Charles Bannerman

Or it might have been Katie "Children First" Gibb's son Fraser who did a brilliant job - which was why the fan concerned asked me the question in the first place with a view to the now no longer anonymous incumbent getting the job permanently.

A large one in the Heathmount? Even Alan Savage and David Sutherland have to club together to afford one of those!

No, no! You seem to misunderstand me 12th man! I was saying "Too-shay" (as in Turtle or fencing). I was only acknowledging that you were maybe winding me up/ trying to hoist me with my own petard in a good natured manner in response to my earlier refusal to name the Fifth Man in the Muirfield Mills consortium! And I can assure you that the fan is unlikely to be a scout so you can rest easy about the future of Nessie!

Touchee 12th man It's just that a fan in the main stand seems to want to know.

Thanks Manfer! Any other takers?

It might well be but I don't know who that was!

I'm posting this in an attempt to get an answer for a fan. Can anyone tell me who was inside the Nessie Mascot suit at the Dunfermline game on Wednesday night? If you don't want to post it on here, you could PM me. Thanks. CB.

Did they go for anything as complicated as "APOCALYPSE" anywhere?

"Pro merger debate"? Johndo you are the master of the oxymoron!!! Seriously, though... absolutely not! However SMEE did raise the issue of what happened during the half dozen years before movement into the SFL in 1994. Now as it happens, Inverness and Highland League football during that roughly 87/88-94 period is a subject which especially interests me and has done so for many years, which fully explains why I detailed so much stuff in earlier posts on this thread. It represents a fascinating ebb and flow of influences. You are obviously a child of stamps, Pomagne and Scotsmac on the Howden End in the 70s. Being rather younger than your good veteran self, I find the rather later period which I have specified of much more interest. Horses for courses really.

Are you also by any chance one of these chaps who thinks that Caley and Thistle fans are still staying away from ICT games in their thousands?

Ymip... I am no more than providing the factual background to SMEE's perception of Caledonian FC's somewhat unproductive last years which he says his own memory deprives him of. :biggrin: Good to see it's eliciting some reaction though! I have already done a rather more objective analysis of both Caley's and Thistle's Highland League achievements 1894-1994 in the first (new) and second chapters of Against All Odds which can be accessed for reference on this site. The ICT v County scenario 1994-97 is also examined later in the book.

18/11/2000 for me ..... County 0-3 ICT and Alex Bone with not one, not two, but three Red Cards !!!! Some time later, I asked Charlie what he had said to Bone to make him lose the plot and punch him and although he wouldnt answer at the time, he revealed much later that it was quite mundane and he had just asked him the score Yes I was REALLY disappointed that Alex wasn't a member of the County Legends team at the Testimonial!

Not for many many years before the Merger they were'nt. From what i remember (bearing in mind i have a terrible memory) but Huntly were the team of the moment and had been for a good few seasons. Even County had had more recent sucsess than Caley, Clach and Elgin Sh1tty. If i recall corectly, Caley hadnt done much for the last 4-5 seasons they were in the Highland league. SMEE... your memory isn't as bad as you think! You are absolutely correct. Let me fill in a little detail. The last Highland League "major" (ie League, Q Cup, League Cup) that Caley ever won was the League title in April 1988. After that they won very little at all until the North Cup in their last few weeks as a team in April 1994 (which was why Jags fans - who already had the Inverness Cup - used to sing "what's it like to win *&%£ all?" at the Caley fans.) However in that intervening six year period when Caley were doing very little:- * Jags won the Q Cup, beating Caley (at Telford Street no less!) 3-0 in a final replay in November 1988. * Elgin had two great seasons under Pele 1988-90 and at one popint had all the trophies on their shelf. * Ross County won back to back League titles in 91 and 92 because (WHISPER IT) Caley bottled it big time on both occasions. * In the Inverness teams' last season 93-94 Huntly won the League title, marking a lengthy period of pre eminence in Highland League football started off by Pele until 1995 and continued by other managers - albeit latterly without Caley, Jags and County to have to contend with. * And for God sake CLACH, not long back from the jaws of the receiver, even managed to put Caley out of the Inverness Cup at Telford Street in 1993 on the famous night of the Comet End Bus! So we do really have to wonder if Doogie has got a serious case of retrospective vision through rose coloured spectacles, or simply whether he has been borrowing too many delusions of past glories from Aberdeen fans.

Interesting though that of the five teams Doogie mentions there, County and Elgin were the most successful and indeed only Clach - who were heading towards their first bankruptcy - were less successful than Caley in the immediate "pre merger" years. But I'm not going to rise to the bait with the statistics.

So actually am I too young inasmuch as it ceased to be possible to buy your way into the "Kaddy" as long ago as 1945 although even in earlier days a bright working class kid such as your great aunt could always get a scholarship. PM me her name and I'll take a look in the archive and see what I can find. Anyway... by now the Mods will be well hacked off at this peroration (good Kaddy word that!) so I will conclude by remarking that Iain Gray the former Scottish Labour leader was also a former Kaddy Rat (but I don't know which team he supports) and that Murdo was just a perfectly ordinary lad in a situation where it's possibly unsurprising that a member of the Conservative and Unionist Party supports the Unionist club.

Former pupil of mine at said institution Douglas old chap But it WAS from the more recent era when entry was determined by where you live rather than by brains. "Tecky" boy yourself?

