Charles Bannerman

This is very hypothetical and to some extent depends on when the "non joining together" happened - ie whether the idea never occurred at all or whether it went so far and failed to materialise, which very nearly became the case in practice. In the first event, I think Caley or both would have gone for it on their own. Either Caley would have got in or, possibly less likely, the pro Inverness vote would have been split and they would both have failed. Then I believe Caley would have become another Arbroath or at best Alloa because I don't think they would have attracted the necessary level of financial or personal support in the community to do much better. Thistle would have continued in the Highland League and might well have struggled because it is well documented thqt Jags were on a dodgy wicket by the early 90s. The extent of Jags' and indeed Clach's woes might to a large extent have depended on how successful Caley were in the SFL and how much resources they drew away from the other two in the HFL. In the second event, if they had both failed to be elected in 1994, or if the merger had fallen apart after applications to the SFL had closed, I think Caley would have got in on one of the later opportunities (unless a second merger proposal carried the day), and you can then recycle the prognosis back to the start of the previous paragraph. It's especially difficult to make accurate estimates because it's difficult to assess secondary effects but certainly any single team bid for SFL status would never have done as well as the merged one did and certainly Inverness would never have sniffed SPL football. I know there is a sort of vestige of Telford Street romance that says that Caley would hqve done fine on their own. I don't think it stands scrutiny though. As a postscript, what if Caley's Carse scheme had materialised in 1990-91? I think a merger would still have been mooted but Caley would have thrown the idea out very quickly and gone alone etc etc etc...

Yes, I know Adolf, started life as an Austrian but the German analogy was just too tempting.

Caley D... although I would insist that I was never a pupil at the Royal Academy when it was in Academy Street :015: I certainly don't remember it ever being the Royal Hotel. For as long as I can recollect, the Royal was always on the corner of Academy St. and Union St. until it became the Clydesdale.

Yes, Bankers are still on the go. Every year they launch an appeal so they can buy new, larger strips, a full set of zimmers and a couple of bags of fresh incontinence pads! :015: One other former bank is where Bar Pivo is now in Academy Street. That building is the original home of Inverness Royal Academy (hence Academy Street) which housed the school from when it was formed in 1792 until its move up to Midmills in 1895. It has been various things over the years since then, but became the Royal Bank, I think in the 60s or 70s before becoming Pivo. The Royal Bank, and before it took it over, the National Commercial Bank used to be on the corner of Fraser Street and Church Street. It's now Hootanannys. The British Linen Bank used to be on High Street. I forget exactly which building it was but it was round about where Bakoo is now. And of course most people will remember the Bank of Scotland's recent move out of High Street and its replacement by the Caledonian Bar.

Which then invites the possible scenario of the SPL title, Europan qualification or top six places possibly being decided on goal difference, which in turn could be determined by who puts how many past Gretna at varoius statges of their decline.

On a separate issue, can I risk ruffling feathers down Grant Street way by suggesting that one of the problems with Clach for years has been that the Merkinch community seem to have expected a football club to be provided for them for sentimental reasons and appear to see no reason to do anything active themselfes to sustain it? With any luck their embyonic Supporters' Trust will start to shift such a mindset.

