The Geography dilemma

[Council Juice]

What with reports that geography had something to do with Pressley opting for the Bairns over us (see Elvis thread) it got me thinking about why it is such a problem attracting personel to go north.

It shouldnt be a problem for anyone living in Scotland to be frank. Scotland is a tiny country which can easily be covered North to South in a day. Edinburgh is a meagre 2 and a half to three hours drive away from Inverness and Glasgow similar.

People in Canada (im sure Scotty could probably back this up) regularly travel distances like that to work every day, no sweat.

People move to Cardiff and train it to London to work as it's cheaper to live in Cardiff and it's no problem.

Even in Scotland hundreds of people commute back and forth from Edinburgh to Glasgow doing likewise without great strain.

I dont get the Scottish fan mentality either. So many fans of other central belt clubs complain about how far we are to travel to. They should be thankful their not an English club. Just look at Boro, Sunderland and NU and the distance to London or worse Pompey and visa versa.

I think it has more to do with peoples attitudes of ICT in that we are seen by the outside as a wee diddy team up in the sticks. Something really has to be done to change this image. It's held us back before and probably will again.

[strathyjags]

i really dont understand the problem,if someones from edinburgh or especially glasgow,then invenress might seem far away and out in the sticks,but look how better it is uo here.ok there not everything large cities have,but a hell of a lot less crime,lots of fresh air,and plenty outdoor pirsuitsso whys it so bad/ its only a hr and a bit by plane to london for go sake so its not like its as if you have to spend 3 days sailing to tiny islands etc,think at the end of the day its just a useful excuse

[starchief]

I grew up in the Central Belt myself. It's strange how little Glaswegians travel. Even Edinburgh isn't done that often, whilst Dumfries and Galloway (beautiful part of the country) is rarely explored.

Yet, when they do, they love it. Weird!

[IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER]

DOH - It is a lot more about spondoolachs !!

[Scotty]

Until the A9 (and A96) are proper motorway's or at the very least dual carriageways from start to finish the geography "issue" will always be that .... an issue. For some it may be an excuse, for others with friends and family in the central belt, it may be a legitimate complaint. We will get some players/managers who will mention it as a bad point, yet we will have others such as Robbo, Marius, Juanjo etc who see the tranquility and beauty of the highlands as a positive.

The captain mentioned people in Canada travelling those sort of distances daily .... and that can be true. I know some people who drive more than 100km in each direction daily. I myself travel 60Km each way to work/home on a daily basis which is a round trip of about 75 miles. However, with the exception of my own residential street, every other road has a minimum of two lanes in each direction and when I get to the highway it at least 4 lanes in each direction and as many as 8 lanes in each direction at some points.

[Charles Bannerman]

Part of the problem is the Central Belt mentality which has an aversion to travelling and which in some cases also has little conception of the world north of Castlecary Arches.

Around three quarters of the Scottish population live within about a 40 mile radius of Falkirk (by coincidence Pressley's ultimate stopping place) and have become used to getting to a large number of Scottish destinations very quickly indeed. This is the case to such an extent that I have frequently heard complaints within another sport from the Glasgow people when the national championships are in Edinburgh - and vice versa.

There is the additional factor that Scotland only has this single concentration of population which means that those who live outside it sometimes tend not to matter. After all, this is not a new problem. Remember 1973 when works team Ferranti Thistle got into the SFL ahead of the Jags?

England is different. The South east certainly has a lot of people but there are also big concentrations in the likes of the West Midlands, the North West and the North East so they are a bit more used to the concept of large chunks of the populace not being close by.

I suspect there is something of a cultural aspect to this too, which I believe goes back many centuries to the time when the then Gaelic speaking Highlands became culturally and politically divorced from the rest of the country. I really have found it not uncommon for some people from the Central Belt simply not to understand that "the North" is rather more than some homogeneous collection of communities situated right next door to each other and that we do not in fact live in adjacent mud huts a stone's throw from Brigadoon and see everybody else in the Highlands every day. For instance I have a hilarious recollection of being at a meeting in Glasgow and being handed a letter with the request that I should hand it on to Soandso. The trouble was, Soandso lived in Thurso!!!

It is not at all surprising, therefore, that there is either a reluctance to come up here, or players want more to do so, or they do their "time" up here and then go back down south after a couple of years.

