Northern Exposure: Why respect is due to the Highland football clubs

FEBRUARY 8, 2000. The day that changed Highland football forever. The scoreline that persuaded the north to believe in itself: Celtic 1, Inverness Caledonian Thistle 3. Twelve years on, as the two sides prepare to meet once again in the William Hill Scottish Cup, that momentous night in the east end of Glasgow reverberates still.

To this day, the famous headline, “Super Caley Go Ballistic Celtic are Atrocious” hangs in the Caledonian Stadium. It used to be in the reception area, but they move it around now, so that its inspirational effect is maximised. It is a symbol of the potential finally fulfilled, not just in Inverness, but in Dingwall, where Ross County are in line for promotion to the SPL, and across the Highlands.

Charlie Christie, now in charge of youth development for Caley Thistle, was one of the heroes that night. “It was a turning point,” he says. “Remember, we were mid-table in the First Division that season. We didn’t really challenge for promotion. But, with that game, everyone sort of woke up and took notice. It made us think: ‘Look, we can be an SPL club. If we can just make one or two tweaks to the infrastructure, maybe get a wee bit more finances, we can play at the top level’.”

They weren’t wrong. Since winning promotion to the SPL in 2004, with a little help from Aberdeen, who allowed them to share Pittodrie for half a season, they have been out of the top flight for only one season. Given that the likes of Dunfermline Athletic and St Johnstone have failed to emulate that consistency in recent years, the achievement should not be underestimated.

They have also made a habit of beating Celtic, in the league and cup, so much so that the element of surprise is diminished. In 2000, it cost John Barnes his job. It cost Neil Lennon’s side the title last season. Twelve months before that, Lennon was also traumatised by northern exposure, this time when Ross County beat Celtic in the Scottish Cup semi-final.

The Highlanders are now hunting in packs. Assuming Caley Thistle continue the form that has lifted them from the relegation zone, and County do not throw away their commanding advantage in the First Division, there will be two northern clubs in the SPL next season, three if you count Aberdeen. Before our very eyes, the map of Scottish football is being redrawn.

It would be an astonishing feat, just 18 years after Caley Thistle and County were elected to the Scottish Football League together. “I’ll be honest,” says Christie, right. “I think I know football in this area more than most but, if you had said to me 20 years ago that this would happen, I would have laughed. I’m incredulous. Everyone is surprised by how quickly it has happened. Numerous SFL clubs have never been in the top league. It’s been a huge tidal change in the way football is thought of up here.”

And it will not stop there, especially if the Scottish Football Association is allowed to go ahead with plans for a nationwide pyramid system. A paper produced by the SFA’s Game Board recommends two feeder divisions for the Scottish Football League, one in the Highlands. Christie believes that Buckie Thistle and Cove Rangers are the clubs most likely to take advantage.

With Elgin City and Peterhead already in the Third Division, the professional game is at last becoming meritocratic, free of the trade barrier that existed in years gone by. After more than a century of non-league football, the Highland clubs are finding their place in the hierarchy, even if the praise they attract is still uncomfortably patronising.

“We don’t get the credit we deserve sometimes,” says Christie. “It’s ‘plucky’ this, ‘hard-working’ that, and you get some people coming up here and criticising the playing surface. Our pitch is among the top half-dozen in the SPL. When teams come up here, they stay in luxurious, five-star hotels so it’s not as if it is a huge hardship. We don’t have a crofting community up here. This is one of the most affluent areas in Britain. We have earned the right to a bit more respect.”

It is the least the Highland clubs deserve after being disenfranchised for so long. Inverness Thistle would have been admitted to the SFL in 1974 had they not lost an infamous vote to Ferranti (Meadowbank) Thistle. Christie remembers that his father was irate about that outcome, which led to a lost generation of players. “There have been dozens upon dozens of fantastic north players who never got the opportunity to play in the SFL,” says Christie, whose job now is to make up for it.

Providing for budding professionals is no easy task at Inverness. The pool of talent from which they draw is spread so thinly across the Highlands that it can cost the club a small fortune in accommodation. One of their lads, Aiden Drever, travels down from Orkney every week, missing school on a Monday so that he can catch the ferry back.

That said, Caley Thistle’s youth development is light years ahead of where it was in the non-league days. It is still a struggle to compete with their rivals down the road, but professional status has given the club more resources, as well as access to the national youth league.

Christie says that, even if they do not make it into the professional ranks, teenagers from the north are better, more secure men than they used to be. He can see that in his own son, Ryan, who is on the books at Caley Thistle. “He’s done very well at school but I put a lot of that down to his football. He’s talking to his mates on a Friday about going down to Murray Park or Lennoxtown to play Celtic or Rangers on the Sunday. It’s great for his self-confidence.”

The benefits transcend sport. After the win against Celtic 12 years ago, a talking head said in the local newspaper that Caley Thistle had achieved more for the Highlands in 90 minutes than the tourist board had in a year. Quite apart from the earnings that taxi-drivers, pubs and hotels have since made from league football in Inverness and Dingwall, the arrival of famous players on their doorsteps every other week, together with the accompanying media coverage, has blurred the divide between north and south.

“Football can be a powerful tool, more powerful than you realise,” says Christie.

Supporters are as proud of the region as they are of their favourite club. A sizeable contingent of Inverness regulars followed County to Hampden in 2010. Already, there is a debate about where the neutrals will go next season if there is a choice of SPL clubs in the area. The derby, which attracted up to 6,000 in the lower divisions, will be quite a spectacle.

In Saturday’s fifth round of the Scottish Cup, there will be no mistaking the main attraction. County are away to St Mirren, but Caley Thistle are at home to Celtic, who will not be relishing the prospect. Neil Lennon was at East End Park to see Terry Butcher’s side beat Dunfermline in the previous round. “I have no doubt in my mind that he was desperate for Dunfermline to win,” says Christie. “He has had such a hard time getting results up north.” He had better get used to it.