Charles Bannerman

I am REALLY surprised that none of the razor sharp wits on these forums picked up on that little gem. :004: Laurence... the sequel to "Against All Odds" has effectively already been written since the club's statistician Ian Broadfoot published "Going Ballistic" about five years ago. This book takes the tale on from where I left it on the day that the Third Division title was won through to entry to the SPL in 2004 although Ian's book concentrates rather more on the playing side than mine does. A couple of other observations on intervening posts. Unfortunately I have to inform Alternative Maryhill and various members of the Thistle Disapora that the Kingsmills Tea Hut has now unfortunately gone the way of Monty Python's parrot - it is defunct, it is no longer there. The sheds and garages of which it was part opposite the Queens Park have been converted into a building site. Reading the story this week of battlefield archaeologists' efforts to find the precise site of the Battle of Prestonpans reminded me of the slight uncertainty which already exists over where Citadel's ground precisely was. I hope we never lose track of where various features of Kingsmills and Telford Street Parks were. (I once bought a TV from the centre circle at Telford Street!) Oh, and Laurence... please excuse Immortal Howden Ender. You WILL eventually get used to him.

Gee thanks Laurence!! :D And so unassuming of you to describe your thread as "not important". Of course it's important! Please ingnore Mantis. He is an unashamed propagandist for the (predominantly ) blue and white side of the said merger. However he does seem to have misinterpreted your circumstances. Might it have been more likely that you were actually outside Telford Street Park since you refer to "giant killing acts" (plural) whereas in the case of Kingsmills Park the 1985 singular would perhaps have been more appropriate? But seriously... welcome!

Naw naw MacKenzie.... I deliberately made the point at the top of the thread that it was motivated by the analogy with ICT's current situation at the top of the First Division. :D

You mean when it burned down? :023: Certainly that night at Grant Street I think the entire Howden End, committee, playing staff etc etc simply translated itself that half a mile to Grant Street Park. As Dalneigh Caley says, it was a great atmosphere there. It was also a time when Inverness football totally dominated the Highland League. Ross County were only a year on the road to recovery from their debt-enforced amateur status, Elgin's day under Pele was yet to come and the Aberdeenshire teams which currently dominate the league were very much the poor relations. Since 1987, Caley and Thistle between them had swept the boards and there was one point during 88 (I think it was after Thistle won the Q Cup) all the available honours (League, League Cup, Q Cup, North Cup and Inverness Cup) resided on one side or the other of the River Ness.

Possibly the closest scenario to the current one in the First Division which I can directly recollect is the finish to the Highland League title race in 1988. Buckie had looked odds on favourites to take the title as the only other contenders Caley went up the Hill to Jags Park for their final game on the last Saturday of the season. The only thing that would do Caley was a win at Kingsmills (against what, before the Howden End veterans get on the case, I would stress was an incredibly good Jags side!) and for Buckie to slip up v Peterhead. Buckie duly did so, but the Inverness Thistle defence was proving obstinate... until Wilson Robertson grabbed the only goal of the game late on. This completely changed it, leaving Buckie three points and seven goals behind Caley, but Buckie still had to complete their programme at the Clach Park the following Wednesday night. Now these were the days when customers in the Rodgers' shop outnumbered spectators at the Clach Park where things had become utterly dire in the run up to the 1990 near collapse. As a result, the 8 goal win Buckie needed couldn't be entirely ruled out. It wasn't surprising, then, that Grant Street was full of Caley fans who had become Clachers for the night and the atmosphere in there was amazing. (This may also have been the last game at Grant Street before the stand (ahem!) "burned down". ) In the end it was a 2 all draw so Caley won the league by two clear points but, having been at both games, it was a great few days for football in Inverness. As it happens this was also Caley's last ever Highland League title. Great memories.

Not quite. I would expect that Richard Gordon will do the commentary while Messrs Robertson and Ferguson are there as ex pros to do summarising and general discussion and Jim Spence is there as a reporter to do interviews etc. Remember this is not simply somebody describing 90 minutes of football - it's a whole evening of football coverage which I am sure will touch on a wide range of issues and there's half time and post match up until 10pm to fill as well. Believe me - if you just had one or two voices for that period... you'd notice it!

