Inverness banner in Tel-A-bloody-Viv

[Alex MacLeod]

So what do I do then

Born Inverness..........Caley T, Clach, or City

Brought up Fort W.....Fort William

Lived in Falkirk...........Bairns

Lived in Montrose......Gable Endies

Now in Perth.............Super J's

[IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER]

[clacher_holiday2]

why dont we have a glasgow based supporters club.  then we can have govan ict flags.  redress the balance a bit

[maimie]

why dont we have a glasgow based supporters club.  then we can have govan ict flags.   redress the balance a bit

there is a Leith ICT one that makes appearances at Easter Road...  :003:

[maimie]

Why not buy the jacket?

did you really???? :010:

:001: :001: :001:

Bet you would like to share one though - with a portly Hun ??   :023: :023: :016:

mmmm

maybe not a hun.... :003: :003: :001:

[Harry Chibber]

i am posting from the prague supporters club  :003: :003:

.... and it's fecking cold :020:

[Guest neksor]

Dare I suggest the the Inverness Rangers and Celtic supporters clubs have little to do with football but more to do with religion!

The youngsters may not realise that they are being brain-washed but the parents certainly do!

What can we do to have a mind change of these cretin adults.

I accept that there are a few genuine football supporters amongst them but most are the creation of their parental and religious culture!

neksor

[Scarlet Pimple]

IHE and Alex MacLeod--ha! Ha! --don't ya just love it--Kingsmills /Hun connection-whatever ?

ha! Ha! :015: :015:

[Guest]

As an ICT fan with an interest in seeing a Scottish club do well in Europe, I tune into the live broadcast of Rangers playing Hapoel Tel-Aviv in Israel tonight and what do I see in the terracing but a red banner saying [glow=red,2,300]"INVERNESS"[/glow]

Well, the Gers were drubbed and yet there are Invernessians prepared to travel all the way across the Med on a Wednesday to support an OF team. Was it worth it? Na!

Would it not be better for these Invernessians to take stock and spend their time and money by coming through the turnstiles at TCS and support their home team?

Come on, get a grip, support ICT and we too will be in Europe that much quicker

don't be silly, some of us just CANNOT support Inverness Thistle. End of.

Hello hello......... :023:

[clacher_holiday2]

we are the caley boys

most of the highland league crew from the old thistle and caley days are right belters, im glad their clubs died, they didnt deserve them

[Johnboy]

[Alex MacLeod]

No no no!! I'd much rather stick with Inverness Caledonian THISTLE if you dont mind.

Oh and Scarlet P, I was never a Hun nor a Tim. Being the rebellious type my little team affections in the 70's tended towards a team who are no longer in the top divisions. My big team has always been the Jaggies. Us Jaggies have mostly accepted that the take-over was the only way to progress. Seems strange to me that the Inverness people who are still bitter are all ex Caley fans considering they were the aggressors. And yes I do know all the stories about people, who had never even heard of the Inverness teams, being bussed in in their thousands to vote for the take-over merger.

[IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER]

But Caledonian were clearly the BIGGER outfit prior to the enforced merger - in all areas.

[Johnboy]

I wasn't living in Sneck when the merger/take-over stuff was on-going. I couldn't have cared either. The thought has occurred to me since I came to live here that it would have been best to completely bury Caley & Thistle...

Inverness FC would have been born..... and might have enjoyed a bigger support.

[IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER]

Yeah it should have been really easy. Support a team fer 30-40 years and watch them dissapear. And most of the older supporters already had allegiancies to the OF and Aberdeen - Most of the Hun supporters club started off on the terraces of Telford Street - they showed their derision by following their BIG club and kicking Sneck football into touch.

[Alex MacLeod]

To be honest I dont give a monkey's what happened in 94. Nor do I care what the team is called now. I just like to wind up the mad psychiatrist but there aint a tongue in cheek smiley :003:

[Charles Bannerman]

I do sometimes wonder how much support Caley Thistle lost when they moved up to the SPL and a number of "fans" were then forced to decide between ICT and another club, mainly one of the Old Firm. For many it was easy enough to have ICT, and before that Thistle or Caley, as their "wee" team and Celtic or Rangers as their "big" team. Then the wee club became a big club and I fear that many did the brainless thing, took the simplistic, glory hunting approach and plumped for one of the Old Firm. I actually find that quite sad. You live and/or come from a particular place and you abandon the team from that place in favour of a club 170 miles away which to a large extent owes its status to the existence of religious intolerance in West Central Scotland.

