Charles Bannerman

Another rather sweeping extrapolation! Let's just say that I'd never really thought too much about it before that remark which, as a result, did prompt some rather more critical thinking about the individiual in particular and to a lesser extent about the sport of golf in general.

Er... no! Are you confusing athletics with sports which require athleticism? By that I mean the likes of football, rugby, basketball and yes, athletics as well. Others which do not include darts, snooker and golf. I make no relative value judgement. Interestingly enough though, curling has moved from the latter category into the former, in Scotland at any rate, since these guys now undergo extensive fitness programmes through the Scottish Institute etc and the transformation in performance has been quite dramatic over the last 10 years (hence the number of major medals Scottish curlers have won in that time.) Unfortunately the term "athletic" or more specifically "athlete" has tended to be used overgenerously, especially by our cousins across the pond, to mean anyone who takes part in any sport - even a non athletic one. Some years ago I heard an American commentator make the statement (after a putt had been holed) that "Colin Mongomerie is a great athlete!" After I picked myself up off the floor and dried my trousers, I found myself from that moment onwards adopting a rather more critical viewpoint of the man and that is where my fundamentally negative take on him began.

Yes indeed I do! It seriously sticks in my throat that anyone with a body form like that should be capable of becoming a millionaire in any activity defined as "sport". Worse still, there is then the absurdity of this man being made captain of the GB and Europe team in one of the world's highest profile sporting events. Especially in an era where society is making serious efforts to eliminate obesity, this is a high profile role model which we most definitely could do without. Mind you, at least if golf comentary went on to the Open All Mics format, Montgomerie might start to get the much deserved Mark Yardley treatment!

Perhaps I should have used the term "obese" which seems to be a bit more acceptable to the PC lobby. I am merely making the point that I find it extremely unjust that people with unacceptably high Body Mass Indices can make large sums of money from activities defined as "sport" (I suppose Sumo Wrestling would have to be included here.) As such they are also being projected as extremely poor fitness role models at a time when this issue is very high on the social agenda. Come to your own conclusion as to whether a certain golfer is very high on my "hit list" here.

Oh well, that's hour after hour of reverential whispering over again for another year. Maybe one of the broadcasting organisations could liven it up by adopting a sort of "Open All Mics" type commentary. "HOOOOOOLE at the 15th!!!!" Can't say I'm a great fan of these "long trousers" sports like darts and snooker and golf where fat people can become millionaires.

He did that gramophone gag the last time I was there! 2006 Pre-season friendly at Grant Street, 6 - 0 to ICT and best entertainment was the announcer. Think Charles Bannermann said it was Billy Nelson. Was it him this time around What was the gramophone gag? Unless there has been a chage this season, it would indeed have been Billy Nelson. I was away on holiday so missed this game but I'm glad to hear that Billy is in his usual fine form. Did he play his recording of his own composition "Westering Home To The Ferry"? (Message to the uninitiated - I kid you not!) By the way, is response to a question earlier in this thread, to my knowledge ICT's biggest ever score in any game is 12-0 against a local side in Montecatini during the Italian trip of 2006. I was at that game which broke two other ICT records - the smallest ever crowd which, excluding an Inverness press corps of about five, nembered something like eleven at the start of the game. (In the best traditions of the Clach Park it doubled during the match. My other recollection of that game was that there was so little crowd noise that the main thing you could hear was all these Italians driving about on their scooters outside the ground in their usual mental fashion.) We also saw the fastest ever ICT goal that night which I think was something like 19 seconds and from Rory MacAllister. And Gringo... you are quite right - the 15-0 against Golspie Sutherland was indeed in the HL days by Caledonian FC in the first round of the North Cup in January 1994. I was there as well, but only stayed until half time because I remember I had to go up to Kingsmills to see the second half of what, in the final season of Thistle and Caley, was the bit of history of Clach's very last derby visit there. ICT's biggest score in a competitive match was 8-1 against Annan Athletic at home in the Cup in about 1998. And Annan scored first!

No at all. This is just the good manners of making an effort to reply, despite not being responsible for the removal of the most obvious means of doing so. I would have thought that IHE, as a former "Academy Boy", who got the opportunity to go there against the odds of a mis spent youth, might at least have taken the chance whilst Up the Hill to learn a little bit about manners from the more refined members of society with whom he surprisingly had the opportunity to rub shoulders.... but apparently not. :)

This is just to let Marty know that I have been unable otherwise to respond to his request to provide him with an article for the Strathyjags programme for their friendly with ICT since he seems to have forgotten that he blocked me from responding to his Personal Messages (I seem to recollect this happened when a "debate" he initiated with me started going rather badly for him! ) So, Marty - my response is that I am currently on holiday and only read your request by chance but would suggest that somebody (maybe best leave it to one of your committee members) should do an interview with Jimmy Calder. Charles.

