Raining on Tynecastle...

Where do you start with a club like ICT? There have been a lot of highs, a lot of lows and a lot of head-scratching moments since the merger in 1994, and that's just Tommy Cumming's pitch-care regime.
I have a short primer of club history on the ICT History page, but there's more to Caley Thistle and the business of supporting the team than can be stuffed onto one page. Therefore, for all those who've ever wondered what names they should drop and what they should talk about with ICT fans, I wrote this useful little guide. Read on and, over the next few pages you will be educated(!)

Stuff worth remembering about Caley Thistle:

Parkhead: scene of Caley Thistle's most famous victory.

Beating Celtic
Probably the thing people are most likely to associate with Caley Thistle is our record against Celtic. The first time we put Celtic out of the Scottish Cup it was described as "the biggest cup shock of all time" by the Sun, who also coined the immortal headline SUPER CALEY GO BALLISTIC CELTIC ARE ATROCIOUS. Nobody really gave us a chance when we went to Parkhead (Julius Francis was apparently 14-1 to beat Mike Tyson around the same time; a Caley Thistle victory at Parkhead had odds of around 20-1), but we taught Celtic a well-deserved lesson with our 3-1 defeat of them. Barry Wilson, Paul Sheerin and a Lubomir Moravcik o.g. (or was it Bobby Mann?) ensured that February 8th 2000 became the most memorable date in the history of Caley Thistle.

As a follow-up to the 3-1 at Parkhead, the guys did it again with a 1-0 defeat of Celtic in March 2003 at Caledonian Stadium, live on Sky so that everyone could see that the first win was no fluke. This time it was Dennis Wyness who sent Celtic on their merry(!) way. Of course, since reaching the SPL it has been hard to equal these achievements, but it was with great pride and satisfaction that we gave the 'Tic another bloody nose with a 3-2 victory over them at Caledonian Stadium in December 2007. The gloss was only slightly taken off the victory by Gordon Strachan's continuous high-pitched whining about how hard done by his poor little millionaires were. Hah!

Other cup adventures
Almost two years to the day after we beat Celtic at Parkhead, we went to Tynecastle and did the same thing to Hearts, with exactly the same scoreline: 3-1. Again Dennis Wyness got a goal. The other heroes on the day were Ross Tokely, who opened the scoring with a superb left foot shot (he's normally right-footed) and wee David Bagan (last known club... Dumbarton. Yeech!) who scored a jaw-dropping solo goal in the second half, which BBC pundits rightly voted the goal of the round. At the end of the game they played the Travis classic "Why does it Always Rain on Me" over the PA and the remaining Tynecastle faithful were treated to 2,000 Caley Thistle fans standing in the away end, singing along. It was raining, but we didn't give a tinker's cuss.

On our unstoppable rise up the leagues, we got something of a reputation for our cup expertise. We racked up appearances at Hampden in two successive seasons, for Pete's sake! Maybe one day we'll be able to re-create those heady days...

Part Deux>>
Carry on to the next page for more.