“Great day, good game, perfect result. “
– Caley Stan, on Caleythistleonline forums

“Maybe the bandage is a lucky omen. I’ll wear it next week and if I get another goal I’ll keep it on for the rest of the season!”
– Goalscorer Lee Cox, on the bandage he wore during the match for a minor hand injury

“It was tough on the Pars, who had dominated the second half, with Willie Gibson and Steven Bell going close before Andy Kirk hit the post with a terrific turn and shot.”
- BBC Sportsound at full time

“Roared on by a noisy Thistle support, Terry Butcher’s men went for the jugular with some fast free-flowing football.”
– Ewan Smith, The Sunday Mail

“Butcher’s boys had been battered, almost to a pulp, by Dunfermline, but a minute into time added on for stoppages at the end of the game, up popped Lee Cox to volley home a shot from the edge of the penalty area to steal all three points for the Highlanders.”
– Billy Hamiton, The Herald

… and, a random mention – maybe we can do some recruiting from disillusioned fans of other sides …

“I have followed NCFC for 55 years through thick and thin. I managed to get to a radio for the half time score, only to have the breath completely knocked out of me, leaving me totally stunned. RIP Canaries. Anyone know the way to Inverness Caledonian Thistle?”
– Norwich City fan Denis Pye, speaking to edp24

Rovers reached the second round by beating bankruptcy-threatened Livingston 3-0, and will look to collect another, more healthy First Division scalp when they come to Inverness. They’ll find this one a bit harder to walk away with.

Stay tuned as we count down to the start of the league season on Saturday away at Dunfermline. It’s the most wonderful time of the year. Mon the Caley.

The good news: We beat Highland League side Clachnacuddin 6-1, with goals from Richie Foran, new boy Lee Cox, Andy Barrowman, Grant Munro and, one has to assume, two other blokes.

The bad news: We played Clachnacuddin. And our next friendly? Clach’s HL leaguemates Buckie Thistle. Look, I’m as big a fan of the Highland League as the next guy. Actually far more. But I think enough is enough with the minnow games. They do nothing to prepare our boys for the First Division, which to be fair is no SPL, but with some of our promotion rivals buying big this summer, I’m not sure we should be looking for fixtures quite so small.

In other positive news, we’ll see some new faces on trial this weekend, including Norwich City’s Robert Eagle, Chris de Wagt and keeper Greg Kelly, formerly of Aberdeen. So far, Butcher’s one summer signing, Lee Cox, is showing positive signs and let’s hope one of these guys can break in too. There are still some serious holes in this squad.

Butcher has also been pulling a muscle patting Andy Barrowman on the back. After a disappointing 2009 season, the former County (spit) striker is apparently back on form and just murdering all the fitness tests. We’ll see. I’d love to see him get near the strike rate he had for the Enemy two years back, especially if some of those goals go against his old teammates.

All in all, positive, if a little unambitious signs from the club. More soon. Mon the Caley.

Caley sit 9th place as I write this post, a single point above both Kilmarnock and St. Mirren, and only four from bottom side Falkirk, with 4 matches remaining. We did ourselves a world of good last weekend with a 2-1 win over St. Mirren, and if we can beat Hamilton on Sunday, we’ll be on 38 points, with four teams behind us in the table.

But before Sunday comes Saturday, and this Saturday, Caley are spectators. Killie and Falkirk will take the pitch, and you have to think that whoever loses this one is the favorite to go down. Despite their early form, Kilmarnock have been absolutely horrible over the late stretches of the season, and have only a single league win in 2009. Lucky for them, that win was a 3-0 demolition of none other than their weekend guests Falkirk. St. Mirren look to get their feet back under them against Motherwell, who have to be hungry after first barely missing out on the top six, and then losing to the last-place Bairns.

If I had to make a guess, I’d say Motherwell over St. Mirren, which is good news for Caley. The Killie-Falkirk one is tough to call. Killie were dominant last time, but Falkirk is I think the more dangerous side right now. As much as I’d like to keep the four-point advantage on them, I think they’ll just tip it, and close to within a point of the Caley.

We’ll be watching. If things go right, and there’s still four points and a game in hand between us and the drop, we will have all the confidence in the world going into Sunday with the Accies. If not, well, we’ll see what this team is made of. Mon the Caley.

2 May: St. Mirren v. Caley Thistle
10 May: Caley Thistle v. Hamilton
13 May: Motherwell v. Caley Thistle
16 May: Kilmarnock v. Caley Thistle
23 May: Caley Thistle v. Falkirk

Which means (holy hell) the last match of the season might well decide who goes down. We have four matches of work to avoid that being an issue, so let’s look at how we’ve fared in these fixtures lately.

