So why can't we just call them "CALEY"

[buckett]

This old Thistle thing has cropped up again.

For over 10 years now, fans have shouted "CALEY" from the terraces and the stands.

It is maybe not politically correct, but how often do you hear people shouting "THISTLE"?

Perhaps we should stop being so sensitive and accept that, whereas the history of the club's merger is safely contained within the official name, the nickname of the club, i.e. the name that people will shout and chant, and by which they will refer to their team, is and always will be "CALEY".

[Mee]

There are other, lesser Thistles but there can be only one CALEY!  :003:

Maybe we should just play in red and black (the new away shirt is very sexy IMO) and drop the superfluous parts of our name?  :001: :001: :001:

[chris123]

i hate this debate :sleep02:

[Guest kingkojak]

i wouldnt have cared wether the home support were shouting caley, thistle or bleedin anything at sundays match - anything would have been better than the rustling of sweetie wrappers.

its about time the older generation dropped the caley/thistle debate and joined in when the younger ones are trying to generate some atmosphere in the bridge end.

if my old thistle supporting dad can go to home matches and join in the few caley chants then i doubt its a big an issue as some are making out. the simple fact of the matter is that caley is easy to chant than thistle! 

stop over analysing this pointless debate and start asking why so few make any noise at home matches....

[Dmacca]

Caley is just fine, thats what my son shouts and the young uns know !!

CUMMON CALEY

[Scotty]

Call them Caley, call them Thistle, call them Caley Thistle ... I dont really care, but if this subject reared its ugly head again because of the conversation on another thread then as far as the website is concerned we will continue to use ICT, Inverness CT, Caley Thistle or the full name when writing articles, polls or anything else .... to do otherwise just fills up our inbox with complaints ... petty or otherwise.

[Johnboy]

They are a credit to this city and should be known as Inverness...... :022:

[Dmacca]

Good call though Johnboy.

[Alex MacLeod]

Personally I am not averse to joining in the Caley chants nor indeed the O2B but my own scream is always C'mon Inverness.

[Scotty]

They are a credit to this city and should be known as Inverness...... :022:

At great risk of opening up this debate again ... I would just note that the fans of the club were asked by the board whether they wanted to change the team name to Inverness, Inverness City or something like this just a few years ago and the overwhelming feeling seemed to be that, although the club was still very young, much 'history' had already been written for Caley Thistle and the suggestion was rejected out of hand by the fans.

I would also question exactly what Inverness has done for ICT to deserve the honour of the club changing its name to just Inverness ?

Caley Thistle's exploits have done a lot for the profile of the town/city in the media, but I dont recall much being done for the club .... and before anyone says it, the 900k we received ended up costing us a lot more and earning the town/city bucketloads more than they spent by opening up hundreds of acres of industrial land courtesy of the stadium road.

I read the following article and thought that it was SPOT ON

[Guest Arab4Ever]

surely the best thing would have been Inverness Utd, whether you like it or not "United" has high chantability too

[Johnboy]

"United" is hardly an original title and it might reduce us to the level of certain old decaying cities with old decaying fitba teams like Dundee or Ayr....

or Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle ....!!

Invernes Inverness Inverness....... :022:

[Charles Bannerman]

Please God not again!

Why does this keep coming up? We KNOW it was an unequal merger. We KNOW that in certain respects such as this one it becomes more unequal than it really was. We KNOW that "Caley" is more chantable than a lot of other things, including Thistle and that just about the only chant the two clubs could raise between them was the highly imaginative "Caley...clap, clap, clap" (NOT). We KNOW that the media are reasonably good at using "Caley Thistle" (*) and indeed a lot better than certain fans.

We also KNOW that the merger is now over a dozen years back down the line so there's no point in keeping raising this.

Buckett... it seems that "this old Thistle thing has cropped up again" because you have revived it through this tired, clapped out thread.

(*) I can confidently say that in over 12 years of reporting on (I)CT I have NEVER used the term "Caley" on its own, with one exception and that was to conform with a famous precedent.

