CHARLIE CHRISTIE: Inverness Caley Thistle Scottish Cup semi final victory reminds how important football can be
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Occasionally a weekend comes around that reminds you just why football plays such an important and enjoyable part of your life and last weekend was just that occasion.
Sitting in the main stand at Hampden prior to our Scottish Cup semi-final last Saturday I felt somewhat apprehensive knowing just how important the match was for Inverness as a club. Our on-going financial difficulties have been well documented during our five consecutive seasons in the second tier of Scottish football and everyone at ICT knew how significant a win against Falkirk would be.
Fast forward 90 odd minutes and the players had done the club proud, and, quite incredibly, we had yet another major cup final to look forward to along with some extremely welcome cup revenue.
Opponents Falkirk would have felt justifiably hard done by when the half time whistle blew with ICT leading by two goals given what they had put into those opening 45 minutes.
But possession counts for nothing if you don’t put the ball in the net and we saw out the match relatively comfortably in the end helped by an expertly taken third goal from our talisman Billy MacKay.
Sunday then rounded off a very enjoyable weekend in the Christie household.
Celtic once again had too much for Rangers who were badly let down by some of their so called ‘big name’ players.
The winning Celtic goal was a calamity for the team in blue but, not unlike Falkirk the previous day, they had plenty of possession against a somewhat lethargic Celtic team but never really looked like making it count. And so, it’s an Inverness v Celtic Scottish cup final on June 3.
A match that brings back so many incredible memories.
The icing on the cake was then well and truly supplied by son Ryan’s Bournemouth team who, later that same afternoon, dismantled a struggling Leeds United side to all but cement their place in next Season’s English Premier League.
A terrific achievement for the south coast side given where they were in the league less than two months ago.
Their recent run of six wins in nine matches has been unbelievable and it’s been so pleasing to see Ryan play such a significant part in that run as he has returned to top form at just the right time.
American billionaire owner Bill Foley was ridiculed by many when he stated in January that he was confident that his new club would not be relegated but quite a few pundits must now eat humble pie. It would be nice if those same pundits would also hold their hands up and admit they were wrong, but I won’t hold my breath.
