GOD S OWN DATELINE COMPUTER could not have done any better. Stagnant football league (Scottish) sought ambitious new club for lasting, money-spinning union. Team from capital of unrepresented Highlands (geographical catchment area approximately half the country) wanted bigger stage. Vital statistics, one #1m all-seater stadium and a famous international captain as manager.

When Caledonian Thistle, from Inverness, join the Scottish Football League in August, it may well turn out to be a match made in heaven. But the newcomer's existence is threatened by the bitter events surrounding its creation: the merger between Caledonian (Caley) and Thistle, which some claim is a marriage spawned in hell.

A sizable group of 'rebel' Caley members oppose any sort of union with their neighbours. The Caley board, fronted by director Norman Miller, have already merged with Thistle at executive level and are finalizing the new club's stadium and playing details. But rebel support has so far denied them the constitutional majority they need to transfer Caley's assets into the new club. For now, with league entry only weeks away and pre-season training due to begin, Caledonian Thistle are in limbo. No ground, no assets and a board who lack a mandate over half their club.

The story of the dispute is an old one, familiar to the supporters of the many clubs who have faced merger bids over the last decade. A board with an unshakeable faith in expansion, die-hards hell bent on preserving their clubs' identity, with the majority of supporters, sympathetic to both progress and tradition, left beached between them.

For the last century, bidding Highland clubs had been denied a place in Scotland's ‘national' league on the dubious grounds of travelling distance. But when bidding opened a year ago for places in season 1994-95's SFL, Scotland's big clubs privately disclosed to Caley and Thistle that this time they would be successful: providing they bid as a merged 'Inverness United'. Promised a multi-million pound dowry from would-be backers Inverness and Nairn Enterprise, Thistle and Caley's directors rushed to the altar without finalizing the details of their marriage or formally seeking the fans approval.

The consequences were disastrous. Thistle fans accepted the merger reservedly as the price of seeing their club, caught in a bad patch, move on to better days. Their Caley counterparts were not so sure. A section, marshalled by the club fanzine, On A Life Support Machine, saw the merger as signalling nothing short of Caley’s death. With the club in a healthy playing state, they felt that Caley should have bid independently. Alan Douglas, a founder of OALSM, puts it thus: "We had a team doing well joining one with nothing to offer, no fans, no playing quality and a ground which is a slum. We could have gone it alone."

In September, at a Highland League game against Rothes, the rebels made their presence felt when a number invaded the pitch, stopping the game. The next day, The Inverness Courier carried a photograph of the disturbance. slamming “the deplorable extremes" of "the hooligans". The Caley board banned those members identified in the photograph, but the rebels found their own high ground. At their next game, against Clachnacuddin, they turned up in a doubledecker bus, parked it overlooking one end of the pitch and watched the match from the top deck. The ban was subsequently dropped.

When Norman Miller sought approval for the merger from Caley members, he got it by a meagre fifty-five votes to fifty, enough to agree in principle but far short of the two-thirds majority needed to change Caley's constitution and transfer assets.

In December, anodher EGM was held. Oil worker members flew in from the North Sea and others came from all over the country to attend. On a wintry night nearly 500 packed out Inverness town hall, but the result was the same, 250-217 in favour of merger. The rebel leaders' 'compromise', under which Inverness Caledonian would, if successful, enter the SFL, and Inverness Thistle would continue in the Highland League as a reserve team, was rejected by Thistle.

Peace broke out sufficiently for Caledonian Thistle to join Ross County as the SFL's 39th and 40th clubs in the 13th January vote. The next day the Courier predicted "the grumbling backlash from Caledonian die-hards" would finally be "drowned out by the rustle of big money." After the rebels failed in an attempt to have the merger vote legally declared null and void, they launched a series of ugly public protests. On 26th March, at the North Cup Final against Forres, they staged an orchestrated swearing campaign aimed at disrupting TV coverage of the game. Then at Caley's final ever Highland League game on 14th May against champions Huntly, the presentation of the league trophy was postponed while a noisy section of the Caley support invaded the pitch to abuse the watching club directors.

But the dispute is far from over. A crunch EGM on 23rd June agreed on the creation of a one-member-one-vote trust to take control of Caley's assets, but not on whether they should be transferred to the new club. Miller and co's attempt to secure the two-thirds majority needed to wind up the club was merely postponed. Meanwhile they have complained of receiving personal threats from rebels and insist that a distasteful minority will not prevent Caledonian Thistle from fulfilling its inaugural League fixture in August.

On the other side, the rebels still claim up to 50% support from the members and are confident they can prolong Miller's agony. They have their own accusations of dirty tricks to make, suggesting Caley directors have bribed loyal members with free season tickets and blackballcd players sympathetic to the rebel cause.

As last season's events at Ipswich Town and Man City showed, the line between excessive and legitimate protest is hard to draw. Facing a court appearance over the Rothes pitch invasion, Alan Douglas is unrepentant.

"I'm not a football fan, I'm a Caley fan. Inverness may have a team in the league, but the name Caledonian has now got an unwanted growth at the end of it. Even if it means protesting at Scottish League games five years from now, we'll fight to the bitter end to get rid of it. "

(Article from "When Saturday Comes")