Charles Bannerman

Ah! Penny Dainties! Back in the 60s they weren't all that dainty either - they were huge. The standard drill on a Saturday afternoon was to make the short trip from Dalneigh to Telford Street Park, climb over the gate to avoid paying the 9d entry money and then scour the ground for empty MacKintosh's lemonade bottles (Queens Cup and so on) which you could cash in at the Caley Park Shop for 3d each. This netted enough money for a bag of crisps with the blue salt paper inside and a few penny dainties, with enough left over to fund a visit to the back stalls (1s) at the La Scala the following Saturday when Caley were away. The standard drill with the dainties, which were effectively Cow Toffee, was to pack one into your mouth, embed your teeth in it and it would last you half the game. The problem was if Caley scored and you tried to shout or cheer - rather painful. Dainties, of course, could be purchased from the Penny Box at locations such as the Laurel Avenue Post Office, Christison's shop and Jocky Lawson's van. (I always felt sorry for poor Jocky, married to that bellicose old battleaxe!) Some shops also had ha'penny and twopenny boxes - I'm sure the PO did. On the subject of old pennies... remember penny bangers at Guy Fawkes time? They were pretty lethal and you also used to get twopeneny ones which were virtually nuclear! Which reminds me of the tale... Jim: "I've just stuffed a penny banger up a dog's @r$e and lit the fuse." John: "Rectum." Jim: "Wrecked him!? Bloody near killed him!"

If it's anything to do with Peter Home and the Drill Cup, it's got to be the Boys from the Ferry aka the Fourth Company. I was actually just thinking the other day about the utter pointlessness of stamping around a hall in response to a mannie bawling orders at you. I really quite enjoyed my time in the BBs and my dad was actually Captain of the 1st Coy for many years but in hindsight it was a bit strange dressing up in 19th century army gear and performing evolutions designed to get battalions of guys with muskets into line. I think the BBs to some extent thought they were still defending the Empire. The Scouts, of course, they thought they were still ruling it!

Does anybody remember "Singing Together" on the radio in Primary school? UIn these days we used to sit in the class, singing away at songs which would get you arrested these days. "De Camptown Races" was one of the tamer ones!

Yup Mantis. Simply a case someone who is known to me attempting to score cheap points but apparently lacking the moral courage to do it under his own name. I don't intend to rise to the bait. Inevitably the Highland Icon will be decided by the dreaded Sunreaders and Bigbrotherwathchers who amazingly manage to find the right numbers on their phonepads to dumb down the national respectability wherever we go these days.

IHE is thinking of the 1988 Qualifying Cup replay at Telford Street.

Kieran... I'm certainly not seeing "all these 'Thistle' fans fighting their corner on here". Kingsmills, for instance, even with his strong Jags past, is taking a commendably balanced view on this issue. In fact to summarise the responses here, the overwhelming majority are saying "God, not again!.... let it drop", there's the odd pitch for "Caley" and then there's the singularly unique and enigmatic response of IHE!

Buckett.. I wouldn't dream of stopping anyone from posting any legitimate point of view about Caley Thistle, which yours is. All I'm doing is expressing the equally legitimate point of view that this is a worn out topic which peaked in 1994 and that further pursuit of it is counter productive. Caley Thistle is a title which emerged from months of detailed negotiations on a very unequal marger. Kingsmills... I'd just point out that the discovery in October 1993 that Thistle owned their park essentially pre dated the wrangle over where the balance of the merger lay so the value of the park was factored into that debate. At a later stage it was suggested that Caley were contributing 70% of the assets, 80% of the membership (albeit after a little creative recruitment!) and 90% of the fundraising power, which illistrates the inequalitry very well - even after Jags discovered they owned their ground. Come to think of it, if they'd discovered that earlier, they could have told the Church of Scotland to bog off and gone and held games there on Sundays. And what was Jags' reward for abstaining from Sabbath play? Their stand catches fire on a Sunday!

Please God not again! Why does this keep coming up? We KNOW it was an unequal merger. We KNOW that in certain respects such as this one it becomes more unequal than it really was. We KNOW that "Caley" is more chantable than a lot of other things, including Thistle and that just about the only chant the two clubs could raise between them was the highly imaginative "Caley...clap, clap, clap" (NOT). We KNOW that the media are reasonably good at using "Caley Thistle" (*) and indeed a lot better than certain fans. We also KNOW that the merger is now over a dozen years back down the line so there's no point in keeping raising this. Buckett... it seems that "this old Thistle thing has cropped up again" because you have revived it through this tired, clapped out thread. (*) I can confidently say that in over 12 years of reporting on (I)CT I have NEVER used the term "Caley" on its own, with one exception and that was to conform with a famous precedent. Following a certain Highland derby at the Caledonian Stadium I did feel moved to wind up my report with "Super County go Ballistic, Caley are Atrocious. Caley Thistle 1 Ross County 5"!

So what's the score here? Most people will be there to be pampered, except for Footballer's Wife who will be there to be tampered with?