By coincidence I had a discussion on this very issue with Michael Grant of The Sunday Herald on Thursday. The piece he was researching is on P18 opf today's Sport section and well worth a read.

[IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER]

Scotty / Charlie - would you come to Sneck fer feckin peanuts and a Club which has a very, very poor - and falling - reputation in its Management structure ?

[Charles Bannerman]

Scotty / Charlie - would you come to Sneck fer feckin peanuts and a Club which has a very, very poor - and falling - reputation in its Management structure ?

Johndo I am merely expanding on the general situation which is that there has always been a reluctance for players and probably managers as well to come up here.

(There is of course the opposite problem which is the loss of local talent to the South. This is a significant problem, although not altogether universal since you get local stars like Davie Milroy and Billy Urquhart spending all or a great deal of their careers here while the likes of their Captain in the Inverness Royal Academy 1st XI deserted the Highlands, ultimately for one of the lesser regions of England, his talent therefore lost and unavailable to his native city. )

[IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER]

:018: Excellent journalistic response - says it all to me - but you avoided answering the theory. :thumb04:

[Tichy_Blacks_Back]

Unfortunately Inverness is seen as a back water by many (and as CB stated it has been like that for centuries) and they think the house offered by Tulloch's that comes with the job looks like this...

Edited January 25, 2009 by Tichy_Blacks_Back

[Guest WynessLegend]

Despite being surrounded by beautiful scenery

to many Inverness IS a backwater and a cultural wasteland.

As for weegies not travelling to Edinburgh -

I'd go for border control on this one to keep them permanently in

Glasgow (and Lanark).

[stevico1]

While location may be an issue I think we make it harder for ourselves than we need to ,it would be niave to think that players from other clubs dont speak to each other, do you honestly think players like Wyness, Bayne, Wilson and Rankin give glowing references on how they were treated at ICT.

Edited January 25, 2009 by stevico1

[Renegade]

IIRC Bobby Mann lived in Dundee and used to travel to Inverness everyday for training so it can be done.

[caley100]

Nah.. he had digs in sneck with Dougal the butcher.

[Alex MacLeod]

Lets be a bit more fair to Steven Pressley here. Money may be a persuader but I dont think it was on this occassion. Steven lives a few miles from Falkirk. He has a family. He stated in the press that he considered us but when the Falkirk offer came it was easier to choose them because he would have found it hard to be away from the family all week and he wasn't going to uproot them for what could turn out to be just a few months. How many of you family guys would like to work away all week bar two nights?

As for Inverness, everyone knows its 7 miles south of Reykjavik

[Sir C the 3rd]

Amazingly i'm in full agreement with IHE. Why would someone leave the central belt, especially an SPL player to come and play up here for the same or less money. Its not going to happen, hence we can't attract SPL players!

[CaleyD]

It will only be an issue so long as people continue to make it an issue....and in that regard we are often our own worst enemy as we like to trot it out as an excuse time and again.

I would even go so far as to say that ICT mention it being a problem more often than you ever hear others mentioning it and we need to start playing more on the positives than the negatives.

It's become just as much the "convenient excuse" for our own use as it has for others and if I were Chairman then I'd ban anyone involved with the club from ever mentioning it or using it as an excuse for anything.

[StockholmSyndrome]

It will only be an issue so long as people continue to make it an issue....and in that regard we are often our own worst enemy as we like to trot it out as an excuse time and again.

I would even go so far as to say that ICT mention it being a problem more often than you ever hear others mentioning it and we need to start playing more on the positives than the negatives.

It's become just as much the "convenient excuse" for our own use as it has for others and if I were Chairman then I'd ban anyone involved with the club from ever mentioning it or using it as an excuse for anything.

You took the words right out of my mouth, Don. It's the 21st century, for heaven's sake. If you need to get between Inverness and the south there are trains, there are buses, there are even flights in and out of the city. It's not like Inverness is a day's journey across the desert. The club should be doing everything in their power to promote Inverness as a modern city and a pleasant place to live and work. Like you, I'm sick fed up of the club being its own worst enemy in this regard.

[Scotty]

It will only be an issue so long as people continue to make it an issue....and in that regard we are often our own worst enemy as we like to trot it out as an excuse time and again.

