Charlie Christie - Good times are returning to Inverness Caledonian Thistle
Paul Weller and The Jam said it best in 1980 with their superb hit ‘That’s Entertainment’!
I am of course referring to Tuesday’s night’s excellent home league match against Stenhousemuir at Caledonian Stadium where I witnessed our best home performance for quite some time.
Stenny came into the match on the back of a five-game winning streak which had propelled them into the play-off spots, but they couldn’t match the tempo that Caley Thistle played at, and that tempo allied to a real cutting edge in the final third made it a hugely enjoyable watch throughout.
It should also be noted that we started the match with four 18-year-olds and a 19-year-old as we took the pitch with the youngest ICT team I have seen in a long time.
One of those 18-year-olds was Kilmarnock loanee Ben Brannan who started the ball rolling with a tremendous finish after just three minutes and the lead up play to Ben’s fine strike would be regarded as top class at any level.
For me the match was reminiscent to the performances at this same level in season 1998/99 when ICT battled for the title with old foes Livingston with both clubs securing promotion long before the season finale.
Under Steve Paterson’s guidance we scored 80 goals in 36 league games and Tuesday’s game had similarities to that season in the level of our play and the entertainment served up to those inside the ground.
It also meant that we continued our excellent run of form which has seen us take 10 points from a possible twelve and Saturday’s home match against Annan offers up the chance to keep building on that momentum.
However, as displayed in the recent frustrating draw at home to Montrose, we cannot afford to drop our standard nor intensity as Annan are more than capable of making things difficult for us as they look for points to climb out of that dreaded relegation play-off spot.
One thing that cannot be underestimated is the part our fans can play, and it was so refreshing to hear the positivity in the stadium on Tuesday evening.
In our last away match at Dumbarton, it was noticeable that we took a very substantial support to the west of Scotland and the last-minute winner in that game allied to Tuesday evening’s excellent performance indicates that the good times are indeed returning to the club.
The icing on the cake would be for those people who haven’t visited us for a while to give us another go – if Tuesday is anything to go by you won’t be disappointed!