At the beginning of the 1994/95 season, the Scottish Football League welcomed two new members from the Highland League. Ross County joined the newly formed Caledonian Thistle (later to become Inverness Caledonian Thistle) in the Third division. The formation of the new Inverness team was controversial, as it involved two of the Highland Leagues most successful teams, Inverness Thistle and Caledonian. Although fans of both clubs opposed the idea, ICT have enjoyed success since their formation.
After three years in the Third division, ICT were promoted as champions following the 96/97 season. In their second season in the Second division, they finished as runners-up to Livingston and won promotion to the First division. It was during this spell in the First division that ICT stunned Scottish football when they beat Celtic 3-1 at Parkhead in the Scottish Cup.
In the 2003/04 season, ICT reached the Scottish Cup semi-finals, and won promotion to the SPL for the first time, less than a decade after joining the league. They spent five seasons in the SPL before relegation two years ago, won the First division at the first attempt, immediately returning to the SPL and finished 7th last season.
But the relative success of Inverness Caledonian Thistle raises a question. Why haven’t more Scottish clubs followed their example? There are currently 42 teams in four divisions of Scottish football. The majority of the teams in the Second and Third divisions have never played in Scotland’s top flight, and have little chance of ever doing so. Many of these teams all play in the same counties, in small towns and have very small supports. For example, the county of Angus has a population of just over 100,000 people, but they have four clubs (Montrose, Forfar Athletic, Brechin City and Arbroath) in the Scottish leagues.
None of these teams have ever won a major trophy, and all play in the Second or Third divisions. They have small stadiums, with Forfar’s the biggest with a capacity of just over 5000. The only time these grounds are ever filled is if they draw an SPL club in one of the cup competitions. But if the four teams merged, to form an Angus team, they could build a stadium with a capacity of 6000-7000 and have a much larger population to draw support from than they do as four separate clubs.
There are numerous other examples of teams in similar positions to the Angus clubs, where a merger could allow them to draw from a larger fan base and increase their chances of playing top flight football.
Even ground sharing amongst some clubs is something that would improve the financial positions of clubs, and give them a chance of being more competitive. The most infamous example of this is in Dundee. City rivals Dundee and Dundee United have separate grounds, but both can be seen from the other stadium. In fact, should a supporter become bored during a Dundee United game at Tannadice, they would only have to cross the street to enter Dens Park and watch Dundee play!
When Scotland was bidding to host the 2008 European Championships, plans were drawn up for a new stadium in Dundee that both clubs would share. Scotland failed to win the bid and plans were shelved. Both clubs have opposed the idea in the past, despite a ground-sharing arrangement meaning that costs would be dramatically reduced for each club as they would share payments whenever necessary.
If these mergers or ground shares came to light, it would make it far easier for the Scottish football authorities (there are three, the SFA, SPL and SFL, but that’s a discussion for another day) to transform the game. If more clubs were capable of competing in the SPL, the league could be reduced to two divisions, with a 16 or 18 team SPL, and a 12 or 14 team First division. Playing each team twice a season instead of four times would reduce the familiarity factor and two or three relegation spots would increase the drama at the end of the season.
Sadly, none of these things seem close to happening. But until they do, Scottish football will continue to fade into obscurity.
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Before Caledonian & Thistle merged in 1994, the evidence was already there from the many Scottish Cup appearances; that the 2 teams were capable of beating most of the teams in the 2nd & 3rd Divisions. So it was no suprise to fans of ICT that the team rose so quickly.
But i agree with your point.
ICT are a great club and I enjoy following them very much, just a shame we are stuck in a rank rotten league set up governed by 3 bodies who only have their best interests at heart and all the money is sucked out of the league by celtic and rangers who do all they can to prevent any form of threat/competition.