Charles Bannerman

You're right Smee, it was Thistle in 1974 and they lost by one vote to an Edinburgh works team called Ferranti Thistle... which became Meadowbank.... which became Livingston. I actually think that, although it was totally unjust, in the longer term that was to the good of Inverness football because I firmly believe that neither Caley nor Thistle would have made it so successfully on their own and the merger was well worth waiting for. In 1993/94 the concept of a solo Caley bid was chewed around at great length and for several reasons I believe that, EVEN IF THEY HAD GOT IN, they would not have been nearly as successful as the present set up. These reasons include:- 1) In the early days they would not have been all that much bigger than Thistle and Clach and without having effectively the whole town behind them, they would have found the early steps up very difficult indeed. 2) As one of three rival clubs in town, Caley would not have had the backing from local businesses that a "whole Inverness" bid got (and although Clach withdrew from the merger talks in August 93 the neat manner in which that was done allowed the other two to proceed as "Inverness".) 3) I do not believe that Caley alone would have received the vital backing of public money which eventually played such an important part. 4) It is essential to understand the sequence of extremely narrow margins by which SPL status has been achieved, from the very first merger votes right up to taking SPL football to Inverness. I just cannot believe that Caley on their own would have crossed all these hurdles. I hope this is not too long for the people who apparently find my "long" posts hard to bear!

Latterly I became a supporter of all three Inverness HL teams because I am a great believer in Inverness football and still attend Clach when I can. Brought up in Dalneigh, I was originally a Caley Kid and supported them to the extent that I used to joop in over the gate at the Howden End without paying and then collect old MacKintosh's lemonade bottles in the ground to get the 3d deposits. One Mike "Gemmell" Shewan used to do the same. On another issue raised in this thread, I'm in no doubt that any single club entry to the SFL would very likely have created at best another Brechin or Queen of the South and would most definitely not have led to the SPL. However the number of words required to justify this would probably irritate certain other site users (if rermarks in another thread are to be believed!) so I won't!

Caley, I'm fairly sure, was 1950, Clach was around 1988 and Thistle was definitely late July 1995.

Spoken like a true disciple of Fritz, SP!

C4L if you can get a hold of a copy of Against All Odds there's a picture of Kingsmills, literally as it disappeared! Ken MacPherson happened to be on hand that Sunday afternoon when the stand burned down and took a great photo. There may be one or two other photos of the old grounds in there which may interest you too. Kingsmills! You've just budged a long dormant brain cell of mine! I now remember as a kid being at a match at Grant Street with a huge crowd (Inverness Select v one or other of the OF?). I was on the far side of the pitch and I do recollect a lot more depth behind it than there is now. Presumably a strip of that was sold in order to build Kilmuir Road..... the houses which I now reckon have the highest density of satellite dishes in Western Europe - TWELVE between the two penalty boxes!

Smee... you've now got me wondering if I have a distant recollection of an old Clacher once telling me that the original wine shed was the one to the right of the old stand and the current one at the end of the pitch inherited the title when the first one was knocked down.

Smee, you're right. Clach Park is the biggest capacity ground there's ever been in Inverness (10K plus standing). In the good old days before Clach had to sell a chunk of the park in 1990 to cover debts, there was the main stand (which "spontaneously combusted" under still unestablished circumstances around 1988), then to the left of it looking out, the wineshed which is still there and on the other side another covered enclosure which disappeared on sale of that section of land.

There was certainly a corrugated iron roof there in the 60s. I started attending Telford Street regularly again in the 80s and it was gone by then. On the subject of "caught on film" I've been wading through TV footage of stuff for the Legends' Night and it includes some wonderful material from Telford Street. I even came across a closeup sequence of my then 8 year old son at the Arbroath game in 1994 and he was wearing his MacRae and **** Caley strip. Dad maybe deserves some criticism from ex Jaggies for allowing him to wear a Caledonian strip at a CT match... but in reality, it wasn't all that different from what the CT team wore in that first season!

"Nowhere close to three figures"... agreed. On the subject of ticket prices, as someone who doesn't have to pay to get into matches (because it's in line of work) I'm a bit reluctant to comment. However the cost of maintaining a squad of 24 plus a number of other backup staff is high againt only one earning opportunity per fortnight so prices will as a result also be high. If income were to be maintained in an environment where prices were reduced, demand for tickets would have to be sufficiently elastic for attendances to increase enough to compensate for the reduced unit price.

