Charles Bannerman

I'm not the one calling for "investment", by which I think you probably mean what this term normally seems to mean in football - people with money donating large amounts of it to football clubs in order to subsidise their loss making activities, principally due to paying players sums way above their realistic market value. At some grounds you really do need to think hard about how much of the ticket price is in effect subsidised in this way.

Very rational response. As I write, I am listening to Off The Ball where Stuart Cosgrove, with the insight of a fan of another sparsely resourced provincial club, is making equally rational observations on the ICT situation. This is too complex an issue to examine with less than 6 hours of the year remaining, but the ease with which some fans part company with reality can be quite alarming.

So how much were you thinking about investing, Top Six?

Although maybe not as many as 10 out of 11, that, I think, is the vital observation. In ascending order, the margins by which the club in question has gone down over the last 11 seasons are - Goal difference (ICT in 2009), 2 points, 4, 6, 7, 2x8, 9, 12, 15, 17. The clear suggestion is that most years, the relegated team was right off the pace so was likely also to have been bottom at New Year. So far this season, after 20 games, ICT are bottom on goal difference and only five points adrift of the top six. It's been very clear for some time that there's very little indeed across the bottom seven so current league positions aren't an accurate predictor. There's every chance that relegation will go right to the wire and I just hope it doesn't boil down to something stupid like a refereeing mistake. The other consideration, though, is that looking at the top of the Championship, I wouldn't necessarily feel too secure either in second bottom place.

Much ado about nothing. As far as inter-club banter goes, that's well towards the mild end of the spectrum. What's happening here? Is the "offence" culture invading football forums now as well? Bob... do you not remember the still fairly recent old Highland Derby days when chants about ethnicity and the non-permanence of residence came from one end in response to less than complimentary remarks about the South Kessock area of Inverness from the other? Then the law, in its vain attempt to address politically motivated sectarianism and religious hatred in West Central Scotland, came up with the extremely blunt instrument of a wholesale ban of anything more inflammatory than "Excuse me but I respectfully beg to disagree". Let's see which derby.... Glasgow or Highland... passes off in a more civilised fashion on Hogmanay.

and Given what's being rumoured about the state of repair of Ibrox, "Away In A Manger" might be appropriate for this weekend. Looking out of the Kingsmills Suite windows "I Saw Three Ships Come Sailing In" would be appropriate. "Oh Come All Ye Faithful" could help boost attendances. Another couple of defeats and it's "In The Bleak Mid Winter". "Hark The Herald Angels Sing" for the Young Team. If Richie signs Billy's two brothers then it must be "We Three Kings Of Orient Are". Arrange a festive friendly in Liverpool and we need "Once In Royal David's City". If Tommy can't clear the pitch for the Motherwell game, then try "See Amid The Winter Snow". It's a pity Aberdeen aren't visiting this Christmas because there are choruses from Handel's Messiah entitled "Worthy Is The Lamb" and "All We Like Sheep".

Granville and Willie Bell I definitely knew (albeit not in the Biblical sense which would have been very "baaaaad"). Toich I only know by repute, mainly courtesy of accounts from IHE who I believe once told us that Granville was to sheep as Toich was to lamp posts.

You seem to be saying that there were two missed infringements, but the only one the referee should have acted on was the one which benefited ICT. I have to say I didn't see the zoom-in in question and it's more or less impossible to spot anything even from the slo-mo in the highlights, so I just don't know about the alleged first one. But IF there was an missed hand ball by the Inverness player before the missed handball by the Hamilton defender, the second one surely becomes irrelevant since play should have stopped at the instant of the first infringement.

I have to say that rather reminds me of Mourinho's statement the other day that if ManU had won all their drawn matches they would be top of the league!

I can confirm that they (sort of formerly "we") most definitely do!

Apologies Don. I was actually fully aware that the release had been made by the Big Partnership on behalf of the Tulloch Group and can only attribute a definite slip on my part slip to the earliness of the hour (well for a Sunday anyway!). I would possibly take the £6 million to mean the capital value or the rebuild cost (?) of the three structures in question, but that's not wholly clear. We can appreciate that Tullochs of course want to make as much PR mileage out of this as they can and no one could really grudge them that. The £6 million therefore emerges as a helpful and no doubt accurate statistic. There is possibly the other consideration now that this is an actual asset that could be borrowed against SHOULD ANY FUTURE BOARD THINK THAT WAS NECESSARY AND SENSIBLE. However for me one big ongoing benefit is that the rent saving is now an annual, guaranteed windfall which makes balancing the books less dependent on selling a player or a cup run or a high league placing or - in extremis in the absence of any of these - the likes of selling the Social Club. The North and South stands were clearly the creation of Tulloch in 2004-05 but the Main Stand originally went into the equation as being acquired by the ICT Charitable Trust around 2001 as part of the process which included spiriting away a very large debt. It appears to come out at the other end as a transferable asset of Tulloch but hey.... that's the kind of ground I've often covered on here in years gone by, especially with Don before his "conversion"

The ambiguity possibly originates from the original press release issued on behalf of the club on Friday. The title states "Tulloch Homes gift stadium to Inverness Caley Thistle" whereas the opening sentence is "Tulloch Homes, the housebuilder which has a controlling interest in the three stands at Inverness Caley Thistle’s Tulloch Caledonian Stadium, has offered to gift them to the club in a deal worth over £6m." (My bold italics.) But let's not start here on the extensive smoke and mirrors which have been in operation ever since the financial rescue of 2000!

