IT wasn't, with hindsight, the smartest question ever asked.

"Put it this way," says Danny, refreshed after a pint in his Inverness local, simultaneously pondering and dismissing the query. "Who's third in the Premiership? Who's gonna be in Europe next year?"

He added, for good measure, that his team had defeated none other than Celtic, Scotland's most powerful team, in the semi-final.

This was the northern capital late last week: on Saturday afternoon, Danny's team, Inverness Caledonian Thistle, square up to Falkirk in the final of the William Hill Scottish Cup, at Hampden. The redundant question, if you haven't already guessed, was: Who's going to win the cup?

 

Six great non-Old Firm cup finals

Six great Celtic finals

Six great Rangers finals

 

 

Both places are going to seem strangely deserted. Falkirk have sold almost all of their allocation of 18,000 tickets; Inverness aim to take between 10,000 and 12,000 fans south to Glasgow, their biggest-ever travelling support. In both cases (and in numerous other examples, of course), the lure of attending a showpiece final extends far beyond the hardcore regulars. According to the Soccerbase website, Caley Thistle's last home league match, against Dundee United, attracted 3,508; Falkirk's, against Hibs, 7,672. Naturally, both teams hope this extra support will translate into something more permanent.

 

At the time we met Danny, you didn't have to look too far in Inverness to see signs of enthusiasm for the game. It all added a frisson to a place that has a buzz about it anyway. One fan, Paul Gablonski, is reportedly making a 20,000-mile round trip from his home in Brisbane, via Singapore and London. He returns home on Monday. Others are coming from Canada and Dubai, according to the club's commercial manager, Iain Auld.

Across from the railway station, in the city's rather fetching Victorian Market, one shop, Baby Bow, has a window display that includes the words Super Caley Go Ballistic, part of a tabloid headline inspired by a famous Scottish Cup win over Celtic in 2000, and a replica Scottish Cup above the legend, I dribble for Caley Thistle.

There's other club memorabilia further down, in a sweet shop known as The Candy Box. "It'll be something very special for Inverness if we do bring the cup back," says shopowner Irene Morrison. "Our business improvement district team have asked all the shops to get involved and decorate their windows." She says local statues - one of Flora MacDonald, a second depicting Faith, Hope and Charity - have been dressed in club scarves. (The same goes for a wooden sculpture of Nessie).

"I've been making up bags of sweets in the team's colours of red, white and blue and they've gone down really well," she adds. The club had just given her the go-ahead to print up bags with their logo.

"We had the Scottish Cup here last Tuesday. It went very well and it brought in a lot of people who wanted to have their pictures taken with it." She thinks the "shops will all be dead" today, though she herself can't go - "I'll be here, unfortunately."

Irene's view about a win being special for the city echoes a line from the former club captain, Grant Munro, who told the Inverness Courier: "If they win the final, it will be the greatest day in the history of Inverness, not just Caley Thistle." Current player Nick Ross hopes that the club reaching the final will help heal the wounds that have existed locally since its formation in 1994, when two local teams, Caledonian and Inverness Thistle, were merged.

Posters bearing photographs of Caley players are displayed on lamp-posts in the pedestrianised High Street. The Gellions bar, 'the oldest pub in the Highland Capital', has made a special effort: lettering in one window spells out 'Good Luck ICT', the next one has lots of pictures of the players. In the Eastgate mall, the Trespass outdoor wear shop has a display that commands attention.

The club have been enthusiastically tweeting about the final to their 14,000 followers. The team manager, John Hughes, is a hero around these parts - a status that will redouble should he give the club its first Scottish Cup. Ironically, he was in charge of Falkirk in their last Scottish Cup final, seven years ago.

An estimated 1000 Inverness fans will stop off to enjoy hospitality at St Johnstone's McDiarmid Park ground en route to Glasgow. The Perth club's director, Roddy Grant, has said that his own team benefited hugely from winning the 2014 Scottish Cup and playing in Europe, and believes it will be the same for the city further up the A9.

Back in the Victorian Market, ICT has been running a pop-up shop selling final merchandise. Supporters group Caley Jags Together has a presence in it, selling bus tickets for the game. "It's been fantastic, it's been really positive from everyone who has been coming in," enthuses Jennifer Aitchison, chairperson of Caley Jags Together, which is running 25 buses to Glasgow.

Has Inverness sold more tickets than Falkirk? "I wouldn't think so," she concedes. "We're always criticised for having such a low support anyway that our expectations aren't set high for that. The regulars will go and obviously there's a lot more people who are going to come along and support us, which is fantastic." She hopes that many people who attend the final will become permanent fans. Jennifer's mother is attending Hampden - "her first game". It is, from the point of view of both clubs, genuinely a family affair.

ICT's Iain Auld said: "I've been around the city centre the last couple of weeks, pretty much every day, and everywhere I look there's a Caley Thistle reference - flags, scarves in the window, good-luck messages." The club, he said, was delighted with what happened to St Johnstone last year, winning the cup and playing in Europe, "and hopefully we can do what they did."

He said he'd heard stories of people who have never attended a game before, wanting to be at Hampden today. Others just have a passing interest in football: "One lady I spoke to has only been at one game in her life, and that was Ross County against Dundee United [the cup final] in 2010. She said she had to come to this one, because she supports Highland football. I thought that was a nice touch."

