Charles Bannerman

Not one of your better attempts at stirring up trouble or discontent. The attendance, which was officially declared by ICT early in the second half, was 4005.

Oh my God... it's been gone since 1976???!!!! Now that's scary. Seems just like the other day.

I think the Football Times became pink in the latish 60s. I certainly remember as a kid when it was white but also have some cuttings from old papers around 1968-70 when it had become pink. It was a sister paper of the HN and in fact I think the company, before the various Inverness paper shennanigans of the 80s and early 90s, was known as "The Highland News and Football Times". I suppose the old FT was one of the earlier victims of the progressive demise of traditoinal newspapers which we are seeing continue today. "Newspapers" are in many respects outdated technology, although still very conveniently accessible and portable. TV, Ceefax, computers etc sealed the fate of papers whose function was to be on the streets with football reports very soon after full time on a Saturday. Now further progress with the internet etc means that even the dailies and the Sundays are struggling for the kind of readership and advertising revenue needed to make them prosper. We are a long way along the line now from the days when boys waited at Highland League matches to take pages of handwritten copy in instalments by bike to the HN in Diriebught Road for rapid inclusion into the FT. Indeed that was how one David Love started off in the journalism business!

I would imagine there would be archives of the Football Times somewhere but I'm not sure where. The Highland News would probably be the best first port of call there since it was a subsidiary of that.

One of my earlier illicit pints (before a school dance) was the "The Gorm" in the summer of 1970. As someone who had only preiously purchased at 3/3d in the Loch Ness Hotel, I didn't know whether to be more taken aback by the unbelievable price (even in these days) of 2/4d for lager and lime or by the sawdust on the floor. For the benefit of the post 1971 generation, 2/4d is just less than 12p.

Jackie is still on the go, minding the tunnel door at the Caledonian Stadium at home games with his "assistants" from the under 13s (who do all the door opening on his behalf). I have a chat with him at every game and indeed he doesn't look all that different from years ago! My father, who was Captain of the 1st Company in the late 60s and early 70s, was very much involved in setting up the arrangement to go to Dalguise. I think the first Dalguise camp was in 1966 and that was the only one I attended there although I don't know how long it continued after that. I have to say I prefered Carrbridge and the two worthies in the bell tent Hugh and Rod were far better cooks. I remember Bill MacDonald and Herb MacDonald of the 8th very well and of course Gordy Bus is still a regular at the Stadium too, as well as in the Social Club post match. Two memories of travelling out the A9 to camp at Carrbridge.... at last finding where the Soldier's Head was and the chants of "Gordy Bus...clap, clap...Gordy Bus.... clap clap..."

Johndo, information from your era is probably contained on rolls of papyrus hidden in caves..... Seriously, I really don't know of any comprehensive list going back in time like that. On the other hand, next time you are in Inverness during the week, you could go into the public library reference room and ask for copies of the Courier from the era in question (I presume around the mid 70s among others). These are now on microfiche and, although laborious, taking a look through these old files, especially Tuesday editions, should produce a lot of information. If you're doing this, a look at other parts of these papers would also be well worth while.

You may be missing the historical niceties of this one. For a very long time the Irish had been desperate for independence from Britain and in the early years of the 20th century, the tide began to turn in that direction. WW1 put a halt to the process but it was addressed again quite soon after. In 1921 (the British cabinet actually met in Inverness town hall to discuss the issue) a treaty was signed which gave independence to the Irish Free State (what we now know as Ireland) but the six counties of Ulster remained British. This controversial arrangement to "pro treaty" and "anti treaty" (ie IRA) factions and a very unpleasant Irish Civil War. It also led to all the problems in Ulster after 1969. What I am suggesting is that if the whole of Ireland had been allowed to go its own way at the time then much of this hassle and nonsense would have been avoided in the UK. As a side issue, it's interesting to speculate as to how major Celtic and Rangers would have been as forces in football without the benefit of being stoked up as institutions symbolic of a sectarian divide which might well have been a good deal less stark in Scotland. As for the second part of your quote of what I originally said - are you actually suggesting that these people are not bigots and are really just ordinary folks who happen to have decided to take a walk along to the Portland Club on a Staurday afternoon?

I tend to take the view that if we had said bye bye to the whole lot of them together in a oner in 1921, then not having a bunch of bigots taking a walk to the Portland Club on a Saturday afternoon would only be one of the very smallest of the many benefits accrued in the intervening years. On the other hand that also begs the question: "What would these people find to be bigoted about instead if Ireland wasn't an option?"

Not the first reaction to that particular experience which would actually have occurred to me.

The only part of that description I match is the "left footed" bit.

OK, maybe I'd better. It's "dementia" not "demensure". "Halitosis" is correct though!

