Charles Bannerman

Is this not getting a little bit out of hand? There was a series of incidents at Caley Thistle's final home game which resulted in a number of fans being ejected from the ground for standing. This raised a range of issues including, as far as I can see, bringing to a head a longish running dissatisfaction among some fans with the stewarding at the Caledonian Stadium. The Supporters' Trust very quickly (ie by half time on the day of the game) took the matter on board and is continuing in dialogue with the club on these issues. This is part of what the Trust exists for. All of this also seems to have set in motion two internet campaigns... one against the Chief Executive (on which I don't intend to comment other than to say that it appears to have at least some of the features of mass hysteria) and the other in favour of fans having the facility to stand at SPL games. The latter is a perfectly legitimate point of view, but surely standing at games is hardly a core issue for supporters whose club has miraculously come up through the leagues and is now on the verge of the top half of the SPL? I would therefore agree with Kingsmills and suggest that it's a pretty daft idea to take to law what I would suggest is a pretty peripheral issue in the grander scheme of things. Indeed has Caley Thistle over the years not seen enough of the inside of the law courts? By all means lobby other clubs and their fans. If there is widespread agreement with this view of a significant group of ICT fans then this will be reflected in a vote by the SPL to relax their rules for smaller stadia. If not, then the Inverness "standing" lobby will reluctantly have to accept that they are in a minority.

The Ardross Street Filling Station.

I think the "tartan legs" were some kind of "anti status symbol" among women in these coal fire, pre central heating days. If you had them, you were deemed by your peers to be spending too long sitting in front of the fire and not long enough with your feet underneath the sink.

Rosscoe.... perhaps you might like to take this chance to read once again what Dennis actually said.... "We're slightly different players in that I like to come short and receive the ball, while Craig tends to play on the shoulder of the last defender," he said. "He is probably more of a goalscorer than me, but hopefully I can get myself back among the goals next season whether Craig is still here or not. "In terms of goalscoring, my second spell hasn't hit the heights compared to the first time I was here, but what you have to remember is that the club were playing in the First Division when I left," he said. "It goes without saying that I would like to score goals, but to do that in the SPL is very difficult because the standard is much higher than it is in the First Division. "However, my main aim at the moment is just to get a good pre-season under my belt and try to get back in the first-team. "Last season wasn't really a good one for me. I got injured only five games in and by the time I came back from the first injury, Graham Bayne and Craig Dargo had struck up a really good partnership. "Then when I did get back in I got injured again, so even though I was delighted to get a run out against St Mirren, it was not the best season I've ever had."

Did the tinky wifie not have "tartan" legs from sitting at the fire for too long and smell something awful? I'm sure I saw her in Safeways cafe many years later and the pong was just as bad. Put me right off my breakfast.

There's also the true story of this guy (and I genuinely don't know who it was) who had been at a teachers' end of term do which finished up in soembody's house in Lochardil. When it was time to go, he weaved off on his merry way but then discovered he'd left his own house keys at the party. He headed back through the fairly homogeneous housing stock of Lochardil, headed up the garden path and rang the bell. No answer. Rang it again. No answer. And again. Just as he was realising that the house seemed to be in complete darkness, the door opened, the guy realised that he was face to face with a complete stranger because he was at the wrong house... and promptly spewed up on the doorstep. Then there was the time that some other chap was having a party in his house so his wife, fearful of a dreadful spewey mess, put bleach down the toilet and the drain in the bathroom sink. She had anticipated correctly and Hughie, Bert and Ralph were indeed duly summoned from the depths of the plumbing system. But what she HADN'T realised was that vomit is acidic and reacts with bleach to produce clouds of chlorine gas! So don't pee in a bleached bog until you've flushed it first or it will be just like on the Somme.

Mantis showing his age once again, given that the term "ethyl alcohol" was largely replaced by "ethanol" around the 1960s. (The other stuff to which Mantis indirectly alludes is now called "methanol" but in his day was probably "wood spirit".)

