Charles Bannerman

Just to say that, thanks to the postponement at Perth, there's an extra BBC TV presence here, including Paul Mitchell doing commentary for Sportscene tonight. As a result there will be much enhanced coverage on tonight's programme.

As CB says the forecast is a bit better so hopefully the game will go ahead as planned. As far as I'm aware it was only a bit of the pitch that was a problem and I'm certain Tommy is on the case. Yes, it seemed mainly to be roughly a circle maybe of 20 odd yards diameter centring around the D at the North end. And I am equally certain that Tommy is on the case! Possibly his main constrain is that he can't spike as deep as he would like to drain off the water because that would burst the USH pipes. But I would VERY much doubt if a decision would be taken tomorrow, given the potential for improvement which overnight Friday - Saturday seems to offer.

I would have thought that someone local like Jimmy Johnstone or Bill Machray - vastly experienced ex referees who have gone on to become referee supervisors and who actually assess the kind of people the SPL seem to insist must carry out inspections - might have been perfectly capable of deciding whether a pitch is playable or not. On the other hand Bill or Jimmy could have got to the TCS long before the match referee whose late arrival presumably maximised the chances of the game going ahead. I would have been a very interested fly on the wall as regards the conversation the ref presumably had with the SPL on his way up the road. And the number of times he bounced that ball on the pitch before apparently at last accepting that it wasn't suddenly doing anything other than rebounding feebly once before stopping dead was amazing. You saw a couple of attempts on STV but they totalled well into double figures. QUESTION - does this therefore mean that no SPL game at the TCS is going to be able to be postponed before the arrival of the match referee? If so, where does that leave travelling fans? Anyway... maybe time to put this incident on to the back burner and hope instead that the pitch has dried up by Saturday. The rain/ snow is forecast to stop by tomorrow and the last BBC forecast I saw was for sunshine on Saturday. Fingers crossed.

Eye witness report or your information. Round about 5pm today, I watched one of the longest and most thorough inspections I have ever seen in football where the match referee performed just about every test he could on the pitch - again and again. In particular he bounced the ball repeatedly on a quite extensive area around the edge of the North Stand penalty box and again and again the ball gave one weak bounce as it threw up fountains of water and then stopped dead. The rest of the pitch wasn't too bad but there was a significant area in the North half of it which was very wet indeed. Make no mistake about it, the referee did not take that decision lightly and appeared to repeat various tests of running, bouncing the ball and passing very frequently before he gave his verdict after about 20 minutes of examination. It is my understanding that Caley Thistle first requested the inspection before lunch time. I did not detect any dissent when the decision was made at around 5:15. I can only speculate as to how keen the SPL (who insisted that this fixture DIDN'T go ahead on December 4th) were to get this game cleared last night, given that Dundee United have only played 20 matches. Also there is, anecdotally, the impression that the drainage on the TCS pitch is not as good as it was before the undersoil heating was installed. This, of course, means in addition that the pitch cannot be rolled with long spikes to create drainage channels for surface water since the spikes would burst the USH pipes.

Well at least we know it won't be a salivary gland problem.

Scotty... you are music to the ears of Hibs fans! :biggrin:

To my recollection, the actual fixtures are announced as soon as the composition of top and bottom six are known. Given the relatively short timescale, that's a necessity to ensure fans can make arrangements. Typically it's been 5pm on the last pre split Saturday. Of course it could in theory be the Sunday before the exact line ups are known. Can someone tell me if I am right in vaguely recollecting that in such an instance they once issued fixtures on the Saturday, some of them on an "either/or" basis for the 24 hours until the final line up was confirmed?

DEE'S LEGEND MACALPINE!!!!!! Only for the amount of abuse he used to take ( very well I may add) great character but Arab *******',and yes his lad won at Nairn Oops... sorry, forgot! It was the place across the road, wasn't it? That's a wee but like people in the South of Scotland thinking that Inverness and Aberdeen are more or less the same place. :irritated:

Very possibly. I passed a very pleasant couple of days at Nairn West reporting on the Scottish Amateur in 2006... and even did an interview at the end with Dees legend Hamish MacAlpine whose son I seem to recollect won the event! I also note with interest the other observations you made about Colin Montgomerie.

Delighted the Scottish Open is coming to Inverness. This should be a big boost for the game and if it leads to the area producing another Murray Urquhart, Gillian Stewart or Kelsey MacDonald then that would be a bonus for them. What I am dreading, though, is the spate of highly speculative "surveys" which will predict that the event will bring x, y and z million pounds into the local economy where x, y and z are totally different numbers. I find these highly inaccurate exercises extremely annoying, even though the event will be of significant and very welcome local economic benefit. My main problem with golf, apart perhaps from some of the fashions they wear, is Colin Montgomerie since it goes against the grain to see a lot of money being made out of playing a sport by someone who is - in a word - fat.

So that will be an all Scottish final then - Jockovitch v Murray. :biggrin:

They wear green and white hoops... maybe a huddle would help!

This interview includes the manager's take on the red card. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/scotland/9377518.stm

Yes. They go to games and make money out of both clubs for the duration of hostilities. (They also provide the First Aid.)

