Charles Bannerman

In fact a state of war still technically exists between North and South Korea even though the Korean War ended in 1953, because a treaty has never been signed. I also heard the theory on the radio this morning that the North Korean team were obliged to react very strongly for fear of repecussions from the "Little Fat Leader with the Very Silly Haircut" when they weny home. I really don't think the SFA would have had a great deal to do with this game at all. Apparently the crowd was something of the order of 19,000. They had sold about 7000 tickets and given away over 30,000 but even dishing out freebies doesn't seem to make people want to watch football at the Olympics. Interestingly, someone was also saying that in the immediate Olympic environment, people will only be able to eat and drink McDonalds and Coke (and pay by Visa). Can you imagine a fortnight of packing that disgusting transatlantic muck down your throat!?

http://www.bbc.co.uk...otland-18991619 You could not make this up! Very first day of Games competition too, but the error seems to have originated with the London organisers. It's a wee bit like Celtic walking out on to the pitch at a Champions' League match to the strains of The Sash or the printers accidentally placing the image of Bendict XVI on Ibrox season tickets! On the question of the Scottish flag, if there's resentment at that then I'm beginning to wonder if Mr Salmond's policy of picking fights with London/ Westminster/ England IS actually having the infectious effect he wants. This is an Olympic Games and the member entity of the IOC is the Great Britain and even though London is the host city, its application was made through GB's membership of the IOC. Scotland is NOT an Olympic nation per se, but in this situation is a region of one. End of. I can't, for instance,imagine that Barcelona in 1992 was festooned with Catalonian flags either. In an environment where "brand police" have even been employed obsessively to protect the image of Ronald McDonald, Coca Cola, the Five Rings etc etc, a blue and white flag at Hampden Park really does seem like a side issue. Agreed, though, that football at the Olympics (and tennis for that matter) is a waste of time!

What mess was that... We don't seem to have an answer to Les's question yet.

Hang on a minute... let's get this straight. Back in 1994 poor old Buenos Hadji, due to scruples regarding the loss of his Highland League team, "declines" to associate himself with a new club which then progressed to the SPL in a decade. Instead he decides to become a lifelong supporter of another club which now finds itself in the Third Division, from which the club he declined to back moved on as champions all of 15 years ago. Talk about a magnet for lost causes! I really hope he doesn't bet on the horses!! :lol:

In today's Courier, they publish a rather sad wee online comment on earlier comments by fans on the new strip, and it reads - "ICT history? All 18 years of it? ICT fans? All three of them?" It's signed "Hadji Douglas". Looks to me as if, 18 years on, Chick Allan's biggest fan is still "spitting mad" at the merger! :lol: :lol:

2012 - Global Construction do the upgrading work in Dingwall within a tight timescale in an era of significant financial input to the club from the Global Energy chairman so Ross County call it the Global Energy Stadium. 2005 - Tulloch Construction do the upgradiing work in Inverness within a tight timescale in an era of significant financial input to the club from the Tulloch Group through its chairman so Caley Thistle call it the Tulloch Caledonian Stadium. So what's your point, caller.....????? Or are you just trying to highlight the significant difference, which is that "Tulloch Caledonian Stadium" has two more syllables?

Folks... I'm not going to say much since I prefer not to comment here on running stories, but I think I should clarify this. Ross County's policy is not to reveal how many season tickets they've sold but they do confirm that so far this season it's double last season. What they did give me was a figure of 3000 which, as I said in my report, is the number of STs sold + seat debentures held + expected uptake for corporate hospitality, which in County's case has been historically large. So one way or another all but 1000 of the 4000 in the home end are already spoken for. They want to retain a fair number for what they know is quite a large occasional support - a consequence of their fan base being so geographically dispersed - but are also quite up front in saying that selling single tickets takes in more cash than discounted STs. What they said yesterday (Tue) was that they may have to call a halt on ST sales by the end of this month. This has now been slightly refined to a guarantee that they will continue to sell STs "at least until July 27th".

But I'm not suggesting that anyone should DVD drinking activities in the Social Club!

Seriously, I think there's a lot of scope for more fans to use the Social Club since the profits go back to the football club. I just don't understand Inverness at the moment. The Portland Club has gone bust, the Leejun is struggling and the Caley Club certainly doesn't look as busy as it has done in recent years. But yet, compared with pubs over town, prices at the Leejun and the Caley Club are absolutely rock bottom - sometimes almost half what you would pay in Inverness's more expensive establishments. Now I do realise that a lot of people are taking the even cheaper option of buying supermarket drink and staying at home to watch inane talent shows on the telly or getting tanked up before abusing each other on Facebook or Twitter. But maybe it's time folk started getting a life again and began socialising with real people in a pub which seriously undercuts the rest of the market rather than getting tanked up at home. Maybe if more fans would use the Social Club they might also enhance their own corporate identity as supporters and also, through the Social Club, strengthen their sense of identity with the Football Club.