Mrs P.... I'm sure you'll agree that "that other member of the panel" (L_G for the benefit of those who weren't there) created the best moment of the evening, right at the end. Again for the benefit of those who weren't there, I'll recount the tale since it's well worth telling. Laura somehow got wind of the fact that Bobby, while manager of Ross County and still in the Highland League, had decided to put Barry on the bench for one particular Qualifying Cup final against Pele's Huntly (it was actually the 93/94 final in County's last Highland League season) and asked Bobby if he would give us a first hand account, which Bobby did wonderfully. Barry was still living at home so Bobby went into his bedroom on the morning of the final to break the news. This is the dialogoue which Bobby recounted. "Barry, I've got good and bad news for you... the good news is that we're in the final, the bad news is that you're on the bench." "The bench! What do you mean I'm only on the bench?" "Well son, Huntly have a couple of very big defenders there and I do feel that the best place for you is on the bench today." "MUUUUMMMMM!!!!!!......" As it happened, County picked up a couple of early injuries and Barry found himself on before half time and county went on to beat Huntly 2-1. Jessie's reaction is not recorded! PS - thoroughly enjoyed the evening.

IHE... I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt that this is not one of your wind ups. If this is genuine, what IHE quotes strikes me as a potentially very risky strategy. I can't see how players at any level will thrive on what appears, in the case of the lower group, to be a limited fitness regime. Coming from another sport which is highly conditioning and fitness dependent, I would have to say that football has benefited hugely by waking up to this notion over the last decade or so. And I think no team has gained more than ICT from increased attention to fitness. I am VERY reluctant even to be mildly critical of Pele who to me is right at the top of the Caley Thistle legends' tree. But I do feel he undercooked things a bit in terms of fitness. Robbo began to change that and Brewster's greatest legacy was to revolutionise it. What I saw in Italy last summer and generally chatting to management and players tells me that Charlie has kept this notion very much on board. At the Academy, I would be quite concerned if up and coming players, even of the second tier, were being under exposed to fitness training.... especially given the dreadful fitness levels prevalent among youngsters these days.

Mike Edwards' column in yesterday's Courier is well worth a look. Towards the end of it he reflects on how difficult he still finds it going down Telford Street in its recent much changed state and reflects on days gone by in the Howden End. But unfortunately his memory seems to fail him in the very last sentence when he refers to the smell of the "uisge beatha" fumes from the distillery. Come on Mike.... we all know the Distillery smelled but in the Howden End the source of the "uisge beatha" fumes was a lot closer than that!

Chris... I now see what you were saying! In print it looked like a rhetorical question but even though it wasn't I think it was just as well you asked it since it was worth answering with that issue having been visited so often. Which brings me to Roscoe23's last post. Roscoe, it's one thing managers answering press questions but they must really get fed up answering the same question week in week out, often several times, especially when it's clear there's been no progress. Beacuse no one wants to miss the story, we keep asking the same question day in day out. Add to that the fact that CC is very accommodating at his press conferences where he often has to answer the same question four or five times a week, week in week out, in the one to one interviews he very willingly gives. I for one certainly feel a bit guilty about keeping asking the same **** silly question when there's a 99% chance of the answer being "no progress yet"!

Chris123... in defence of Charlie Christie I would have to say that I am not aware of him ever saying that he needs an answer from Dargo within a week. It may be that some reports have implied that, but the line I have consistenly heard him take is that they respect the player's decision not to make any announcement about his future until the end of the season. At worst I believe he said on one occasion that there may have been a chance of an answer last week but I am certainly not aware of the manager indicating that he was putting pressure on. The last thing I heard CC say on the matter (I think last Saturday) was that he (CC) would now be away for a few days and he expected to get a final verdict on his return. CC must be fed up to the back teeth of journalists (including me but not as often as many others!) repeatedly asking him about Craig Dargo and it's a story which keeps recycling itself.

