Cromarty Firth Kraken

by Shug Hanlan

In no less a football authority than Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual, 5th Edition, we find the Kraken described as “a primeval force that obliterates the greatest achievements of civilisation as if they were castles in the sand.”

While it remains open to debate whether the Ross-Shire League in the mid-19th Century could be classed among, “the greatest achievements of civilisation”, it is a historical fact that during season 1852-3 it’s fixture list was decimated by a sudden outbreak of Kraken hooliganism. Several of these unruly young denizens of the deep sneak attacked Alness, eviscerated Evanton, bombarded Bishop Kinkell and badly damaged Dingwall. Dirt roads were ripped up, wells pissed in, bridges battered and several wee free churches desecrated.

Invergordon’s George Wimpey Stadium was particularly targeted. A couple of shepherds enjoying a dram before the Ness Cup tie with Glospie in the hospitality tent on the hillside directly above the park, saw their sheep being roughly seized (leading to a rumour that the invaders might have been Aberdeen based). In what seemed like a matter of seconds the playing surface was littered with corpses and blood dripped from the corner flags. They spoke of gigantic cephalopods with inky black eyes and deadly suckered tentacles and of a song that seemed to start in the middle of the Firth,

“We are the Kraken Kids,
We hate octopuses,
and we hate squids.”

The entire coastline community questioned who had summoned the great creatures. Was a match official a secret Kraken priest? Perhaps a member of the club committee, seeing the first team squad stretched to breaking point by suspensions and injuries and keen to seek a swift postponement, was responsible for the carnage.

One contemporary account of the incidents testified, “I will tell you this of the Kraken. You could see them swimming past the Suitors and crashing through Cromarty. They snorted and tossed their great heads. We were showered with wet sand, broken rum bottles, sharpened starfish, and poisonous seawater. They wore no club colours and clearly set out to make football grounds an unsafe place for true football fans”.

“The laird must lay down the law to make sure these hideous troublemakers never attack the people of the Black Isle ever again. A small fine and a gentle clip around the tentacle will not suffice. Formidable sea defences must be built immediately! Every football ground should be a great structure forged in iron and stone and have several escape tunnels with passages so narrow hardly a home supporter’s shadow can pass. The pitch needs to be protected by covered pit traps, preferably with pointed spikes at the bottom.”

Local landowners reluctantly acted upon their villagers’ concerns but, like all good feudal dictators, palmed them off with a dodgy patchwork of security measures which ranged from a dry dyke, fish nets and some early warning wind chimes. These derisory efforts were hailed to be a roaring success for the Kraken attacks ended as suddenly as they began.

Few now in Invergordon remember those dark, perilous days but some dim echoes can still be heard in the Caledonian Bar when, on match days, with the boozer packed with auld worthies, home town fans, former British Aluminium workers and fabricators on the oil rigs, a voice rings out, “Let’s hope it’s a crackin’ game”.

Other clubs believed to have a strong support among sea monsters include Hokkaido Consadole Sapporo in the Japanese JI League whose followers include the Akkorokamui, a giant octopus-like creature which, handily enough for half-time tactic talks, has the power to heal and bestow knowledge.