What do they think now?

[CaleyD]

I think you'll find that Buckett's comment was intended as tongue in cheek.

[Charles Bannerman]

 

To suggest Caley still exist is absurd and frankly, legally inaccurate.

 

I believe that to be the case, but only after a little known anomaly which continued immediately post-merger.

Caley Thistle was initially funded by both Thistle and Caley voting to invest their assets in the new club. The votes which finally secured these decisions were not taken until December 1994 - four months after Caley Thistle started playing in the Third Division. In the case of Caley, there had been a huge influx of new season ticketholders in the autumn of 1993 for the "Rose Street 1" second vote on the merger. These were due to expire at the end of the season in May 1994 but it was agreed that they would be left open until such time as the asset question was settled - in other words December 1994. Now at that point there had never been a two-thirds majority to change the Constitution in any respect - hence the move to invest the assets in the new club which could be and was done on a 50% vote. As a result the club still existed, right down to the requirement to have a registered office in Telford Street Inverness! What I then believe happened was that the only members the constitutional shell of Caley by now had were the life members and they then quietly laid a great institution (which for the last few months had been "On A Life Support Machine") quietly to rest by winding it up with the kind of dignity which had unfortunately eluded it during its final 18 months of constitutional life.

Edited June 21, 2015 by Charles Bannerman

[Kingsmills]

Perhaps I was too rash with my point but I'm still sticking to my guns in regards to the sentiment.

HL is and was amateur football. You don't need to have lived 150 years to know that. To suggest pub football is admittedly going overboard. Though essentially it's a high level of postmen and sparkys playing football at weekends and training a few nights a week. Its part time.

And saying that Inverness Thistle were rejected previously on their own (whether than be the "central belt bias" conspiracy or just a really close vote lost out on) proves that it would have been exceptionally difficult for either team to, first of all get in league football, but to actually progress to any greater level than then division 3.

Yes OK the founding fathers didn't just "come along" . They worked long and hard to bring the merger about and should be admittedly recognised for such. But let's not be pedantic about it. I wasn't meaning any disrespect. You're just getting a little flustered. 

I never said there was no football in Inverness prior to the merger. I said there were 2 small non league (diddy) teams who occasionally had cup flourishes. And yes quite rightfully people should be proud of their team. Just as people are proud to be Scottish... Though it doesn't actually matter in the grand scheme of things does it? 

I just think anyone still bitter, 21 years on, about 2 small teams festering around in non league daring to be ambitious enough to believe that working together could actually bring about much greater success... Well I think they're just daft. Dinosaurs.

I'd imagine anyone on this site whilst still rightfully proud of the origins of the club we have today, have got over this by now, both for the love of the local team and in recognition of where its taken them.

Perhaps when a number of experienced and knowledgeable people point out your historical errors it might be time to take that on board. The Highland League was largely, and Caley and Thistle were professional not amateur.

The teams were, and still largely are part time professionals in precisely the same way as the majority of clubs in the SPFL.

Your credibility diminishes with each post. Before you post rubbish as a matter of fact it might be prudent to do a little research on the basic facts

Edited June 22, 2015 by Kingsmills

[IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER]

Of course Caley and Thistle still exist. They have just merged together !!

[Kingsmills]

Wasn't even born in the 70s so the standards of HL football 35 or more years ago is quite irrelevant from my point of view. Scottish football as a whole was of a higher standard (compared to others) back then. Celtic reaching to European cup finals and winning 1 and rangers also winning the cup winners cup. Our players were also key players in many big English teams. And so on...

It's refreshing that both clubs were able to operate at that level and attract decent crowds, evidently displaying the local loyalty. Of course most clubs prior to seated stadia could probably remember bigger crowds. I'm not looking at levels of crowds then and now. There's many and more factors involved.

I just don't see how people can feel so betrayed. It's still their club, with an added bit. It's 2 "enemies" coming together for the greater good and mutual benefits. Putting aside their differences and choosing to represent the city with a united front. It's a lesson that could actually be used far beyond Inverness and far beyond football.

I can understand having reservations but surely seeing continued success on the pitch would allay any fears that it could be damaging due to the immense positive focus and attention that has come to the city as a result.

I wonder how people would react to ICT and County merging? Could people get behind a big team representing the highlands as a whole if someday it resulted in winning the league? Not that I'm mooting such an event.

