Charles Bannerman

Tree... you are beginning to sound in this debate dangerously like one of these anti m****r people who invite sweeping generalisations based on a very limited ration of highly anecdotal evidence which itself may even include a bit of wishful thinking.

Cownty already get far less than we did when we arrived back home in Jan 2005, despite uncle Roy exaggerating everything, and that can only get worse as the novelty wears off. As for ourselves, a look back at 2009-10 in div 1 shows that our hard core support was about the same as it is now. 2700 on a poor day and about 3600 on a good day, excluding derbies and clashes with Dundee etc. I actually did a few sums (remember them Mantis ?) on this the other day and as things stand at the moment, Ross County's average home league attendance for this season is maybe something like 50 below ICT's. HOWEVER - ICT have had one Highland derby (6766) and two visits of Celtic(6100 and 6175). Ross County have had no Highland derbies and one visit of Celtic (6100) so that's two 6000+ crowds still to come in there. Make allowance for that and County's underlying average, comparing like with like, is maybe about 300 better. The other consideration may be that the TCS is a lot larger, has already attracted one crowd which is larger than VP's capacity and there may be a second on March 16th. HEATH WARNING - this is merely an objective statement of numerical fact which makes no value judgments and none should be inferred from it!

Any relation of Brian Kavs Bobby? Average crowds of 4000 might be disappointing by SPL standards but hey... Inverness in the SPL with memories of playing Lossiemouth, Rothes, Fort William in front of a few hundred now distant, albeit warmly nostalgic, memories. Interesting how the anti m****r contingent seem to have awarded themselves a monopoly of the moral high ground for the last 20 years though.

Has the game finished yet?

My understanding is that with a run of big games in the North and especially in Dingwall, including Celtic playing there at 1245 on March 9th, police staffing levels are stretched to the limit, so adding 5:30 on the 2nd was just a step too far. 3pm apparently eased the rota pressure so in this instance I am sympathetic with the Police predicament.

OCG... I will be asking Roy tomorrow! (I believe he might be quite busy and preoccupied at the moment! As I write, still 0-0 at Dens.)

So does anyone know WHY the Police allegedly refused 5:30? Is the reason out of the same stable as opposing the lifting of the Inverness midnight curfew or criminalising references by both sets of fans to mobile homes and related issues, despite what the Lord Advocate's guidelines appear clearly to say?

Foot fetishist?

Do you have NO sense of irony?! (Or maybe I should have left a heavier hint by adding a " " to my original comment!)

Sounds like the blue and white "bah humbug" santa hats meeting in the phonebox have been bashing away at their keyboards again!

That might actually have been an option had there been enough space in the infield to accommodate a track, which there isn't. By the way I do trust that you're not trying to compare the extent of use of the Queens Park with NCCC's presence at the NMP. If you are you are trying to compare the principal users' well over 200 members hiring the track for 12 months a year and competitions for up to 500 people.... with ten men standing for hours on end watching one man getting two more men to do very little while the other nine men sit on their bums in the stand watching these 13..... and two men and a dog watch the whole lot. Interesting comment Caley D also makes about the NMP's peppercorn rent - which again somewhat contrasts with the Queens Park. Laying boards? Your suggestion I think, tm4tj.

It only seems to be available to other users when it suits NCCC - not only during their season but for a considerable time before it. Highland Rugby Club even found that in the 70s when they were playing in Scotland's top league but were still decanted to the Canal Field (from which the bypass now looks like decanting them again) to make way for MacAllan League cricket. The cricket club also didn't like the Tattoo in there... especially the time about 20 years ago when the Military managed to BLITZ the cricket pitch with flash bangs and the like!!! ".... interested parties to lay boards...."? I'm not sure how easy it would have been for Inverness City to "lay boards" to play in the Junior League???! Why should they (NCCC) move? Quite simply because the benefit to a very limited number of people with unrealistically restrictive requirements is vastly outweighed by the added benefit to a very large number of people if NCCC freed up the Meeting Park by sharing Fraser Park. I would also be very interested to learn how much rent NCCC pay for such exclusivity.

So do I... and neither am I. Or at least I like Twenty-20 or even one day version which can be very exciting, as opposed to the utter bore which which lurches on lugubriously for the best part of a week before it rains and they decide to call it a draw with that pedantic slow hand clap which seems to go with just about everything that is totally unexciting in a test match. But up here people simply don't watch it so there's no need for a major venue with a 500 seater grandstand. (I did hear about crowd trouble at a cricket match at Huntly once though! ) "The English not being very spiritual people, invented cricket to give them some idea of eternity." (George Bernard Shaw)

I think the problem is that cricket isn't very high at all on very many people's agendas, but still this tiny minority retains a stranglehold on a major public facility, seriously restricting its many potential uses.

