Highland army is recruited as 19,000 march on Hampden

A FOOTBALLING version of the Highland clearances will bring an exodus from all corners of the region to swell the numbers supporting Ross County in the Active Nation Scottish Cup final at Hampden this afternoon. The Dingwall club from a town of only 5,000 inhabitants have sold an astonishing 19,000 tickets for a momentous occasion against Dundee United expected to be watched by close on 50,000 in the 52,000-capacity national stadium.

The showpiece might be considered the high water mark for senior football in the Highlands, a third of Scotland's landmass but an area which has been patronised and marginalised by those in the game. Never before has a Highland team contested the Scottish Cup final and few finalists have generated the interest County have sparked by dint of their scalping of Celtic and Hibernian, their management by 34-year-old Derek Adams and lower league status.

All of those elements will combine to ensure the occasion is also the day when Ross County truly step out of the shadow of their neighbours, Inverness Caledonian Thistle, who last decade brought top-flight football to the Highlands for the first time and will be doing so again next season following their First Division title success. Tribal rivalries will be set aside today and indeed many of those travelling to Hampden will hail from Inverness, only 20 miles from Victoria Park. Adams, in his third season in charge of a club which he guided from the Second Division in his first year, believes the backing his team have attracted shows they are the pride of the Highlands, not just Ross-shire.

"Highland League teams and shinty teams have changed their game from Saturday to Friday and Monday just to come and support us," he said. "The players have performed so well this year to help the Highland football community. It is phenomenal the amount of supporters we have coming down, and that is true of the trade we have had in the club shop.

"It is remarkable how much we have managed to achieve in a short space of time. The club has had a tremendous amount of publicity through the final, as have the players from media all over the world, and this week we had Football Mundial come to see us. It has been great, that is what happens when you are successful as a football club."