If the standard of the Highland League 35 years ago is 'quite irrelevant' to you then again I suggest that you don't refer to the 150 years of Highland League history as you did in a previous post making the glaring error of describing it as amateur. Many many Highland League players were better rewarded than some of their Scottish League counterparts.

[Council Juice]

Perhaps I was too rash with my point but I'm still sticking to my guns in regards to the sentiment.

HL is and was amateur football. You don't need to have lived 150 years to know that. To suggest pub football is admittedly going overboard. Though essentially it's a high level of postmen and sparkys playing football at weekends and training a few nights a week. Its part time.

And saying that Inverness Thistle were rejected previously on their own (whether than be the "central belt bias" conspiracy or just a really close vote lost out on) proves that it would have been exceptionally difficult for either team to, first of all get in league football, but to actually progress to any greater level than then division 3.

Yes OK the founding fathers didn't just "come along" . They worked long and hard to bring the merger about and should be admittedly recognised for such. But let's not be pedantic about it. I wasn't meaning any disrespect. You're just getting a little flustered. 

I never said there was no football in Inverness prior to the merger. I said there were 2 small non league (diddy) teams who occasionally had cup flourishes. And yes quite rightfully people should be proud of their team. Just as people are proud to be Scottish... Though it doesn't actually matter in the grand scheme of things does it? 

I just think anyone still bitter, 21 years on, about 2 small teams festering around in non league daring to be ambitious enough to believe that working together could actually bring about much greater success... Well I think they're just daft. Dinosaurs.

I'd imagine anyone on this site whilst still rightfully proud of the origins of the club we have today, have got over this by now, both for the love of the local team and in recognition of where its taken them.

Perhaps when a number of experienced and knowledgeable people point out your historical errors it might be time to take that on board. The Highland League was largely, and Caley and Thistle were professional not amateur.

The teams were, and still largely are part time professionals in precisely the same way as the majority of clubs in the SPFL.

Your credibility diminishes with each post. Before you post rubbish as a matter of fact it might be prudent to do a little research on the basic facts

A number of? Who? One person took the hump for taking it too literally as being described as pub football and another "happens to know" that several Caley players were actually very highly rewarded. 

Being highly paid doesn't define status. Kenny Deucher was well paid by Gretna and made a pretty penny by supplementing that with his GP pay. Rory McAllister has reportedly (its been mentioned on cto many a time) a pretty good salary both on and off the field meaning that he's far less likely to make a small jump to turn fully professional on a low wage. He's chosen the highly commendable job and financial security route but he probably won't have many tales to tell. Now he's probably "better rewarded" than many of his counterparts playing in the leagues above him. This doesn't make the level he's at any better though.

Point being that reward doesn't define the level. Where Caley and Thistle may have had players on pro terms. They were playing by and large in a semi pro arena. And I'm sure many of their players were in fact also semi pro - by definition of it not being the sole income. Whether they only work half the week is neither here nor there, SPFL players are, as a rule, a requirement, full time by football terminology. HL has never been such. It's by and large left to the discretion of the club.

Now when I used the term amateur, now yes, even by football terminology of contract this is inaccurate. The players earned, and were not just given match fees and expenses, therefore making them pro or semi pro. Now of course if you'd used common sense you wouldn't take the term "amateur" so literally to the point and see it as an attempt to highlight the difference in level between HL then and the national (as opposed to regional) level ICT find themselves today.

Whether highland league football back then, looking at it with nostalgic eyes, was of a far greater standard than now doesn't really matter. It was, as a matter of this "fact" you're so in seek of, lower league regional level football. Maybe the standard did indeed overlap with the leagues that now (in a pyramid system) are just above it, however as a whole the level was classed as below the bottom rung in national league football. As well as by definition. Now even with a fond attachment to the HL days this isn't hard to grasp if looked at objectively (as possible).

My point always was to highlight the gap between then and now and the fact that people knit pick at certain terminology seemingly just to take offence means they are completely missing the point. Getting hot under the collar at the term amateur. Jeez! I'll get a lawyer to look over every statement made as if anything said on here matters. Seems you're after me for defamation and slanderous comments. (Wait until full page  article telling me how wrong I am in my legal terminology).

But its pretty simple. I'll redefine what I meant by amateur - non league regional league semi pro football.

Compared to ICT now - top national level league, top end national cup level, entry level European league football.

