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Inverness CT
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Hamilton Academical
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Appearances & Goals To Date
Starting Lineup
| Youngest Player: | Alfie Stewart (19 years 280 days) |
| Oldest Player: | Billy Mckay (37 years 201 days) |
| Average Player Age: | 27 years 78 days |
| Domestic Players: | 8 (72.73 % of starting eleven) |
Matchday Squad
| Youngest Player: | Ben Brannan (19 years 97 days) |
| Oldest Player: | Billy Mckay (37 years 201 days) |
| Average Player Age: | 25 years 212 days |
| Domestic Players: | 14 (70.00 % of matchday squad) |
First Team Debuts
Milestones
π League1 Champions π
The Caley Jags are off to the Championship after beating Hamilton Accies 2-1 in front of over 5000 raucous fans at the Caledonian Stadium. An early strike from Captain Danny Devine in the third minute settled the nerves and an absolute club legend Billy Mckay added a second before half an hour to up the volume in the stadium. I spoke to Billy at East Fife and he assured me they would get the job done this week. What a legend.
Accies scored a late goal through Kevin O'Hara and we had an extra late drama when they were awarded a penalty. However Ross Munro pulled off a tremendous diving save to deny Oli Shaw and that was the cue for an enthusiastic but premature pitch invasion. About fifteen minutes later the game resumed for a handful of seconds before referee Chris Graham called a halt and the real pitch invasion started.
Credit to Stenhousemuir for giving it a real go all season, good luck in the play-offs.
Full report and match reaction tomorrow.
We have some celebrating to do now. πΎπΎπΎ
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The Main Stand and the North Stand were packed out as the the teams took to the pitch for hopefully the final time this season. Would we take the game to Accies or would we play a cagey game like we did at East Fife the previous week? That question would be answered in the third minute when Captain Danny Devine crashed Paul Allan's corner kick high into the net in front of the Hamilton fans to set the scene for the afternoon with the home fans loving this early advantage. Inverness were in control of the early stages with the bulk of the game being played in the Accies third of the pitch with MacKinnon and Wotherspoon prominent and Billy Mckay rolling back the years as he buzzed around the front line. Alfie Bavidge was also running the channels and using his pace to good effect. Accies were restricted to shooting from range, not necessarily on target with Ross Munro idle for the most part. The pressure was mounting on the visitors with a number of blocked efforts keeping the score down, but nobody was on hand to stop club legend Billy Mckay scoring after great work on the left side through Wotherspoon and Mitchell Robertson whose cross into the box was finished by Billy, his 132nd goal for this club. That ramped up the volume in the stands, however we all held our breath when the ball got stuck under Devine's feet as he tried to get the ball back to Munro. Thankfully the keeper managed to get to the ball in the nick of time to dribble his way out of danger and keep us two ahead at the break. Alas Danny's game was over before the break as he was unable to continue after an earlier knock and he limped off to be replaced by Oscar MacIntyre with Robertson moving inside to centre back.
HALF TIME: 2-0
Accies looked sharper after a torrid first half and pressed Inverness higher up the park without really troubling Munro. We blocked a couple of attempts in the first few minutes of the second half as we seemed content to hold what we had and in truth, the game lost it's sparkle and deteriorated into a dire midfield battle. Ross Millen had an effort saved before the substitutes flowed from both sides. We did force four corners in quick succession but it ended with the ball holding up in the breeze and going behind. Millen hit a fierce shot just wide as we looked to kill off the game and the best chance of the second half saw Alfie Stewart head wide after a great ball in from the left. The game was untidy over the final fifteen minutes but there was late drama when Kevin O'Hara scored after we conceded one too many free kicks allowing Accies to get the ball into our box all too often for my liking. Ahh well, so be it. However, there was further drama when we were all waiting for the final whistle to blow. Millen was adjudged to have tripped Oli Shaw who took the spot kick himself. As befits champions, Ross Munro pulled off a great save to his right and that triggered a spontaneous pitch invasion from the over eager young team. It took a while to clear a thousand or so from the playing surface before the game restarted. It was barely worth restarting and the game was brought to a halt seconds later to start invasion number two, this time in earnest as jubilant fans celebrated on the park with players.
FULL TIME: 2-1
It's been a long season, coming from five points behind as we set out to win the title. Thirty-six League1 games later and add on four League Cup ties, two Scottish Cup ties and eleven KDM trophy games, it's been quite a journey. Not to mention seven pre-season encounters and a testimonial plus three North of Scotland Cup ties then it really has been a wonderful season after all the trauma we have come through under our previous failed regime.
Think that is 64 games negotiated and Previewed and Reported here on CTO.
Statue for Savage incoming.
Well done to everyone concerned at the club and to the fanbase for producing a brilliant atmosphere throughout our season, especially in the final game. The Supporters Bus organisers, the Wyness Shuffle podcasters, and a massive well done to George Moodie and Supporters Trust for the huge improvements in the matchday experience. No doubt I've missed some out, apologies for that, but a huge thanks on here to Scotty for keeping this site going and to IBM for keeping all the stats up to date. There's a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes on CTO and it really is much appreciated.
Match report written by tm4tj
