Inverness end season on a high:
Simon Mensing's penalty miss summed up Hamilton's season as Inverness ended theirs with four wins on the trot thanks to goals from Richie Foran and Adam Rooney.
Mensing had earlier equalised at the start of the second half but squandered the penalty opportunity by lashing the ball off the bar as Tuffey escaped with only a yellow for the foul on Dougie Imrie.
Poignant scenes at the end for ICT fans as part of the fixtures and fittings Grant Munro and Russell Duncan left the field together for the last time in an Inverness Caledonian Thistle strip. Duncan had replaced Munro at half time as Grant had taken a knock just before the break. A combined total of 720 appearances and over 22 years experience through the infancy and teenage years of ICT, gone before you could say 'supercaleygoballistic'. The pantomime villain in all this, Terry Butcher. Only time will tell if Butcher's decision to release these assets were the correct decision, let's hope he has something big up his sleeve as these guys will be a hard act to follow.
The Highland Marchers made their way to Hamilton after a tortuous battle against the elements. The Glens of Tromie inflicted the second setback to these foot soldiers, the first being the SPL fixture list. Torrential rain and whipping headwinds were conducive to quagmire like underfoot conditions which eventually saw the troops reluctantly concede some ground to the elements. A handshake and incisive tactical manoeuvre saw the soldiers outflank the wrath of God and they marched from Bannockburn to Hamilton in time for the final game of the season, minus a few toenails and some weary legs with blisters in abundance.
This magnificent march should not be underestimated and congratulations to all those who totalled 500 miles between them. (Where did I put that Proclaimers record). No doubt these guys are made of stern stuff, and they typify the battling qualities and never say never attitude associated with their beloved football club.
The roll call at the end of the march was the same as the one that left Inverness on Wednesday evening after the Hibs game, in fact it grew even bigger:- Yompa, Gringo, Gringo Junior, Beatonio, Dunco, Capital Caley, BA, and enhanced by a couple of Yompa siblings from Stirling onwards.
Take a bow lads and put your feet up for a few minutes, you deserve it; now off and plan HM10!
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Alternative Maryhill fittingly provides us with the final report for season 2010-2011, great report for a great season
A Farewell to Kings This was a day that should have provided, and in many respects did provide, a very satisfying end to a fine season; yet as Grant Munro and Russell Duncan, the last players up the tunnel, left the field for the final time as Caley Thistle players, the over-riding emotion amongst most of the travelling supporters was surely sadness, coloured perhaps with just a little apprehension about whether the brave new dawn Terry Butcher foresees at the club will leave the team in quite such a strong position this time next year. Obviously this isn’t the place to debate the wisdom or otherwise of the manager’s plans for the squad; suffice to say that if nothing else, they ensured that a game that might have been completely meaningless to ICT supporters will now live long in the memories of those who witnessed it. With our previous pre-match watering hole, Chambers, having closed down, the travelling support was scattered before the game, with some opting to head to Morrison’s to meet the Highland marchers for a fry-up, and others settling for the convenient option of the Academical Vault, opposite Hamilton West station. Contrary to some reports, it was not a cross between Al Swearengen’s saloon in Deadwood and the cantina in Star Wars (although some of the clientele would not have looked out of place in either), but rather a traditional Scottish small town pub, with reasonably-priced pints, friendly staff, pool tables and supporters of both teams mixing before and after the game. If ICT and Hamilton are drawn together in the cup or find themselves in the same division in the future, then this will be a fine place for our supporters to gather. Had this been, as it seemed it might have been a week previously, a game that could have preserved Hamilton’s SPL status, then surely the South Lanarkshire club would have opened all two of its stands and the gazebo; as it was, with nothing left for either team to play for, home and away supporters were shepherded into the main stand, and this turned out to have been an excellent decision as there was a really good-natured, bantering atmosphere between the two sets of supporters throughout the match. The ICT support was surprisingly large, and conducted itself superbly throughout, even when the stewards (who were, otherwise, friendly and sensible) moved the entire two back rows to other areas of the stand on the grounds that they were ‘obscuring the views of the people in hospitality’ – a little strange, given that the back two rows of the Hamilton support were not also asked to move. Anyway, as well as taking the chance to say goodbye to our own heroes, the supporters also enjoyed the opportunity of waving farewell to our ex-player-turned-pantomime-villain, Mr Douglas Imrie, who was serenaded with choruses of ‘Dougie Imrie Relegation’ and ‘Division One Dougie Imrie’ throughout, but never subjected to any of the unnecessary and unjustified abuse that he has suffered in the past. As far as most of us were concerned, however, this was Grant Munro’s and Russell Duncan’s day. As could have been predicted, Duncan started on the bench with Munro in the starting line up, and even before the teams came out, the Inverness half of the stand rang with chants of ‘Grant Munro – he’s one of our own’. When the players emerged, it was clear how much the support meant to Granty: he couldn’t stop acknowledging the supporters. Yet from the moment the game began, he was calmness and concentration itself, and didn’t put a foot wrong before his substitution at half time, apparently due to an injury caused by a firm challenge on Dougie Imrie. To Terry Butcher’s credit, he used Munro’s injury as an opportunity to give Russell Duncan a final appearance, and Russell too was given