... which presumably then inspired you to go away and write the said Anglophobic Dirge. :) Interesting to note the Irish origin of these Corriejumpers. I therefore stand corrected on the spelling which hence has just a single "r".

I see what you mean. However as I write the SPL website still has this as 3:00. I'd be interested to see what kind of demand there would be for football, either live in the stadium or on TV, on a Saturday night two weeks before Christmas and at the peak of the "office night out" season. The other consideration is that, IF the request had been made, how the police would have reacted to a football match decanting itself into Inverness city centre at 10 o'clock on a Saturday night. And that's before you consider that it's this football match - on that Saturday night.

I see what you mean. However as I write the SPL website still has this as 3:00. I'd be interested to see what kind of demand there would be for football, either live in the stadium or on TV, on a Saturday night two weeks before Christmas and at the peak of the "office night out" season.

The best interpretation is one where William Blake, who wrote the poem, is actually saying how totally crap England (well he should really have said Britain but under the circumstances we'll accept England) was with its "dark satanic mills" and all the other trappings of the Industrial Revolution. What Blake is asking is how much better the country might have been if Jesus had actually paid a visit? - which one myth claims he did do. Then in the latter stages of the poem Blake resolves to jump into his Chariot of Fire and sort England out himself. Clearly the Chariot of Fire must have had a mechanical problem during the current World Cup. Also, it's therefore a bit unforunate that the film Chariots of Fire should be about a Scottish athlete Eric Liddell. Probably the best thing about the poem is that it gave a composer called Hubert Parry the excuse to write the tune. It's actually not fair. England get all the best tunes but tag the most awful words on to them - Land of Hope and Glory is another case in point whilst all we get is an Anglophobic dirge by a beardie in an Arran jumper. William Blake was a member of what you might call the Nutcase School of English poetry. Another member was Samuel Taylor Coleridge who was a complete dopehead. In fact one day Coleridge was composing a poem called Kubla Khan whilst out of his face on some kind of concoction. There came a knock at the door and he spent some time speaking to a man from a place called Porlock. When he got back to his seat, the trip was wearing off and he couldn't remember any of the psychedelic nonsense that had been going on in his head previously. Hence (mercifully!) Kubla Khan is very short since it really is a load of meaingless rubbish so we have good reason to be grateful to the individual now known as The Man From Porlock. On the other hand Coleridge did manage to complete the almost equally barking Rime of the Ancient Mariner. There is also a connection between English poetry and ICT since Terry Butcher's English residence is in a village called Stoke Poges in Buckinghamshire. It was there that a poet called William Gray wrote what is known as the Elegy Written In A Country Churchyard - or Gray's Elegy - and Gray is also buried there. That's the one that begins "The curfew tolls the knell of parting day." Sometimes these school holidays get a bit quiet...... :D

It's six years ago now and I had forgotten the minutiae of the votes and meetings. But one thing I have not forgotten is the sheer statesmanship with which Ken Mackie led Caley Thistle through that difficult summer of 2004.

With any luck by August 14th, 21st century populism - with its attention span reminiscent of that of a brain damaged gerbil - will have clean forgotten about these damned things and will have adopted the next transient fashion... or indeed the next one after that.

Unfortunately it has to be said that TV is the main culprit when it comes to vastly inflated wages. The kind of money TV can put about creates ridiculous wage inflation not only in football but also in other varieties of entertainment. That, for instance, is why irritating plonkers like Woss and elsewhere in sport fatlads like Montgomerie can be paid ridiculous sums for what they do not very well. There are, of course, other factors which include the lunatic economics of football where these sums are paid to people who actually only work productively for their club for 90 minutes every fortnight. This scenario has also attracted the very rich who seem to be prepared to invest vast chunks of their fortunes in subsidising this for the sake of whatever personal gratification they perceive themselves to receive. This of course also appears to create the expectation among fans that rich people seem almost to have an obligation to chip in big time so that the said fans' season tickets can remain at a price which in effect only covers a small fraction of the cost of what they turn up to watch.

So what about the North Korean team? Where are they now? Salt mine? Labour Camp? Guineapigs for nuclear testing? .... whilst the North Korean people are being told that their Glorious Eleven, thanks to the personal inspiration of The Short Arsed Leader, has won the World Cup!

