Kingsmills

Well deserved despite his unfortunate flirtation with Livingston.

I tend to agree.

I'm surprised that nobody has yet posted a tribute to the late Wille Grant who died last week at the relatively young age of 71. Willie was an exceptional player who was an integeral part of the all conquering Elgin City team of the 1960s who then went on to manage the most successful and entertaining Inverness Thistle side in the history of the club. The Highland football community is very much the poorer for his passing.

I'll believe it when I see it but it would be great if this actually happens.

My thoughts exactly when I heard the news.

Charles, Kingsmills housed a crowd of 7,000 for a match against a Celtic XI circa 1971. I recall the ground being very full but not uncomfortably or dangerously so.

I would agree with putting Rory out on loan ahead of Wood.

I myself remember when Rangers played an Inverness Select at Grant Street as a warm up for the notorious Cup Winners Cup Final in Barcelona in 1972 when I'm sure the crowd was more than 8,000. As I recall it was quite an entertaining ame with Rangers winning either 5-2 or 5-3.

Simpsons

He served us well over a number of seasons so best of luck to him.

My late father was convinced that he was part of a crowd in excess of 13,000 at Grant Street in either the late 40s or very early 50s.

Servile

To be accurate about Jason Scotland, Dundee United were initially granted a work permit for him despite his not meeting the automatic criteria that permit was, as they all are, subject to periodic renewal and the principal reason why it wasn't renewed was because United had very rarely played him in the starting eleven in the previous season.

So, pretty reasonable starts for the last two seasons despite low calibre pre season opposition.

AS far as I am aware the initial application was refused but that was inevitable due to the fact that he doesn't meet the automatic qualifying criteria as far as recent international appearances are concerned. That means that the appeal process has been triggered which , all things considered, taking into account how similar cases have been dealt with in the past, is likely to result in the permit being granted.

Is that not a couple of hundred less than previously suggested ?

Will the new temporary stand be ready in time for the Rangers game ?

Not so Scotty, no matter what the source of funding for his income is his only employer is Inverness Caledonian Thistle so only one application has been made and only one permit required.

Reaction

To be frank I was more than half expecting Bamba to be one of our summer signings. I suppose it could happen yet.

On the face of it our pre season opposition is of a fairly poor standard but similar pre season regimes have served us well in the past and we now appear to have shaken off our reputation as poor starters.

All of those mentioned made very substantial contribution to the progress of the club over the years and well merit a place in theHall of Fame.

Niculae doesn't meet the criteria for gaining a work permit automatically due to his lack of recent international appearances. For that reason the initial application was never going to succeed. However, any appeal tribunal are able to employ much greater discretion and I believe that he will be granted a permit on appeal which should not take longer than another week or so. Our Chief Executive or whoever was resposible for advising in relation to the initial application appears to have been somewhat naive in apparently not realising that the application would certainly be refused in the first instance. Perhapsa the club could have been a little quicker off the mark.

Although until we sign another defender not many.

Certainly sounds more challenging than last year's fixtures against local amateur clubs.