I'm putting this here on the ICT forum since it is presumably of interest to ICT fans who may want to follow the progress of their team's chances of lifting the First Division title on Wednesday night. Live commentary - Raith Rovers v Dundee on Radio Scotland 810MW from Richard Gordon with John Robertson, Derek Ferguson and Jim Spence.

I doubt if the people who lost their jobs would agree.

ICT's longest winning run is eleven which started on November 16th 1996 with a 2-0 home win over Ross County and ended on February 22nd 1997 with a 1 all draw at home to Forfar. It was part of what is also ICT's longest unbeaten run of 22 games which was bracketed by defeats on October 26th 1996 and April 26th 1997 - dates which are exactly 6 months apart.

Try here.... http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/s...v_1/8624002.stm (And "The Thing After Your Call On BBC Scotland" is Sports Report :D )

So vote for the Highland National Party on May 6th!!!

Too close to call. Beating Celtic in the cup semi final to become the first Highland team to reach the Scottish Cup final is a huge endorsement in County's favour. On the other side, ICT's won was at Celtic park itself and indeed it kicked off a trend which has snce become a little more commonplace. Berwick and Hamilton did it against Rangers but it wasn't sustained. Since ICT did it in 2000 against Celtic, they did it again in 2003 (and DAMN close to a third time) and so did Clyde. As a result Cel;tic's infallibility has beenn seriously challenged and 8.2.00. set the foundations of that. I was at Hampden today and make no mistake about it. County were absolutely superb, so was the atmosphere and it was just a WONDERFUL day for Highland football. My highlight was interviewing Donnie MacBean... County's counterpart to Jimmy Falconer... and he had tears in his eyes!

Sorry Donview, can't help you there. However, anecdotally that strikes me as being the case, although possibly not quite as high a success rate as the Grantown Goalie!

That is correct, but I have to give Ian Broadfoot the ICT statistician the credit for clarifying this in response to a question I emailed him on Monday. ICT's most recent shut out had lasted for 490 minutes (5 full games preceded by 29 mins of the QoS game and followed by 11 min of the Raith game). When I asked Ian about the longest shut out he came up with 514 minutes, the vast bulk of which was indeed under Charlie in the post split phase of 06-07 with a few residual minutes into the first game of 07-08. ICT's longest unbeaten run is 22 games between 2nd November 1996, during a run of away games in the transition from Telford Street to the Caledonian Stadium, and 26th April 1997 by which time the Third Division title had been won. This included a run of 11 straight wins which was kicked off by a 2-0 victory over Ross County on November 16th (the first ever home win at the Caledonian Stadium which some may also remember for Sandy Ross's notorious "assault" on Richard Hastings - the first of two such derby incidents). It ran through to an away win over Albion Rovers on February 15th 1997 which was followed by a 1-1 home draw with Forfar on the 22nd.

Getting on to my treadmill in the gym at about 7:45, I started flicking channels but all I could find was what seemed to be a documentary about the health and welfare of this chap wearing a red shirt with a number 10 on his back. As the camera focused on this fellow going through various examinations of his lower leg, it did seem that 21 guys might have been kicking a ball about in the background. Then the lad eventually trotted off screen and, after some considerable discussion of his departure, a football game did appear to start. Seriously, though, I then watched the last 30 minutes with my son and what a final goal for Bayern, but what appalled me most was the post match. I have seldom seen or heard anything lacking as much in grace as Alex Ferguson's interview, made worse by the fact that it was almost impossible to make out what he was saying due to a combination of him not actually being a very distinct speaker and his constant, obsessive mastication. Then... cue the profoundly disappointed pundits, and what can I say? Clearly a case of warm up mode in advance of the world cup.

Just for the record, it was actually Andy Barrowman who scored for Ross County although that didn't emerge until photos were looked at and players were interviewed after the match. It would appear that Barrowman hit the shot and it took a deflection, possibly off Scott Boyd, but general agreement - Barrowman goal. County certainly had the better of the game and didn't deserve to go a goal down against 10 men. After that they just battered the QoS goal with increasing intensity until they got the equaliser with 25 seconds of normal time left - quite early in the game to score by ICT standards I suppose. County might well have won it when Jimmy Scott sent a shot way over the bar from 2-3 yards in the 92nd minute and the QoS keeper had at least three great saves.

You should have seen them when Mark McCulloch scored his wonder goal to send the Dundee United cup replay into extra time!

