Charles Bannerman

i was in before chirstmas and iam sure the train was still there It was. Johnstone's, just through the door from the trains, was where I bought my first short with button down collars and my first square ended crimplene tie. And my proudest possession - a shirt with shiny strands through it which reflected light at these new fangled things in town called discotheques and at Young and Old Dances in the Kingsmills Scout Hall and the Lochardil Hall.

My God! That man Thomson is older than I am and his memory is still perfect! Well... almost.... I have a feeling that Sergei's last game was a 1 all draw at home to Queens Park although I believe he beat County on his penultimate appearance.... in fact was it not 3-0 which finally ended County's promotion hopes?

I can't quite agree with this since the SFL rearranging to 4 x 10 wasn't on the agenda in Feb 1991 and Leishman had been gone for a full year and a half by the time Baltacha was appointed by Caley. I do, however, think that the Baltacha appointment had a lot to do with the merger which by that time (June 93) had been launched as a project by INE and the SFL had decided to rearrange.

If that is the case then either his English has improved dramatically since 1995 or this is a reflection of the rather lower standards for entrance to teaching in England. In Scotland he would have to have a GTC approved teaching qualification which would have to include Higher English. IHE... agreed, it was a fact. The problem was that there was an element within the Thistle support which thought it should be a 50-50 merger and an element within the Caley support which thought it should be 100-0. The reality was somewhere in between and so it has transpired. Johnboy... "ICT - The Butcher Years?" You never know! Scotty.... I'm not sure it's possible to compare managers operating variously among the impoverished of the Third Division and the elite of the SPL, albeit with players at ?40 a week and up to ?1000 or so.

Kingsmills... I was expecting one former Jaggie or another to object to my comment about the smaller merger partner being "put in its (not unreasonable) place", but no one has bitten so far! If there had not been internal problems, I also wonder if he would have been appointed to Caley at all since his original appointment there was also a produce of the kind of mindset which created the internal problems as well. Scotty.... I think that maybe from the turn of 1995 - ie half way through the season - there had been a realisation that Sergei was not the man. Certainly I remember two very senior CT players telling me after the cup defeat by QoS in December that he was losing the dressing room. I therefore agree with you that Pele was probably on the radar from around mid season and I certainly remember hearing quite some time before the end of that first season that there was interest in him. However they were still so wrapped up in politics and the law (for instance the Thistle court case was reaching a head) that they must have been glad that, with relegation not an issue in D3, they didn't have to worry about disposing of the manager until the end of the season.

Sergei was a gentleman through and through and had an incredible playing pedigree but just didn't seem to make it as a manager and I note he hasn't done much (or indeed any) management since he left Inverness. I know that the players didn't like his management style very much since they were part timers and he tended to go on the full time model with a big touch of Soviet ruthlessness added in. I think Caley D's suggestion that he couldn't adapt to players of a lesser ability is also valid. There were language problems as well. Remember that his appointment to CT, and even to Caledonian before that, had significant political implications. I believe that Caledonian in 1993 wanted a high profile manager who would be an asset to them either in any bid to join the SFL on their own or in terms of getting their man into post if a merger ever took place - and so it transpired. When it came to appointing the first CT manager in February 1994, Henrik Madej, as the rather lower profile manager of the smaller merger partner which had been "put in its (not unreasonable) place" by its bigger colleague during the merger battle, never had any chance at all of getting that job. With regard to Sergei's departure, I am of the view that he WAS sacked. It was late April 1995 and Sergei was summoned to meet with Kenny Thomson and one or two others in Dougie McGilvray's office. They were intent that Sergei had to go but it was put to him that he would get a year's salary (?25K at the time) and the official story would be that Sergei wanted to get back to Perth to be with his family (his failure to relocate had been a significant issue) but the Board had asked him to stay on for the final two games of the season so he would leave then. There is no doubt that he was sacked but, given the recent political atmosphere, another controversy was the last thing they wanted so that was the way it was presented. By that time Pele was also well and truly on the radar, and the rest is history.

It was in the early 70's the tailoring business was in Church St where he still did work for the army. I think he must have moved from Inglis Street at some point because he was definitely there in the 60s.

The only small problem was that all the bloodstained bandages I could see appeared to be white with simply a largeish circle of red at the front. They unfortunately looked a bit like the Rising Sun and might well therefore also have been taken as a tribute to Mr. Nakamura! I did mention the tribute to TB in my post match interview and he seemed to appreciate the recognition, although he did make the point that it's not perhaps a great fashion statement!

You know I hadn't thought too much about this record for years until this thread opened - and now I can't get the damned thing out of my head!