See the difference?

[Kingsmills]

Actually, in football terms, being paid, whether highly or not does indeed define status. Footballers who are paid are professionals, those you are not are amateurs.

 

In back tracking from your position that the Highland League was 'pub football' you then go on to state that ' it is and always has been amateur' wrong on both counts to the point of crass ignorance.

[Council Juice]

Footballers who are paid are either semi pro of fully professional. It's a requirement of the Scottish Premiership that players are professional (or at least was until last season anyway. Due to my not being a CE or DoF its not something I overly concern myself with)

Again if by bothering to read my last post, as I took the courtesy of reading your overly pedantic and demeaning ones, you'll see I was using the term amateur to describe that it's always been below national level. I even made the point of defining "amateur" by football terms and contractually.

"Now when I used the term amateur, now yes, even by football terminology of contract this is inaccurate. The players earned, and were not just given match fees and expenses, therefore making them pro or semi pro. Now of course if you'd used common sense you wouldn't take the term "amateur" so literally to the point and see it as an attempt to highlight the difference in level between HL then and the national (as opposed to regional) level ICT find themselves today."

So you've went on to argue the point that I'd previously made. Further cementing my belief that you're now just riding a high horse for the sake of it. Arguing for arguments sake. You've also went on to completely dismiss the fact that I stated i was using terms amateur and pub football loosely....before then having the gall to describe ME as ignorant. Really?

Its very old money of you.

 

[+HawkeyeTheGnu]

So we shouldn't take what you say literally?

How on earth are we supposed to know what you are saying?

[Council Juice]

Well generally most metaphors, similies and other similar language techniques are in written form. They don't necessarily need to be published articles to be used.

I mean I would have thought it would be quite obvious to most that I don't literally mean that the highland league is pub team football (its not played on a Sunday for starters).

And that the term amateur often gets banded around in football. Admittedly more when a player makes an error "that's amateur stuff that". Now it's not saying the player is indeed an amatuer, but what's been seen is something you'd expect at a lower level, or indeed the lack of nous displayed is something even amateurs would know. As in its not high level stuff. Entry level.

Whatever your fondness for the Highland league and similar lowland leagues may be, they are entry level (semi) professional leagues. The bottom level before it really starts to actually become amateur (though take note that I also stress, the highest level before national league football and not necessarily a lower standard as has been adamantly put across in previous HL promotional posts).

There is a gulf therefore between there and top level SPFL. From where it started, to now.

So no, to answer your question, I don't think you should always take anything I say, or indeed what others say, literally. Rather look at what the context is as much or more than content. And what is being said rather than the words used.

Then process it and understand what is indeed being said.

[Kingsmills]

If the point you are trying but struggling, through ignorance and arrogance, to make is that ICT are playing at much higher level and with a much higher profile that either Thistle or Caley were or could reasonably aspire to then few will disagree with you.

A little more humility and a lot less high handed arrogance when helpfully corrected by those that clearly know their subject more than you do would not go amiss.

[Charles Bannerman]

A number of? Who? One person took the hump for taking it too literally as being described as pub football and another "happens to know" that several Caley players were actually very highly rewarded. 

 

I have hesitated to post this until I was finally convinced that we are dealing here with the intractably stubborn and the voluntarily ineducable.

Captain... I am one of the several people on here who have been telling you for some days now that your concept of the earlier history of Inverness football is woefully off the mark and hopelessly uninformed. If you are still unable to grasp the realities, the Administrators of this site, in 2011, were kind enough to place on here an online version of "Against All Odds", the official history of the formation of Inverness Caledonian Thistle. This was originally published in paperback 1997 and a special "prequel" chapter specifically about Thistle's and Caley's Highland League days was added when the book went online.

Although the author has been following Highland League football since the mid 1960s and reporting in both national and local media on the Highland and Scottish Leagues since the mid 80s, he would still want to defer to the superior knowledge and experience of the Highland League of a number of the other posters on here who have also been trying to tell you the same thing.

I don't, for instance, suppose you know that Andy Penman, ex Rangers and Dundee, also spent time playing for Caledonian and that Billy Urquhart, after he left Caledonian for Rangers and Wigan also came back to play there? I also don't suppose you know that Caledonian were good enough to produce and sell on players such as Kevin MacDonald who did the English League and Cup double with Liverpool in 1985? And I also suppose you are unaware that in the early 1990s, Thistle were ambitious enough to engage that Dunfermline legend Jim Leishman as their manager. And there's a lot more.....

