. the Tories have got defence sorted now. They're going to put British planes into French aircraft carriers.... which the French are then going to surrender to the Germans at the first sign of trouble.

Presumably, Scotty, your "most of" qualification refers to the one almost fatal period around 2000 where the stadium had to be handed over to the Trust and in excess of ?2M of debt miraculously disappeared from ICT's books. That, of course, means that ICT now owns no significant asset (players in contract and the Social Club being about it) to trade against any future financial crisis (not that I'm suggesting that one is likely.) In the warm afterglow of winning the First Division last season and returning to the SPL, I sometimes wonder if the Board have ever had an informal "what if" session on the scenario of NOT having bounced straight back up? What I am talking about is last year's ?947K debt (well actually a bit less than that since the bonuses to players would have been less in these circumstances)against continuing SFL income streams rather than those of the SPL again this season. That would have been quite a serious situation but not, I would suggest, in the same ballpark as a decade ago.

And when was the last time the UK had one of them? The day before Maggie Thatcher was elected in 1979 I would suggest. I have to say it always raises a bit of a giggle when I see them still singing The Red Flag at Labour Party conferences these days!

It does seem extremely harsh.... Let me be Devil's Advocate here and ask why any company which, long term, fails to meet its liabilities should be allowed to continue trading at all? It strikes me that a number of football clubs have got themselves into serious, long term financial problems and have gone into this state called "administration" which appears to allow them to tear up perfectly legal contracts with employees and show them the door. It is also not at all clear how much of the money some of them owe is actually paid back in this process. Then, at some point in the future, the company miraculously "comes out of administration" and seems to be able to carry on trading as if nothing had happened. One alternative might be for the law instead to require straight liquidation, with assets sold off to allow repayment as far as possible to creditors - with the sacked employees regarded as creditors and entitled to compensation along with the rest. In Dundee's case (and this is the SECOND time they've been in administration) I'm not even clear what assets the company owns since I believe that they do not even own Dens Park and it appears to me that they are, rather like Dickens' Mr. Micawber, quite simply "waiting for something to turn up". Maybe it's time that the football authorities addressed the fiscal lunacy which is rampant within the game by cracking down much harder than they do on clubs which cannot keep their house in order.

A case of beggars not being able to be choosers at two stages where there were enormous time and cost pressures to get an urgent job done. In 1995, a raft of planning requirements, including a ?1.3M approach road, meant that roughly ?1 of savings had to be made on a stadium project which was already way behind the timescale promised to the SFL. Hence the Main Stand + pitch part. Then in 2004 there was the urgent necessity to get ICT back to Inverness from Pittodrie in a situation where money was once again tight. As a result the Tulloch and Highland Council funded North and South stands were erected on a very short timescale to realise the SPL seating criterion of 6000 and get the team back playing in Inverness in January 2005. The only other part is the 200 seats on the west side of the ground which was a genuine attempt by Alan Savage when he was chairman to meet the needs of a Singing Section but which never quite took off.

Wasn't there but remember it well! Think it might even have been a 93rd minute equlaiser. Next round Stenhousemuir away - 1-0 Brian Thomson screamer. Next round QF Rangers at Tannadice. But was there not a Scottish Cup second replay or something like that at Methil for Caley (sic) in the 80s against Stirling or Berwick...Urquhart header? Alex Smith manager of opposing team. Rangers in the next round... so it must have been 1984??

Yes... second time round, after it had been designated INE's favoured location. If I remember correctly, the first pronouncement had only East Longgman, West Seafield and Inshes but they were suddenly joined by Stratton Farm which shot to top of the list. I remember the very day the Stratton Farm rabbit emerged from the hat, Hugh Crout (ex President of Caley), made an instant claim that the motivation behind this was for INE to kick start the Golden Mile. Thereafter it was INE and Stratton Farm versus Caley Thistle and East Longman. The Board initially made a very ambiguous choice of Stratton but that was then overturned when the District Council agreed to lease land at East longman.

But, with the East End getting done up for the Commonwealth Games,the London Road Tavern, Springfield Vaults and Turnstiles might, with any luck, find their rather less than aesthetically appealing sites "redeveloped".

