Charles Bannerman

DC that's what I've been hoping for too and, with the Dundee game being a 3pm Saturday kick off on a nice day and with the team on a decent run, I had hoped for quite a big crowd. But in the end it turned out to be under 2900 which was a bit disappointing.

I'm genuinely curious about what RiG means about people knowing there's a game on if it's in Aberdeen or Edinburgh but not in Inverness? DD is correct in saying that Inverness had 3-4 clubs for over 100 years, and he is also probably right in saying that the "new" club needs to energise people more. However the comparison between the 100+ years in the Highland League and what has transpired since isn't a completely valid one for two reasons. Firstly, habits have changed in a world which has gone from watching football in a ground being one of a very limited number of leisure activities to it having a huge number of counter attractions, not the least of which is watching football on a TV. Then there's football's economics of the madhouse where players are paid way above their realistic market value which forces ticket prices way up which further contributes to these changes in habit. At ICT you can add a cold, not very accessible stadium (which was still the best site on offer at the time) as a further contributor to the current Perfect Storm scenario. Then secondly there's the fact that, compared with the last days of Thistle and Caley in the Highland League, around five times as many people come to the Caledonian Stadium than collectively attended Kingsmills and Telford Street. Highland League revisionists with rose coloured spectacles will of course tell you that these grounds used to be regularly stowed out but the reality is that, by the early 90s, this most certainly wasn't the case. I would therefore suggest that Inverness is possibly MORE of a football place now than it previously was, certainly during its latter, mundane Highland League days. Look also at Grant Street now, which is lucky to get 200 if that. I think that one component of the "crowds" issue is that, against all these factors such as TV, ticket prices etc etc, the population and economy of the inner Moray Firth simply isn't big enough to sustain comfortably two Premiership clubs and the kind of crowds you would realistically need to make them good going concerns. And I don't actually see a solution to this because there is NO WAY that any combination of forces between ICT and Ross County is ever going to take place. However this also is a problem right across Scottish football. For instance they are mob handed in the Angus area with Forfar, Brechin, Montrose, Arbroath etc. Meanwhile Dundee, even with the Thompson millions on one side, clearly struggles to sustain two Premiership clubs and indeed has barely done so for the last decade. But again, that's not very likely to change as Scottish demographics continueto be unable to support the number of clubs competing for resources - especially when two of them, artificially inflated by West Central Scotland's religious, political and social problems, suck in such a disproportionate slice of these said resources.

According to one of this morning's papers Dundee have been to Inverness eight times and have never won. Maybe they are the new Hibs?

... as opposed to SNP ones refusing to sanction benefits in order to win referenda. WELCOME BACK OQ!!!!

Only because I thought it was pretty obvious. They only hacked half a billion Yahoo accounts as a diversion from the real business of getting SNP legislation through by zapping Kar Krash Kez's vote!

I would think that the likelihood of this happening is somewhere in the same ballpark as winning the lottery or the referee not awarding a late penalty to allow one half of the Old Firm through to meet the other half in a cup final. As I said earlier, you couldn't make it up.... this descent of the party that gave us the Welfare State and the NHS after the war into the current laugh a minute collection of comic cuts that we now have. I really do wonder these days what the Labour Party is actually FOR. So probably do they for that matter. Part of their problem is that they have outlived the purpose for which they were formed. In an era of universal benefits, Victorian workhouse living conditions are long gone and trade unionism largely discredited itself in the 60s and 70s. It now seems that some of the Labour Party have woken up to this while the Corbynistas remain dogmatic Socialists for Socialism's sake. Hilarious, though, seeing the Blairite types still singing away at The Red Flag at Party Conferences! The problem first appeared when Corbyn's spiritual and sartorial predecessor Michael Foot and his fellow travellers tried to hold on to Socialist principles which were no longer required and made themselves unelectable. Blair responded by pinching Tory policies and turning the tide in 1997. But since they lost power six years ago, the two fundamental factions have kicked off again like ferrets in a sack. Then you have to add in that they no longer have statesmen like Donald Dewar and John Smith to give them credibility so have had to turn to the likes of Miliband, Corbyn and Kar Krash Kes and all the comic cuts they have brought. That has been compounded in Scotland by two further own goals of people finally seeing through the arrogant complacency which led Labour to take Scotland for granted and Labour's own voluntary creation of a Holyrood soapbox which they have virtually custom built for the main beneficiaries of that complacency, the nationalists. I wonder if the nats have a chorus lurking about somewhere which is the broad political equivalent of the football one about "Can we play you every week?"

