Charles Bannerman

The title Caledonian Stadium is perfectly neutral - in context - and hence suitable. The problem is that Caman is taking this in isolation and not as part of the more comprehensive and complex package which the merger became. I don't know how familiar he is with the merger process ("Against All Odds", its official history, is available online on this site) but the most important fundamental was that it was an unequal merger. Caley were considerably bigger than Thistle, but the clout of the two as a combined entity was far in excess of the sum of their constituent parts. Indeed it was said at one point during the merger that Caley were providing 70% of the assets, 80% of the membership (a questionable figure given that this reflected Caley's major, effectively artificial twin recruiting drives for internal reasons) and 90% of the fundraising capacity. Inevitably, the shape of what emerged from two years of difficult bargaining had to reflect that considerable disproportion. That deal included the club name (initially Caledonian Thistle until the "Inverness" was added to honour pledges made to the Council), the title of the Company (Inverness Thistle and Caledonian) and the stadium name. It took until the beginning of the second season, 1995-96, for the strip to reflect disproportional representation of the two in the form of an agreement for 25% black and red to be incorporated into the "predominantly blue" original. The delivery of this was a masterpiece, because everyone expected a "Sampdoria" black and red band round a blue strip. However what materialised was the complete integration of fairly broad red verticals and narrower black ones into a strip which had blue as its main colour - a visual representation of a union rather than two separate colour schemes cobbled together. I initially wanted to call the book "Blue, Black and Red" and that was actually the working title I used during the writing, but I was overruled by Dougie who wanted "Against All Odds", which I have for long also preferred myself. (The ONLY other thing they overruled me on was calling Ian Fraser "Coffin John". So revered was "the Coff" after his £300K plus investment in 1996 - shares which eventually found their way to the Hospice and hence now to the McGilvrays and Alan Savage - that they joked that they would only call him "sir"!) What I have said therefore effectively overtakes Caman's question which is not the relevant one. What I referred to was what the club colours were, not what were involved in this season's choice of home strip which has blue and red. All 3 have been involved there on plenty of past occasions and he will of course also note that this season's away strip has a great deal of black in it. Hopefully, between one post and another tonight, I have given some background into how the club is as it is. It is also like that to the ongoing contentment of a number of those associated with it while those otherwise minded, especially all these years later, really don't rock the boat to any extent at all.

Maybe they asked Caley Jags Together? (Or is that sniping from the sidelines?)

I do actually have some reservations about responding in more detail to this post because the last thing I want is to have to repeat for the umpteenth time that any discontent about the merger almost 25 years ago was far, far more than counterbalanced by the dividend of the club being formed so, almost quarter of a century on, the comparatively small number of original discontents has shrunk by natural wastage to an insignificant rump. However, it is necessary to re-establish that "un-dingable chiel" in order to eliminate arguments against celebrating Inverness's long football heritage, of which Inverness Caledonian Thistle is the most recent and, despite current setbacks, by far the most successful chapter. Organised football in Inverness even predates the mid-1880s when the merger partners were both founded. Over 100 years later, two clubs which had accumulated hugely proud histories in the intervening period joined forces to create an even more successful one which is merely the latest instalment of what has been a continuous heritage. All of this needs to be celebrated and recognised. And, as Huisdean has said while I've been writing, there are those around (probably far more than the unco-offended) who still want to celebrate the entire heritage. It makes no sense at all to suggest that the earlier part of this continuous heritage should be airbrushed out of history to appease sentiments predicated far more on imagination than actual substance. So... 1 - Caledonian Stadium? What's wrong with that? It's what the stadium has been or was designated to be called right from the start and it's not a title which very many people around actually object to. (PLEASE nobody come up with the "But there's loads of boys at my work who say...." excuse. We all know that of the 600 who used to turn up between Kingmills and Telford St, 6000 still refuse to attend the Caledonian Stadium.) .... 2 - Kingsmills Suite - as previously stated this has already been usurped by The Daily Sheep. So is someone going to object to that as well because it will create offence among those offended by the manner in which Aberdeen Journals treated its staff during the 1989-90 PandJ strike?.... 3 - the combined effect of the Thistle and Caley photos and the growing number of ICT ones is to give a complete illustration of Inverness's football heritage. Or is the suggestion that Pittodrie should remove all pre-1983 photos since it's a well known fact that football was only invented in May 1983 ..... 4 - only someone who (A) knew the cabinet came from Telford St and (B) had a chip about that would really give a toss..... 5 - arguments about "too much blue" or "25% black and red" are relics of the 1990s. Blue, black and red are the club colours and have been since its second season. Again, very, very few give a toss any more about the background to this. The main issue you hear about the colours is that the amount of blue is unacceptably close to Rangers. And if Caman wants to sweep away relics of past history, perhaps the twin Thistle and Eagle components of the badge should therefore be first in line..... 6 - ICTFC is an acronym which stands for the full club name - a composite of those of the two merger partners. Why retain that, then if the rest is to go? There really is no need to re-visit the day before yesterday's conflicts in an attempt to address a problem which barely existed after about 1995, is now a distant historical memory and which supports a far stronger case for itself being airbrushed out of history rather than the very good things that took place in Inverness football before the mid-1990s.

