This was a tough introduction to Highland Marching and those 'pioneers' of this first event deserve great credit for what was achieved. None of those involved really understood (apart from one) what was expected of them and, indeed two (or was it three?) of the intrepid marchers were clapped out by the end of the first day. Lack of training by some (and in specific instances none whatsoever) indicated a lack of understanding of what it actually takes to walk 20 plus miles a day - for seven days - and the inaugural march had the makings of a disaster.

On the evening prior to the march it was the ICT Supporters Club end of season party and players' awards presentations, which the Marchers attended. This meant an evening of the booze, a late night and, in some cases, a sore head in the morning. Not the best way to prepare for a long walk down the road you would think. The march started from Caledonian Stadium at 9a.m. the next day, the troops headed for the town centre before heading out on General Wade' s Military Road - a tough up hill climb. By the time they' d reached the top a couple of the troops were feeling the pace. The long first day caught out those who hadn' t trained hard enough and blisters were very much in evidence.

Of the five starters on day one, only three started the next day and of this crew, Interthenet and Gringo Jnr went on to complete the whole walk. A tremendous achievement - especially considering the state their feet were in! The route down to Falkirk was a mixture of road and 'off' road, some of it planned, some of it not. Generally speaking the whole planning of the route was done to as fine an art as was possible but it was never really adhered to and the event began to get a bit straggled here and there. Short cuts didn' t always come off and difficulties were encountered at various times.

A support vehicle assisted the marchers by carrying the rucksacks and providing the transport to the overnight accommodation at the end of each day. The accommodation (predominantly B&Bs) did become quite expensive. There were many things that weren' t quite right and all these problems were discussed in a full de-brief of the walk and lessons were learnt for the benefit of future walks. It was a painful way to find out the March' s shortcomings

151 Miles
151 Miles
151 Miles
151 Miles
124 Miles
8 Miles

Possibly the best march ever! The script couldn' t have been written better. The fixture list had thrown up an 'away' game at Clyde for our penultimate match and a 'home' tie to finish off the season, so a walk from Clyde to Inverness was born. Who' d have thought at the time the fixtures were published that these two games would have had such a dramatic effect on the outcome of the SFL First Division Championship.

There were five walkers this time around and four of them finished the walk with ease. The lessons from the first march had been learnt - almost to the full. The accommodation was all hostels or bunkhouses, which reduced the overall costs for the marchers, who incidentally, pay their own way in order to maximise the income to the charity. The route was also a good mixture of road and off-road, the highlight being the 22 miles through the Gaick Pass and the Pass of Glen Tromie.

From the outset the marchers were on a 'high' after seeing ICT pull off a tremendous 2-1 victory which set up a championship decider back on home soil - could we be walking up the road to see ICT win the league? The whole event went almost totally to plan but there were occasions where routes went astray a little. The weather couldn' t have been better and the marchers were, by far, much fitter than the previous year. However, it did take its toll on one of the marchers as the steep hills at the start became too much of a climb. Again, lessons were learnt and another de-brief ironed out more creases.

This was a total pain for the organiser(s), which was brought about by the crazy SPL fixture system. For the Highland March to retain its tradition of walking from the penultimate match to last match of the season, they had to endure a long wait before knowing where they were walking. ICT' s final two fixtures could not be decided until all sides in the SPL had played 33 games. The Premier League then splits into two sections with the top six teams playing each other and the bottom six playing each other. These fixtures could not be decided until the back end of March or early April so this gave the organiser(s) little time to book the accommodation and plan routes etc. The fixture computer eventually dealt out an 'away' match in Dundee and a 'home' match in Inverness.

This route was shorter than its predecessors by some 20 miles or so but this didn' t stop some the marchers from making it a little longer. There were eight starters for the march and they split up into two groups for the first four days.

With two walks already in the bag and the lessons learnt from those, this was by far the most successful of all the HM' s to date. There was a 100% home run with very little in the way of blisters to show for it. All, to an almost professional standard, did training and it paid dividends. The only real glitch in the whole march was an attempted short cut on the penultimate day when the troops got rather wet whilst taking a 'short cut' across open moor land north of Tomatin courtesy of some imaginative map reading. Despite late planning and the logistics surrounding the whole event it proved to be worthwhile in the end and was the most successful of all the HMs.

More frustrations were given to the HMers as their 'tradition' of walking from the penultimate game to the last game received a blow when the SPL decided to throw in a mid-week fixture. As the fixtures stood, it gave ICT a 'home' game on the Wednesday night with their final game being 'away' to Dunfermline, thereby giving prospective marchers two and a half days from whistle to whistle to complete 140 miles.

Impossible? No, not on your life it isn' t, especially when you have a complete nutter in your ranks like Yompa. To keep the tradition alive he undertook the whole route south departing Caley Stadium straight after the match and headed out into the night and over the hills.

He continued his night-day-night-day route catching 'power naps' en route and being supported by a former marcher who was at his beck and call in the car with supplies of food and water.

The other part of the HM team also walked the whole distance but started a few days earlier on the Sunday and completed the walk in a little more 'relaxed' style. Again, the respective 'teams' recorded a 100% success as all marchers completed the course. Not too many signs of blisters on the 'day' walkers feet but Yompa suffered badly with severe blistering and the loss of a few toe-nails.

The SPL split was to provide the Marchers with their biggest challenge so far in terms of disance - 168 miles to Love Street, Paisley. Home to St Mirren FC. This year, the entire route was away from Cycle Route 7, and headed almost completely off-road via the Great Glen Way and West Highland Way. 

For Team Yompa, the distance was not the issue, but how quickly they could get there. The initial plan to walk 70 miles in one go from Inverness to Fort William fell by the wayside for 2 of the team. Beatonio and Gringo Jnr managed as far as Clunes before calling it a day - a lack of corned beef sandwhiches perhaps?! To their credit, they started the following day from the exact spot they finished at, and not only made it to Fort William, but caught up Team Gringo and their Leader to eventually set the pace once more.

Team Gringo actually started before kick-off to gain a slight head start on a very difficult route. It was later to prove that this may not have been essential, as both TG and TY made it to the finishing post 1 full day early, leaving just 1 mile to the finish on the final day.  

No 100% success rate this year, as the route was to prove too risky for those who were unable to train appropriately. What a challenge this was, and every Highland Marcher can look back on this event as another success!!