a fantastic reception by the Inverness supporters and seemed visibly moved by it. The match itself was the epitome of end of season fare, with the teams sharing possession evenly and creating very few chances, although the BBC’s claim that the only two attempts on goal ICT had were their goals is stretching it a little far: Adam Rooney had at least one other shot in the first half. Hamilton were, however, marginally the better team in the first period, with Imrie in particular looking determined to create some positive final memory of the SPL for the Accies supporters, but whenever they got to the edge of the ICT area, they were either let down by poor final balls or stifled by efficient Caley Thistle defending. The Inverness players, meanwhile, seemed understandably content to contain Hamilton and look for opportunities to counter attack, and among the more satisfying aspects of the performance were the increasing influence and confidence of both Nick Ross and Aaron Doran, the latter looking more and more like a player Terry Butcher should attempt to sign should Blackburn decide that he is surplus to requirements. It was Doran who ultimately helped make the difference between the teams in the first half, although he was ably assisted by Grant Munro, who broke out of defence with the ball at his feet and moved through the midfield before releasing Doran on the right wing. Munro continued his run into the box, drawing the Hamilton defenders so that when Doran’s deep cross went towards the back post, Richie Foran, running in to meet it, was completely unmarked and able to bury his header in the net. Hamilton were spurred into attack by Foran’s goal and almost immediately after the restart created their best chance of the match, with Imrie firing in a fierce shot from the right hand corner of the penalty area that the excellent Jonny Tuffey met with a strong hand to push over the bar. So after a first half that had seemed longer than almost any all season, all the excitement was crammed into three minutes before half time. The only other real moment of note was an unfortunate accident involving Top Six Next Year and a lava-temperature coffee that turned the big man’s hand into a withered, Terrahawk-style claw: a final act of ‘f___ you SPL’ defiance from the Hamilton pie stall staff, maybe?...
Half Time: Hamilton 0 – Caley Thistle 1
Within five minutes of the second half starting, Accies were level, when Simon Mensing rose unmarked in the box – possibly a consequence of Grant Munro’s forced absence? – and powerfully headed home Ali Crawford’s corner from close range. This might have provided the impetus for Hamilton to go on and take control of the game, but instead it seemed to provoke the Inverness players to up their performance levels a little: Caley Thistle were the better team for most of the rest of the half, and re-established a lead just seven minutes later when Nick Ross stole the ball from Crawford and successfully took on the Hamilton defence before sliding the ball to Rooney who calmly sidefooted home his 22nd goal of the season – and perhaps his last in Inverness colours? For the next fifteen minutes, ICT were comfortably in control, but with twenty minutes remaining, Hamilton were handed the opportunity to equalise when their best player, Imrie, broke into the right hand side of the penalty area after robbing the otherwise impressive Kenny Gillet and was brought down by Tuffey. Tuffey escaped with a yellow card, then Simon Mensing summed up the disappointment of Hamilton’s season, and lent a certain gloomy irony to Billy Reid’s pre-match lament about the number of penalties that had been awarded against Hamilton, by hammering the dead ball off the crossbar. Ten minutes later, Dougie Imrie had another chance to salvage something from the game, but Jonny Tuffey underlined how much ICT are blessed in their goalkeepers by making another fine block. Terry Butcher, meanwhile, gave a third departing player his chance to receive an ovation from the Caley Thistle support when Dani Sanchez, an erratic but often valuable contributor to the team over the past two seasons, was given the final ten minutes of the game as a substitute for the industrious Shane Sutherland. Thereafter the game petered out, with Caley Thistle’s players easily retaining possession and each successful pass rewarded with a cheers from the satisfied Inverness support, and when Hamilton’s final attack ended somewhat symbolically with a cross from the right being driven into the referee’s hind quarters, Iain Brines decided to bring the game to an end.
Full Time: Hamilton 1 - Caley Thistle 2
As the Hamilton players departed the scene, Terry Butcher and his team came over to take a well-deserved ovation from the Inverness supporters, and Adam Rooney, perhaps signalling that he sees his future lying away from Inverness, threw his shirt into the crowd. Yet despite our gratitude to the whole team, the supporters’ thoughts were not, unlike last year at Somerset Park, focused on the successful manager and his star striker. Rather, they were with two players who have remained steadfastly loyal to the club and have been at the heart of ICT during their journey from lower league football, through promotion pushes, giant-killing feats, Scottish Cup semi-finals, managerial changes, relegation battles and record-breaking runs, and who have undoubtedly achieved legendary status among Inverness fans: Russell Duncan and Grant Munro. Thank you for everything.
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Well that's it folks from the editorial team for this seasons Previews and Reports. There has been some fantastic stuff to write about and some marvellously inventive and creative literacy on display. We have had some fun relating our tales, hope you have enjoyed our various styles. Where else would you get previews in the theme of Shakespeare, or McGonagall, or even the Wild West. We have also tried to make all the articles easy to digest, some maybe more edible than others but if you enjoyed them great, if you found them hard to swallow, then leave us some feedback and we will make them easier to chew.
Many thanks to all our contributors and we hope to be back for the new season, maybe even pre-season,
enjoy.
Match report written by Alternative Maryhill