The Zajac tailoring business was in Inglis Street above H Samuel. The family lived initially in the "electric flats" in St. Valery Avenue before moving to St. Fergus Drive in the late 60s. There were four kids. Angela who was the oldest, Catherine who was in my year at Dalneigh and the Royal Academy, Matthew and Graham. Catherine latterly styled herself "Casia" (the Polish version) and was for some time Chief Executive of the Inverness Chamber of Commerce before moving to another job in London about a year ago. Matthew has made a very good career in the theatre and I believe Graham was killed in an accident quite a few years ago.

Do you mean Miss McCuish at Dalneigh Gordy? I never had her and it's maybe just as well if she laid deft strokes of the belt for bad writing. I was the only kid in my class at Dalneigh that got remedial handwriting and would have suffered terribly! Mrs Ballantyne whom i had could lay it as well but was more tolerant of handwriting. So when Bobbuck retired from the Academy you got a lecture on VD etc Do you remember when in 2nd year the girls got taken off for lectures that we were not told about? I've since found out that these were given by a Miss Annabelle Duncan of the "Alliance of Honour" which I can only take to be some sort of "no sex" organisation. In practice this sounds like simply the WORST kind of person you could get to do this kind of job. As for "Ma" I think it was a combination of age and married status. in the Academy we had, for instance, Ma Hardie and Ma Murray who were both married middle agers. On the other hand the single ones were never called "Ma".

Looks as if he's gone the way of Flodden, the Darien Scheme and Argentina 1978.

"Give your all to the final whistle?" ???? And is it perhaps "doing it all for you"? I'm not sure but I think that's what it might be but i haven't got a clue about the other bit, it's just too distorted. Whilst I was writing Against All Odds (must have been Feb 1997) I was also the guest speaker at the ICT Supporters' Dinner Dance and was sitting beside David Balfe who wrote the song. I took the opportunity to get him to write out a couple of bars of words and music and sign them for use as an illustration in the book. That song was a great bit of PR for Caley Thistle!"

Johndo I am merely expanding on the general situation which is that there has always been a reluctance for players and probably managers as well to come up here. (There is of course the opposite problem which is the loss of local talent to the South. This is a significant problem, although not altogether universal since you get local stars like Davie Milroy and Billy Urquhart spending all or a great deal of their careers here while the likes of their Captain in the Inverness Royal Academy 1st XI deserted the Highlands, ultimately for one of the lesser regions of England, his talent therefore lost and unavailable to his native city. )

Part of the problem is the Central Belt mentality which has an aversion to travelling and which in some cases also has little conception of the world north of Castlecary Arches. Around three quarters of the Scottish population live within about a 40 mile radius of Falkirk (by coincidence Pressley's ultimate stopping place) and have become used to getting to a large number of Scottish destinations very quickly indeed. This is the case to such an extent that I have frequently heard complaints within another sport from the Glasgow people when the national championships are in Edinburgh - and vice versa. There is the additional factor that Scotland only has this single concentration of population which means that those who live outside it sometimes tend not to matter. After all, this is not a new problem. Remember 1973 when works team Ferranti Thistle got into the SFL ahead of the Jags? England is different. The South east certainly has a lot of people but there are also big concentrations in the likes of the West Midlands, the North West and the North East so they are a bit more used to the concept of large chunks of the populace not being close by. I suspect there is something of a cultural aspect to this too, which I believe goes back many centuries to the time when the then Gaelic speaking Highlands became culturally and politically divorced from the rest of the country. I really have found it not uncommon for some people from the Central Belt simply not to understand that "the North" is rather more than some homogeneous collection of communities situated right next door to each other and that we do not in fact live in adjacent mud huts a stone's throw from Brigadoon and see everybody else in the Highlands every day. For instance I have a hilarious recollection of being at a meeting in Glasgow and being handed a letter with the request that I should hand it on to Soandso. The trouble was, Soandso lived in Thurso!!! It is not at all surprising, therefore, that there is either a reluctance to come up here, or players want more to do so, or they do their "time" up here and then go back down south after a couple of years. By coincidence I had a discussion on this very issue with Michael Grant of The Sunday Herald on Thursday. The piece he was researching is on P18 opf today's Sport section and well worth a read.

The Big Green is, I believe, the area of Inverness in the Greig Street hinterland and local to Telford Street Park. Strong Caley territory. Norman Miller, who was brought up on Greig Street, was said to be from The Big Green.

