We Thistle supporters, I was never a member, were more than aware at we were to be the junior members of the merged club.
Nevertheless,most of us could see the merit in swallowing a bit of pride for the greater good. There's no doubt that at the time of the merger Caley were, in relative terms, the wealthier and more successful club although the Jags had had some wonderful purple patches in thier history the early nineties wasn't one of them. Nor for that matter was it a great spell for Caley with Steve Paterson's Huntly being the dominant force in the Highland League at the time.
There were a great number of Caley hard liners who would have preferred to go it alone but, in my opinion, despite their club's greater clout, that would have been misguided as there was strong competition, especially from Gala' a sizeable town in an area of the country with no league representation. I strongy suspect that if Caley had attempted a solo bid it would have one the way of Thistle's bid in the seventies at a time when the Jags were riding high both on an off the field and even Jock MacDonald's then standing and influence in the wasn't enough to secure league entry in the face of competition from Ferranti Thistle.
The Caley hardliners were more numerous and certainly less reasonable than the dissenters on the Thitle side and had to be appeased hence, for example, theclub taking to the field in our firt season in a strip that was hardly disinquishable from the one Caley had worn in the Highland League the previous season, that together with a number of other petty slights was an unnecessarily unpleasant way of rubbing the noses of those Thistle fans who has arguably sacraficed more than the Caley ones to bring league football to Inverness.
It says a lot for those on both sides that the club survived that and the move from Telford Street to more neutral territory, albeit called the Caledonian Stadium cerainly helped.
That said, who provided what at the outset quicly became academic as those assets were quickly spent and before long the most important assets came neither from Caley or Thistle but from the share issue and the grant from the CGF without which the fledgling club would have died on it's feet and the starting capital provided by the realisation of former Caley and Thitle assets lost forever.
Without those life saving injections of capital Caley and Thistle fans would still be arguing about how much, apart from their football, clubs they had respectively lost in an ill starred venture rather than, thankfully as is the case how much we, together with subsequent generations ofInverness football followers have all gained.
