Award double for Caley

By: Ian Rose | January 11th, 2008

For the first time in club history (admittedly, only four years in the top flight), Inverness Caley Thistle has won both the Manager and Player of the Month awards in the SPL. Manager Craig Brewster picked up his third such award for the club’s impressive December, which included wins over Celtic, Hibs, Hearts and Dundee United. The record overall for the month was five wins and one loss, that coming in a 1-0 defeat to a Falkirk side that is playing excellent football right now.

Though Inverness managers have won the SPL monthly award four times now, Marius Niculae, who I can now confidently call Super Marius, became the first-ever Inverness winner of the SPL Player of the Month. The Romanian striker netted four goals in December, including the only two in the win over Hibs and two more in the 3-1 win over Kilmarnock. He has started his January off in the same form, booting in two and drawing a penalty for the third against Gretna this past weekend. He has reportedly gotten a call from the Romanian assistant coach and been told that if his form continues, he will be called back to the national team for friendlies and possibly for Euro 2008, a personal goal of his.

It was a good month to be a Caley Thistle fan, especially after the way the season started, with six straight losses and the departure of manager Charlie Christie. Brewster’s return to Caley Thistle has sparked hope of a top 6 finish in a season that many of us wrote off as a fight for survival and nothing else, and for that I thank him.

On a side note, Brewster has also announced that he will finally retire from playing after this season. The oldest active player in the SPL, he was still putting in goals early this season at age 41, and if you’ve ever seen the guy in training or a match, he’s in better shape than a lot of the young lads. But, it appears that he is mortal after all, and the shoulder injury he sustained against Caley Thistle back when he was an Aberdeen man seems to be what edged him toward the decision. Regardless of this, he has a long career in coaching ahead, hopefully with Caley Thistle for as long as we can hold onto him. He has the potential to be yet another legendary Scottish manager.