This really depends on how you define "worst". Obviously no one is even going to consider yesterday as a "worst performance" in a cup tie?! I don't even have to make a case for that not being true. On the other hand I'm sure a number of Caley Thistle fans will regard yesterday afternoon as the worst they've felt after their team losing a cup tie, or indeed any game. Barry Wilson certainly said it was "right up there" with going out to Partick on penalties last season. Probably the worst actual performance I've ever seen in a Cup tie was the 1-0 defeat by Queens Park in the CIS, followed closely by Caley Thistle's first ever Scottish Cup tie, a 2-1 defeat by QoS at Telford St in 1994. It was at that point that two senior players first revealed to me that there was unhappiness in the dressing room with the then manager, and this was the beginning of the end for Sergei. One of these players is now doing that job himself and a great deal better! In terms of disappointment, the replay at Pittodrie and the Challenge final v Alloa must indeed be up there, and also losing out to Partick in the quarter finals in 2002. There was also the 3-2 extra time defeat by Dundee United in 1998. But just in case there's any ambiguity about RiG's original intention, what happened yesterday was that Caley Thistle for the third time this season gave a team with a heavy sprinkling of million pound a year players (NB - that's roughly ICT's total player budget!) a real close run for their money in Inverness, holding on to a 1-0 lead for 70 minutes until Celtic again did what they're renowned for - winning it at the absolute death. That, however, won't make it any easier to take for a lot of Caley Thistle fans.

Who's to blame? I blame Graeme Bennett and David Sutherland for appointing Charlie Christie when they could and obviously should have appointed Crownjaggie.

My first car was a silver Simca! Another car anecdote.... when Sergei Baltacha signed for Falkirk, he asked Alex Totten for a car. Alex cringed at the thought of what this would do for his Chairman's balance sheet.... until it turned out that what Sergei wanted was a LADA!

IHE.... get a grip.... how much of 1979 or indeed the 70s as a decade do you really remember!?

Remember it well. That was the second cold winter in a row and people were claiming that a new ice age was on the way. Jags lost in the end!

Hey... you're right! I wonder why that is?

OK DJS! I suppose in comparison, Caley Thistle are just a fairly new club in a partly quite new, partly very new stadium in the fifth biggest city in Scotland!

DJS... I take it that this statement refers to Caley Thistle!?

Buckett... there's a Tardis on Buchanan Street in Glasgow which is trading as a sandwich shop. I passed it last week and stopped to ask the wifie behind the "counter" if she was a Time Lord!?

OK BNP.. but I really WAS at the last Rebel Reunion in the Tarry Ile. It was great! Beer at 1993 prices and the Guest Speaker was Jimmy Falconer on the subject: "SPL football at Fiona Larg's petrol station down the dump." The ceremonial re enactment of the Deposing of the Chairman was also a nostalgic moment. Alan Savage was riotually ... sorry, typo, I meant "ritually" .. on second thoughts let's just stick with riotually... voted out and replaced by Deryck Beaumont. Then, just before going home time, someone threw a symbolic firework to mark the start of a minute's silence for the passing of Finlays, which was brought to a close by setting off the fire alarm.

No need to indulge in revised histories of the merger since I wrote the original one. I suppose BNP must be one of these people who attend Rebel Reunions in the Tarry Ile, drooling beneath a huge, heroic portrait of Deryck Beaumont reading a copy of "Life Support", reminiscing about what an original thinking and progressive bunch they were and how they were cheated out of their masterstroke of preventing two ailing and moribund Highland League clubs from joining toghether and reaching the SPL, despite the fact that none of these clubs' fans wanted this to happen and as a result they all stayed away, leaving the Caledonian Stadium as the sole preserve of the central belt.....

Saw one in the Glasgow Transport Museum last weekend! I didn't realise until quite recently that they were blue since I only ever saw them before on black and white TV. Messerscmitt bubble cars with no reverse gear and a single door at the front. (Think about it....!)

Things I don't see any more... in the case of most contributors to the Memories! forum, I suspect that's most things because most of us are heading towards senile blindness. Bikes with dynamos, canvas awnings in front of shops, BB boys with pillbox hats, the Courier without photos and no news on the front page (well... on second thoughts...!), the Belt in schools, free milk in 1/3 pint bottles.....

I would place the total number of people, Thistle and Caley fans, who initially refused to go to watch Caley Thistle at a maximum of 200... a number which has steadily reduced since the mid 90s. Even at that top of the range estimate, it's a drop in the ocean and indeed I note that I've managed to be drawn into a discussion of what is really a non issue.

Beachcomber... just to clarify what I meant.... I have always been convinced that the loss of merger "refuseniks" was very small in relation to the size of crowds which there have been since entering the SFL/SPL. However I am now beginning to wonder if the conflict mainly with Old Firm sympathies since promotion to the SPL has more recently caused a bigger loss of support than the (perhaps) couple of hundred or so in the mid 90s.

I do sometimes wonder how much support Caley Thistle lost when they moved up to the SPL and a number of "fans" were then forced to decide between ICT and another club, mainly one of the Old Firm. For many it was easy enough to have ICT, and before that Thistle or Caley, as their "wee" team and Celtic or Rangers as their "big" team. Then the wee club became a big club and I fear that many did the brainless thing, took the simplistic, glory hunting approach and plumped for one of the Old Firm. I actually find that quite sad. You live and/or come from a particular place and you abandon the team from that place in favour of a club 170 miles away which to a large extent owes its status to the existence of religious intolerance in West Central Scotland. Indeed I have a feeling that the haemorrhage of support for ICT for this reason has been significantly larger than what I remain convinced was only a modest loss due to disapproval of the merger. On which subject, two further observations. I cannot agree with Clacher's assertion that Thistle and Caley "died". They simply merged to create the much more substantial entity which is there today. Also, albeit briefly because I don't really want to open old wounds, the merger was referred to somewhere above as a "takeover". I can't really agree with that. It was accurately stated late in 1993 that Caley were contributing 70% of the assets, 80% of the membership (admittedly after a large and synthetic recruiting drive by both sides of the merger controversy) and 90% of the fundraising capacity. It never was an equal merger and I have always contended that the balance which came out of it was pretty fair.