Oh...and have you ever asked the question "Who's Chic Allan anyway?"

Or maybe I could offer you some more concise advice. STOP DIGGING!

[IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER]

Feck me - The Grimm Fairy Tale has emerged as a selling arguing point

[Charles Bannerman]

Feck me - The Grimm Fairy Tale has emerged as a selling arguing point

And I would include your good self as one of those on here with the said superior knowledge and experience of the Highland League.... well in between indulgences in stamps and Pomagne in the 1970s at any rate!

[The Mantis]

 

A number of? Who? One person took the hump for taking it too literally as being described as pub football and another "happens to know" that several Caley players were actually very highly rewarded. 

Being highly paid doesn't define status.......

.........Point being that reward doesn't define the level. .............SPFL players are, as a rule, a requirement, full time by football terminology. HL has never been such. It's by and large left to the discretion of the club.

 

As a member of Caledonian back then, I 'happen to know' that the Caley wage bill in the 91-2 season was £130 000. Thistle can speak for themselves but Caley were a far more professional club than many lower-league SFL (as it was then) clubs. Evidence being their trepidation when the draw was made for the early rounds of the Cup when they knew they were as good as out.

Mind you, you're probably right in that the HL did not have the quality in depth that the SFL lower leagues had, as Caley Thistle found out in 1994 when they were getting a hard fixture every week instead of getting large scores against the weaker HL clubs and only finished 6th out of 10, but apparently some other Highland club managed 3rd that year 

You say that remuneration does not correlate with ability but in football, which is largely the free market, it mainly does.

SPFL players are not all full time. Maybe you mean the Premiership but as far as I know, part time clubs can reach the Premiership. The bottom two divisions are part time and I know that some of them are paying only about £60 p/w. I know this because I am involved with a Lowland League club and many players switch back and forward between the LL and League 2.

[Charles Bannerman]

 

Being highly paid doesn't define status.......

 

 

You say that remuneration does not correlate with ability but in football, which is largely the free market, it mainly does.

 

Maybe Rangers are Captain's "wee club".

[+HawkeyeTheGnu]

Some stuff that doesn't need repeating  

indeed, simile, metaphor etc should not always be taken literally, but if you use words that can have both a literal and figurative meaning within the same context, then you are going to cause confusion.

Perhaps you would like Queens Park to resign from the SPFL forthwith, given that they are (literally) a bunch of amateurs? How can they possibly compete in a professional league?

If you are trying to equate amateur with poorly run, then I think you have got your head up your backside. One of the biggest professional clubs in Scotland has been one of the worst run from a footballing point view for a number of years. 

I'll give you this - you've managed to unite Caley and Thistle fans a lot more quickly than the merger did!

[Council Juice]

If the point you are trying but struggling, through ignorance and arrogance, to make is that ICT are playing at much higher level and with a much higher profile that either Thistle or Caley were or could reasonably aspire to then few will disagree with you.

A little more humility and a lot less high handed arrogance when helpfully corrected by those that clearly know their subject more than you do would not go amiss.

Well yes that's my point, and initially I was trying to do it brashly, mainly to get over the fact that it's time to move on when they've been given so much now. This is both to the "refuseniks" and the ones who cause division within the club itself. Usually through moaning about the shirts and colour allocation.

It's often hard to be humble when people throw in sly snobbish insults. To call me arrogant is slightly hypocritical given the nature of it. It's very much the case of "we know better lad" even if it's an opinion. I have retracted statements already, but mainly as the original comment was quite ham fisted on my part.

A number of? Who? One person took the hump for taking it too literally as being described as pub football and another "happens to know" that several Caley players were actually very highly rewarded. 

 

I have hesitated to post this until I was finally convinced that we are dealing here with the intractably stubborn and the voluntarily ineducable.

I don't, for instance, suppose you know that Andy Penman, ex Rangers and Dundee, also spent time playing for Caledonian and that Billy Urquhart, after he left Caledonian for Rangers and Wigan also came back to play there? I also don't suppose you know that Caledonian were good enough to produce and sell on players such as Kevin MacDonald who did the English League and Cup double with Liverpool in 1985? And I also suppose you are unaware that in the early 1990s, Thistle were ambitious enough to engage that Dunfermline legend Jim Leishman as their manager. And there's a lot more.....

