IT ALL WORKS OUT AT CALEY
The Highland fling pays off in style for journeymen of Inverness
EVEN those of us who class Inverness as the friendliest burgh in Britain would never nominate it as one of t he world’s most glamorous cities. Still, it probably all depends on your perspective.
Take a look through the past clubs of the Caley Thistle players, who are probably still nursing Scottish Cup hangovers this morning, and it’s easy to see how the promise of a good life in a major league proved too tempting to resist. Boy, how their individual leaps of faith paid off on Saturday.
These are guys whose travels to the Highlands, in many cases, started on the outskirts of Nowheresville. Or, to be more precise, Daisy Hill and FC United. Stafford Rangers, Fleetwood Town, Bath City and assorted Scandinavian provincial sides.
Caley’s matchwinner on Saturday, James Vincent, moved to Scotland’s elite league from Kidderminster Harriers.
The much-admired Marley Watkins, who bagged the opener in the win over Falkirk, came north from a club that no longer exists — former Southern League Premier Division outfit Hereford United.
And Carl Tremarco, he of the tragi-comic red-card moment and subsequent deep relief at Hampden? He was on loan from parent club Macclesfield to Maltese side Floriana when he was discovered by the famous Inverness scouting network.
Yes, these guys are grafters to a man. Footballers either discarded by big clubs, in one or two rare cases, or simply never given a chance. Until Caley Thistle came calling.
Ross Draper freely admits that his footballing highlight before moving to Inverness was playing for Macclesfield against a muchweakened Bolton XI in an early round of the Carling Cup.
And, in a tone reminiscent of some cinematic Vietnam veteran explaining how ‘I’ve seen things, man…’, the midfielder declared: ‘I’ve played places you’ve never heard of, places like Cammell Laird — it’s not pretty.
‘There were portable cabins for changing rooms and horrible conditions. That was in the Unibond North, which is a couple below the Conference.
‘I got a move to League Two and the facilities improved — but I just found the football down south is so long-ball.
‘The standard isn’t very good, it’s long-ball and you go to sh**** grounds on a Tuesday night. For me to come here and play teams like Celtic in front of 50,000 crowds and have cup runs like this was a no-brainer.
‘ I didn’t know the travelling involved for away games before I signed — I agreed before I realised all that! Seriously, it was an easy decision.
‘There were offers in England to stay in League Two but it’s hard to get spotted there. It wasn’t a difficult decision (to join Caley Thistle) — it was the right one.
‘In England, when you are in League Two, you try to find a good club and hope to go to League One. But I was a holding midfielder, so I was never going to score 20 goals. It’s hard to get noticed.
‘That’s why it’s easy to rattle about League Two for your entire career and never achieve anything. Which is why I think it’s an easy decision to come up here. I would recommend it to anyone who gets a chance.
‘I feel I’ve improved. All the Scottish boys are technically very good and you need to improve your game to keep up. ‘ When I was released by Shrewsbury Town, a lot of players went to the Welsh League and a lot of my mates got i nto Europe through (Welsh League club) The New Saints.
‘I thought that’s where I would move to, but I have gone down a different path and I’m grateful for that.
‘There are no “Big-Time Charlies” in our dressing room. It’s not like someone has been at the top and they are dropping down, finishing their career and just picking up the money.
‘It’s all young, hungry boys who have been in the non-league and had jobs. A few of us had jobs and played part-time football, so you appreciate it when you come here.’
Draper had a job with a mortgage company, with a promotion moving into a post in the collection department.
He was not, despite what team-mate Gary Warren likes to tell people, a bailiff, smiling as he insisted: ‘ Gaz likes to say I was knocking on doors with a baseball bat… rubbish.’
The 26-year-old Midlander, about to start his fourth season at Caley Thistle, looks back on even the best parts of his career down south with a new eye, especially now that he has a Scottish Cup winner’s medal.
Explaining how his move to Macclesfield had persuaded him to turn full-time, he recalled: ‘When I was there, we played Bolton in the Carling Cup and I was like: “Wow”.
‘I look back now and realise it wasn’t really glamorous. Bolton played only three or four first-team players against us.
‘Realistically, the first or second round is as far as you’ll go. In Scotland, there is more chance of a cup run because you’re with a good team.’
Inverness are certainly that, as a shell- shocked Falkirk can testify. The Highlanders deservedly went ahead through Watkins, their most dangerous player, seven minutes before half-time.
Against a Bairns side for whom Will Vaulks looked excellent in the quarterback role, switching to a kind of linebacker-free safety job when the ball was lost, they just about survived a second- half onslaught — until Tremarco’s moment of misjudged mayhem that left him scrambling to hack down Blair Alston, earning
a deserved straight red card 16 minutes from time.
When Peter Grant’s powerful header drew Falkirk level with just 10 minutes left of regulation time, it seemed like Peter Houston’s boys would go on to win this one. Assuming no one did anything daft.
One horrible piece of ‘defending’ — we’ll call it that — from Falkirk captain David McCracken under a nothing high ball and a truly inexplicable spilling of Watkins’ trundling effort on his goal by keeper Jamie MacDonald allowed Vincent to bag the winner with 86 minutes on the clock.
So yes, it was error- strewn. Of course, there is a case to be made that a team drawn from the odds and ends of football winning the Scottish Cup reflects badly on our national game. That’s one way to look at things.
But Inverness Caledonian Thistle have every right to celebrate the first major trophy in their club’s short history, won by the toil and sweat of footballers who know how lucky they are to live and work in a place that — this past weekend more than any other — will have revelled in its reputation as the ultimate party town.