Inverness City ground

[Alex MacLeod]

Do the North Region Junior Football Association have similar stadium requirements as the SPL? http://www.inverness-courier.co.uk/Sport/Football/City-will-appeal-decision-04062012.htm Seems very harse the punishment being meted out to IC.

[lukemackay]

Very harsh especially when you consider that the second season running they've got promoted from that league and not been aloud to go up.

Just a question of where they go from there now. If they keep the players they have they'll be straight back up.

[Alex MacLeod]

Whats the situation with the ground though? Whats the requirements?

[Heilandee]

The whole affair is disgraceful,it must be soooo demoralising for the guy's putting in a ton of work at this level to get kicked in the nads due to bureaucracy,meanwhile several levels up the powers that be can't bend over far enough to accomadate serious wrongdoing and rule breaking.

[caley100]

The council have allocated a section of the bught for their use( opposite the ice rink) but a few objections/delays have slowed the process of the ground issue so INV CITY cannot have the ground ready for the cut off.

[+Gringo]

Is this another example of how the powers that be are helping to promote Scottish football? Oh!..hang on a minute...its not the OF is it?

[CaleyD]

Why should they just be handed land...and public land at that?

I have a hobby which also requires a large area (not dissimilar in size to a football pitch) which has to meet certain criteria and I couldn't just go to the council and demand that they give us somewhere, we had to source and pay for it ourselves....this should be no different.

ICT had to build a new place to get into the SFL and then spend upgrading to get in to the SPL....it's the nature of the beast.

Rightly or wrongly, Inverness City have known the situation for years and we get this story coming up on an annual basis with them pleading for rule changes and/or expecting someone to hand them what they need on a plate.

[Heilandee]

Inverness City are doing a great job promoting the city name in the junior leagues,also coaching and encouraging youths. IMO they should be helped and encouraged way ahead of the the many and varied "good causes" seen appropriate to receive buckets of public funding.

[lukemackay]

The women's team play against the like of hibs, Glasgow city and Spartans on the AstroTurf at millburn. Yet the men arnt aloud to play against Lossiemouth on a patch of grass at the bught?

[Alex MacLeod]

Just had a look at the SJFA ground criterea and its near as complicated as SPL. http://www.scottishfa.co.uk/resources/documents/SJFAFiles/DocumentsandDownloads/GroundSpecificationCriteria/Ground%20Criteria.pdf

I thought they used the Northern Meeting Park.

[lukemackay]

They can use it through the winter till about may but they can't use it during cricket season.

[The Mantis]

Just had a look at the SJFA ground criterea and its near as complicated as SPL. http://www.scottishf...nd Criteria.pdf

I thought they used the Northern Meeting Park.

These must be best practice or something. I know few if any Junior clubs which meet these criteria.

In fact they resemble the proposed criteria for licensing for FULL SFA members which they are trying to push through at the moment.

[Charles Bannerman]

I've been saying for some time that I find it astounding that Northern Counties Cricket Club should continue to have such clout with the Northern Meeting Park. Fair enough, they have been there since Johndo was a boy, but Inverness has changed hugely and there are many other demands for this valuable area, use of which becomes even more restricted when you take into account the cricketers' extremely pernickety requirements about people even breathing on their grass. NCCC should have been told long since that they now need to groundshare at Fraser Park with Highland, hence creating far more felxibility for Inverness City and other users. Inverness can't afford to have two precious green spaces devoted so exclusively to a sport which has virtually no following in the place.

Secondly, the Jobsworth mentality of the Aberdeen based North Region of the SJFA needs to be looked at very critically - especially their demeanour towards clubs a long way from Aberdeen.

Thirdly, I'm going to act as Devil's Advocate and ask why there is so much complaint about Highland Council's provision for football on a website run for fans of a club which received £900,000 no less of Council Common Good cash without which its stadium could not have been built? Once that had been paid over along with £280,000 to buy the Clach Park, maybe the Council felt that football had actually done quite well out of them. I would also add - apparently in empathy with Caley D - that Inverness City had indeed known for years about the problem and no, the Council doesn't automatically owe a living to any football club that wants a home.

(Apologies here to Highland News readers who may have noticed a certain similarity between what I have said here and in the paper - most recently and extensively just two weeks ago.)

Edited June 6, 2012 by Charles Bannerman

[+Gringo]

....we get this story coming up on an annual basis with them pleading for rule changes and/or expecting someone to hand them what they need on a plate.

Good shout...they're not Rangers are they?

[Heilandee]

....and folks wonder why grass roots football is dieing on it's arse and kids find other things to do in Scotland.Still, as long as we can know what the Northern Meeting Park is called in Gaelic, all will be fine

[Libero]

Its a real shame that grass roots football is so tied up in red tape and politics nowadays.

No wonder Scottish Football is on its knees when a generation of children are stuck glued to tellys getting square eyes when ball games are often banned in the streets and pitches are deemed unusable for junior football unless they comply with numerous crazy rules that prevent fair competition