The thing is Don, it IS an issue, whether we like it or not. It perhaps shouldn't be an issue, and it doesnt help that it is trotted out all the time, but it is for some. You must know yourself from your days on the buses that the roadscape changes the minute you go north of Perth. Gone are the nice wide roads, the dual carraigeways or motorways that mean you can get to where you are going in the central belt reasonably quickly, and before you is 100 miles (and more if you go north of Sneck) of road which is a hotchpotch of different arrangenets of single lane or dual lane roads in either direction.

Driving south of Perth whilst not a joy feels modern, safer, and barring traffic snarl-ups, quick. Driving north of Perth feels like you are at the front door of a new adventure .... will there be caravans? will there be some ***hole overtaking on the other side and heading straight for me? how many Tesco lorries will I get stuck behind? ..... until that route is sorted out and made comparable with other major roads in Scotland, it will always feel like you are entering a time warp. I never noticed or paid much attention to it when I lived in Inverness, but travelling over in April, landing in Glasgow, and then driving up the A9 after being used to wide highways over here it was an eye-opener that made me realise why most of the time I fly to London then Dalcross.

However, as much as the club cant do anything about the A9 or A96 other than support those calling for modernisation of the routes, they could think out of the box a little. I have suggested it before, but we have a perfectly good airport nearby and looking at their website, you can fly to many more locations in the UK than ever before .... lets make use of that and the fact that one of the main airlines flying from Inverness is our sponsor and maybe offer incentives to players from the south so they can fly back to see relatives every so often. Once they realise we are a little over an hour from London, Birmingham, East Midlands, Manchester, or less than an hour from Edinburgh perhaps we will not seem so remote.

[Jay_7]

It will only be an issue so long as people continue to make it an issue....and in that regard we are often our own worst enemy as we like to trot it out as an excuse time and again.

I would even go so far as to say that ICT mention it being a problem more often than you ever hear others mentioning it and we need to start playing more on the positives than the negatives.

It's become just as much the "convenient excuse" for our own use as it has for others and if I were Chairman then I'd ban anyone involved with the club from ever mentioning it or using it as an excuse for anything.

You took the words right out of my mouth, Don. It's the 21st century, for heaven's sake. If you need to get between Inverness and the south there are trains, there are buses, there are even flights in and out of the city. It's not like Inverness is a day's journey across the desert. The club should be doing everything in their power to promote Inverness as a modern city and a pleasant place to live and work. Like you, I'm sick fed up of the club being its own worst enemy in this regard.

But if Grassa is to be believed then Inverness has no pavements, no internet access, we've only just seen a few houses get electricity and of course there's no way that we have any airport links that would see someone get to London in under an hour...

Edited January 26, 2009 by Jay_7

[beachcomber]

Face it, Inversnecky IS a backwater. It's a dull regional town, miles from anywhere with limited attractions for most twenty-somethings, unless they're tree hugging, munro-bagging, gore-tex fetishists.

There's not too many professional footballers want to spend their free time hiking the Lairg Ghru.

These young lads want pubs, nightclubs, more pubs and more nightclubs full of would be WAGs who're game for whatever it is premiership footballers aspire to do with them.

Unless ICT start paying them silly money (which they thankfully can't and won't), there's no incentive for them to head North and there's not a whole lot can be done to change it.

Most of the folk I've come across who argue otherwise have never actually lived anywhere else and still think having a Markies makes the place a city.

[IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER]

Never a truer word said in jest - I am reliably informed that Terry Butcher has rented a penthouse suite in Fishertown.

[+jagster]

how many Tesco lorries will I get stuck behind?

A lot less now that they transport most stuff up here on the new Stobart train. woo hoo

[beachcomber]

A Penthouse Cottage - nice idea - a potential niche market for Tullochs ?

Nairn is what it is - a fast fading Victorian sea-side resort that's seen better days, (a bit like your correspondent) with a run down High Street, but still with a great beach and home to the odd Oscar winning actress and ICT chairman. It doesn't pretend to be much else.

But Snecky masquerading as a cosmopolitan city - you've got to laugh.

[Drochit Blue]

Sneck has the same problems attracting players and managers that regional towns and cities in England have. Sunderland are always complaining that they can't get players cos their wives like shopping in London...but then if you've seen Sunderland you'd know why

Apart from the feeder club in Dingwall, maybe ICT should go for the cream of the crop of world clas s young players on Skye.....