That's the insulting language I mention. As I've said just above I've made retractions, but the sentiment remains. HL is a low level regional league (an amendment I previously made) however you want to try and spin it. That's not me saying that no one should follow it and love it and have every right to do so. Just it is what it is.

Never heard of Penman admittedly but I know the rest. I also know Charlie Christie went to Celtic from Caley. It's not unheard of from players to leap from low level to high. What's the point? Some good players have been produced. Aye ok. I never said anything to the contrary.

 

.........Point being that reward doesn't define the level. .............SPFL players are, as a rule, a requirement, full time by football terminology. HL has never been such. It's by and large left to the discretion of the club.

SPFL players are not all full time. Maybe you mean the Premiership but as far as I know, part time clubs can reach the Premiership. The bottom two divisions are part time and I know that some of them are paying only about £60 p/w. I know this because I am involved with a Lowland League club and many players switch back and forward between the LL and League 2.

I corrected that later by referring to the Scottish Premiership. Can't be all that stubborn. I'm quite certain a rule was in place that required all top flight clubs to be full time. I could be wrong.
I do remember Livingston having a player on their books as an amateur (paying only expenses) Hassan Kachoul, and there was a bit of a complaint from relegated Dundee at the time. If I remember correctly the rules were changed to stop this happening again.

 

Being highly paid doesn't define status.......

You say that remuneration does not correlate with ability but in football, which is largely the free market, it mainly does.

Maybe Rangers are Captain's "wee club".

Surely my arguing that high pay doesn't define status would mean precisely the opposite in such case? Or is the joke just rubbish? 

Some stuff that doesn't need repeating  

Perhaps you would like Queens Park to resign from the SPFL forthwith, given that they are (literally) a bunch of amateurs? How can they possibly compete in a professional league?

If you are trying to equate amateur with poorly run, then I think you have got your head up your backside. One of the biggest professional clubs in Scotland has been one of the worst run from a footballing point view for a number of years. 

I'll give you this - you've managed to unite Caley and Thistle fans a lot more quickly than the merger did!

Good to see I've achieved something at least!!! 

Well it's not like Queens Park are there on merit is it? I congratulate their integrity by steadfastly refusing to ever become pro but had they had the chance to be relegated they'd be a low league team themselves. Fortunately for them both sentiment and the locked door members club nature of the national leagues has prevented this. But hey I didn't come up with the name Scottish Pro Football League.

I don't think at any point I mentioned amateur in relation to how the clubs are run. I even went to the bother of explaining what I meant by amateur and that I was referring to the footballing standard. Just as I was when I used the, ill chosen, phrase "pub football." Of course I don't expect anyone to acknowledge that I've even conceded that.


In fairness it's not something that surprises me. I've seen others complain, mainly relative newcomers to the site, that they feel they are being rounded on by regulars. Now of course I probably agreed with the reasoning for putting them in their place, but there was little tact involved. Though seeing it from the other side you get a sense of the unforgiving bullying nature that exists. It doesn't particularly bother me. I've accepted that some of my points were both misleading, rash and at times wholly inaccurate.
I still stand by the crux of my argument even if I accept that it could have been worded differently (Though it was written as it was more out of frustration at certain groups and I was looking for a reaction of sorts.). I still regard HL football as low level regional football. Caley and Thistle played there. Whilst having a successful history at that level, to ever progress further the merger was the most realistic option available to gain entrance to the national leagues. This happened. The legacy of the two former clubs remains. They combined into a new club and have achieved success beyond the wildest dreams of any ICT fan. Particularly those who remember in detail the painstaking process of the merger. (I was 8, and supported Scotland and players I thought were good. So no I don't really remember it.)

My simple message from the off, and something I've repeated several times now, being why are some people so adamantly bitter still about the merger when the evidence presented shows, surely, that it was all worth it? Be proud of the history and legacy that was left behind. YES. But be proud that the brave decision was made (with absolutely no guarantee of success) to try for something bigger and better.

ICT have put Inverness firmly on the map*.

*Note, this is a metaphor. ICT did not literally put Inverness on the map. In fact historians would point out that Inverness was there a while before and would have been places on maps by illustrators. 

