Charles Bannerman

The (Scottish?) Sun is pretty bad. On today's Page 3, Keeley says: "Atlantic hero Michael Perham has put the pride back into British sport. While our cricket, rugby and football teams all flounder, it's taken a 14 year old......" Well, apart frrom Keeley failing to mention Andy Murray, I think OUR rugby team (which beat the "world champions" in the Calcutta Cup) and OUR football team (which beat the world runners up) seem to be doing all right at the moment. And given what we're seeing in Australia, I think anybody's cricket team would beat theirs. Indeed I'm convinced that this Sailor Laddie is only getting the prominence he's getting as a media distractor from the possibly imminent first Ashes whitewash since 1921. He should be in school doing his Prelims! And yes, I DID only look at Page 3 to sample the profundity of Keeley's contemporary observations. PS - I actually have a journalistic ambition to be engaged by The Sun as staff writer of the "Dear Deirdre" letters. I'm probably a bit old to be employed as one of these people in "Deirdre's Photo Casebook" who seem to spend their entire lives hanging about in bedrooms in their underwear!

One or two things here. Firstly, during the afternoon I exchanged a bit of good natured banter with the reporter concerned (Colin Blane) and he sent me a copy of his tastefully amended script for later bulletins. This now reads: "Rangers have fallen well behind Celtic in the league where thery've already lost home and away to Inverness Caledonian Thistle." Also, "slander" and "libel" do not exist in Scots law. There is the general term "defamation". And yes, it is the case that a statement is only defamatory if it is not true. If someone can prove "veritas" - ie that it's true - they can't be done for defamation. This is what the News of the World failed to prove in the Tommy Sheridan case.

Interesting you should raise that one. There were pieces in Saturday's programme about both Billy and Davie and the Billy piece said that he was summoned to the Kingsmills Hotel after scoring two v Rangers in a friendly in I think 1978 and signed on the spot.

Caley100 - piecing my recollections together, and thanks to your assistance, Caley (sic) beat Alex Smith's Stirling in 84 to go to on to meet Rangers at Telford Street. Then in 86 it was Berwick with an Urquhart second replay header leading to a tie against Hearts at Tynecastle. Both runs ended in 6-0 defeats. And in 87, the year Rangers were famously beaten by Hamilton, a 3-0 defeat for Caley by eventual cupwinners St. Mirren. Come to think of it, what a period of Scottish Cup ties for a Highland League side! 1984 - Rangers, 1986 - Hearts, 1987 - St. Mirren, 1990 - defeat of Airdrie, 1992 - draw with St. Johnstone. Was there not a tie against Hibs in there somewhere as well around 1989? And of course we also have to throw in the epic Thistle 3-0 defeat of Kilmarnock in 1985 and progress to Celtic Park. The "new " Caley Thistle going out 2-1 to QoS in the first round in 1994 came as a real anticlimax after that lot! And an interesting blast from the past. Making the draw last month for this Saturday's 2007 third round were Alex Smith who won the cup with St. Mirren 20 years previously and Adrian Sprott who scored the goal which put Rangers out at the same stage the same season. Were Stirling not also the team which beat Selkirk 20-0... in about 1985?

DJS - if it's Caley (sic) you're talking about, why not go back a few more years to circa 1984 when Caley put Albion out of the Cup?! As it happens, when I went through to introduce myself to the then Albion manager Alex Smith, after he joined County, it was one of the first things we talked about. On an historical note, my memory sometimes lets me down on this one. Was it the Stirling or the Berwick game in the mid 80s which went to a second replay at Methil where Urquhart clinched it with a classic header?

Next to no pace? During the pre season training expedition to Italy I watched the whole squad doing their 60 metre sprints on the track near Montecatini and the player who had the edge was Alan Morgan!

een.... must have been Elizabeth MacIntyre that was in your class. Sheila was my age but I didn't know the Rev Hamish had been a POW. Aye... football and commandoes at the Back of Kavvies. I wonder how often we "killed" each other! It's funny, a couple of years ago I had a long discussion with some old Caley folk in the Social Club but none of them could remember Paddy Kavanagh. They could remember Brian (who I believe was a Rebel) but i have a clear recollection of a Supporters' Club membership card on which the club committee was listed, including the miss spelled "P Cavani". I think it was also on that card that they printed some supporters' club songs, including the cringeworthy "Come Away The Caley" to the tune of Mairi's Wedding which included the legendary lines "Parkhead, Brockville and Dens Park, Found our football was no lark." Mind you, even that might be better than some of the silence we get down by these days!

If it was Australia it must have been Perth in 1962. The Games in the 50s were in New Zealand, Canada and Wales. I certainly remember Maurice Campbell from St Valery. He was nearly as good as Barry Wilson!

That would possibly be Dr. Andrew Hay. His son David was a year ahead of me at school. Very clever guy but with an unfortunately high voice.

Row S - I note with interest the time of your original post. At the time in question, I happened to be out running and had just reached Scaniport when the rain descended big time. I can therefore confirm it was very wet. It seems that the pitch takes about 5 hours to clear significant wetness and Laura... don't worry too much about the wind. that will actually help a huge amount to dry things up. Glad you're having nice weather on the North Coast. I suppose most of the time it's "'eriboll"!

