ICT and Ross County are a real credit to Scottish football

March 9, 2016

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As Ross County prepare for the League Cup final on Sunday, it’s important to take a step back and think about how far football in the Highlands has come.

It was only 22 years ago that the furthest north team in the Scottish Football League was Aberdeen. Central belt supporters occasionally caught a glimpse of the rare Highland beast in the Scottish Cup, but for the rest of the year it was basically a footballing wilderness.

In 1993/94 Ross County were the third best team in the Highland League. Inverness Caledonian Thistle didn’t even exist; their constituent parts Inverness Caledonian and Inverness Thistle came second and fifteenth respectively. Caley were (and still are) the most successful team in the Highland League’s history with eighteen titles, but they hadn’t won the league for six years before the merger. County had only ever won the Highland League three times. All three clubs played in front of three figure crowds.

Now fast forward just more than two decades to the present day. The region is host to the Scottish Cup holders, and could be about to take the League Cup hostage too. There could even be a hat-trick; Peterhead, not strictly in the Highlands, but still a former Highland League club, are in the Challenge Cup final next month. Inverness Caledonian Thistle have eleven top flight seasons under their belt, while Ross County are taking part in their fourth campaign amongst the elite. Both clubs have average attendances of around 4000 – at least a tenfold increase on the Highland League days. That they were able to achieve such incredible success in such a short period of time is something of a footballing fairytale.

And yet there are some who are willing to take on the role of the evil stepmother in this Highland Cinderella story. Both clubs appear to be viewed by some in the media as impudent upstarts who have no right to be anywhere near the top flight. To these people, County and Inverness are denying “real” football clubs their rightful place in the top flight. These people are stuck in the past. When they talk about “real clubs”, what they really mean is “clubs who were good for a while in the 60s, 70s or 80s”.

For those of us living in the 2010s, Inverness and County are as “real” as it gets. They’ve got the infrastructure, they’ve got the support, they’ve got the stadium, and most importantly they both have very good teams on the park. A sense of community has always been key to Scottish football, and both clubs are now beacons of their respective areas. Football has granted the city of Inverness the sort of national exposure that it simply didn’t get in the past, while Ross County have put Dingwall and the historic county of Ross-shire on the map.

It would be churlish to pretend that external investment has not helped both clubs along their path. Inverness had the likes of Alan Savage, who funded the high-profile signing of Marius Niculae, while Ross County have “Uncle” Roy McGregor’s millions. However, this should not detract from the hard work which has gone in to building up these clubs. Inverness had to build up a support from a city consisting of long-distance Old Firm fans and a number of angry former Caley or Thistle fans. County needed to expand their support base beyond Dingwall if they wanted to thrive [ED: it has a population of only 5,491], so they put a massive focus on community engagement, establishing their club as a representative of the whole local region.

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In spite of this, both clubs are sneered at by some journalists and fans for their “low” away crowds – “only 120 down from Inverness”, “did all the County fans come in a minibus?” and so on. Some perspective is needed here. Fans of the other ten clubs only visit the Highlands three or four times a season. These trips are generally an excuse for a big day out – a few drinks on the way up, a few before the game and a few on the way home, with the football being an afterthought. But how many of them would head along if they had to do it every other week?

Travelling up and down the country every week as an away fan is an expensive business. Trains, buses are petrol aren’t cheap, and then you have to fork out for a ticket. But the biggest cost is time. One of the main reasons Scottish football has such a strong culture of away support is the short journeys involved. For most away matches, you can leave the house at lunchtime and be home for dinner if you need to. That doesn’t apply to the Highland fans – every away game means giving up your entire Saturday. It’s hardly surprising that they pick and choose their away games.

Every time either side reach a major semi-final or final, they have to travel down to Glasgow or Edinburgh, often to face opponents from the host city. To make matters worse, due to the combinaton of TV schedule and the shortcomings of the Scottish railway system, it’s often difficult for their fans to even make it to the stadium in time for kick-off. It’s no surprise that the clubs often feel unwanted and unloved. Terry Butcher, John Hughes, Derek Adams and Jim McIntyre have all used this siege mentality to motivate their players for big matches, often with great success.

Ross County and Inverness have been responsible for some of Scottish football’s most memorable moments of the last 20 years. Without them, there would have been no Super Caley going ballistic at Parkhead. We wouldn’t have witnessed Steven Craig and “Jimmy” Scott humbling Celtic in a Hampden semi-final, or Alex Schalk doing the same thing a few years later. There would have been no Nick Ross scoring for 9-man Caley against Hearts, no “hand of Josh” at Hampden, and no James Vincent sweeping home the winner in the Scottish Cup final. Worst of all, we would have missed out on the sight of Jamie Hamill banjoing Derek Adams on the touchline.

In the space of two decades, Inverness Caledonian Thistle and Ross County have established themselves as full-time clubs who are capable of challenging for (and winning) trophies. They have gatecrashed their way into the elite, and they have no intention of going away. As with any other medium sized club in Scotland, their fortunes will fluctuate and they may suffer the odd relegation out of the top flight, but like the others, they will bounce back

The Highland clubs are here to stay. Deal with it.

 

Written by Craig Anderson


Comments

  1. RossP - March 10, 2016 at 8:46 am

    Fantastic article. Really refreshing to hear a positive story about the Highland clubs. Too many journalists and fans focus on ‘poor crowds’ etc… without any thought about the travelling our fans do every fortnight. Our season average crowd attendances also suffer from the lack of away fans making similar efforts to come up north once or twice a season!

    Reply
  2. Alex Chisholm - March 10, 2016 at 3:03 pm

    Very good article which shows what both ICT and County have achieved. Just for clarification Inverness Clachnacuddin FC have also won 18 Highland League titles !

    Reply

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