Cringe!!!!!!!! It was DREADFUL. Hosted by an old guy called John Mearns who was something of an Alf Garnett lookalike, it was basically a bunch of folk with Robbie Shepherd accents and dressed up in farming gear singing songs round the fire. Strewth - sounds like Aberdeen's travelling support.... Or a number of my neighbours here in rural Aberdeenshire ! Aye mahloon... aye, aye... 'at's a rare tup ye've got there... aye an' a grand pair o' green wellies ye've got her back legs doon! Noo whar's ma wireless so ah kin get The Reel Blend wi Roabbie Sheppaaard.....

I can assure you that no local football reporters were harmed in the making of that programme! Rather enjoyed the banter actually and I simply wasn't going to go any further and fudge the line between what I know and what could be considered as speculative... not for Traynor nor for anyone. :thumb04:

Cringe!!!!!!!! It was DREADFUL. Hosted by an old guy called John Mearns who was something of an Alf Garnett lookalike, it was basically a bunch of folk with Robbie Shepherd accents and dressed up in farming gear singing songs round the fire.

And where are you going to put all those native Brits who fall a long way short of fluency in English?

Since I described the darts audience as a "Convention of Sunreaders", I've run out of expressions for the lot at Gladiators which I've just been watching! (PS I only watched it because I know the girl from Lossiemouth who won.)

Far away?... Inverness from Glasgow? Not really. It's the kind of journey that teams like Inverness, Ross County, Elgin City, Aberdeen and Peterhead do, and further, on average fortnightly. There are actually several even longer trips in the Highland League. It's only a long way if you have Central Belt Syndrome and hence, for instance, have a moan if maybe Livingston rather than Clyde, win a cup replay, which means you have to travel something like 50 rather than 25 miles in the next round. I used to have a lot of time for Partick Thistle in the days when I simply perceived them as a worthy third team in Glasgow, a civilised alternative to Old Firm hype and some of the excesses shown by certain of their supporters. However the extreme bad grace with which Partick refused to accept the natural order of things in the summer of 2004 and simply would not depart in a civilised manner to the Scottish Football League changed my perception entirely. Whay can't Partick Thistle fans just get over it and accept that they are no longer big hitters in the Scottish game? It's a fate which has befallen others such as Raith Rovers, Dunfermline, St. Johnstone, Dundee etc. They have all been in the SPL, were relegated and have remained in the lower leagues and that is something they have accepted with a level of grace which, shall we say, has not been so apparent among a disappointingly large proportion of the Partick Thistle whose views I have experienced. Of course it is not by any means inconceivable that Caley Thistle could also be relegated this season. However I am commenting here on a match which took place last Saturday - ie in the present where the situation is that Caley Thistle are an SPL club of five years' standing while Partick Thistle have spent almost all of the last decade or so in the lower leagues during which period I believe they have undergone three relegations.

Not a nightmare draw for County or Elgin I would have thought. And inevitably on the likes of last Saturday there will be a poor gate when the visitors are a minor outfit from the lower leagues and therefore a pretty weak crowd puller, rather than the kind of SPL club to which Inverness has become used. I would be really disappointed if this kind of stuff was typical of The Herald which I thought had higher apsirations than being West Central Scotland's answer to the Nairnshire Telegraph.

No relation but because of the surname, it's a book I was bought by my parents at a very early age and I soon became familiar with Epaminondas and his pals. One recollection I have is an episode involving a "tar baby" where a particularly objectionable character got stuck into, and as a result on to, the said object. I suspect that this book, along with the Black and white Minstrels, fell victim of PC many yerars ago.

First and foremost I wouldn't want to indulge in or tolerate anything that could be construed as racist by any reasonable person (as opposed to the bunch of self appointed PC mullahs who seem to permeate our society these days.) There are definitely grey areas and, for instance, as someone said earlier, the term "Paki" seems to be regarded as offensive whilst "Aussie" is not. The only reasons I can think of are that at some point, usage of the former has been made in derogatory contexts which have not applied to the latter, or that the PC lobby have deemed "Paki" to be more offensive since those from the northern part of the Indian sub continent can be regarded as "coloured" and many of them are immigrants to this country, while that is not the case with Australians (apart from Aborigines). Basically, Harry is going to get slated for any step he takes out of line for several reasons. After all he is a Royal, he is a stupid Royal (eg he goes and wears a Nazi outfit to a party), he also habitually behaves in the classic "lunatic second son of the aristocracy" manner and the Royals have a track record for this kind of stuff anyway since his grandad (Phil the Greek) is about the most un PC person on the planet, casting aspersions varying from his Chinese hosts having "slitty eyes" to driving instructors in Oban being too drunk to do their job properly. Whilst I wouldn't want to be racist in any way, I really can't abide political correctness either - indeed it is one of my pet hates. (Take a look at the "Singing Together" thread in Memories to see what I mean by political correctness.