I would largely reinforce what others such as IHE and OCG have said. The ICT - County scenario is a relative Johnny Come Lately on the local rivalry stakes. Certainly in the North, and probably elsewhere as well, rivalries have tended to be with whomever your closest rivals at the time are, so this tends to be cyclical. In Inverness there was a long period in the early - mid 20th century where Caley and Clach were the two big cheeses and that was quite a longstanding one. In the 60s and into the 70s Elgin had a purple patch so they, as has been said, became principal rivals. That may also have coincided with a period of especially bad behaviour at football matches in general and perhaps locally in particular which may have amplified the situation. Then during the early/mid 80s, Caley and Keith dominated the HL scene. I was a student in Edinburgh when Thistle had their couple of glory years in the early 70s so have no great recollection of that or any rivalry it might have generated. However when Thistle had their next purple patch in the latter 1980s, in doing so they were challenging Caley's status as top dogs so this gave rise to quite an intense rivalry especially in 87 and 88. Between them these two Inverness clubs also shared all the HL honours and actually won (or effectively so) the last major trophies of their history at each other's grounds (Caley 87-88 League, Jags 88-89 Q Cup). Interestingly after that both Inverness teams went into decline as the merger approached, but appeared to retain a rivalry. However by the early 90s Ross County were up for their back to back HL titles in 91 and 92 - both the result of Caley bottling it big time. (A look at the "new" (HL) Chapter and the original Chapter 1 of Against all Odds will give more information up until 1997.) These close run HL title races then gave a huge impetus to the Caley - County rivalry (Caley fans seemed to do "rivalry" quite well!!) which therefore had every reason to spill into the SFL years post 1994. And there we have it! That rivalry of the only two national league clubs in the inner Moray Firth has continued ever since - albeit in fits and starts dependent on just how competitive they are with each other at any particular time. So we look forward to next season's unprededented scenario!!!!

Tony, an absolute gentleman, was the Rapsons bus driver in the early SFL days for both ICT and County when he would take them both to alternating away games. He was hugely respected by both Highland clubs and a legend among the players and officials he used to drive. Tony died, I think of cancer, quite a few years ago and a Memorial Trophy was donated by his family for competition between the two clubs. That went into abeyance after a while but was brought out of cold storage for this testimonial. Maybe it could now be formally restored for annual competition between the clubs alongside one of their SPL encounters (no smartass cynical one liners please!!) with the initial venue decided by the toss of a coin.

OCG... I think this is perhaps the wisest course now. It very much looks as if there is no great desire on the part of the club, the consortium or both to dwell on the issue of identity and maybe it would be best left there - especially if the consortium may be motiviated to make further investments as already reported. Maybe the "fifth man", especially since he is Inverness based, has very good professional/ business reasons not to want to be identified and if so that should be resepcted - even though he provides the clearest link with the consortium's name. Best left maybe?

Don I'm not sure whether you genuinely misunderstand what I am saying or merely choose to do so. Just in case it's the former, the point I am making is that ICT and its fans have made a number of parallel and equally laudable efforts to raise cash for their club so it really does appear a little selective - churlish even at this highly successful time for them - to criticise Ross County's commendable enterprises whilst rightly supporting and endorsing ICT's. On your second point, I should perhaps simply echo John F Kennedy's famous 1963 quote of solidarity with Berlin when he visited the city during the height of the Cold War in 1963 and comment "Ich bin ein Staggie!" as a mark of appreciation of Ross County's achievement of SPL football for themselves and hence also of double representation and derbies for the Highlands.

Anyone who purchases shares in the football club is doing no more than making a donation. As for the bricks, this was no more than a novel means of posting a list of donors - or are you suggesting that if the people who stumped up to get their names on these integral parts of the main stand actually own them, they would therefore be perfectly entitled to take their "property" away with them at any time?

And how the HELL do you think the cash was found to put North and South stands at the Caledonian Stadium in 2005 when there was an urgent necessity to return to Inverness when the cost of hiring Pittodrie was threatening to bankrupt Caley Thistle? Then apart from that, I suppose getting fans to chip in to get their name put on a brick at the Caledonian Stadium or on an away strip doesn't count as the same sort of scheme since it was ICT who did it? Next up, the perfectly admirable ICT car boot sales which are an excellent means of fundraising. Has anyone seen anything on Jailender/overthebridge criticising these? Finally, it's a bit ironic that these gripes sjould emerge today... just as the names of four of the five ICT fans who have recently put their hands in their pockets to help their club out have been released. Or is this beyond criticism when it's £50K a shot or when it's ICT? I'm with Sorted on this one.

Ah... the memories.. LSM!! I have to say that this "petrol station down the dump with Fiona Larg" didn't do too badly - however intent Dougal and his chums of equally limited ambition and imagination were on being "the most successful Highland League team in history." (An interesting order of words there, I've always thought.... "the most successful Highland League team in history" does seem to imply rather more of a world conquering delusion than the more balanced alternative of "the most successful team in Highland League history.)

You are right Charles. But a word of warning. If I ever turn on the radio and hear you use the word "fairytale" (like your BBC colleagues felt obliged to do every single time they talked about Gretna) I will get in my car, find you at whatever ground you are at, and stick your microphone into that unpleasant stinking place where where the sun don't shine. And I don't mean Dingwall. I may do it just once.... especially for you!!

Apologies to anyone who read a previous post by me in this slot which I have now deleted since - given the massive success of the project over a period of almost 20 years now - I really have to discipline myself not to argue the bleeding obvious with any of very fewer anti merger whingers who still have their AGM in a phone box in Telford Street.