Inverness Athletic captain wants historic cup win as motivation to win league title

Inverness Athletic captain Calum Neil accepts the trophy from Northern Caledonian League chairman Niall Harkiss. Photo: Scott MacDonald/Mackie Sports Photos

CALUM Neil says winning the Football Times Cup has given Inverness Athletic greater confidence in their ability to continue achieving further success this season.

The captain led Athletic to their first ever trophy last weekend when they beat Alness United 3-1 in the Football Times Cup final.

Now, the 28-year-old central midfielder says the team are looking to use that as a benchmark and aim to continue their quest for the title in the 2024/25 campaign.

Athletic are set to face Alness United in the North Caledonian League at North Kessock on Saturday in their final match before the winter break.

Despite sitting in fourth place and 15 points behind current league leaders Halkirk United, Athletic have five games in hand on table toppers Caithness.

With their title challenge still in their hands, Neil says winning the Football Times Cup proved to Athletic that they can go all the way in competitions.

He said: “Every game is a must win when you’re trying to fight for the title with Halkirk and Invergordon.

“They don’t make mistakes very often, we’re five games behind Halkirk and they have the points on the board. We have a goal in trying to catch them.

“It’s become a four-horse title race with Golspie, Halkirk and Invergordon and every game is a must if you want to win the league and hopefully we’ll be up there.”

“Winning the cup shows us what is possible and we can go all the way in competitions. I hope this will give everyone the motivation to go and win more trophies and seek success this season.

A victorious Inverness Athletic celebrate their victory. Photo: Scott MacDonald/Mackie Sports Photos

In the final, Athletic fell behind after just eight minutes when Iain Ross put Alness ahead. But they took control with strikes from Dominic Macaulay, Michael McRobert and Luke Mackay to seal victory.

Despite being late at the start, Neil, who works as a quantity surveyor, says his team did not panic and were always confident they could achieve victory.

He said: “We were the better team for 90 minutes and I think we were deserved winners because 3-1 was a fair result in the end.

“It’s been a common theme for us to have our backs this season.

“But we did well for the most part to come back and get a result. No one was in panic mode when we passed behind. We were just looking to get back as soon as possible. That’s when everything changed in our favor.

“When Luke scored in the 90th minute we knew that was it and we had a good celebration afterwards.”

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