| Date | Saturday, 31 March 2001 |
|---|---|
| Competition | Scottish League Division 1 |
| Fixture/Score | Ross County 0:1 Inverness Caledonian Thistle |
| Venue | Victoria Park |
| Attendance | 5,876 |
| Referee | Garry Mitchell |
| Comments | Match Report Report by Mike Tremlett for the Press & Journal. Ross County 0 Inverness Caledonian Thistle 1 Caley Thistle's Charlie Christie recalled a piece of advice given to him by Lisbon Lion Bobby Lennox after a Roy McBain goal at Victoria Park extended Thistle's unbeaten First Division run to 14 games. Christie, who worked under Lennox during his spell at Celtic, said: "I remember watching a Celtic game from the stand sitting next to Bobby and he told me never to worry about what happens during a game because it doesn't matter but that the score at the end is all-important. "I remembered that after we beat Ross County in a game which was made scrappy and not particularly enjoyable to play in by a strong wind and a heavily-sanded pitch. "Everybody prefers to see and play in a game full of flowing football and goals, but the result is what matters. We won the game 1-0 and we got the points and that has kept us in line for a third-place finish in the First Division table. "It's frightening to think what we might have achieved if two or three of the eight draws in our 14-ganes unbeaten run had been wins. We could have been chasing the title. "It would've been a year too early because of the work which needs to be done to our stadium, but we could have been right up there pushing for promotion to the SPL-something everybody at the club is totally committed to making a reality next season." The Highland derby underlined the nip-and-tuck nature of the perennial rivalry between the North duo which has seen both go from the Third Division to the top half of the First Division in seven seasons. Caley Jags wing back Roy McBain kept his composure beautifully in the 39th minute to lift a clever 18-yard volley past Nicky Walker and the advancing County defence after the home side had failed to clear a corner. And that was all that separated the two sides after a 90 minute battle which saw both play for 45 minutes with wind assistance to be no advantage at all. The Inverness side grabbed the winner in the first half they dominated with the wind at their backs, despite struggling to weight through balls or create telling openings. County faced the same conditions in a second half where they pummelled Caley Thistle without getting much more than a sniff of an equaliser. That was largely thanks to a superb performance from Bobby Mann at the heart of the Caley Jars defence and two superb saves from Jim Calder--the most vital an 89th-minute rush off his line to the feet of Darren Henderson, who was clean through. Defeat will be hard for County to take after coming home from Livingston with a superb point in midweek, but the North clubs could yet put the skids under the West Lothian outfit's title charge. |
| Ross County | |
| Manager | Neale Cooper |
| Starting 11 | 1: Joseph (Nicky) Walker, 2: Mark Perry, 3: Ian Maxwell 1, 4: Hugh Robertson, 5: Brian Irvine, 6: David MacKay, 7: Darren Henderson, 8: Steven Ferguson, 9: Karim Boukraa, 10: Alexander Bone, 11: Mark McCormick |
| Bench | 0: Garry Hamilton, 0: Martin Canning, 0: Craig Taggart, 0: Martin Prest, 0: Derek Holmes |
| Inverness Caledonian Thistle | |
| Manager | Steve Paterson |
| Starting 11 | Jim Calder, Robert Mann, Richard Hastings, Ross Tokely, Stuart McCaffrey, Roy McBain 1, Paul Sheerin, Charlie Christie, David Bagan, Dennis Wyness 1, Martin Bavidge |
| Bench | Ally Ridgers, Stuart Golabek, Mike Teasdale, Kevin Byers, Barry Robson |