[Sneckboy]

Aye, Aye Captain! You'll clearly argue black-is-white until the 'cows come home'!

Football is incredibly 'tribal'.
Leaving aside 'glory hunters', who attach themselves temporarily to the current successful clubs, one grows up supporting a particular club.

You're clearly passionate about ICT, which is terrific. They're probably a fabric of your life - and their results literally affect your mood and self-esteem/identity for at least a few days anyway?

Football is competing with far more distractions than it's ever been challenged with before - and I feel this will continue to be the case in years to come. It will simply become less relevant to folk with so many other 'activities' available. Over the next 20-40 years, more clubs will be going part-time as their income lessens, economics will dictate.  

Mergers, to sustain viability, will be the norm. Don't think we'll be immune to that.

Fast forward 25 years and the interest will likely dwindled, as most folk will spend Saturday afternoons playing 3D Call-Of-Duty at home (for example) or other. There could be the formation of a British 'Super League' - inevitably a Highland club called 'Inverness County' would follow - formed to compete in the 3rd or 4th tier. Colloquially known as 'County'.

I'm sure Inverness County would do fine, punching-above-their-weight....and you'd be a happy man, Captain!

But then a poster who's never seen Ross county or Inverness Caledonian Thistle playing came on the forum to denigrate the level (in this case, SPL) we'd been playing at, or it was implied that the new club was just simply a continuation of Ross County, you'd take umbrage - as passions run deep!

Don't belittle the feelings folk had for their club - as it may happen to your club one day.

Edited June 24, 2015 by Sneckboy

[Council Juice]

I can't see the EPL needing a British super league given they've only recently signed the biggest ever TV deal in world football. Though there's a significant chance Scottish football will be strangled out as more and more choose to watch quality games from down south in the pub with a beer rather than watching potentially a fairly mediocre game involving their local club. It's a shame but it's reality.

I think I've now stated 3 or 4 times that people should be proud of their clubs legacy and history. Any more and it'd be quite patronising. Just that i feel that being so anti merger now, 21 years on, to the point that their kids would rather support the OF or an English club is a bit much. It's simply my opinion.

And I can't pretend to know what went on. All my information is second hand. I wasn't watching it happen. Others did.

I also asked earlier what people would think to a ICT/County merger if it meant competing for the league one day (hypothetically).
Truthfully I'm not sure how I'd react. I'm not from Inverness myself. My affinity for the club comes through family ties and love for the area. So in all likelihood I'd be passively following any new club with fondness for the area, maybe with a little less emotion attached. As someone who has from an early day always made the effort to refer to us as ICT, Caley Thistle or the Caley Jags due to the fact that I do recognise the history, I probably would pull up on any inaccuracies. I can't see me being overly fussed though if someone described the SPL as a diddy league though. People from other countries do that now and I sometimes find it difficult to disagree at times. So if a Super league is created and Inverness and Ross Caledonian Thistle County City Athletic FC rise to the top league in 25 years which is a higher standard to the PT SPL, and people refer to now as having been diddy pub team amateur fare....well they might have a point. Technically inaccurate, but I'd see what they meant.

Won't take away my fond memories of it though.

It's like when some get offended when as a Scot (or Irish) they get accidentally called English. Why take the hump? Yes I correct them, not because I'm offended (it's just a nationality), but because they're wrong. I've got better things to worry about though.

ANYWAY, I've stated that it's my opinion. And not verbatim absolute fact. I have no affinity to HL football other than it being my clubs grass roots. The ground from which the seed grew. That's that. Folk can argue it was great once and a higher standard than this and that. Fine. That's their opinion. Not mine. As far as I'm concerned it is, and was, always a low standard part time regional football league. It's not an attack that some are taking it for. I have no issue with it, nor sneer at anyone who has or had a connection to it or a club, past or present. This is my choice and their choice to make. I choose to support the club ICT which began in 94 and have no sway to either HL club. The use of both clubs names give us one of the longest and unique names in football so to miss either out takes away from that in MY opinion. I'm only a Caley Thistle fan though. The rest is for other people. That's their prerogative.

I'm going to leave it at that. Keep on going if you wish. I retain my sentiment and opinion as previously stated. BUT I accept inaccuracies in some of my posts may have caused a stir. My bad.
But I'll leave you all with one question. Where did the OP go when all this was going on? Classic Dougal behaviour that.