Voter Video Diaries - Transcript of Charles Bannerman's story

Voting changed my life when Inverness voted to apply for membership of the Scottish Football League.

My name is Charles Bannerman, I have followed the story since the very beginnings in 1993. For decades Inverness have been desperate to get a team in the Scottish Football League, for various reasons that had been denied it but when vacancies occurred never was there a better opportunity but the pressure was from the national game that the Inverness bid should be a combined bid and as a result Caledonian Football Club and Inverness Thistle Football Club set about the process of merger, it required votes on both sides. There were difficulties on the Thistle side but they were eventually, through the courts, resolved. On the Cally side there were two votes which were absolutely crucial to the union of the two clubs eventually taking place because everyone thought that Cally, being the bigger club, would not agree to the merger. It was thought their members would reject the idea so in the first instance the two clubs, Cally and Inverness, met simultaneously one night on the 9th of September 1993 and Thistle as expected delivered the vote, Cally as very much was unexpected voted by 55 votes to 50 or that was a 52.4% majority to vote, therefore the votes of three people changed the face of football, the history of football, in the city of Inverness. However there were challenges to these votes and they had to be retaken. During these periods the two viable fractions recruited furiously and the effect on the second vote was to shift opinion by 0.1% but having gone from 55 to 50 that became 250 to 226 which is a 52.5% yes vote and what happened during the couple of months between the votes is unprecedented in the annals of the then Moyle Borough of Inverness.

Yes, there are memories of the two clubs and the two rivalries as they were but in terms of any controversy or bitterness that, on the part of those who support the new club, has really receded to become virtually nothing.

I sometimes regret that there is a tendency to remember the club as a one game club; the club which won 3-1 at Celtic Park on February 8th 2000. Yes, that was a marvellous achievement for Cally Thistle but we have done so much more. We have been to the semi finals of the Scottish Cup twice. It’s been promoted third division, second division, first division and now into the SPL where contrary to what a number of pundits confidently expected Cally Thistle were not relegated after the first season, nor indeed after the second or the third. That progress, from beginnings of two separate clubs within the Highland Football League, two semi-professional clubs, that kind of progress, to playing in a 7500 seater modern stadium. That, over a time period of twelve or thirteen years has been quite spectacular and already has so much of a proud history both on and off the field and it really has been done in parallel with an economic miracle too.