Given ICT's current pursuit of alternative sources of income, this is definitely a very good shout. In fact if these boys, as they suggest, are intending getting hammered, the Social Club after the game is probably as good a place as any to do that as well. And they'll get a very pleasant surprise, since compared with prices up town, buying drink will feel like BOGOF!! The classic symbiotic relationship - the Coventry fans get a cheap drink and ICT gets their custom.

I was just scanning through the various sections and when I saw that Doogie was the last poster on this particular thread I just had to read what he said - merely to confirm that I had predicted the nature of the response completely accurately! I think we can say that Dougal's response, coming as it does on the 12th of July, epitomises the true spirit of the "tolerance " towards Celtic fans and their likes that you would expect on such a day.

Ann Summers' cousin?

This really has been the most boring non-story of the year! There NEVER WAS any chance of Ross County having to play at the Caledonian Stadium. The only reason the issue arose at all was that due to the now familiar plethora of "SPL rules", Ross County had to lodge with the SPL by 31st March, by which time they hadn't yet won the First Division and their own stadium obviously wasn't compliant, the name of a ground that trhey would play at in the event of their own not having become compliant by the start of the season. But there was never any chance of that happening - this was simply a vastly over publicised and equally misunderstood case of Ross County having to jump through an SPL hoop. By the way, County's single "home" pre season friendly against Coventry City on July 18th will not take place at Victoria Park (which WILL be ready by August 4th) - but at Grant Street Park Inverness.

Even of you'd said "another 1000 fans per game ON AVERAGE" I might still have queried this on the basis that it would mean that the other SPL clubs "welcomed" :love02: a total of 19,000 (1000 x 19 home games) Rangers fans per season across their average 1.5/2.0 home encounters with them in the bottom/top six. However since I'm not in a position to do the sums, I'll not press this one and would be prepared to be persuaded if someone came up with definitive numbers to back up this claim of 1000. However, specifically in the case of ICT - and WITHOUT the County factor - Rangers formerly came to visit, on average 1.5 times a season. Even adding in Rangers fans slipping into the home end, 3500 would seem to be a fairly generous estimate of average attendance by Rangers fans at games at TCS. That's 5250 (3500 x 1.5) a season or, if you divide by 19 home games, about 275 per game, which is much lower than the 1000 stated. As it happens, if Highland Derbies are similarly attended, that should cancel out the above effect and - all other things being equal - gate receipts should be unaffected. Also take into account that there is now only one and not two clubs to claim a disproportionately large share of revenue which should leave more for the rest. As for the "new" SPL, well obviously the departure of Rangers now makes the top 6 and European places that much more accessible which by definition makes the league more competitive. And in any case what's the difference between two teams being able to win the league and one team being able to win the league? Answer - the outcome of Old Firm (or should we now call in "Former Firm") games which per se are of no interest at all to the other teams in the SPL anyway. There is also, I believe, a chance here for a new beginning in Scottish football. There is a glorious (I hope that's not an inappropriately triumphalist or hubristic turn of phrase! ) opportunity here for our game to free itself from this absurd duopoly by two clubs both made artificially and disproportionately larger than the rest by religious division and Irish politics in an area a long way from here - factors which don't even have the remotest connection with football in Scotland. One further thought - where will all the ex Ibrox Glory Hunters go now?

Simple answer....."The Split", which means we won't be making identical journeys. Yes this was what i was originally unclear about. The statistics are based on the ACTUAL number of miles travelled in accordance with each team's allocated fixtures rather than the average number of miles from each team to each of the away venues so ICT's slightly bigger numbers are due to the fact that their "double aways" are to significantly more distant venues than County's. I suppose you could argue both ways here - that by the way it's done here you are observing two variables at once (geographical location and H/A fixture allocation) or that you are examining the actual scenario for next season. However across a number of seasons (no cheap shots about County's SPL longevity please!) where H/A inconsistencies iron out, County will in fact be the furthest travelled by a short head from ICT. The graphs do show what you would expect - that (perhaps apart from St J) you would expect there to be very little among the most favoured 7 whereas with the other 4 (Killie, Dons, County, ICT) it's pretty much in line with how far from the Edinburgh - Glasgow axis you are. I'd still be interested to see the figures for each club in an "average" SPL season - in other words the average distance from each club's ground to the ground of the other ten. What we have here is somewhat skewed by ther single season anomaly of differential home and away fixtures. The differences may be msall but still significant. But possibly the abiding message of this topic is that it originates from newspaper reports and, Rangers apart, this is very much the silly season.

Given that County and ICT have to travel to each other plus to the same ten other venues, how come County's average per game is slightly less than ICT's despite County having to travel about 15 miles to get to the same access point (in effect the Kessock Bridge roundabout) to the south and east as ICT who in effect have to go zero miles to reach it? Or have I missed something in the numerical basis of this claculation?