Just where is the Labour Party's saga of incompetence, own goals and self harm going to end? The latest debacle is the already much publicised failure of Kezia Dugdale (or the Holyrood voting computer - judge for yourself) to register a vote after the Council Tax debate. And it gets worse... far, far worse. The upshot is not only the failure of the amendment which everybody but the SNP supported but also the loss of a high profile opportunity to remind the nation that the SNP no longer has an overall majority so is open to defeat. You couldn't make this up.... it maybe dwarfs even the one about Iain Gray in the sandwich shop; on which subject, it's Gray that Kez insists saw her press her voting button so it's got to be the Hollyrood system that's bust. Aye, right. All of this also takes place against a backdrop of the utter chaos of UK Labour and the inability of the party to express any unanimity about opposing a second Scottish referendum. Then there's Kez herself, lagging as she does miles and miles behind every other Scottish leader in popularity polling. I mean the poor woman just doesn't have a clue and holds herself up to ridicule every time she opens her mouth. She's meant to speak with the authority and persuasiveness of a party leader but the only thing she persuades us of is that she's some wee lassie failing to cut it at a school debating competition. It's a strange situation isn't it that neither Labour nor its leader can mount a prominent enough challenge in Scotland to the SNP to prevent opposition being led by the Conservatives, despite everything the Nats have tried to throw at them for years. Labour also has another question to answer. In a very tightly balanced parliament with the SNP in a marginal minority, why on earth did they agree to one of their MSPs, Ken MacKintosh, having his vote neutered by becoming Presiding Officer? (Mind you, I suspect I know the answer - this is the only thing that anybody from Labour is likely to be in charge of for years to come!) But it's daft. MacKintosh, as Presiding Officer, only has a vote in the event of a tie and in that event is usually obliged to vote for the status quo. Hence it was MacKintosh's vote that saved the backsides of the SNP and against the preferences of his own party which protocol dictates he has to ignore and, one suspects, also against his own. In a wee parliament like Holyrood with a very tight balance, it seems daft to me that one of the parties should have one of their MSPs neutralised.

Sorry.... can't help with that one. I was never sure who owned it...I just knew there was a caravan place there.

Certainly in these days a well chosen location with lots of passing trade.

I'm now wondering if the girl back left is Linda Dewar who lived quite close to that park and maybe back left is Eddie Jessiman?? from St Andrew Drive.

Good Lord! The tall boy in the middle at the back (let's just keep this PC shall we?) looking as if butter wouldn't melt in his mouth in his pre-Her Majesty's Pleasure era! I'd guess this photo dates from about 1963 or 1964. I'm afraid I can't help with any of the unknowns but I just have to look at the pic of Clair Rennie and I can smell the dreadful smell of what unfortunately ran down his leg one time we were doing Music and Movement in the GP room. Alan Stevenson looks quite small in that photo but on the other hand he was maybe 2 or 3 years younger than the likes of Ronnie McQuiston (St Valery Ave) and I think is a year younger than I am. Second from the left in the front row is, I think, Alison BOWN (or maybe Bowen) but not Brown. The girl looks very like Sylvia Bown who was in my class who I do recollect had an older sister called Alison. I think they lived in Fairfield Rd near the corner of Hawthorn Drive. I also think that's the Davie Anderson from St Andrew Drive whose older brother Ian I sometimes speak to in Bannatynes.

See what you mean but that's not quite the same. The colour is bang on but it was all that blue and the outline much more bubble-like. And it went "Tonky tonky tonnnky tonk....Tonky tonky tonnnky tonk....Tonky tonky tonnnky tonky tonky tonky tonk....tonnnky tonnnky tonnnk....

Yes, that was quite ironic. In order to make absolutely certain they had bottled up the German High Seas Fleet in the North Sea during WW1, apart from our Grand Fleet plus American reinforcements later on, they laid a huge minefield from Shetland to Norway. However the war was pretty well over by the time this largely American enterprise was completed and they then had to sweep them all again. This kept the American Navy in Inverness for some time after 1918 and there is said to have been the occasional bit of friction with the locals.

Looks like the caravan place strategically placed on the old road to Dingwall... the old A9 at Clachnaharry.

Is it possibly Church St across the Caley Hotel/Bank Lane corner where the Council Service Point is? (was?... it's maybe been closed like everything else.) In these days that would have been across Church St from the Northern Meeting Rooms.

Goodness knows about the wooden holder but the photo dates from somewhere between the 1880s (maybe early 90s - it's embossed on the ironwork) when the Greig St Bridge was built and 1959/60 when the suspension bridge was knocked down.

I would love to see a photo of the wee, blue, almost hemispherical van Pagliari's had around that time - the one that used to pay the "Harry Lime"/"Third Man" theme and spent much of its time in Dalneigh or the Ferry.