The problem is that "a bus", even a double decker with perhaps 90 people, would only be a drop in the ocean. Even 20 buses would not shift the 2000 which might constitute a major upward hike in attendance.

Forget the "large number" of ex Caley and Thistle refuseniks.... they are a drop in the ocean and, 13 years on, of negligible significance in this debate. Towards the end of their existences, Thistle's and Caley's combined core support was around 600. Only a small minority became refuseniks and I suspect that a number of these have slipped back into the fold. Of the hard liners, a fair number will have moved away from Inverness or indeed in 13 years have passed away. I really think that the number of people currently within travelling distance of the Caledonian Stadium who used to be regular Howden Enders/ Jaggies and who could attend but don't because they still disapprove of the merger is very small indeed. I think a far, FAR bigger limiting factor on ICT attendances is the number of people who go to watch the Old Firm instead. It was inevitable that, when there was no national league side in Inverness, local fans would support other leading teams... especially the OF. As a result there has always been a substantial OF support which will take a number of years to whittle down and will never entirely do so because of the significant Glory Hunter factor. When ICT got into the lower leagues, it was still perfectly straightforward to have an OF club as your Big Team and ICT as your Wee Team. But when ICT got into the SPL this posed a dilemma for a few people... some jumped one way, some the other. ICT's best hope is that, over time, "new" support - ie the younger generation - will go to them to a greater and greater extent. As far as the location of the stadium is concerned, I do agree it's not particularly accessible, but having studied the original 1993 document examining the long list of 13 sites, it did really come down to East Longman and Stratton Farm. There were major objections to the other 11 sites - for instance the cost of land at Inshes was prohibitive. I don't intend to go into the relative economic cases for these two sites, that's not under discussion here, but I could argue that Stratton Farm is even less accessible than East Longman. As for classes in schools to educate kids in the direction of the local club, I have to say I have had a "Supercaleygoballisitccelticareatrocious" poster on my classroom wall since February 9th 2000, but of course it is the function of the education system to help youngsters to make decisions for themselves. Don't forget, though, that Team ICT has a significant input to local schools.

Johnboy, as far as writing and journalism are concerned, I'm only a part timer and I'd better not slag off accountancy since my son is a trainee CA.

Soemone mentioned the Inverness Cup earlier in this thread. Now there's a competition which has gone into steep decline in recent years. Even though that is clearly a symptom of the huge progress the game in the Inverness area has made in recent years, as an Invernessian I regret its recent obscurity. Who could forget that legendary final at Grant Street in December 1995? Almost 3000 packed in to watch Caley Thistle beat County 5-2... hat trick from Man of the Match Iain Stewart but Daisy Ross was outstanding that day. It was also a debut for both Brian Thomson and Mike Teasdale. Then there was also another superb final around 1992 when County beat Caley (and I mean "Caley") again in front of a large crowd at Kingsmills. HOE through Roy MacLennan took over sponsorship of the competition in 1993 because I remember the sponsorship being marketed as "a compeition for the new Caledonian Thistle club to play in next season". I recollect that one well since my then 7 year old son attanded the draw with me and was asked to pull out the home teams. An apprentice Howden Ender at the time, he was delighted to take Caley from the hat at the first attempt. I think the Inverness Cup also produced one of the most boring matches I have ever seen.. Caley v Clach at the Caledonian Stadium about seven or eight years ago. We were all just praying for a goal... for ANYONE to stop it going to extra time. Unfortunately in recent years the competition seems to have suffered frequent delays and for some reason some ties don't get played until the next season... the whole thing seems to have become relegated to the sidelines. A casualty of progress I suppose.

Do you not really mean that Boots corner is no longer there? :015:

Inverness Castle??!! That really is incredibly bad! What image does Inverness Castle convey? Reliance prison vans by day, acne ridden wee neds in burberry baseball caps peering over the dashboards of beaten up Vauxhall Novas by night and the ever present incontinent seagull crapping its bowels out over a decidedly green and white looking Flora MacDonald's head. Let's not go there!

.... especially if Pele has anything to do with it!

That's exactly the point I'm making in my post!

Things you don't see any more.... Turnbull Sports! (See Sports Shops thread.)

The shop in Inglis Street was MacPherson's until the mid 70s, Leisuropa after that and then I think, Intersport. I still have the Inverness Harriers shoulder bag which I bought from Leisuropa in 1976. It has been used very regularly ever since and is still in excellent shape - the zip even still works. What an item! Don't make them like that these days. Upstairs in Coutts was like Aladdin's Cave! What do you say about Turnbull Sports?! Maybe you should ask a few people who worked for him - they would have a few tales to tell. Start with Peter Corbett! Suffice it to say that he overstretched himself by opening more shops, hit the skids, closed the shops, started "network marketing" water purifiers and disappeared from Inverness.