Believe me... your Peter Pan days, and with them your delusions of moral superiority, are well and truly numbered along with everybody else's! It has been said that there are two certainties in the human existence... Death and Taxes. However there is a third which intervenes before the inevitability of Death... and that is Old Codgerdom. I also wonder how many of the Caley Animals which IHE was so en on reviving for the Elgin game now sit in the Main Stand wrapped in tartan travelling rugs and sucking Werthers Originals? When ah wurralad there was no shortage of Old Codgers either... except that in these days they normally had the fairly potent option of reminding us that they were the generation of the Normandy Beaches or El Alamein or even the Somme, whose efforts saved young people like me from being tramped under the boot of the Hun. At least we can take comfort in the fact that we will never be as old as you Mr Bannerman Well if that is the case at the moment, it is likely to remain the case for the indefinite future since we are all getting older - and hence approaching Old Codgerdom - at exactly the same rate. And those in denial of that are most likely undergoing their mid life crises! :biggrin:

Believe me... your Peter Pan days, and with them your delusions of moral superiority, are well and truly numbered along with everybody else's! It has been said that there are two certainties in the human existence... Death and Taxes. However there is a third which intervenes before the inevitability of Death... and that is Old Codgerdom. I also wonder how many of the Caley Animals which IHE was so en on reviving for the Elgin game now sit in the Main Stand wrapped in tartan travelling rugs and sucking Werthers Originals? When ah wurralad there was no shortage of Old Codgers either... except that in these days they normally had the fairly potent option of reminding us that they were the generation of the Normandy Beaches or El Alamein or even the Somme, whose efforts saved young people like me from being tramped under the boot of the Hun.

Aye, I can just imagine what these Old Codgers were talking about too. "See these young lads... they only come here so they can make a noise and a complete @rse of themselves on a Saturday afternoon. No interest in football at all. Well I suppose it keeps them off the streets. But the soooner they get away back to the North Stand the better. Tut, tut, tut. Pass the Werthers Originals." Don't worry son. The day is approaching faster than you realise. You probably won't suddenly wake up one morning and simply realise that you have become an Old Codger. As sure as night follows day though, it's a status which is certainly coming your way. But enjoy the intolerance of youth for the moment, because it won't be available to you for all that much longer.

Really pleased to hear that. Tomorrow is my favourite day of the Scottish football season (a partiality I share with Richard Gordon from what Richard has said in the past)and I'm really pleased that Scottish football fans worldwide, not just those of Caley Thistle, will be able to share the whole show.

If you are within Scotland, with the exception of the back of beyond, I would recommend one of the FM frequencies since reception is far, far better. MW on the other hand is a bit of a broadcasting Heineken in that it can reach places FM cannot reach.

Just to keep you updated.... Sportsound is going to be covering all of tomorrow's eleven ties in one large scale Open All Mics programme with a reporter at each ground. This will go out on all frequencies (92-95 and 103.5-105FM and 810MW) so there are no commentaries tomorrow. This will keep listeners across the entire afternoon's card. This is on air from 2pm until 5:30. I don't know how available this is in the Diasporate. The Sportscene Results Programme is on air on BBC 1 Scotland from 4:30-5:10 with full time reports from all ties and updates/ goal flashes in the latter stages from several of them. Highlights of all eleven ties, including post match interviews, will then be shown on Sportscene from 10:30-11:50 in the evening - 80 minutes of coverage from across the country. Before and after on Radio Scotland, Stuart and Tam are on from midday, Your Call is on from 5:30-6:30 and Sports Report from 6:30 to 7pm.

2:30pm Tuesday Jan 11th.

Given that this national story has now taken an ICT angle, as can be seen in the link to the BBC website pasted below, I thought it might be appropriate to place this in the ICT section. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/scot_prem/9339466.stm A statement has also gone out from the club to the media and I would imagine this will also appear on the ICT Official site before long.

It would appear, then, that your wish will be granted. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/scot_prem/9339466.stm Caley Thistle have also just issued a statement to the media which I would imagine will be on the official club website before long.

Mike Grant (ex Inverness Courier and now Chief Football Writer with The Herald) made a very good point on Good Morning Scotland today when he suggested that this proposed reversion to the previous ten team top league is perhaps as much as anything being driven by TV companies who want four Old Firm games in a season. I would add that if the TV companies can get rid of a couple of "riff raff" at the same time they would probably also be happier to have more of their other televised games as the Old Firm against what they perceive to be the "bigger clubs". I would also be very surprised indeed if the Old Firm themselves didn't emerge from any change to ten teams with more money while the other side of the coin (literally) is that the fans would be left with a format which the vast majority of them don't want and which they and so many of the game's respected professionals believe would result in an inferior, defensive product. So it rather looks to me as if this could well be a case of money and those who already have a considerable capacity to acquire it dictating to the rest of the Scottish game. We could also be looking here at a legacy of the collapse of Setanta inasmuch as TV revenues have shrunk and in its desperation to restore these, the SPL might just be prepared to allow the TV companies to call the shots to a greater extent. Certainly this does appear like a further step for Scottish football away from the interests of the fans in the stands and in the direction of the televised game. And as far as Caley Thistle are concerned, for how long can a club with the kind of budget ICT has stave off a season of finishing 10th as opposed to 12th? I would suggest that the likelihood of another relegation within the first five years would be significantly higher and it would also be correspondingly more difficult to get back up. And as for the promises of better resources, especially parachute payments,to be given to the second tier... does anyone seriously believe that SPL2 would be significantly different from SFL1?

Correct - you ARE wrong! It was merely a totally unsinister and spontaneous query, prompted by your post and based on my recollection of what was agreed at the Shareholders' meetings in question which I attended some years ago - presumably along with yourself? And do not fret! When I need verified information for "work" purposes (such as who owns the stadium :biggrin:), I have sources which I can go to which don't include you good self! And there ends my input here on this issue.