So you're not the only person to be picking Ian's brains today then. My enquiry elicited the information that there was a 514 minute shutout in the spring of 2007 compared with the 490 minutes which were concluded early in Saturday's proceedings and that ICT's record unbeaten run is indeed 22 matches during D3 championship season 96-97. However, to return to the original topic... I would largely go with what has just been quoted on Ian's behalf although numerical intuition hints to me that his estimate might well be at the top of the range. My back of an envelope calculation is based as follows.... * The part season 96-97, with good "novelty factor" attendances in these first days, seems to have taken in around 40,000 from when the stadium opened on 9.11.96. (I have taken statistics from Against All Odds here which quote an average of 2500 per game for that whole season, including the first 3 months at Telford Street although that is the only concrete source I have access to apart from my memory.) * Attendances in the Second Division from 97-98 and right through to the First Division title in 2004 were very typically on average maybe just over 2000 for the league with 18 home games per season and allowing for the return of the Derbies from 2000-01 - although they tended not quite to reach Division 3 levels. * Then you add in cup games and give them a bit of un upward tweak for big ones like Celtic, Aberdeen and the Dundee United replay. * The SPL era then begins with a big zero since the first half season was at Pittodrie. * After that you have 4.5 SPL seasons with typically 4000 plus for around 19 home games each and add an appropriate number on for cup ties. * This season with typically 3000 odd on average has so far probably yielded about 60,000. This is very, very rough, ballpark, back of envelope stuff up but I make the current total maybe a touch above 800,000 (potentially plus or minus a fair chunk)... so I would by no means disagree with Ian. But the time the 1,000,000th fan enters the TCS will be maybe a couple of years away... but will to some extent depend on whether ICT go back top the SPL next season!

With reference to Kingsmills' professional and very relevant warning in post number 9, I would suggest that the bold section of the quote above, when taken verbatim, is actually in breach of just what he was talking about. You just cannot be too careful in this kind of situation. "Is facing charges of being racist and disorderly" or popping in that old saviour "allegedly" might be OK. Quite frankly, though, if the individual has been charged I would suggest it might be in CTOL's best interests to abandon this topic altogether pending an outcome.

Aye... that was some smell in the Howden End in these days! :004:

Is this anything to do with the Inverness TV online channel I saw something about in The Courier a few weeks ago? All I remember is a photo which included Jim Eglinton and a very attractive lady (make of that what you wish! :025: ) but they seem to be doing a lot of TV stuff from around the area?

You can also safely show her the paper itself since they don't do Page 3s on Saturdays!

Agreed absolutely and it's a talent that embraces the entire spectrum of the game, in addition to his weekly more topical affairs article in the news pages. In fact I would love if Bill could come and do something at Clach Park in the dying weeks of what we hope will not be the last season of Highland League football in Inverness. I agree that The Sun would not be everybody's cup of tea but it is very well written in a way which resonates with and grabs the interest of its core readership which, in general, may not be the most cerebral in our midst but still need to be served. That is probably why it sells so well and indeed in Scotland, as far as I am aware, it continues to outsell The Record. Please ignore Kidger's nebulous reference to a Highland News story which I once instigated of a female cleaner at the Sports Centre who insisted on entering changing rooms irrespective of which gender was in occupation. :D Les... when I call in at One Stop to collect my daughter's Rod Stewart tickets tomorrow, perhaps if you could arrange to be there this time rather than sitting drinking coffee in the Media Room at the Caledonian Stadium. :D :D

I would like a job with The Sun writing the "Dear Deirdre" letters... that's if I can't get employment as one of these people who seem to spend their entire lives hanging about their bedrooms in their underwear in "Deirdre"s Photo Casebook". I think The Sun is an extremely cleverly written newspaper which has got a very strong handle indeed on the profile of its readership. :D

There will be commentary on St. Johnstone v Rangers and there will be reporters at two other grounds - John Robertson in the case of the Caledonian Stadium and also Denfermline v Dundee. These are the only two First Division games at all relevant to the title race and, with the single SPL game, three games would not make a viable Open all Mics. However I am sure that fans of both Highland clubs will be kept fully informed of progress in this game. Remember this is 810MW only, ie not FM, and I am not sure what the internet arrangements will be although I seem to remember that games involving Rangers tend not to go out world wide.