Indeed I have a feeling that the haemorrhage of support for ICT for this reason has been significantly larger than what I remain convinced was only a modest loss due to disapproval of the merger.

On which subject, two further observations. I cannot agree with Clacher's assertion that Thistle and Caley "died". They simply merged to create the much more substantial entity which is there today. Also, albeit briefly because I don't really want to open old wounds, the merger was referred to somewhere above as a "takeover". I can't really agree with that. It was accurately stated late in 1993 that Caley were contributing 70% of the assets, 80% of the membership (admittedly after a large and synthetic recruiting drive by both sides of the merger controversy) and 90% of the fundraising capacity. It never was an equal merger and I have always contended that the balance which came out of it was pretty fair.

[beachcomber]

CB - I always doubted that the number of stayaways was significant, but if someone like your good self who is steeped in Sneckie football is questioning their influence, then maybe there are more than I am aware of, but I've never seen or heard any evidence to support  that.

I can however vouch that their is little support for ICT from the likes of the Nairn football fraternity except when the OF come to town, when I spot them nestling scarfless among the home support.

As I've said before, if these people have the mentality to continue supporting the OF when they are born and bred in the Highlands, then ICT are better off without their narrow minded ignorance.

Best of it is, most of the Weegie OF supporters think they're a bunch of f@nnies too :015:

[IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER]

To be honest I dont give a monkey's what happened in 94. Nor do I care what the team is called now. I just like to wind up the mad psychiatrist but there aint a tongue in cheek smiley :003:

Oops - And here was me thinking it was a case of the mad psychiatrist winding up the insane rigger.

[Guest]

Indeed I have a feeling that the haemorrhage of support for ICT for this reason has been significantly larger than what I remain convinced was only a modest loss due to disapproval of the merger.

:014:  Oh dear.

[IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER]

But if ya suffer from a haemorrhage ya just have to allow the bad old blood to congeal and set out to infuse new, fresher blood into the system - which could produce a "body" combination of old and young constituents. But such a tranplantation can take years and has to be managed professionally in order to ensure that blood loss is minimised. Success produces success and scarring from past wounds is inevitable but the Old Filth scarring is gradually healing.

[Charles Bannerman]

Beachcomber... just to clarify what I meant.... I have always been convinced that the loss of merger "refuseniks" was very small in relation to the size of crowds which there have been since entering the SFL/SPL. However I am now beginning to wonder if the conflict mainly with Old Firm sympathies since promotion to the SPL has more recently caused a bigger loss of support than the (perhaps) couple of hundred or so in the mid 90s.

[beachcomber]

I see what you mean, but I doubt many OF fans who came during the promotion years now stay away from TCS just because we're in the SPL. Can't speak for Inversneckians, but the Nairn OF fan(nie)s that I see at games have never attended other games at TCS, either now, or in season's past. Mind you most of them have never been within a hundred miles of Weegieland either.

[Guest]

Beachcomber... just to clarify what I meant.... I have always been convinced that the loss of merger "refuseniks" was very small in relation to the size of crowds which there have been since entering the SFL/SPL. However I am now beginning to wonder if the conflict mainly with Old Firm sympathies since promotion to the SPL has more recently caused a bigger loss of support thanthe (perhaps) couple of hundred or so in the mid 90s.

Thats rather magnanimous of you Charles, considering there were really only about half a dozen "refuseniks".... or was it even less.

Did they even exist? 

[Charles Bannerman]

I would place the total number of people, Thistle and Caley fans, who initially refused to go to watch Caley Thistle at a maximum of 200... a number which has steadily reduced since the mid 90s. Even at that top of the range estimate, it's a drop in the ocean and indeed I note that I've managed to be drawn into a discussion of what is really a non issue.