Go on Culduthel.... tell us more!!!! Maybe some of the older stagers could help me with this one since it goes back to an era (and before) when I was very young. I think at one point in the early 60s and back into the 50s, the Inverness BBs had officers nicknamed Feetums and Teetums. Feetums, I think, was the Peter MacGregor, Captain of the 1st Company and manager of John Colliers gents' outfitters. He got the name because he had bad feet and didn't walk very comfortably. I'm a bit hazier on Teetums, although I'm sure his problem (predictably) was his eyes. I have a vague recollection he may have been captain of the 6th, 7th or 8th companies, which of course were based consecutively along the west bank of the Ness, but I'm not sure. Any takers?

I heard on the radio that this thing was going to be trialled in Glasgow!? Can you just imagine? The thing would be going mental trying to point in every direction at the same time!

According to my colleague Jim Spence at the BBC in Dundee, much of the snow there has gone and Tannadice is expected to be absolutely fine, if a bit heavy. Can I just take this opportunity to advise that there WILL be live commentary from Scott Davie and Brian Irvine on Radio Scotland 92-95FM in the Highlands and Islands area. On this occasion the rugby is on 810 medium wave and not on FM, thus freeing the FM frequencies which can be opted out to give commentaries on more than one SPL match. This commentary is also online (I don't know if there are any restrictions for the diasporate) and the Open All Mics option is on 103.5-105FM where the reporter at Tannadice will be Jim Spence, Robbo being at Tynecastle.

Apart from the rally itself, I find the Sideshow quite revealing in a very different way. If you look on the distributor road on Rally Day you simply cannot fail to be entertained by various high revving acne-ridden little gnomes in Burberry baseball caps, peering over the dashboards of beaten up old Vauxhall Novas, most of them with holes punched in their exausts to produce even louder p?nis substitutes.

Aka Hugh Miller. He was the big, quite rotund bald one while I think the other cook was called Rod Sommerville. They both slept in that bell tent right beside the cookhouse and weren't averse to the odd bevvy of a night in Carrbridge.

[quote name='latviaman' date='Feb 10 2009, 06:07 PM' post='169885' I am sure it was The Plough, I remember the billiard hall I seem to remember it being run by George, perhaps Eddies son? I think his surname was Follen

Birdog... absolutely no offence taken at all! At the time I had the same John F Kennedy Moment as many other people from Inverness who could not be there. (In other words when Paul Sheerin took the penalty I remember stopping my car in the middle of Culduthel Road to catch the commentary.) Indeed far from underestimating the achievement, I look on it as a major springboard for the series of momentous achievements which led to entry to the SPL in 2004, and as such part of a bigger picture. For various reasons I was unable to be there (just as I had to miss Thistle's 3-0 defeat of Kilmarnock and Caley's penalties win over Airdrie). However a colleague on the Glasgow newsdesk happened to know I was still in Inverness that night and I was duly dispatched to the Phoenix to record one of the most memorable vox pops I have ever done. However, I did happen to be there on the Saturday and had a press pass so got into the ground and stood on the pitch watching the "fluttering guttering". That, as it happened, gave me the opportunity to do a pile of interviews with players/ management/ directors which led to a huge PARADISE LOST back page headline in the Courier. I also managed to eat my fair share of the 20,000 spare pies Celtic needed to get rid of... and Inverurie thought they had a problem with 2000!

I could take elaborate exception to the first few words of the above quote but I will avoid the temptation. I'm actually rather more concerned about the danger of Caley Thistle being remembered as a one result club due to an over emphasis of that one match. I'm also a bit concerned that the real reason for the years of attention it has received from outwith ICT at any rate has more to do with the fact that it was Celtic that ICT beat than with the intrinsic value of the performance. In other words I do tend to write off a certain percentage of the hype about this which originates externally as more of a statement about Celtic and somewhat patronising towards ICT. As for the "few pre merger rebels" I really don't think there have ever been enough of them to have had any significantly adverse effect and if I wasn't worried about them in the mid 90s I certainly am not now. My view was that the omelette in question was never going to be made without breaking a few eggs and that the benefit gained from what has happened has outweighed the loss by many orders of magnitude. Like Scotty I respect the fact that they are entitled to their view but am at the same time thankful that they did not succeed in preventing what has happened and that they are now no more than a footnote in history and really a product of their own delusions of their own significance

Mmm.. that's maybe another over rated myth that's even more over used and overstated than Wembley 1966 and Archie Gemmill's goal. Which telephone box are they holding this year's AGM in?

Great though it was at the time, is 8.2.00. not in danger of becoming as bad as Wembley 1966 and Archie Gemmill's goal?

I think he is.

I think it has. Sounds to me remarkably like Jud, Jasper, Gordy Bus and Freddie Driver.

...and this was in 2002, you say... Try somewhere nearer 1966!