1-0 Clach in the only surviving game in the HL. Clach now go third, 8 points behind Wick and 3 behind Cove with 3 games still in hand on both. However Formartine are a further three points behind Clach and with 2 games in hand on them. This has the makings of the best Highland League race for years! There was a really good atmosphere at Grant Street today with Clach keeper John Campbell in outstanding form. At one point the fans of "cash strapped Clach" took it upon themselves to make a statement by waving fivers at the Brora players!

Nothing narrow minded about suggesting that a small group with very stringent requirements has a disproportionate hold on a facility which could otherwise be used to the much greater public good. If there is narrow mindedness here, it's on the part of the cricket club who refuse to make allowances for the bigger picture. In fact I would suggest that putting the case for that bigger picture is actually being rather broad minded!

Not at all Forza. Merely a factual response to what I thought was a "little over reaction" in your reference to the current accommodation at the Caledonian Stadium as "tin crap"!

I now see that all the other eight Highland League games are off. Since the Clach inspection was at 9am and have heard nothing to the contrary, I am assuming that Grant street is the only survivor.

Already there are six Highland League games off but Clach v Brora is still on subject to a (fairly optimistic) 9am inspection. Maybe ICT fans not at the semi final could come and support the highly deserving junior partners of Inverness football who could go third if they win. You can listen at the same time to full commentary from Easter Road from Liam MacLeod on BBC Radio Scotland 810MW or Robbo on Open All Mics on 94.0FM.

Please read my posts #8 and #21.

Do you not realise how damn lucky you are to have what you have? Getting back from Aberdeen to play SPL football in Inverness was yet another example of the brinkmanship upon which ICT has serially developed over the last 20 years! Consider the following highly marginal and indeed at the time improbable situations. * 1993 - vacancies arising in the SFL in the first place. That was VERY marginal! * 1993-94 - after winning the vote, the club existing at all. * 1995-96 - getting a stadium up and running. * 1999-2000 - surviving a £2M+ debt crisis which almost had the receivers in. * 2003-04 - winning the First Division title. * 2004 - overcoming SPL red tape and actually getting into the top league. * 2004-05 - getting the north and south stands funded and built in 47 days to bring SPL football to Inverness. * 2009-10 - after being relegated (which was brinkmanship in the other direction by a single goal), winning the First Division from a position which looked totally impossible. So if ICT are 3-0 down at Easter Road tomorrow with 15 mins to go.... don't panic Captain Mainwaring!!! But take any ONE of these EIGHT marginal situations out of the equation, and there would be no semi final tomorrow nor a second (nor indeed any) place in the SPL.

..... which only benefits a handful of people with terribly pernickety requirements, who still seem to have an amazing hold on this major facility which restricts other use of it by many other much larger groups.

That will be the same wikipedia which today's Courier Shennachie column reveals as recording that Chuck Norris and Rob Schnieder have claimed that Billy McKay "is a possible resurrected version of the Lord Jesus Christ"? As Caley D says, plans (ie bits of paper) may have existed since the 90s but no more than that. Just think of the absurdity of a West Stand. Here we have a club which - a) Is working wonders on the field with a team which has been put together within the constraints of a severely limited player budget, and b) Doesn't fill its current 7700 capacity, even for Celtic and County games and normally operates at around half that capacity. Does that really sound like the kind of scenario where investing millions on a redundant fourth stand is a sensible prospect? Yes, I know that a fourth side to the Caledonian Stadium would give a more intimate atmosphere and act as a windbreak. But this notion of a West Stand is Inverness football's second most persistent myth after the one which states that m****r protesters are staying away in droves. Or maybe they should build the thing, call it The Refusenik Stand, The Rose Street Stand or The Rod The Mod Enslosure and it would instantly fill to the brim with an entirely new clentele!

So I take it you don't fly Ryanair where your average Leprechaun struggles for leg room?

Anyone remember the ballboy at Dingwall who was hit by the water bottle kicked by Ian McCall? (It was shortly after he kicked the tub of paint in the tunnel at the Caledonian Stadium.) A photographer of my acquaintance got the lad swathed in bandages before taking lots and lots of pics!