An even more extreme example of this is in the Highland League where players will go to certain over-resourced clubs for sums which totally dwarf their effort and ability levels as well as those at which they are playing, rather than play in the lower National leagues. I'm not sure, though, if enough recognition has been given in earlier posts to the possibility that Ryan Christie might actually have the potential to play a major part at Celtic Park within quite a short timescale. The unfortunate presumption seems to be that the move was some kind of mistake motivated purely by some cynical motive on Celtic's part.

Much appreciated, I'm sure It certainly looks as if the man who invented the supremely cringeworthy slogan "Ah stan' fur Scoa'land" (ken... eh!) is unlikely to be set to amend this to "Ah run fur Scoa'land"!

I'm sure a great number of ICT fans would think the same, but this does beg a couple of questions. Firstly, is the manager still looking for (ie have the budget left for) a midfielder? And secondly, if he was/did... I'm never very sure how clubs go about sorting the wages of loan players but in the event of any hypothetical loan deal, what chance would ICT have of being able to pay more than a modest slice of what Ryan is presumably now on at Celtic?

With a time like he did, I should damned well hope so! I guessed this would be the Pitlochry 10K so I looked up the results. On the other hand he may just have been going that slow to expose himself... or rather his Yes t-shirt... for as long as possible. One other possibility is that he slowed down to avoid returning a time of 55:45. Wish I'd known about this because I could easily have got a Union Flag running vest, popped down the road, had the "conversation" very publicly with him during the event - before sprinting away at the end of course Next year maybe..... The Yes t-shirt gag reminds me of the profoundly sad, historically illiterate roasters who turn up in full SNP regalia each October at the charity run at Culloden.

Surely what matters here is the ball. Heading for goal, Draper is in front of the defender and attempting to keep possession of the ball. The defender comes across him from behind and also grabs Draper by the upper arm with his left hand. That has to be an infringement, but whether it was a penalty or a free kick marginally outside the box is a very tight and difficult call. I'm not sure on that one, but I do have to wonder if the referee, right in front of a South Stand full of baying Celtic fans, may have bottled it. And if one green bottle should accidentally fall.... well that's ALWAYS a penalty to Celtic!

Not our fault if so many who had so much to say on behalf of the SNP in the run-up to the last referendum now appear to have retreated into silence now that another one has been threatened.

All very true, and it also touches on an important aspect of this separation question which has barely been touched - largely because people run far too scared that what they say might allow the unco-PC to take offence and start persecuting them. Well I'm of a generation where nobody worried too much what Sar'nt Major Shut Up called the Concert Party a bunch of, or the nicknames exchanged by the two protagonists in Love Thy Neighbour whilst enjoying The Black And White Minstrel Show and Alf Garnett.... because we realised that none of this actually did anybody any harm. It's only recently that a newly created bunch of self appointed, simpering, politically correct handwringers have taken over and presume to dictate what we can and can't say or think. So, that said, lets return to the separation question. It's quite bizarre that this aspect has been ignored - if the SNP were to break up the UK, the more affluent and talented members of Scottish society would depart in droves into the much larger and more vibrant economy down south, hence tipping the entire Scottish basket case even further towards financial oblivion. This major consideration never seems to have appeared in the economics of separation alongside the standard litany of the £15bn GERS deficit, the collapse of oil, the disappearance of the Barnett Formula etc etc. Turning now to the demographics of SNP support, yes it's completely obvious where much of that comes from and the evidence lies everywhere from polling to counting the number of Yes stickers adorning certain housing estates. What was mainly responsible for the unfortunate swing towards separation in the summer of 2014 was that many "economically challenged" traditional, but disillusioned, Labour supporters switched to The Dark Side. Oh for goodness sake, sod PC and let's just call them the poor.... people on low wages or benefits. And let's also take a great big reality check and admit largely why the poor are poor. Many of them unfortunately tend not to enjoy the intellectual wherewithal to be anything else.... nor hence either to understand too many political concepts. So what we have here is a large slice of the population - possibly in the ballpark of one third - who don't have much of a Scooby about what all this political stuff is about but who have been drawn into the separatist fold by disillusionment with Labour combined with cynical Nationalist propaganda and misinformation, which they are not very well equipped to see through. If there ever was to be a vote in favour of separation, these are the nationalist ballot box fodder who would swing the balance.... and also expect the more economically successful NO voters to pick up the tab for their being so easily led. Except that in that event, many of the latter category would take Dr Johnson's advice as to "the noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees" and head south, leaving the rest to subsidise themselves.

....a corollary of which is that they also expect the net generators of wealth, who are predominantly against separation and already provide the bulk of public funds, into the bargain to subsidise the substantial economic cost of the nutty idea which they want to impose on the rest of us. Talk about having your cake and eating it....