Charles Bannerman

I've heard it said that it used to be the Corrie that the legendary Inveness Thistle "Half Time Harriers" used to patronise. This was a group of Jags fans who would sprint there from Kingsmills at half time for a quick pint but inevitably they would not arrive back until after a few minutes of the second 45. It's said that on one celebrated occasion, Jags were a goal down when they left but they returned to find that in their absence their team had had a nightmare and had rushed to a 5-0 deficit! In the old days the Heathmount was rather differently arranged with two bars on the left side of the building as you look at it. At the front, in the bay window, there was a small lounge bar which was for all the world like somebody's living room (I recollect under age brandy and babycham with a kick like a mule in there). Then behind it there was a public bar which was perhaps a little further down market then than now.

H4.... I'll stand corrected on that...I was VERY young in the early 60s!

Which reminds me of a conversation between two Rangers fan when a certain Dutch manager was appointed.... "I here's we're getting a **** Advocaat." "I thought we had one already!" Think about it!

Duncan Fraser (snr) of Fraser the butchers was well known in Inverness and played a very prominent part in the North of Scotland Amateur Athletic Association. The shop then passed on to his son William who was Provost of Inverness for a number of years in te 80s and 90s and whose Council career began in the 60s when he was Burgh Treasurer, or maybe even the late 50s. "Billy Butcher" played a significant part in the protracted and tortuous creation of the Caledonian Stadium. (Interestingly enough he was ousted as a Councillor in about 1995 by another local butcher, the now late Margaret MacLennan, who had a shop in the Market.) WAE Fraser cut the first sod for the foundations when construction started at the beginning of 1996. The shop is now run by his son, also Duncan.

I met Beenz MacBean at Jim Love the Courier editor's funeral and we had a good blether about the Flock, his mini van which used to be almost - I didn't go to secondary school until 1965. Size MacKay is, I believe, very successful in the legal profession in Edinburgh or at least I did hear that said at the time of the merger. I think his father was Eric MacKay who was big in the Boys' Brigade and also MD of Fraser and McCall the ironmongers in Eastgate (in the days that everything was wrapped up in brown paper by men in brown coats.... forkhandles!) The Club at the top of Raining's Stairs is long gone and is now a car park. It began life as Dr. Raining's School in the 18th or 19th century. I was never in it as a club (nor as a school for that matter!) but it did have something of a reputation as a den of iniquity.

Touch of Alzheimers here... was Wilsie actually a left footer Mantis?

That would possibly be Wilson Robertson, deadly down the right. Wilson has the distinction of having scored the last ever goal for Caley (at Huntly in May 1994) and the first competitive one for Caley Thistle (away to East Stirlingshire in August 1994). He also scored the goal at Kingsmills which effectively secured Caley's last ever Highland League title in April 1994. It was good to see him at the reunion of Caley Golden Oldies (Billy urquhart, Alan Hercher, Mikey Noble, kevin Mann etc...) in the ICT Ssocial club a few months aho.

Just like the Thistle stand about a year later, Daisy Ross might have been on fire that day (August 12th 1994) but I'm afraid he wasn't playing for Caley Thistle. He was one of Pele's earlier signings, so didn't arrtive until the autumn of 1995. The CT team against Arbroath was - MacRitchie, Brennan, MacAllister, Noble, Scott, Andrew Lisle (D. MacDonald), MacKenzie, Hercher, Bennett (Smart), Robertson. For the record, Hercher's hat trick in the first half was scored in a period of 19 minutes.

KM2... you're thinking of the Broad Stone which stood outside Kingsmills Park - hence Broadstone Park. The Boarstone was a Pictish creation with an engraving of a boar on it which stood on Essich Road, just past the Torbreck turn off. It has, as CMIB said, gone to HC HQ and sits just inside the main foyer of the Council Chamber.

Not so much pies... I was thinking more of feeding Delia with a few drams and at half time handing her a microphone and directing her to the pitch!

This isn't a subject on which I would normally even want to comment, but since my name has been mentioned in connection with it, I feel I have to respond to confirm that this has NOTHING to do with me. Thank you Scotty! In any case, just look at the piece. It's not backed up by any significant quote at all and is totally wrapped round the story the reporter has decided he wants to tell. He has clearly put some kind of question to Charlie who has obviously not wanted to appear rude about Peter Grant but who still makes it quite clear to me that he's not interested in this creation of a local newspaper journalist in Norwich who then has the gall to turn it round to make it sound as if this is something Charlie is keen to achieve and wants to initiate. Given that even a firm link through David Sutherland with Sheffield United is not being pursued player wise, it hardly seems likely that this would. This happens all the time in football. A journalist decides on the story he wants, he puts the idea to the relevant player or manager and then uses certain quotes - at best out of context and sometimes even corrupted - apparently to back up his non story. In this case, it's just another of those down sides a smaller club gets after a victory over Rangers. Players and managers really get fed up with this kind of invention, believe you me! On the other hand I wouldn't mind signing up Delia Smith for some half time entertainment!

