Tomorrow Could Be Interesting…
Jonny Hayes
After many years of players going in the wrong direction (southeast) it appears that the trend has shifted. Last year Grant Munro and Russell Duncan decided to swap the big city hustle and bustle of Inverness for the more sedate pace of Dingwall. Earlier in this off-season Inverness Caledonian Thistle F.C. defender Ross Tokely- he of 500+ matches for the club- joined Ross County F.C. and it now appears that I.C.T.F.C. winger Jonny Hayes is in the process of hammering out a deal with the Staggies.
Hayes took to Twitter today to announce that, while the deal hasn’t been finalized yet, he’s anxious for that to happen. So, his signing with Ross County may not be “fact” yet, but it’s a lot more than “rumor” at this point. If he does sign the Staggies will be up to 22 players, still two short of Derek Adams’ expressed desire to start the club’s first SPL season with a roster of 22 senior players.
The season begins in less than 46 days…I’m not going to make it!!!
Totally off the wall question, but what is the industry in rural Scotland where these small clubs are? Agriculture and herding? Was just wondering because for teh same amount of pay, I’d rather play in a smaller town like those then a big city. Though I’m big city by far over small city. I may have issues.
The vast majority of Scotland’s people, and therefore the vast majority of its football clubs, and the vast majority of its bigger clubs are located in what is called the “Central Belt.” The Central Belt contains Glasgow and Edinburgh (which are only about an hour’s drive from each other) as well as the smaller cities that surround them (Falkirk, Dunfermline, Stirling, Hamilton, Motherwell, Paisley, etc.). All of these areas are supported by the things you’d expect in big cities and their suburbs: industry, education, tourism, government, etc.
Once you get out of the Central Belt most clubs exist in some form of microcosm of this scenario- the city has a big club (Aberdeen, Dundee, Inverness) and then there are smaller clubs as well. Most of these non-Central Belt cities have one or two things that keeps them going. In Aberdeen there’s North Sea oil and a major university, Dundee it used to be jute mills (the fiber used to make rope) but now it’s more diversified, and Inverness has a little bit of everything by virtue of being the “only game in town in the Highlands.
I think what’s unique about Scotland is the choice created by the sheer number of clubs- 42 league clubs, at least as many regional league clubs, plus Junior Football (something unique to Scotland), plus the amateur game for a nation of only 5m people AND it doesn’t take long to get from the city to the country. For example, a player could have all of the benefits of living in Inverness (60,000 people, shopping mall, multiplex theater, major bus and train station, etc.) but play at Ross County in Dingwall which is 30 minutes away (at most) has only 5,000 people and a few pubs.
Cool. Thanks for the info. Euro countries are so small it seems like everything is close to everything else. Living in Los Angeles, I can tell you that nothing is close to anything here.