And before Leisuropa it was MacPherson's Sporting Stores! The Carlton was a strange mix. I remember when I was small it was a cafe/ restaurant and my mum used to take me in there if she was after a cup of tea in the town. The place used to be full of tweedy wifies and the waitresses used to wear those old fashioned black uniforms with starched white aprons and hats. Then it became a bar some time in the 60s and it was a notorious under age drinking den. In fact I may well have had my first illicit pint in there.

I think it's an apocryphal tale. There seems to be this "spitting in the fat" myth which seems to hang around various chippers in Inverness - and very possibly other places too - as an implication of seediness. By Rosie's Cafe do you mean the Eastgate Chipper? Favourite lunch time stop off place wih IRA pupils and presumably Millburners as well. Doesn't say much for the counter attraction of school dinners!

Derry's Walls were apparently being defended in very large numbers from the South Stand within the first five minutes of the game.

prendergast... Celtic1Caley3 is being economical with the truth! The club is actually called Caley THISTLE. Despite having had slight Howden End sympathies when I was a lad, I'm a stickler for the Thistle bit. It has a lot to do with why ICT is here at all.

Scotty's average figure is correct and precise (to the nearest 0.3 of a fan). It so happens that SoS agrees with Scotty's official figures.

In inaugural season 94/95 the average was 1275. In 95/96 it was 1579. Both of these seasons were entirely at Telford Street. The first half of 96/97, which included the opening of the Stadium in November 96, yielded 2300. It was 2676 for the second half (with the winning of promotion, the Third Division title and the trophy presentation - don't say that just the OF attract glory hunters!), giving an average of over 2500 for that whole season. (Ref "Against All Odd" pp128 and 132.) Into Divisions 2 and 3 these averages dropped, partly due to the loss of the novelty factor, partly due to less frequent victories and also due to the disappearance of derbies for some years.

Thanks Stevie. Overnight I've checked out the same statistics from a different source and the only other points that I'd make are, as you've shown, there are only TWO non County crowds of above 3500, both of them for special occasions, and also that even these were a result of the combined effects of the title and the novelty of a new stadium. Interestingly there weren't even 3500 for either the clinching of promotion or the title in earlier recollection of the average for 96-97 is a bit low - it was nearer 2500, including the four crowds of above 3500. I also have a memory of a crowd of over 4900 at Telford Street in January 1996 for a postponed New Year derby. There was much of an SPL card on that night two but Inverness produced something like the third biggest crowd of the night.

No you didn't. Typical averages in 96-97 were, off the top of my head, around 1700-1800, boosted to there the 5000 or so for Highland Derbies and by rather bigger crowds for special one off occasions like the opening of the Caledonian Stadium and the presentation of the Division 3 trophy. There was a temporary upsurge when the stadium had just opened, such as something like 2400 for Montrose but I doubt if there were much more than perhaps three occasions, all one offs, outwith County games when the crowd was above 3500. I don't have a copy of my book at hand just now but I'll check and update or make another post tomorrow.

CH2... if you can remember the railway bridge falling down - you're getting old!

Maybe it's the ambiguous way in which I entitled the original thread (which I've changed) but it's usually rather OLDER memories than the current year that we have on this thread.... such as roller skating in the Islands... Frankie Jew's....the Suspension Bridge etc etc....

Look folks... it's December 15th already.... anyone want to start off this year's epic?

Burnetts pies? Would these be the ones Jimmy Chisholm allegedly played football with on the bakehouse floor before putting them back on the trays?

Believe you me... the amount of good that Colin Baillie has done in this community in sport but also in other spheres such as Boys' Brigade over the last 40 odd years is incalculable.

Moomkin... I would have provisionally to disagree with you on what's quite an interesting legal question regarding a number of Royal Academy assets. I'm quite sure the changing rooms at the playing fields are Royal Academy property although used exclusively by Millburn since 1979. This is because they are War Memorial changing rooms funded through various post 1st and 2nd World War subscriptions organised by the Royal Academy. What I'm not entirely sure of is whether the ground itself was actually IRA property or belonged to the Council when the IRA moved out. The War Memorial fund started after World War 1 when the IRA bought as a Girls Hostel the former Boys' College on the corner of Ardross St and Glenurquhart Road as well as the ground behind it which became the IRA playing field. During the 1930s the County Council took the place over to become County Buildings and the War Memorial girls' hostel shifted to Hedgefield on Culduthel Road while the playing field moved to Victoria Drive. Then when schools in Inverness stopped live-in pupils in the 80s, Hedgefield was miraculously taken over by the Teckie College and not a word about ownership of premises whose financial origins lie in a private fund at Inverness Royal Academy. Similarly in the early 60s, Millburn Junior Secondary got partial shared use of the IRA field, use which increased when Millburn lost its own grass area to extra buildings. When I retire I think, with the help of the Freedon of Information Act, I'll spend time researching the legal ownership of all these premises. Colin Baillie, despite the hardman image, is a diamond geezer with a heart of gold who has mellowed substantially with age. I'm afraid there's no chance now of a fresh souvenir picture. The place is blitzed!

In the case of ICT, the stoiy of how the shirt colours came about is perhaps even more interesting than the colours themselves!