GOTP... you really shouldn't complain too much about the music. Some of us remember when they used to play "Distant Drums" by Jim Reeves at Telford Street!

I can see no way at all in which Tullochs have made direct monetary gain out of their involvement with ICT. However, businesses are perfectly entitled to expect some kind of benefit from the financial support they give sports clubs. In Tullochs' case, they have put a huge amount into ICT and, quite reasonably, have received a huge amount of positive publicity and goodwill out of what they have done. In particular, their construction of the stands in 43 days shot them to the forefront on a national scale and they are perfectly entitled to that as a return for their efforts and investment. As Caley D points out, the stadium and its contents are owned by the Trust, but so are any liabilities related to that - presumably also including any debts accruing from the stands. It was probably a major omission on my part when I was evaluating David Sutherland's contribution not to have mentioned Ken MacKie. Ken was effectively David's appointee and as such he did a marvellous job as a "steady hand" on the financial tiller. Also, don't underestimate Ken's quiet but utterly determined diplomacy during that uncertain summer of 2004 as SPL status hung in the balance. Caley Thistle have been very lucky with their Chairmen so far. Jock McDonald greatly assisted SFL entry and persuaded the powers that be that the imopossible could in fact be delivered with the merger. Dougie McGilvray played a huge part in getting the equally necessary stadium there although the latter part of his tenure was overshadowed by the increasing debt. We have already discussed David Sutherland and now Caley Thistle moves on to the era of Alan Savage.

The Duke of Wellington would have loved Caley Thistle for it was he who, after the Battle of Waterloo, said "It was a damned close run thing". That might have been a suitable alternative title for either Ian Broadfoot's book or mine because it epitomises the manner in which Caley Thistle has progressed since 1993. I'm obviously not going to retell the merger saga, but the underlying theme of my book was the tiny margins... a whole string of them.... by which the various steps in the formation of ICT were able to take place. The whole enterprise could have fallen if even one of them had not come off. Progress to the SPL has been a similar story. It was only by a tiny margin that ICT survived the debt crisis of 1999-2001, it was only "against all odds" (sorry!) that the team won Division 1 in 2004 and I believe that this would have been at least as difficult to win in many other years. The Pittodrie deal only just squeaked through and was only marginally viable and similarly it was only by the tiniest of margins that the Division 1 title was converted into SPL football during that fraught summer of politics in 2004. Finally, getting out of Aberdeen and home to Inverness in January 2005 was also a "skin of the teeth" job. So there you are... add up the close run things and you have an amazing story.

I don't have a complete knowledge of what David, or more specifically Tulloch, has invested in ICT but, off the top of my head, I can provide a reasonable overview. As a result of this, and other efforts, ICT certainly isn't loaded but it is no longer in debt and currently holds its head above the water. There was the approx £500,000 investment which in 2002 gave Tulloch the chair of the club and control of the board for five years. Apart from finally seeing off the last vestiges of the £2M debt of 2000, this probably also facilitated what turned out to be the imminent transition of ICT from the SFL to the SPL. Tulloch also had a significant financial input to the capital cost of the North and South stands, along with a loan from Highland Council. I don't recollect the details and figures but the Tulloch input would have assisted to the tune of several hundreds of thousands of pounds. Tulloch as a company also physically put the stands there in an incredibly short timescale and in advance of a very tight deadline in January 2005. This brought SPL football to Inverness. I would also not be surprised if I were told that Tulloch are possibly picking up quite a few odds and ends of costs relating to administration and staffing. One other major contribution by David Sutherland, albeit not a direct financial one, was his role in the setting up of the ICT Trust, of which he is still a member. He played a major part in this initiative which (and I STILL haven't had a categorical answer out of him excactly HOW!) magically spirited away from club to trust, albeit at the expense of the club losing ownership of its principal asset the stadium, over £2M of debt, mainly to the Bank of Scotland. I do not believe that this could have happened without David's input and influence. So in summary, but without some of the financial details and numbers, David Sutherland in one way or another has played a major part in the transition of ICT from an almost bankrupt middle order Division 1 club to a successful and financially relatively stable entity which plays SPL football in Inverness and is currently in the top half of the table. HOWEVER there is a fundamental difference between what has happened at Gretna and Inverness. The two most definitely are not to be compared. In contrast with what I have said above about David Sutherland and ICT, Brooks Mileson has simply thrown money at a club which does not enjoy the infrastructure necessary to be viable at anything above a very rudimentary level of play. Gretna's wages are way above what ICT have ever paid (as I'm sure David Bingham discovered) and I do not believe that the situation there is anything like sustainable without the straightforward and ongoing bankrolling of Brooks Mileson. I'm not at all convinced that balancing the books is very much of an issue at all at Raydale Park. In summary, David Sutherland's overall input to Caley Thistle has had the effect of creating as financially stable and as viable an entity as it is reasonable to hope for in the current football climate. The emphasis has been on using his input to stabilise and give a viable future to the club. This is certainly not a straightforward bankrolling job. On the other hand Brooks Mileson appears to have created and continues to prop up a dreadfully precarious house of cards which has stretched up very high but could so easily come crashing down.