I agree completely. As far as crowds are concerned, Gretna v Dundee United attracted 501 last Thursday although competition from the televised Rangers game was cited in mitigation. However two nights previously,l Ross County had a crowd of 1511 in the Second Division against competition from Barcelona v Celtic. On now to Scarlet's last post. My remarks are certainly not in hindsight - it has been my view right from the start that the Gretna tale would end in tears and for just the reasons that it has. Gretna FC, since Brooks Mileson took it over has, in effect, been a mirage. It never had any of the essentials on which other clubs which are bankrolled to a greater or lesser extent depend in addition to their funds from a benefactor. If the cash is there, which with Mileson it was for a time, it really is not very difficult to throw enough of it at a club to buy in players who are far better than the division you're in and move up the leagues. This is what happened with Gretna but it was inevitable that the bandwagon would be derailed sooner or later for at least three reasons. 1) Unlike most other clubs, Gretna's fundamental profile as a club is not much more than what we see in the Highland League. It is a cash inflated minnow. 2) Sooner or later the money was going to run out, either gradually or, as happened in this case, suddenly and catastrophically, leaving the Emperor exposed as having no clothes at all. 3) Eventually they were going to reach a level of competition which cannot be bankrolled in the way their passage through the lower leagues was. That was the SPL. I also very much agree with what Maimie has said about Brooks' apparent resentment of the "suits" who run football. That is possibly why he sat with the fans, wore jeans and an old shirt and craved a high profile for his unhealthy lifestyle whilst, by his way of things "bucking the system" by what he thought was beating them at their own game. It failed spectacularly, as it was always doomed to do. Caley Thistle cannot in any way be compared with Gretna. From Highland League origins, ICT developed steadily in Division 3 and financially just got away with the construction of a necessary stadium in 1996. After that, expansion was steady but even at that they very nearly over reached themselves in 99-00 and were saved by the formation of the ICT Trust. Since then it has been a case of steady and careful expansion in all respects such as crowd base, turnover, commercial income, facilities etc whilst exercising prudent increases with player wages. That is an important point, by the way. ICT have done an excellent job in balancing affordable wages with progress up the leagues. All of this has been helped by the involvement of some very good managers, directors and chairmen. Yes, there has been a major benefactor in the form of David Sutherland and Tullochs but their assistance has been in proportion to and in balance with the fundamental substance of the club and to whatever the level of activity has been at any time. Crucially with Gretna, that has not been the case. Here, megabucks were thrown at a structure which was totally inadequate to accommodate that and in particular to sustain what had been going on. It is the glaringly obvious lack of sustainability from the start of everything Gretna have done that seems to have evaded a lot of people. Mileson, as Scarlet says, did indeed try to make a name for himself with a big pile of money but what he did was obviously unsustainable, was clearly going to end in tears and has done no good at all for football in Scotland.

I've had quite strong views from the start about Gretna which I've largely kept to myself until now. I well remember the 93-94 election for the SFL in which CT and Ross County were successful by a long way. Gretna polled a miserable 2 votes which must be at least a strong pointer towards their lack of substance as a club pre Mileson. Brooks Mileson poured money into what was in effect a football entity of no substance, with little support, in a tiny community and with no fundamental infrastructure. He cannot be compared with eg Eddie Thomson, David Murray etc becaue they have bankrolled clubs which have fundamental viability and are substantial entities etc - all of which Gretna has never been. It was also clear that Gretna was the plaything of a highly unorthodox man - a maverick with a personal mission, possibly a personal agenda having been knocked back previously by Carlisle? I believe. Brooks Mileson said it all as far as I was concerned when an interviewer put it to him that they would need a major stadium in Gretna. He said he would quite simply build one and when challenged about how full it would be he said he didn't care in the least. The SPL wanted a stadium so they would get one. (Which of course they didn't anyway.) He made it quite clear that he was going to keep pouring money in until they reached the SPL with no heed at all to prudence. It's a bit difficult to criticise someone who is very ill, but you have to take a very critical look at the apparently attention seeking mindset of someone who transforms his dreadful lifestyle into a public virtue and writes columns for the Sun, boasting about how he smokes 100 cigarettes a day and lives on Lucozade. Gretna came to a Faustian arrangement with Brooks but it seems they got nothing like 24 extra years of life. Now it seems they are going to the Devil. It was painfully obvious from the very start that a club like Gretna, lacking all the fundamentals that it did, would only have a limited lifespan which would terminate rapidly at the first significant difficulty on the part of a benefactor who simply bought their way for them up the leagues. I could never understand why there was so much awe at Gretna's "rise". With the kind of money that was thrown at them, it would have been stange if this had not happened. This was clearly a house of cards right from the start and it has now suffered what was always its inevitable fate. I just don't understand how so many people were conned for so long.

I was on a different floor of the book depository with a different rifle. My friend from the Cuba section of the CIA was on the grassy knoll. The next day I grabbed the gun from Jack Ruby and shot Lee Harvey Oswald. :015: Seriously, though, I was swimming in a Life Boys gala at the old baths. I finished my race and walked round to my mother who told me "President Kennedy has been shot and killed." I heard that Bobby Kennedy had been assasinated when I was drinking a 1/3 pint bottle of free school milk in the quad at Inverness Royal Academy at interval. I learned that Teddy Kennedy had driven his car off the bridge at Chappaquidick with Mary Jo Kopechne on board whilst watching TV in my parents' house in Dores Avenue......

The whole thing is nonsense although I would tend to support some kind of obligation from non Brits who want to come and benefit from living here to make a genuine commitment to the country. Anyone remember Norman Tebbitt's "cricket test" where the criterion of Britishness was which country UK residents supported when England were playing Pakistan, India etc at cricket? Norman clearly forgot that north of the border there are 5 million people who p!ss themselves laughing every time England lose! But it's the part about the oath to the Queen that I find hilarious. Why should any youngster want to swear an oath of loyalty to this wee wifie with a bull-in-the-gub accent who has got her very well paid job because her ancestors were simply more unscrupulous thugs than their contemporaries? I also find supremely ironic the notion of Brits of many generations' standing swearing an oath of Britishness to this woman who is a mongrel mix of just about every nationality on the planet! And on the subject of swearing oaths of personal allegiance to a wee German wifie... think of what happened 70 years ago when a whole nation got itself involved in swearing such an oath to a wee German mannie....