Maybe that fine idea could be reserved for one of the bars in the Caley Club.

Aaah right! So that will automatically absolve you from becoming the natural successors of Fort William then? ;)

Are you worried about being politely asked to relegate yourselves to this league SG?? ;)

There are also valid points made in the next three posts which follow this one but I want to follow up on the very realistic concerns which Kingsmills expresses here because they certainly square with what I have gleaned in 25 years of writing "Clach Crisis" stories. The real worry IS the possible temporary respite. Since the mid 1980s, Clach have now gone through THREE cycles of "get into debt... go right to the wire.... save the club by selling off part of the family silver". In 1990, 1997 and now in 2010 the club was virtually out on its feet and effectively saved itself by selling off a slice of its assets. However there is a difference this time in that on both previous occasions the debt was paid off in full whilst on this occasion they have got away with 37% of it. One thing I am not sure about. Do they have any tangible assets left? What I really mean there is "do they still own the strip of land where the former Wine Shed is?" I'm just not sure about that. But irrespective of the answer, I really don't think there are the assets there to survive another crisis. There are therefore two options for survival. 1) Make the club viable in its own right which is something which, if I recollect a post from Gordyfromsneck (which I meant to follow up with him but forgot), they have not been able to do for the last 100 years. 2) The new regime will need to subsidise the club to the tune of around maybe ?30-50K a year. I really hope one way or another that HL football can survive long term in Inverness. Here's an interesting thought. Spool back to 1990.. almost exactly 20 years actually since it was late June 1990 that the Clach situation really went critical. Inverness football owned:- * Telford Street Park (eventually sold for ?1M but I have heard an informed claim that it could have been ?2M.) * Kingsmills Park (eventually - after Jags realised in 1993 that they actually owned it!) sold for ?486,000. * The Caley Club. *The Jags Club. * Clach Park, including the Social Club and the area which included the grandstand which (ahem! ) "burned down" in 1988 and which has undergone a 3 stage sell off since 1990. That is one HELL of a lot of real estate!!! In between, Inverness went into National League football. As a result of that quantum leap which undeniably has done wonders for the game in the town... trivia question... what does "Inverness football" now own? Answer: The Caley Club (unless Clach still hold on to the Wineshed strip) and I would have to add that even that has been subject to speculation (no more) about a sell off. Telford St and Kingmsills went into the Merger equation which also involved the sale of the Jags Club. That in turn went into the construction of the Caledonian Stadium whose structure went out of ICT's ownership on the enforced formation of the Trust (I've worded this ambiguously to keep Caley D happy!). And the Grant Street properties have gone the way I have already described over the lat 20 years. I will now become Devil's Advocate and ask.... progress?? ;) So.. bottom line... in terms of current values, how much LESS does Inverness football own in terms of assets compared with 20 years ago?

Were you thinking of any fan in particular there Scotty?

Jock Tamson? Ask yer ma! :) (I've got a feeling a few people don't get that one!)

These two go back a few years and are both about Wayne Addicoat. Alex Caldwell was giving Wayne a lift when Wayne said he neded cash. However he declined Alex's offer to stop at a bank. "I've not got my card," says Wayne. AC: "Have you left it at home?" WA: "No, Ross Tokely keeps it for me." AC: "Do you manage to remember your PIN number OK though, Wayne?" WA: "Naw... Ross Tokely keeps that for me too." And when some of the younger players used to live in a house on Ardconnel Street, they sent Wayne away down to McDonalds for some food one night. Wayne duly wrote down each player's order before heading out the door. A minute later, there's a ring at the door bell and here is Wayne. "That was quick Wayne!" "Naw... I've just forgotten to write down what I want for myself."

I am sure neither of them will take exception to me saying this but Annette.. Craig's "dolly" of the last 2 years or so... is absolutely gorgeous!!

Look... just to put some folks out of their misery, the following, which appears on the SFL website but which I have also gleaned directly from the League, is the situation. * ICT ARE in the draw because they were in the First Division last season. * They (and Ross County) are among the 15 seeded clubs from last season's 1st Division and the top half of the Second. * ICT are therefore guaranteed a draw against a club from the lower half of the 2nd Division or from the 3rd. * The draw takes place TOMORROW FRIDAY 28TH at what will soon no longer be called Almondvale. As I understand it, the 15 winners here will join last season's bottom 7 from the SPL in 11 second round ties. The 11 winners here will join the top 5 from the SPL last season in the 8 third round ties. Thereafter we reach the quarter finals.....