Sandy, I'm not going to become involved in a debate over this and will therefore have to restrict myself to the hope that your apparently insatiable need to vent your anger will have moved on to some other subject by next week.

I'm going to offer an alternative view in support of my colleagues in Aberdeen... which may not be altogether popular on this site! You have to remember that in broadcasting, news moves on very quickly indeed and North Tonight was on air all of 50 hours after the ICT match took place. There can be absolutely no doubt that ICT's result on Saturday was an exceptional achievement which was well documented over the weekend. So in terms of broadcast news, by Monday evening it had become decidedly dated. Things move on irrespective of how much ICT fans might want to savour the moment. By the time "Grampian" (STV) got to it after 6pm on the Monday, so many other people had done it and STV really needed to look for something else to lead their sport with. The fact that Dundee United had hit the bottom is of major interest to another very large slice of their audience and, although resulting from another Saturday match, is something which is ongoing for at least another week. This is not, as Sandy suggests, "a real non story"... not to the very large number of people interested in DUFC at any rate. There must have therefore been a strong editorial case to jump in that direction, especially with the one to one interview with Brewster on going bottom available. At least they showed the ICT goal. I sometimes feel that running SPL goal clips on Reporting Scotland is right on its last legs in terms of still being newsworthy. Newspapers tend to have a longer shelf life but if you look at the Highland News, published Wednesday teatime, you will not generally see football match reports. Appearing when it does, the HN is nowadays very much styling itself a "preview paper". It would be very easy to respond to all of this by pointing out that Scotsport shows extended highlights of the SPL on a Monday night, but that is a sports programme not a news one where things tend to move on rather more quickly. Now Sandy (HYPOTHETICALLY!) if Ross County did something wonderful on the Saturday such as, say, beat Gretna 6-0 while ICT went to the bottom of the SPL, would you be complaining if the County result had, by the Monday eveing, been ousted from the top of STV's sports bulletin by the ongoing relegation crisis in Inverness? Come to think of it, I suppose you might well.....

I well remember the Douglas Hotel but was it not called something else in between that and Dillies? Or was that between Dillies and the current Chinese restaurant?

Hi Alan. I think the last time we were in touch was when you solved the mystery of your uncle as a Captain in the Royal Artillery being lost in action with Bomber Command which I had highlighted in "Further Up Stephen's Brae." I hope all continues to be well with you.

I can exclusively reveal that Biggles and Algy are both residents in the Isobel Fraser Home of Rest.

I'm a bit old to have been a patron of Dillies. What was the place called before it became Dillies? Think I might have been in there once then but felt a bit aged even at that time.

What's going to be the loss in revenue as a result of one home game being switched from a Saturday to a Monday? Let's be quite pessimistic and say that the gate drops by a swingeing 3000. There would have to be quite a large underlying crowd like and Aberdeen game for that to happen. There are seven other opponents against whom there wouldn't be that kind of drop, but let's be pessimistic. At an average of £15 a head, that would be 45K in cash lost. What would the loss be from corporate hospitality etc? Am I being too pessimistic to suggest another 5K? Let's quite gloomily suggest that, from a big crowd the gross reduction would be 50K. Let's err once again on the safe side and assume that there would be no cost savings in stewarding etc as a result of a much smaller crowd. So the worst case appears to be a net decline in income of 50K for a game. So how many Caley Thistle home games well be switched from Saturdays to Mondays in return for an extra £300,000? As many as six which would be needed to cancel out the extra 300K? Of course not! It looks to me as if it would be very difficult for this enhanced Setanta deal to be less finacially disadvantageous. NB - I am only doing a ballpark calculation on finaces here.

Donald is away for ten days or thereby in, I believe, Estonia with the youth team. I was horrified at the extent to which rumours to the contrary gained currency over the weekend!

Johndo... this has been going on for so long that if you don't hurry up, that pint is actually going to COST 70 shillings! Hey... that's quite a thought isn't it? A pint already isn't that much less than 70 shillings (£3.50) in any case. Dearest I can find in Inverness is 62 shillings (£3.10) but I haven't been in the Marriott of late. A far cry from lager and lime in the Lochgorm for 2/4d (less than 12p)!

I certainly had no intention of raising this issue anywhere and merely phrased my earlier post as I did, perhaps with a touch of satire, to highlight the fundamental absurdity of this thread being started in the first place (unless it was IHE in ironic alter ego mode). However now that it has been, I think the upshot is to show that ICT fans, who are not the easiest to please!, are more than satisfied with their manager. MIDGE55... why not simply stop digging yourself in any deeper! (Even if you are IHE in disguise) Celtic1Caley3... to say that fans' confidence in Charlie is "miles in excess" of any confidence that I will become a great athlete is to **** poor Charlie with faint praise! Even if you meant the 5000 miles you ran in 2004, that would still vastly overrate any chance I have of athletic greatness. Enough of this now... and off to Dingwall..... IHE... can I take the manner in which you described me above as a professional clinical diagnosis?!