Until I have enough time on a proper keyboard "Nonsense" will have to suffice. (Other than remarking that the Kingsmills Suite has already been usurped by an Aberdeen local newspaper.)

Fat chance of getting motorhome owners to cough up to stay in a place like that when they can freeload in random places across the Highlands like the Sports Centre car park. Damn nuisance, these things

That appears to assume that all 200 in there - if it was full - would be new business and not just people who shifted from the North/Main stands to the West.

That is quite an important piece of information, as part of the necessary clarification of the process by which a decision would be made about placing the 10% in the event of a shareholders' poll. CJT office bearers? CJT board? CJT general meeting? I would hope the last of these three.

Cheers Shorty.

Try the Philosophy Department at the likes of Edinburgh or Oxford Universities. They have long traditions of examining the question of whether God exists so may be able to help with CJT. The only difference is that God doesn't have a 10% stake in ICT - which began to become quite evident during last season.

What would you suggest that would match or better the Centenary Club's take? And in what way is the Centenary Club inaccessible? (These are literal as opposed to rhetorical questions.)

I don't know how possible it is to remain anonymous if records of shareholders are kept by Companies House. I suppose it would be possible to attribute ownership to some entity whose title doesn't give away anything about who is involved. Intuition is steadily pointing me in a direction away from Savco or the McGilvrays being involved here. It's also worth noting that, following the EGM, around 600,000 shares remain unallocated but could be activated by the Board.

I'm not sure. Question number one would be - is there actually going to be some kind of power struggle? Here we seem to have to balance Alan Savage's insistence that there's not with Dougie's very quickly articulated statement about looking for two directors. Then if there is, who lines up with whom? You seem to have a fairly clear insight into how the club has functioned over the years and therefore presumably of who has been on side and also out of sorts with whom since about 2000. It's about as complex as the system of European alliances that preceded World War I. So I suppose that begs the question - is anybody going to assassinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand? I think one significant question may be how much of that 500,000 has been taken up by Muirfield Mills and allies? If it's a lot, then that would further strengthen an already relatively solid position. However, the supporters' 10% is also very unclear and, quite frankly, I think it's a disgrace that a significant quota of votes which dates back to the original Thistle and Caledonian joint members' club should now be mired in such uncertainty, apparently under the control of an organisation which, at best, is hopelessly dysfunctional.

Caleyboy... these are two very good questions. I believe the "Supporters' Society" may be the generic term, possibly in the Articles of Association, for what currently is, (or more to the point may or may not still be) Caley Jags Together. The Articles provide for this body to have 10% of the total eligible vote in any poll - in other words votes equating to one ninth of the total number of issued, voting shares. That makes them the fourth biggest player in any vote but, as is fairly well known within the club, this body seems to have been anonymous for a very long time, to the extent that a lot of people aren't even clear as to whether it still even exists. I don't think many people would dispute that such a body (or lack of one?) having the capability of exercising such influence is not a good place to be in at all. For a start, who in practice would actually decide how the 10% would be cast in the event of a vote, and how representative would these persons (or person??) be of the parties whose interests they are meant to be serving? You often hear claims that "supporters" should have a board presence. Well if CJT is representative of supporters, they are doing that claim no service at all. As for the 500,000 new shares, very few people will know and I'm certainly not one of them. Eventually this will presumably come out in the wash in Companies House records, but how many people and who they are anyone's guess. The McGilvrays?, Savco?, Muirfield Mills? I also note than in his PandJ feature quoted elsewhere here, Alan Savage is claiming that the Muirfield Mills syndicate has gone up to 10 people. If that's the case, might this 500,000 represent contributions from new members of MM? What this does do is to make ownership of 12.8% of the club for the moment uncertain. Add that to the anonymity of the controllers of that further 10% and the water remains a little muddied.

