ICT

Way back in the early 1960s, when I was a young kid in Inverness I used to go with my mates on a Saturday to see Inverness Thistle play football at Kingsmills Park. They were a non-league side playing in the Highland League which covered the North of Scotland. Their biggest rivals were Inverness Caledonian.

There was a shamefully abortive application to join the main Scottish League in 1967. However in 1991, Inverness Thistle managed to merge with Inverness Caledonian and became Inverness Caledonian Thistle. The merger was of course not without its detractors, but it went ahead and ICT were accepted into the third division of the Scottish League.

During the 1990s, ICT steadily climbed the leagues always doing better than the season before. They went up to the second division, up to the first division and then in 2004 they won the first division championship and were promoted to the top division, the Scottish Premier League.

Even that was not without its problems. The league said that their ground was not big enough and forced them to play their home matches at Aberdeen, 100 miles away!

But now they are back at the Caley Thistle Stadium and they are still in the Premier Division. Recently they beat Rangers twice, but they have struggled against teams such as Falkirk or Dundee United.

On Saturday they were away to Stirling in the 3rd round of the Scottish Cup. This was a potentially tricky tie, but they buckled down and emerged as 6-1 victors. They are now at home to Dundee United or St Mirren in the next round.

But they do need to get a few more points in the league, especially with bottom club Dunfermline suddenly discovering how to win today.

So there will be times during this blog that I will pause to report on the progress of Inverness Caledonian Thistle. Watch this space.

And check out a YouTube video here.