IT'S there on YouTube, in all its period, black-and-white glory: the Pathé newsreel with its stirring music, and that clipped, brisk, distinctive voiceover you associate with that long-lost decade. Scottish Cup Final day, April 24, 1957. Falkirk versus Kilmarnock. This was actually the replay: the first game, in front of 81,375 fans, had ended in a one-all draw. The second game, four days later, and watched by a crowd only fractionally down on the earlier one, saw Falkirk win 2-1. Goals from George Merchant and Doug Moran enabled the trophy to be brought back to the Stirlingshire town for the first time since the year before the Great War.

Falkirk marked the 40th anniversary of the win over Kilmarnock by losing to the same club in the 1997 final, their manager Alex Totten wearing a kilt at the game (Totten is now Falkirk's business relations manager). In 2009, under John Hughes, they fought their way to another final, but lost to Rangers. 

Falkirk finished mid-table in the division below Inverness this season. In league terms, then, Inverness probably start as favourites, but this is the cup. Anything can happen.

In the Bairns' noisy blue-and-white sections will be the Harringtons, a family who have returned from North Carolina, to be here. Other fans were said to be flying in from Canada, Thailand - New Zealand, even. The power of the cup, indeed.

Like Caley Thistle, Falkirk paraded the venerable Scottish Cup around the community. "The effect it had on all those who have encountered it so far," said The Falkirk Herald, "is quite magical." The local Howgate shopping centre ran a special exhibition devoted to the club's association with the finals. The 1957 replay ball took pride of place.

The 201-year-old Steeple, across the High Street, now wears an outsize Falkirk scarf, which has given rise to the expression, 'We are the Steeple'. Plans to dress the Kelpies, down by the club's stadium, in a similar fashion sadly came to naught. Bunting flutters outside many shops. "The town is buzzing, can't remember the last time it felt so united. What a vibe!", one man wrote on the fans' Facebook page. The game will be broadcast live on BBC Scotland and Sky Sports 3.

"The fact that this is our third final since 1997 is absolutely tremendous," says Michael White, Falkirk's historian. "The cup record prior to that was very poor; as kids we were used to seeing the team being knocked out in the early rounds.

"I can remember my grandfather taking me to the 1957 final, and he said, 'This will be a huge occasion because you'll never see it again in your lifetime'. To reach your fourth final is just phenomenal for a small club like Falkirk."

The Scottish Cup is the most prestigious knock-out trophy open to Scotland's clubs; places in the final are not the exclusive preserve of a tiny pool of big names. St Johnstone won it last year; Ross County were runners-up in 2010, and Queen of the South in 2008. "Gretna, and Airdrie, too, have both reached the final," White points out.

"Getting to the final is brilliant for a town like Falkirk," he adds. "The scenes in 1957 were just amazing. The shops were covered in final-related goods and I can remember seeing a big window display all about George Merchant.

"Poor George isn't in the best of health just now but he sent a lovely card to the team, saying, 'Bring it back'. He's 89 now and he lives up in Carnoustie, but sadly he's not able to go to Hampden for the final." Late last week,  however, three survivors from 1957 - goal hero Doug Moran, Tommy Murray, and reserve Jim McIntosh, who didn't actually play - were introduced at the stadium.

The club has been keen to get "every single person in Falkirk talking about the game," and it posted regular, energetic updates on Twitter. The hashtag #COYB - Come on You Bairns - became a familiar one.

Provost Pat Reid acknowledges with pride the role played by the Kelpies and the Falkirk Wheel in enhancing the area's image abroad. On holiday in France, "in the middle of nowhere," he met "an old chap who started to talk to me, and he mentioned the Wheel immediately," A cup win would elevate the town's image higher still; local people would be "walking on air for a few days". Reid attended the 1957 final, as a boy of 14. "There's a bit of a fever around at the moment," he says of the final. 

The council leader Craig Martin will be at Hampden with his wife, son, daughters, their partners, and five grandchildren. "The town is absolutely buzzing again," he says. Every section of the community has come together in support of the club.

After the semi-final win over Hibs, he and the Provost discussed how to get the town involved. The Steeple scarf was born. Their respective wives crocheted away for weeks; many others joined enthusiastically. "I received three blue and three white sections from a lady in Inverness," says Martin. "She didn't want me to tell anybody. She's originally from Falkirk."

One Falkirk taxi driver, who will be at Hampden, remembers going on holiday to Florida shortly after the 1997 defeat. He was in the audience at a big show, possibly the Universal Studios one, and a tall bloke sat down in front of him. He was wearing a Kilmarnock top. "Hey mate," the taxi driver called out, jokingly. "You might have beaten us but that doesn't mean you can block my view!"

Last weekend, a young fan posed for a Twitter photo. He held a Falkirk flag and a sheet of paper with the words, '7 Sleeps!!'. The feverish countdown had begun. On the eve of the final,  many fans - Falkirk's as well as Caley Thistle's - would have had trouble drifting off to sleep. "Will be like a child at Christmas. Too excited," in the word of one Bairn.

The day has now dawned. By teatime, the Falkirk taxi driver could  be on cloud nine and Danny, from Inverness, will be utterly downcast. It could, of course, just as easily be the other way around.

Either way, it should be quite a game. Bring it on.