So what would have to happen here if Brand New Rangersco were to be elected into the SFL? They would need to go into the South/ West section of the Ramsdens Cup while Dundee or Dunfermline went out of the North/ East section into the SPL, resulting in the need to switch one team from SW to NE. Geographically the most obvious candidates would seem to be Livi or Stenhousemuir so what do the SFL do? Completely redraw the first round or give Rangers these clubs' draws away to Annan or Stranraer? Remember, the Ramsdens Cup starts on July 28th - four weeks Saturday, or 24 days after the SPL's formal vote - so there's a whole lot of detail to be sorted out in a very limited time in a large number of ways. Also, is this a long enough time for any attempt by the SFA to overhaul the entire show? And on the subject of a vacancy arising in the SFL due to Dundee or Dunfermline going up, what does the SFL do? Does it simply have a quick vote Yea or Nay solely on Rangers gettng into the Third Division or does it also give other potential candidates the opportunity to apply for the vacant place? Might a better idea not be for Son of Rangers to take a year completely out of football to give them the chance to sort out player contracts and to allow the relevant Governing Bodies time to sort out what on earth to do while the 2012-13 season gets under way cleanly for the rest of the clubs? Even that would presumably mean Division 3 going ahead with nine clubs and the Division 1 and 2 playoff final losers also getting promotion to these leagues.

Possibly further justified by the link that ICT's Hon President and biggest benefactor is a leading light in the Archie Appeal.

Not at all Alex... merely highlighting the very relevant parallel that what we are seeing here is simply a standard symptom of how the Highland minority has historically always been treated by the central belt majority in Scotland

This is really nothing new. People from south of the Highland faultline are quite accustomed to "gnash their gooms and weep and wail" (to quote a certain poet from quite near Mr Shiels' current stamping ground) about having to travel outwith the classic circle of 40 miles radius, centred on the mid point between Edinburgh and Glasgow. This was one of the main secondary sources of delight for me when it became apparent that Ross County were going to join ICT in the SPL - it would wind up these people up even more that there were now TWO clubs in the Highlands that would have to be visited! A certain national broadsheet - which has a long, long pedigree for moaning about this, going back to the days when Partick Thistle fans got distraught about having to abandon their Byres Road bistros to make several First Division trips to the Highlands - was at it again this week. It was the same Kenny Shiels story as appeared elsewhere, which presumably went out to all the nationals via a press conference or maybe a freelance, but with the added dimension that - horror of absolute horrors!!! - CELTIC also had to travel north TWICE and on CONSECUTIVE WEEKS.... amid trying to qualify for the Champions' League! Terry Butcher is very good at rubbishing this kind of pathetic Central Scottish parochialism (which, incidentally, you will be voting to allow to dominate the Highlands totally if you vote "yes" in the Salmorendum in 2014 ). Butcher's answer is that in England the likes of Northumberland and Cornwall are all part of the same league set up, so journeys of several hours are commonplace, so what are the Central Belt teams moaning about? Similarly a few weeks ago I phoned Craig Brewster to congratulate him on Crawley Town's promotion, gained after an away win at Accrington. I caught him in the middle of of a very long journey back down the road from Lancashire to West Sussex. This kind of nonsensical complaining is a very Scottish thing where over 80% of the population live in this wee kailyard and have great difficulty seeing beyond its geographically limited confines. As a result the rest of Scotland, including the Highlands, suffers. Remember Jack Steedman of Clydebank FC who, successfully for a time, fought tooth and nail for years to keep Highland teams out of national league football. Maybe now is the time for the A9 to be renamed Jack Steedman Street!

Not if Ross Jack and Barry Wilson have their way!

I dare you to have it on July 12th instead with everybody dressed in Dundee United strips!! :lol:

No clash with Celtic home fixtures, unsurprisingly. But Club 12 does clash with Dundee Utd's home games, which coulod turn out to be a problem. At a very quick count, I think I spotted no fewer than nine occasions when Dundee United and "Club 12" are both playing at home at the same time, so if Club 12 were to become Dundee, then that would mean substantial disruption possibly for both Dundee teams. On the other hand there are no "Club 12 - Celtic" clashes, now that Celtic aren't playing on August 11th. Nine clashes is just about statistically what you would expect for two teams being drawn H - H if their fixtures had been set out completely independently of each other (it's actually 8.25 - a quarter of the 33 games - but you can't have 0.25 of a game). What would seem to have happened is that the SPL fixtures will have been made up, starting possibly as long ago as it became known that Dunfermline were down, and when there was no serious risk of the now ex-club which was formerly Rangers not being in the SPL so they jigged them to keep what would now have to be called "The Split New Firm" apart. The more recent introduction of serious doubt about the final composition of the SPL has then possibly resulted in "Rangers" being replaced game by game by "Club 12" on the list at a much later stage. On the other hand some may prefer to adopt the conspiracy theory......

So what do you reckon TBB? If they'd called it "Caledonian" the team would have been SECOND!!

Se my post #7 on the "Where is the £250K?" thread.