The land owner is the Inverness Common Good Fund which granted the club a 99 year lease in 1994. That transferred to the ICT Trust in approx. 2001. Recent announcements make no reference to any change from the Trust/?Tullochs still holding that - only to ownership of the stands.

Friday's official announcement only makes reference to the three stands and not to the lease which was held by the ICT Trust from which Tullochs may now be arguably indistinguishable??? Information released on Friday seems to tell me nothing at all about any change in arrangements for the lease of the ground which I last thought was held by the Trust/Tullochs.

You are far too refined. It should be "Rabbur Bampursh"

As long as you realise that life has moved on a bit since the days of flares, male perms and the Bay City Rollers.

Happy enough in the final weeks of the season but I have a clear recollection of a draw at Dens early March (after being 2-0 up??) where it looked as if any remote chance of the title and a return to the SPL had well and truly gone. I think the "happiness factor" - intense though it ultimately was - only increased as Caley Thistle put a formidable run together and Dundee progressively bottled it. Apart of course from those who consistently claimed to "Believe"

I am neither agreeing nor disagreeing with you but I would be interested to learn the basis on which you come to that conclusion? I suppose what I'm asking you to do is to give a cause and effect indication of what the critical outcome at stake is, possibly by continuing that sentence with "because if not......."

You are out of order 83 and Old Caley Girl is spot on. There is absolutely nothing to stop Ross County coaching in Inverness if they so wish. I suspect that you have failed to take into account that there are FAR more schools in the Inverness area than there are close to Dingwall. Hence ICT can produce the very full programme (thanks 94 for the comprehensive list) simply by concentrating on schools in their immediate area. It is therefore not clear whether, even by extending their activities into some Inverness schools, Ross County have as full a programme as the extremely committed ICT community operation offers.

Pun intended?

I'm here and will be the epitome of brevity. Quite frankly the whole survey looks like a tissue of pretentious, unscientific cr*p based on speculation, guesswork, wishful thinking, spin, unreliable anecdote and a totally flawed statistical method. And that's even before you apply the "average £ per week" operation. Average? Across how many players? And how many weeks? The full 52 or some number short of that reflecting when contacts start and finish? The scope for errors is massive. At best, this "study" tells us the long-established bleeding obvious ... the OF pay silly money way above everybody else and fall massively short of getting value for it. So yes, "a lot of money for kicking a bag o wind around on a Saturday afternoon" indeed.... especially when most people would actually pay for the privilege of giving Jim Traynor a good kicking!

I found myself standing beside Daisy in a taxi queue late one Saturday night some weeks ago. He was going in the same direction as I was so we shared. By now Daisy is bound to have been inducted into the Kinlochbervie Hall Of Fame alongside his venerable dad Lachie. That Inverness Cup Final at Grant St (5-2 v Ross County) in December 1995 was Daisy's finest hour. Iain Stewart got MoM for a hat trick but it was Daisy's day. Usual stuff... the head went down and Daisy charged off down the left wing to stunning effect. Daisy was a stalwart of what I call "the early Pele period" when Caley Thistle, slightly belatedly, got on its feet and began to succeed for the first time. We used to have a standing joke in the press box in these days. Any time a Kinlochbervie fish lorry went along the A9 during the game the call would be: "come on Pele... get Daisy subbed off. His lift is here."

That will be the FM output you'll be getting with the blocked football on Medium Wave. Tonight it seems to be the relatively unusual hybrid format of live commentary from Ross County v Celtic plus Open All Mics-like interventions from the other games. Presumably on Saturdays when the football is on both FM frequencies and Medium Wave as well, the blocked diaspora get no Radio Scotland at all - or do you get Off The Ball when it's on air since there's no apparent reason to block it. Mmmm... maybe I could have expressed these last few words a bit better.....

I hope they get back safely without breaking down and with the heads of the occupants intact.

KRR... I'd better emphasise before I begin that this is NOT a wind up but..... the Portland Club is now a MOSQUE Heard on the streets of Glasgow.... "Ur ye a Protestant or a Cathlolic?" "I'm a muslim!" "Aye... but ur ye a Protestant muslim or a Catholic muslim?" I think I also have to emphasise that there are very many very decent Rangers supporters and it's for them that I actually feel quite sorry. However they do bring a great deal of unfortunate baggage with them.