Third time round - so do I, so I am not even going to bother to reply to the OP on this occasion. You think nothing of it when it happens once and somebody floats a suggestion which is clearly miles out of tune with the vast majority. When it happens a second time, you are tempted to become impatient but do your best to be sympathetic and take the "poor soul,well I suppose there's one born evey minute" line. But when it gets to number three you do realise that such persistent idiocy can only be the result of a wind up! However I have to say that I wasn't too convinced by the suggestion on another similar thread that, partly on the grounds of similarity of name, the wind up merchant was one B Hornell. As I said elsewhere,even in the interests of winding up people on an ICT site, I simply couldn't conceive of BH writing of that club in such positive terms. In particular I think he would rather choke than refer to Inverness Caledonian THISTLE in the first person plural! So what will the next post be from "dougal"? Merge ICT and Ross County and build a new stadium at Tore? I just wonder who it is, though? I don't know how many folks have been on here long enough to remember an absolutely brilliant wind up which went on for ages (something to do with Larsson was it??) and was the work of a certain IHE?

Yes, completely with you there. So why don't you drop another email to your wee pal Lexy at Tescocomplaints to see if she can sort it out for you? :biggrin:

I think that's probably what I meant. My computer vocabulary is very limited and my grasp of them extremely weak. I didn't actually expect that it was anything wrong with CTO itself but more with whatever system gets CTO to my computer. But within that context, the site has always been a bit slower than others to get up on my computer, although more recently often a good deal slower still if it appears at all, which is presumably the fault of whoever does that for CTO. Now where did I leave my Brother portable typewriter......?

Well if you had, it might have given you enough background on the club to save you the trouble of starting threads suggesting things which a large majority of people clearly regard as non starters. And no, it's not in print since it sold out some years ago.

What was this all about? Yes spill the beans. ICT for me. Yes AD, remind us about "pengate". Reading this thread again, it seems obvious now that the OP is on a fishing trip. "Dougal" to "Douglas" is not a massive leap of faith. Sorry to dissapoint you but the thread was most definitely not a fishing thread and a genuine poll , and no i'm not the person who you obviously think i am:tuttut: Dougal I think I have to believe Dougal here since the individual it is being suggested he is could never, even in pretence, have brought himself to write what it says in the OP and in particular could never have brought himself to refer to ICT as "we"!

I don't know myuch about computers but there seems to have been something quite wrong with this site for some time. Accessing it seems to range from "slow" to "very slow" but there have also been a number of instances when it gives you something called a "server error", producing just a black and white paragraph of stuff that I simply don't understand but which seems to be telling you it's bust. This happened most recently about an hour ago and for a time yesterday I thought that on a rare Saturday afternoon that I wasn't at a match, it wasn't going to be possible to sample the delights of the matchday thread. This only seems to happen with this site but from all three computers I use so I'm following that it must be this site rather than my machines.

OK Dougal... your campaign to change the name hasn't been too successful with over 90% voting for the status quo, so it now seems that you now want to relocate instead. So, given that an extensive study was made of this by Bruce Hare in 1993 and the realistic options in and around Inverness were very limited indeed, where would you be planning to go? I note that you include the Bught, or another City Centre localtion among your suggestions in your poll, whilst almost in the same breath bemoaning traffic congestion at East Longman. Strewth! In the absence of a bypass which remains as remote a prospect as ever, how on earth do you propose to get even a bottom of the range crowd of 3500 from the Bught along Glenurquhart Road and many of them then over the Ness Bridge at 5 o'clock on a Saturday? Then think "Old Firm" and double that up to 7000. But, since you've raised the issue, how about also giving us an overview of how the ICT Trust would fund this, unless you reckon it can be done solely by selling on the remaining 83 years of the East Longman lease? Finally, could I unobtrusively ask if you have read "Against All Odds"? In particular the chapter entitled "Finding A Home" discusses stadium location issues in some depth and the book hopefully also sheds some light on why, for instance, the stadium design and club name are as they are.

As it happens the pick of the actual headlines on this story today came, as it does so often, in The Sun. SHUNT FOR RED OCTOBER

Well you must now build on that and get them on to the next stage when they reply "Achyerseeenitmunhowsyersel!?"

This is maybe one for the older generation but it would be good if some paper tomorrow, in connection with the Navy sub going aground on Skye, came up with something like "Left Hand Down A Bit Captain Povey".... a famous quote from and a wonderful tribute to the old BBC radio series The Navy Lark which did such a brilliant job of satirising the RN in years gone by.

Yup, AAO sure was a bit of a moneyspinner. The best estimate is that it made a profit of £10 - 15,000 for the club. And just to confirm what I got out of it - the opportunity to give an account of an important part of the history of Inverness and a very nice engraved Caithness Glass bowl which wasn't even part of the deal but which they were good enough to present me with to mark publication. As for old Buenos, it's maybe quite good to give him the odd cameo appearance from time to time - just to remind us all of the considerable progress which football has made in Inverness over these years!

Buenos of That Ilk. A "prominent" Caley Rebel who posted on here for some time under that name. A "life long" Caley fan who, when taken to task for throwing the Chic Allan Trophy into the river, was alleged to have asked "So who was Chic Allan anyway?"