Well, unless he trawls back to something I posted here on CTO about 5 days ago, Alan will need to get a copy of tomorrow's Highland News where I have given updated figures in my Sportsview column. What it says is that the potentially rival forces at ICT line up as follows (1% is the equivalent of approximately 39,000 shares.):- Muirfield Mills 27%, McGilvray family 12.5%, Alan Savage/Orion 12% (12.8% if you include Graeme Bennett's holding), Supporters' Society 10%, David Sutherland and "associates" approx. 5%, Roddy Ross 4.4%. The rest is made up of around 520 other parties with stakes ranging from holdings in the small five figure range down to 250 (0.0045%!) which is by far the most common holding, reflecting the popular desire of fans at least to have a token say in the club when the first share issue appeared in 1996. This does NOT include the destination(s) of the 500,000 new shares (12.8%) announced recently.

As I recollect, Kenny was Executive Chairman which I don't think Graham Rae is, nor were any of Kenny's predecessors.

Scarlet, I'm not an expert on these things, but I believe that a CEO is a more elevated position than a COO. I think the COO is principally a "fixer" in charge of making sure that the process of business operation is ongoing, whereas a CEO has a more strategic role.

I'm sorry buy I just don't quite get your point. Almost all of what you're referring to is entirely retrospective since 38 of the games in question were in a different league under a different manager and different chairman, both departed, and a somewhat different board. 7 wins out of 38 last season - yes, we know.... we've been talking about it and analysing it for some time now. And then no wins in 3 games this season in a completely different set of circumstances, the boardroom side of which has only begun to indicate the will for radical change within the last six days. I don't think that merging these two different scenarios by use of two different tenses - "are" followed by "should have"- in the quoted statement is entirely appropriate. In the early stages of a new manager constructing a new team with a vastly reduced budget and six days after a definite statement of intent and change from within a new boardroom environment, it might be better to take the 38 as the well established past.... and the 3 as the start of a new phase which would be more accurately judged at a later date.

The best guess I can make is that it's CJT - whose existence or otherwise is currently baffling the planet's finest philosophers and which may even have assumed the features of Schroedinger's Cat. Ian MacDonald the Company Secretary would presumably be able to clarify.

As I recollect, the Members' Club influence stood initially at 50% but I think it was actually during Dougie's time that it began a series of steps towards its current 10%. To be fair, it was difficult to argue against the case for reducing it which was that it would be difficult to persuade new investors to put money into a company where they would have very little clout.

Perhaps I could try to answer these recent posts from Caleyboy, DD and afteryogi in a oner. If we are looking at voting power in any struggle for control (Alan Savage is denying such a notion in today's Courier), we need to look a bit further than the figures quoted in advance of the EGM - ie 3.9M issued shares which the EGM cleared to rise to 5M and which is already set to go to 4.4M with the £500,000 announced this week. That's because within these figures are 900,003 "non-voting shares" which were ascribed to Inverness Thistle FC, Caledonian FC and Highlands and Islands Enterprise (through INE) in respect of their roles in putting the club together in 1994. These are, however, what it says on the tin - non-voting - so are meaningless in this context. Remove these from the equation and you are left with 3,004,867 voting shares which will very soon go up to 3,504,867 when that new 500,000 are issued. The other refinement we need to make is that the "Supporters' Society" (ie CJT - if it still exists) is entitled to cast 10% of the votes in any poll. Adding that in increases the total votes to 3,894,297 and it's the percentages of this held by the various "factions" that matter. (You get 3,894,297 by adding one ninth to the total number of purchased shares which represent 90%.) These percentages held by the various factions are all higher by a factor of 1.13 compared with simply working it out based on 4.4M, which I initially did until I looked more closely into it. So it's from this that the Muirfield Mills influence over 1.05M shares translates to 27%. Meanwhile the McGilvrays' stake from Hospice and past acquisitions comes in at 12.5% and Savco from Hospice and bankrolling Niculae represents 12%, to which you could notionally add Graeme Bennett's 0.8%. It's important to note that even these updated percentages - apart from the Supporters' Society which is fixed - don't allow for who has/have bought the news 500K, which is unknown (to me at any rate!) Then, after that, the only other six figure blocks are the 6% or thereby which I estimate David Sutherland and his long time associates could muster and Roddy Ross's 4.4%. So effectively there are four "factions" based on aggregates of wealthy people who have put cash in over the years, and who do not always see eye to eye - McGilvray (MG), Savco (SC), Muirfield Mills (MM) and the Sutherland combine (DFS). In addition, there's Roddy Ross and the Supporters plus about 500 small investors. No two factions can top 50% but MM + MG + SC just does so. However there must be big questions as to whether their "past" would allow this to happen. It's difficult to see any ruling combination without MM, but they could maybe pull something off with the help of one of MG or SC (who, on the other hand appear to be operating a degree of cooperation) plus one or two others. If you think David Cameron (the ex-PM, not the ICT director!) had difficulty putting a coalition together in 2010, you ain't seen nothing yet! Afteryogi asks a very good question, but there would probably be practical difficulties in his suggestion, even if it were thought a good idea and could be arrived at by the necessary change which I imagine would have to take place to the Articles of Association. With a very finely balanced political situation like this, it's bad news indeed that the body which controls 10% of the vote is apparently totally dysfunctional.