That would be the old gadgies in brown coats like Mr. Arkwright?

ICT... how familiar are you with the specialist evidence and Bruce Hare's 1993/4 report on 13 possible locations which led to the choice of stadium site? How familiar are you with the land costs, likely resident reaction and planning implications of siting a stadium in the area of Inverness to which you refer?

Thank you buckett. I'd forgotten the details of that one. I'm wondering if the version I saw involved the "guard" throwing a ball up in the air and catching it again at the end of the turn... to take their eyes off the encroaching challengers a bit more. "War" to us baby boomers was, of course, an inevitable extrapolation of what our fathers had done to the Germans or the Japs depending on which theatre they'd been in. The best War games I ever had were at the "back of Kavvies" (Kavvies later becoming as noted Caley Rebel) in the waste ground behind St. Valery Ave in among the whin bushes. Sometimes it was the Japs, sometimes it was the Huns but, like John Wayne (except when he was at The Alamo) the good guys always won. I was never very good at impersonating a machine gun - which, unlike most Brtish infantrymen, we all seemed to carry, none of your crappy 303s - but ur,ur,ur,ur,ur,ur seemed just about to do it. Remember in Commando comics when Germans used to die with an "Aargh" but with Japs it was "Aieee".

FW just got excited at the thought of F8 putting the holes in the donuts!

Yup.. thought that one would provoke a few questions. I can't quite remember the details but I think it involved someone going out to the front and facing the rest of the group and turning through 360 degrees whilst incanting "123 Victoria". I think a ball may have been thrown or people had to move out of place quickly and unseen but I'm a bit hazy on the details. That's possibly because it may have been a "girlie" game and, honest, I wasn't too much into them (the games I mean).

Skeechie... 123 Victoria.... British Bulldogs.... Kerbie.... Hide and Seek.... One Potato, Two Potato.... Paper, Scissors, Stone.... Tig (sometimes known as It)...

Thought a pair of shoes would be better, given the ones you walked back to your hotel in on Friday night! (On the other hand your apparent reluctance to sit down perhaps also indicates why you need a cushion.)

Or alternatively, Beachcomber, an Invernessian is some who, on a nice summer day, takes "the burn to Nurn!"

Got you Alternative ... I remember it now! Not the most refined place in Inverness. Godness me, for a mere youngster you have a rare memory!

According to Ian Broadfoot's impeccable statistics, that was Richard's third goal for Caley Thistle, the other two having come in something of a scoring spree in October and November 1995. So that was the first time he'd scored since he was a teenager... not bad for a man who turns 30 and reaches his 300th appearance this weekend.

I remember when we lived at No 70 Kenneth Street, sitting on the edge of the pavement (what mother would allow her 3 year old to do that these days?!) watching the orange horsedrawn Stratton wagon go up the street. I can still almost smell the horse! In these days horse poo on the street was fairly common. Do you remember the horse trough at the junction of Wells St., Kenneth St and Telford St?

Latviaman... if you don't mind, I'll correct your "demensure" to "dementia"! The Market (aka Post Offce) Steps now have a lot of commercial outlets such as a record shop, a florist and indeed a new hairdresser. At the bottom of the Market Steps, facing upwards, the premises on the left which used to be the Globe shoe shop is now HBOS. On the right on the old Post Office site is the RBS. I believe there's been a dentist on Castle Street for a number of years and it's been through a fair number of hands. The door is just to the right of what used to be, I think, Thomson Brown Brothers, then the West End Furniture Store and now Reilly's Snooker Club.

Alternative... for someone who "followed" me into the teaching profession, you seem to have a better memory than I do, even though I may have been around a little longer. I recollect a Mayfair Cafe but I just can't remember where it was. Can you remind me? I'm indeed not old enough to remember Inverness in the incarnation you show but it's quite fascinating to see these maps. However the Ageist Comment of the Week has to come from another thread where one IHE is referred to as "the old man who got all the applause when he was escorted from the ground." Wonderful!