Now that's strange! Here is my email of complaint sent last month and the reply. The only difference would seem to be that I wasn't lucky enough to get my response from some **Content Removed on Request** which Off The Ball keep asking listeners to send them in! Otherwise both the responses sent to Caleyboy and to me seem to have come from the Tesco Book of Platitudinous Customerguff. MY ORIGINAL COMPLAINT. In your promotional literature in advance of the reopening of Tesco Inshes , Inverness you asked for feedback so here it is - but unfortunately it's not very positive . A couple of years ago I switched my weekly shop from Tesco Inshes to Morrisons , principally because the Inshes cafe had become so dreadfully poor but also because of non availability of certain goods in the store itself . When the new Tesco Inshes opened last week , I thought I would try again , but have unfortunately found that exactly the same problems still exist . My introduction to the new cafe was a long and desperately slow moving queue for a bacon and egg roll - only to find the assistant scraping a disintegrating , blackened substance from a dish on to my roll . He seemed quite surprised that I refused to accept this and told me they would not have fresh bacon ready for some time . I opted for sausages instead which turned out to be rock hard and splintered between my teeth while the egg was cold and rubbery to say the least . As a result it rather looks as if my other previous concerns about long term breakdown of cafe equipment and failure to adhere to advertised opening hours will become academic . On one further visit to the shop it transpired that two of the four items I quickly needed were unavailable . These were as basic as a pint of semi skimmed milk and a small bottle of Tesco's own orange juice - so it looks as if Tesco Inshes will not be resuming its role for me as a local convenience store either . . AND TESCO'S RESPONSE. Dear Customer Thank you for contacting us. I'm very sorry that you didn't enjoy the food on your recent visit to our new Tesco Inshes store café. Our café staff try very hard to make sure that the food we sell is of the very best quality. Considering this store has just recently re-opened, we would have liked to have made a very good, long lasting impression on all our customers. So, it's really disappointing to hear that we let you down on this occasion. Further to this, I'd like to apologise for the long queue you had to endure whilst waiting to be served at our café. I can assure you that we try our best to ensure that customers are served as soon as we possibly can and I am sorry that you had to wait so long on this occasion. I am concerned to learn that you have had the same issues in the past and that nothing has improved since the re-opening. I am very sorry to hear this. I've told our Store Manager, Dan Kelly, about your complaint and I know that he will do his very best to make sure you don't have a similar problems in the future. Thank you for taking the time to let us know about this. I do hope that, despite the problems you've faced, you'll continue to shop with us, giving us the chance to provide the excellent service you've come to expect and so rightly deserve to receive. Kind Regards Sarah Allen Customer Service Manager Tesco Customer Service This is ME back again now... just to say that, having been given "spend £30 and save £10 with their promotional literature I have now got £91.56 worth of shopping for £61.56 across three visits and am hot footing it back to Morrisons unless and until Tesco's ongoing efforts to keep Asda out of Inverness eventually fail.

I have now had a chance to check that figure and the biggest number of Caley fans who ever voted against the merger was 226 at that first Rose Street meeting. In the case of Thistle (where arrangements were a bit different with a smaller membership scheme) it was 16. You also have to remember that the Howden End and a lot further afield was scoured again and again in the six week run up to the first Rose Street meeting so absolutely everybody with any significant anti merger sentiment was pulled in to make that 226. Of these, a very large proportion (including a number of prominent figures) put their reservations aside and came along to games from the start, even becoming involved in the likes of the Management Committee. Others relented at a fairly early stage. Of those who didn't, a number over the last 16 years will either have died or won't be in a position to go to games by having left the area. That doesn't leave many refuseniks around Inverness to be spreading the myth, but it still resurfaces - mainly on threads like this. Maybe I should copy some of this somewhere and simply paste it on to future threads which are bound to resurface every so often peddling this complete fantasy. The Rebels were actually quite good at propaganda which made them look a more substantial entity than they really were. Perhaps the funniest example was right at the start in the summer of 1993 when The Courier ran a readers' poll on whether a merger should take place or not. Incredibly, the good people of Inverness, many of whom had no great interest in football, overwhelmingly rejected the notion to the tune of a resounding 83%. Unsurprisingly, the result was recorded by the paper in a very inconspicuous corner. The best light I can shed on this amazing statistic does little more than explore the "means, motive, opportunity" dimension since it was suggested to me that at this time one B. "Chicky Allan" Hornell might just have been employed by John Menzies, newspaper distributors!

Given that ICT are currently sitting fourth in the SPL table, is that an altogether surprising statistic?