The Inverness Caledonian Thistle Trust is a charitable trust set up in 2001 as a vehicle to spirit away from the football club the toxic debt of over £2M which nearly sank it. Part of that deal was that ownership of the stadium lease and fabric also transferred to the Trust. In effect this was Tullochs, for a time in consort with the Bank of Scotland, picking up the tab for the debt. The fact that it has recently been announced that Tullochs are in the process of handing back the North and South stands AND the rest of the stadium (the fate of the site lease is unclear) to the club would appear to suggest that in the course of a complex sequence of transactions, Tullochs were also obliged to take de facto ownership of the entire stadium. These were the transactions which Caley D, in his pre-Damascene era in advance of finding God, said a lot about on here. At the same time, to solve the cash flow problem and give working capital, Tullochs also bought initially about 500K of shares but I think added to this. Fairly recently, these shares were donated to the ICT Trust and hence comprise all or at least the large bulk of that 729,500 (18.7%) holding. The understanding has been that Muirfield Mills control the Trust and hence these shares' votes and that tends to be confirmed now, since Paul MacInnes is one of their number while Richard Smith is at least quite closely associated with them. I had actually thought that they also had another member of that Trust but apparently not. Combined with their 2012 investment in 376,000 shares, this gives Muirfield Mills the biggest clout (27%) in terms of share blocks. I have a strong suspicion that the "Supporters' Society" may be a generic term for what began life as the Supporters' Trust and became CJT. Their main political clout within the football club is their 10% voting powers as described in my post two above this one. However it would appear that at some point they have also invested 13,408 of their own funds in the purchase of shares in the club. As stated in my earlier post, it's not clear what would happen to the right to exercise 10% of the total voting power if CJT were to wind up without a successor organisation. DD... while I was writing the above, you posted again. Hopefully what I have here answers much of what you say. All I would want to add is that the 300,000 Inverness Thistle shares, along with 600,000 Caledonian ones and 3 allocated to Highlands and Islands Enterprise, are all non-voting shares so don't come into the equation. This is what threw me initially and has caused me to revise the % holdings I originally calculated. These non-voting shares are relics of the merger and reflect input from Thistle, Caley and INE (part of HIE) in the process of putting the club together.

You seem to be in possession of as little evidence of its existence as I am! Someone from within their midst may claim the Mark Twain defence (accounts of death being greatly exaggerated) but it doesn't look great to me. CJT has the right to exercise 10% voting rights (in other words amounting to 1/9 of the number of voting shares). In the event of its demise, I am finding it difficult to see who, if anyone, would physically exercise the right to determine and cast that vote. I don't THINK that, like the conventional voting shares, this 10% CJT voting power represents entities which have been purchased. As I recollect, they represent what historically began as the influence of the Members' Club (a joint body representing former fans of Thistle and Caley) which started at 50% but which have been steadily reduced to 10% since too high a figure was regarded as a disincentive for outside money to come in.

You mentioned "at such short notice" yourself. I didn't take this necessarily as a complaint, but possibly an area from which some might materialise!

Complaints have been about far more than digital communication and a great many of them have been about the club failing in general to reach out to supporters. If this is a major issue then, irrespective of the notice, a club with 1453 season ticket holders and a significant number of other fans should expect, under the circumstances, far more than jut 120 to want to go to something like this. Or will the entire, worthwhile exercise just degenerate into further complaints about lack of notice?

If 120 didn't attend, or indeed a good deal more than 120 tried to sign up, that would make the extensive complaints about lack of communication etc look pretty silly, would it not?