A Picture of Heaven

[Charles Bannerman]

Thistle Heating Services

 

Burn baby burn.jpg

I was there that Sunday afternoon in July 1995, standing watching out on Kingsmills Road. Kenny MacPherson also got a shot of the fire which is in Against All Odds. By the time of the fire Martin Ross's interdict preventing the disposal of Kingsmills had been successfully challenged in court and the place was well on its way towards beong sold - eventually for £486,000.

Look at the state of the pitch 14 months after Jags' last game was played there. Can I just make out the thistle still up there on top of the flgapole??

[IBM]

Was the jags pitch not always like that?

[IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER]

I've got the best pictu

[Scarlet Pimple]

So Charles --what happened to the ground at Kingsmills park. Sold and now built on or what...?

 

Appreciated.

[IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER]

The Kingsmills site has not really changed that much - still loads of memories fer the Jeggies

[IBM]

Kingsmills Care Home and 9 large houses.

[IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER]

Kingsmills Care Home and 9 large houses.

That is what I posted

[IBM]

Which was the one that Grasser stayed in?

[IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER]

The one with the sign "Heathmount" outside

[Charles Bannerman]

Just a week after Thistle played their last game (v Keith) at Kingsmills in May 1994 the enclosure was dismantled and put on a lorry to Wick where it was re-erected at Harmsworth Park as part of Wick Academy's upgrading when they replaced Thistle, Caley and Ross County in the Highland League which reduced from 18 clubs to 16.

A few weeks after that, dissident Thistle fan Martin Ross (18) engaged Inverness solicitor Ken MacLeod (a lot older than 18!) and an interdict was obtained preventing the sale of Kingsmills. This was successfully challenged in March 1995 and finally lifted after an appeal against that verdict failed in July 1995. The land, which Thistle only realised less than two years previously belonged to them and not to the Church of Scotland, was sold for £486,000 and was used as IBM states.

Kingsmills was Caley Thistle's original choice for a home ground since Telford Street was worth a lot more and, despite the Caley rebel campaign, was available for sale, eventually going for £1M. 

It was Kingsmills which was originally surveyed by the SFL during the election procedure but it was fundamentally unsuitable for Third Division football so Plan B was to use Telford St and for Kingsmills to sit idle until the legal issues were resolved.

The fire in the stand, thought to be the reult of kids playing there, broke out on a Sunday afternoon late in July 1995.

[Sneckboy]

The floodlights from Kingsmills also went up to Harmsworth Park, Wick - although they've since been upgraded. I assume the old Thistle enclosure has also now gone.

[Tichy_Blacks_Back]

Then and now....

 

 

 

The broadstone is still there though....

 

 

Broadstone Park takes its name from a broad circular stone, with a hole in the centre of it, which now lies under the pavement or footpath on the East side of Kingsmills Road, in front of the large tenement house opposite the Football Field.
T Wallace 1917. 

Edited February 5, 2015 by Tichy_Blacks_Back

[Charles Bannerman]

The floodlights from Kingsmills also went up to Harmsworth Park, Wick - although they've since been upgraded. I assume the old Thistle enclosure has also now gone.

Indeed the floodlights did go as well. I don't know what is there nowadays.

[dougiedanger]

Was the jags pitch not always like that?

 

Thistle's pitch was easily the best in town, Telford Street and Grant Street were Hampden-like bogs by comparison.

 

I wonder how much that land would be worth now? Probably would not get much change out of half a million for one of those houses now.

[IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER]

Better known faces in this one

[Sneckboy]

Duncan Shearer! I also recognise Alan Stevenson, Good photo, IHE.

[IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER]

Scottish Cup ?

[dougiedanger]

Hun looks like Herchie.   And Billy Urq defending. 

[Charles Bannerman]

Is that Caley v Rangers in 1984? Bob Summers and Billy MacDonald are there was well as Billy and indeed the Rangers player does look a bit like Herchie!

Check the Kestrel Lager advert!

 

The thing that's making me doubt the "Rangers 1984" theory is that on the far right there is an advert whuich seems to say Caley "Something" Club. It could, for instance, be Social, but if it's Centenary then that didn't appear until 1986.

I was sort of wondering about Urquhart's testimonial which was against Rangers in 1992 but that was in the summer so the pitch would have been drier and by that time MacRae and Dick were the shirt sponsors.

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It is 1984.

[Scarlet Pimple]

Isn't that fateful year the one  touted by George Orwell?

 

Anything in common with ICT?

[duke]

The two Rangers players in the pic are Bobby Williamson (now manager somewhere in Africa I believe ) and the late Ian Redford.

[Charles Bannerman]

Isn't that fateful year the one  touted by George Orwell?

 

Anything in common with ICT?

Orwell wrote the novel in 1948 and simply reversed the last two digits in the title. At the time the dystopian scenario described perhaps didn't seem entirely inconceivable 36 years into the future. I don't think there would be any connection with Caley although the novel was written in scotland on the Isle of Jura.

[Yngwie]

 

 I don't think there would be any connection with Caley

 

Ah but didn't Caley have Bobby Nield and Freddy, his "Big Brother"?!

 

http://www.scottishgrocer.co.uk/2014/10/end-of-an-era/

[IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER]

I think that you may find that the book was called "Ninety Eighty-Four" and was actually published in 1949. George began to write the book in 1946. He had initially called the title "The Last Man in Europe" and the narrative covered the years from 1980 to 1984. The finalised title was coined by the publisher Fred Warburg. Many would relate to Winston Smith as a Caley Refusenik in pre-merger Sneck - and Tom Parsons and many others were evidently thought controlled by the HIE or the "Thought Police" of 1993.