In today's article we're joined by Andrew Young from The Wyness Shuffle podcast to chat all things Caley Thistle!
How would you assess your club's 22/23 season so far?
Very disappointing.
After a strong end to last season ICT supporters were mostly optimistic, but even before the league season had started, we’d started to lose players to injury, which contributed to a pretty underwhelming start.
Although we did put together a run of five league wins over September and October, the injuries continued to pile up and we’re now seven without a win. More worrying is the fact that we’ve barely threatened in some of these games.
Until recently I’d have said that there was still hope of us putting together a challenge once we had more players back, as the other teams in the division would probably cut each other’s throats, but Ayr, Dundee and Queen’s Park are all now on excellent runs and starting to stretch away, and we don’t look capable of matching that.
Main Man: Favourite current player and why
Probably Robbie Deas – a powerful yet elegant defender who has done a superb job for us at both centre half and left back over the past two seasons.
He’s currently out with a broken leg, sustained five minutes after scoring a lovely headed equaliser against Raith Rovers. That’s pretty representative of our season to date.
What is your earliest memory supporting your club?
A 3-0 away win against Albion Rovers in February 1997, remarkable only for being the occasion of Ross Tokely’s first goal for the club. I’d been an Inverness Thistle fan growing up but was a student in Glasgow at the time of the merger and had sort of lost touch with football. My friend Simon persuaded me to come along to Cliftonhill that afternoon and there was something strangely intoxicating about it. I made a few more games that season, including the 3-2 home win against Montrose that clinched the Third Division title, and that was the start of it.
Explain the nickname
The Caley Jags! Not much to explain: Caley – short for Caledonian; Jags – thistles are jaggy.
Almost Famous – What is your club best known for?
We should be best known for winning the Scottish Cup, finishing third in the top flight and qualifying for Europe in just the 21st year of our existence, season 2014-15); the fact that we’re probably still best known for a Scottish Cup upset against Celtic in 2000 says more about the preoccupations and priorities of Scottish football reporting than it says about the club.
Obviously, it was a great achievement and it’s a treasured memory for all ICT supporters who experienced it, but the notoriety that win still enjoys is mostly down to the ingenuity of a Sun headline writer and the involvement of one of the big Glasgow teams.
Greatest Gaffer: Your favourite/most loved boss watching your team
Steve ‘Pele’ Paterson. In seven and a half seasons, with a total commitment to attacking football, he took us from the bottom tier to the cusp of promotion to the top flight and brought through several players who still hold legendary status among the club’s supporters.
He’d had phenomenal success in the Highland League prior to joining us, and it’s a shame that more widely in Scotland, the achievements of his earlier career have been overshadowed by an unsuccessful spell at Aberdeen, when he felt compelled to change his style of play and when personal issues started to catch up with him. He’s a deity to many ICT supporters of a certain age.
Can you tell us one interesting fact about your club which other fans may not know?
Under Steve Paterson, the team went for more than three and a half years (April 11th 1998-December 22nd 2001) without being involved in a 0-0 draw. That stat says a lot about his footballing philosophy.
Who would make your ultimate all-time 5-a-side team?
- Jim Calder - That unlikeliest of phenomena, the striker turned goalkeeper. Initially a centre forward for Inverness Thistle, somewhere along the road he evolved into a goalkeeper. He was a standout performer at Celtic Park in 2000, and saw off several rivals for the number 1 shirt before leaving the club in 2002. We’ve had more technically accomplished keepers, but none with half the personality of Jimmy Calder.
- Ross Tokely - The club’s record appearance-holder, having played 589 games for the club, and one of very few players in Scottish football history to have played and scored for the same club in the top four tiers of the league. Arriving at the club as a seventeen-year-old midfielder, he made his name as a marauding right back before finishing ICT career in the centre of defence. Hated by opposing fans, adored by ICT supporters, he’d be absolutely terrifying in a 5-a-side pitch.
- Charlie Christie - Arguably the player who symbolises Caley Thistle above all others. A hero to supporters of both Inverness Thistle and Caledonian, he also managed the club for a season and half, and is currently Head of Youth Development. Starting his career as an enormously skillful forward for Inverness Thistle, he spent two years at Celtic before returning to Caledonian, and in the early years of Caley Thistle’s existence he was a creative lynchpin in midfield, combining superb vision with a niggly aggression. I’d also love to see him in the same team as…
- Ryan Christie - Son of Charlie, and undoubtedly the most successful product of the ICT youth system. He’s a different player now to the slight midfielder who left us, but even as he was just breaking through as a 19-year in 2013-14, he was picking out passes and making runs that virtually no-one else in the team was capable of seeing or making.
- Dennis Wyness - With 101 goals, the club’s all-time top scorer. Between 2000 and 2003 he was imperious, scoring 20+ goals in three successive seasons. For some reason, he never really got going after his big move to Hearts in 2003, and he wasn’t quite the same player when he came back to us, but I’d love to have had Dennis Wyness in his prime when we were a top-six team; he undoubtedly had the ability to play at that level.
What is your all-time favourite match?
It’s incredibly hard to choose. Each of the three Scottish Cup victories against Celtic was memorable and dramatic in its own way, as was the terrific 3-1 Scottish Cup win against Hearts at Tynecastle in 2002, but my favourite is probably another game against Hearts, the 2014 League Cup semi-final at Easter Road.
From 1-0 up, we lost two goals in five minutes, had both centre-halves sent off, equalised four minutes into stoppage time, played 30 mins of extra time with nine men without conceding, then won the penalty shoot-out to make it into our first major trophy final. Absolute pandemonium.
The sight of two-goal Jamie Hamill beating the touchline in despair as Nick Ross slammed home the equaliser is indelibly etched in my memory.
What should visiting fans make sure they see/do when visiting your club/town?
If you’re just in town for the day, then have a walk through the Ness islands, visit Charles Leakey’s, one of the most beautiful second-hand bookshops anywhere in the country, then go for a couple of pints: Lots of good options: the Market Bar, MacGregor’s, the Black Isle Bar, the Tarry Isle. There’s more to Inverness than Johnny Foxes.
What makes your club special to YOU?
The incredible trajectory of the club between its formation and 2015 has left so many amazing memories in a relatively short time: four promotions, a Scottish Cup win and three semi-final appearances, a League Cup final appearance, a trip to Romania in the Europa League qualifying round and numerous acts of ‘giant-killing’ along the way. Above all, though, the friends I’ve made following the club around the country.
You can follow Inverness CT's progress every week in our SPFL Lower League Round Up - watch the latest edition now!