Yes we all know that but it still means that these guys need to live "away from home" which they don't especially like, would prefer not to do and don't do if they either don't have to or there's no significant advantage from doing so. And while I agree that people from the central belt are perhaps a bit more conscious of distance than we Highlanders (for whom it's long been part of the culture) that's just the way things are. Irrespective of how disadvantageous this "Central Belt" thinking is to clubs up here, it's part of football life and they might as well get on with it. I had a very interesting discussion in the press box on Saturday with a gentleman who thought that it was terrible that Rangers had to travel to Inverness and Aberdeen so often. Unfortunately we had just got to the bit where I was pointing out that this was a trip ICT and the Dons had to make every fortnight when my phone rang. Whether or not it was significant that this gentleman happened to be wearing a royal blue tie and had a large royal blue hankerchief in his suit pocket I wouldn't care to comment.

Where in the UK, pray, has the game developed more dramatically at top level over the last decade or so than in Inverness? I would suggest that Marius Nicolae stands to contribute a huge amount to that ongoing development - in a situation where, for reasons of geography, it is very difficult to attract high quality players to Inverness. There is also no doubt that he is of the highest calibre and he only misses the 75% criterion because of injury.

I think too much fuss is made about departed/ departing players. I would really find it difficult to say much against the manner of the departure of Dargo, Brown or Dods and I am certainly not aware of anything that any of them has said against Caley Thistle at any time since. I think, to an extent, they have been harshly judged by SOME ICT fans. I know that the Dargo situation looked very messy... will he, won't he etc.... and to some it might have seemed strange that he then signed for St. Mirren. However I don't think that the player's fundamental need to get back south is fully appreciated. In particular, I understand that his girlfriend was very keen to get back home and in that light I can appreciate that he would want to take his time about it - and who could blame him if he waited for the best possible deal once he had made a decision to move? As far as I am concerned, Mark Brown made a career decision to take up an offer from a very large club - with far more money, more exposure to the international shop window and opportunities to play in Europe. The reverse side of that decision was that there was a significant chance that he would spend a long time on the bench, which he has done.... until now.... Remember also that a large slice of the profit which Caley Thistle has just declared has come from Mark Brown's move. I also think that Darren Dods' move to United was very much influenced by the central belt factor, and understandably so. A lot of these players come up here, do a great job, but understandably want back home after a while. And what a professional Darren was during the months between his pre contract and passing the captain's armband on to Grant Munro. I certainly made a point of shaking him by the hand and congratulating him on that after the last home game. Caley Thistle fans thought there was no life after the departure of, for instance, Bobby Mann and David Bingham. Need I say more on that? And despite the slight controversy apparently generated at the time by Mrs. Mann, I note that Bobby is rightly on the short list for the Hall of Fame.

I had no idea Oor Wullie and The Broons were so unobtrusively blasphemous! Kryptoblasphemers even! I'm not so sure that Kelvinsaaaiiide is quite so posh these days... given the number of footballers that live there now. Morningside... now that's different. Down there a creche is a motor accident and crepe paper is something you find hanging on the wall in the toilet.

Scotty... so is that what Caley D looked like when he was a kid? :015: Heilandee... that's EXACTLY it! And as a son of the City of Discovery, your knowledge of Oor Wulie is encyclopaedic. Jings, crivvens help ma boab! Actually it was only when a Glaswegian family called Brown (I joke not!) moved in across the road from us in Dalneigh in the 60s that I realised that people really did use phrases like "jings" and "crivvens", which until then I thought were entirely a figment of the imagination of DC Thomson.

OK... I realise it's open season on the BBC at the moment and it's easy to take a swipe but the Rankin thing is a simple and obvious Freudian type slip. Ian Rankin is, of course, the well known author of the Inspector Rebus mysteries and whoever wrote the copy has quite simply interchanged Christian names. It's something we've all done. In fact the best memory I have of that was when Alan Michael was doing commentary from the Caledonian Stadium and he referred to "Geri" Halliwell in the visiting goal! Gringo... yes, there was a period when ICT's home record wasn't great, but across the wider picture of 13 years I would suggest they have quite a formidable home record. I'm sure you've heard the term "Fortress Caledonian Stadium".