"Donnerwetter"... "Gott in Himmel".... "Achtung, Spitfeuer!" I'd forgotten about these additional gems of Germanic idiom.

I prefer not to discuss issues on this board on which I am currently reporting but I do realise that this is a matter of concern to Caley Thistle fans. I have spoken to Graeme Bennett on this one so, if you are in the Highlands and Islands area, tune into BBC Scotland's Highland bulletins on 92-95FM at 0750 or if elsewhere, catch it on the internet afterwards. Tomorrow's BBC sport bulletin also includes a ray of hope for Clach and I've been running a mile at the Caledonian Stadium with Chappers and Dave, Dougie Imrie and Ian Black.

Not if you insist on attending functions like the Clach dinner last night! :003: (Just as well the Clach game was postponed today so you at least had to miss out on the Grant Street pre match lunch and legendary half time tea, eh?!) :015:

As a recipient and user of Ian's stats since 1994, I have to say that they are absolutely superb and he is excellent at keeping the media informed of landmarks etc. He even identified when the 2 millionth league spectator arrived. He is also doing a similarly sterling job with Clach now.

I hear that there have been discussions about a Lanarkshire merger. They're going to call the team Buckie Thistle. :015:

Can anyone remember how many of Jags' 3 goals without reply from Caley in the 1988 Qualifying Cup Final replay at Telford Street were scored into the Howden End? :015:

Was it not 20 years ago that, post Bradford, wooden stands of over 500 had to be looked at very critically indeed? I remember that about 1988, Jock McDonald had the ideal solution to that difficulty at Kingsmills... they had the back of the stand boarded up to reduce its capacity to below 500!

... that one's from the front page of the Star and is probably the pick of today's headlines. I just can't get over the fuss about the ginger Royal being away with the troops against the Taliban! Predictably there were NINE pages in the Sun today about him out with OUR BOYS but everyone else seems to be going crazy about it as well.... to the extent that he'as now coming home in case he gets shot. I think Customs had better fleece him at the airport... no, not for a pocketful of poppies but just in case he's tried to smuggle back that machine gun that he was blasting away at the Taliban with. I notice that he couldn't use it properly and had to get somebody to help him but he could still be a bit of a liability if he takes it along next time he goes on a bender. Ironic, though, isn't it. A bunch of Islaamic extremists head to head with Britain's most notorious p!sshead (a title he inherited on the demise of his Great Auntie Margaret).

Alex... you are far, far too late. I booked that seat months ago! :021:

Probably bwecause when Messrs Preece and Findlay were teaching at the IRA, the catastrophe had not yet happened. :015:

No replies then. So what's scaring them off? The ghosts... or spending the night with Feb 8th? :015:

I agree with Govan Jaggie. The weakness of the Borders case was cruelly exposed in 1993-94 and I don't think things have got any better. To what extent would the restoration of Clydebank be no more than a Weegiecentric romantic gesture? Have they not already used that one up with Airdrie Utd? Spartans seem to be a good going club. As far as the Highland League is concerned, there's a lot of money sloshing about at its eastern end (just take a look at the table these days). Inverurie came in to replace was it Peterhead or Elgin (?) and have done very well quite quickly. They're a well run and well resourced club - I remember when Wick got in in 1994, Inverurie put up a strong fight and were very disappointed not to make it at that point. However I have to take SMEE's point that the HL have done pretty well so far (and deservedly so.)

http://www.ambaile.org.uk/en/item/item_pho...sp?item_id=5662 even made it into the New York Times http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/...amp;oref=slogin If you look closely at a blow up of the photo, you'll just spot Jock Watt, Scarlet Pimple, CMIB and Mantis. :015:

Probably well looked after by IHE then! :015:

I'm afraid it's not... quite. The cabinet meeting held in Inverness was in 1921 to discuss the Irish Question which was coming to a head at that time. The meeting was in September, during the Parliametary recess (these MPs get longer holidays than teachers :015:), which meant that a lot of the MPs were huntin' shootin' and fishin' in the Highlands. As a result the meeting was held in the Council Chamber within Inverness Town Hall.