St. Mirren v. Caley:
The Good News is that in our most recent meeting, the Caley ended up on top by 2-1. The bad news is that its been two seasons and three matches since we’ve been able to get a win in Paisley. Overall, though, our record is about split with the Buddies, and despite the recent Andy Dorman phenomenon, they don’t have a lot in the way of goalscorers. Nor do we. Could easily be a draw.

Caley v. Hamilton:
Our three meetings this season have ended in two 1-0 wins for the Accies and one recent 1-1 draw, so only a fool would bet on many goals here. On form, Caley is definitely looking better than the rapidly sinking Accies, but home has been none too comfortable for Caley so far.

Motherwell v. Caley:
We’re a bit unlucky to draw an away match with the one side in the bottom half not seriously threatened with relegation, and it’s never fun to have to play on the joke of a pitch at Fir Park, but we’ll have to make due. The Caley have gone six league matches without so much as a point against the Well, and haven’t won on their ground since 2006, when we pulled off a 4-1 shocker on three second-half goals. The toughest match of the post-season, though maybe the least important, since all the others are basically relegation six-pointers.

Kilmarnock v. Caley:
No fixture in Caley’s history has produced as many goals as the matchup with Kilmarnock. In the past four years, we have fought out a 4-3, a 3-3, two 3-1s, and a 4-1. There will be goals. In the past two seasons, its been all to the home side, but Caley’s road form this season, and Killie’s astonishing inconsistency, should make this anyone’s fitba game.

Caley v. Falkirk:
This one, folks, is for all the damned marbles. If we’ve maintained our four-point lead to this point, then we can call it a survival party, but does anyone believe, the way this season has been, that it won’t come down to the final 90 minutes? Last time we met, Falkirk wiped the pitch with us, 4-0, and they’ll come in with all the confidence in the world if the margin is less than three points. This is a match that we need to concentrate on winning before it starts, but if it comes down to it, it will be an impossible one to predict if only because neither team has consistently shown it deserves either survival or the drop.

This is a season without a Gretna, without a team just begging to go down. There are five teams that could realistically be facing the likes of Ross County next season, and we are most certainly one of them. I wish it wasn’t a week away, because to be honest, I’m already nervous. Mon the Caley.

ICT Front Office,

My name is Ian Rose, and I’m a Caley Thistle fan living in the United States. My family is from the Inverness area, and I’ve been following the team since the merger. I had the pleasure of seeing the team play last year in Inverness for the first time (beats poor internet video every day of the week). I wanted to bring an issue to the club’s attention about a legal matter, and hopefully resolve it. I write a blog on the popular football website The Offside (http://www.theoffside.com) about Caley Thistle. The blog can be found at http://caley.theoffside.com . Though I don’t always agree with every decision the club and management makes, like any fan, I believe the blog generally helps to spread the word about the club. We have previously used club crests as a part of the identifying logo at the top of the screen, but we receieved a cease-and-desist order from a law office in Britain claiming to represent all clubs in the Premier League, SPL, SFL, and English football league. The order asked that we remove all team crests from those leagues, even partial images, until special permission was granted from individual clubs. That is what I am asking for in this email.

We’ve had mixed response to this from other clubs. So far, the only English club to grant us specific permission has been Hull City (http://hull.theoffside.com). When they agreed, our thousands of readers were unanimously in support of the decision, some both in Britain and the United States saying that they would be more likely to support Hull because of the decision. It was seen as a club choosing to work with fans rather than against them. You can read some of the comments here – http://www.theoffside.com/world-football/premier-league-crests-hull-city-are-king.html . Since its posting, that article has recieved over 2,000 visitors, not to mention the over 4,000 readers that came and saw it on our front page that day. The Hull City blog has since this decision more than doubled in traffic, mostly American and foreign fans who previously didn’t support a particular Premier League team. It was a fantastic gesture of goodwill towards the fans.

The crest is the club’s property, and it’s your decision what to do with it. But as a fan who wears his Caley shirt every Saturday, and his Caley scarf on his way to work (unless Scotland is playing that day, in which case I can’t very well wear two scarves …), I feel like the fans have some ownership in the crest as well. It’s a symbol that means a lot to us, and it would mean the world to us if we could have permission to use it again.

For an example of how the crest is used in logos, take a look at our Barcelona blog – http://barcelona.theoffside.com . The logo is on the top left. The crest is shown only partially, but is clearly recognizable.

Thank you for your time, and good luck (to all of us) in securing SPL play for next season. Mon the Caley.

Ian

Let’s hope Caley joins the Hull side of the argument, rather than the Wolves one.