Following a certain Highland derby at the Caledonian Stadium I did feel moved to wind up my report with "Super County go Ballistic, Caley are Atrocious. Caley Thistle 1 Ross County 5"!

[big man]

Give meeeee a cccccc

[Johnboy]

Following a certain Highland derby at the Caledonian Stadium I did feel moved to wind up my report with "Super County go Ballistic, Caley are Atrocious. Caley Thistle 1 Ross County 5"!

That would have been a highly original piece of journalism, Charles.....  :014:

[caley100]

They are a credit to this city and should be known as Inverness...... :022:

They are called Inverness, Inverness Caledonain Thistle, we DO have Inverness chants in the bridge end, as per normal not many peeps join in, then again not a lot of people do to any of the songs.  :007:

[Kingsmills]

As an, increasingly, old Jaggie, I accept that the merger was less than equal although more equal than once might have been the case before it was discovered, amost by accident, that Thistle actually owned Kingsmills, rather than, as had long believed to be the case, were merely tenants of the Church of Scotland.

Nevertheless, the fact that the the most common nickname is Caley is not an issue especially givn the fact that after more than a decade after the merger most of the media and indeed thoase associated with the club more often than not use the title Caley Thistle or some corruption or varaition thereof.

The history of the club is well known and secure. It matters not to this ICT supporter what the club is known as informally as long as it continues to prosper on and off the park.

The fact that the chant is Caley and the strip is predominately blue is a small price to pay for seeing top flight football in Inverness after a century of being shunned by the national associations.

Come on the Jags !

[buckett]

Buckett... it seems that "this old Thistle thing has cropped up again" because you have revived it through this tired, clapped out thread.

Well, no, Charles – it was on another thread that I was made aware of continuing sensitivities over this matter.

The thing is, if you look at the number of posts on this thread, you will see that it is still a live topic and when the thread has run its course, it will fade into obscurity until someone else sees fit to raise the subject again on a new thread.

But please, Charles, don't fall into the trap of trying to stop people posting on subjects they feel are worthy of mention, purely because you don't. This is, after all, a democracy!

And perhaps before commenting on someone's post you could have the courtesy to read it properly first!

[EWS]

"Super County go Ballistic, Caley are Atrocious. Caley Thistle 1 Ross County 5"!

That was my first Highland Derby, I was banned from going to games after that match for a while.

[Charles Bannerman]

Buckett.. I wouldn't dream of stopping anyone from posting any legitimate point of view about Caley Thistle, which yours is. All I'm doing is expressing the equally legitimate point of view that this is a worn out topic which peaked in 1994 and that further pursuit of it is counter productive. Caley Thistle is a title which emerged from months of detailed negotiations on a very unequal marger.

Kingsmills... I'd just point out that the discovery in October 1993 that Thistle owned their park essentially pre dated the wrangle over where the balance of the merger lay so the value of the park was factored into that debate.

At a later stage it was suggested that Caley were contributing 70% of the assets, 80% of the membership (albeit after a little creative recruitment!) and 90% of the fundraising power, which illistrates the inequalitry very well - even after Jags discovered they owned their ground.

Come to think of it, if they'd discovered that earlier, they could have told the Church of Scotland to bog off and gone and held games there on Sundays.

And what was Jags' reward for abstaining from Sabbath play? Their stand catches fire on a Sunday!

[caleyboy]

All this name nonsense yet again.

Fact: The club is Inverness Caledonian Thistle FC  :023:

Fact: The team is widely known as CALEY  :021:

Full stop. End of debate.  :012:

[IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER]

Caley were always the No 1 team in Inverness and we should stick to tradition.

[Downinthedumps]

Stick it here  :moon03:

[Guest Kieran]

People, all these ''Thistle' fans are fighting their corner on here, but what do they do actually at the match? You never here them coming out with anything do you? And that is why Caley is the widely used nickname.

[kencar]

Caley were always the No 1 team in Inverness and we should stick to tradition.

Now THAT IS a small team mentality!!  :016: