Pretty much every other Saturday for most of the eighties, heading west out of Dundee bound for one football ground or another covering matches involving Dundee or United I would, almost invariably catch up with or be overtaken by a little bus, around a 30-seater, registered to a company in either Arbroath or Brechin, on the back of which was a picture of Stevie Chalmers on a green and white background.

It was always among many vehicles very obviously headed to wherever Celtic or Rangers were playing and that one just happens to stick out in the memory, but back in Dundee last Saturday I thought back to those days after witnessing an achievement that, if not unique, must be close to it.

With a 1-0 victory at Dens Park John Hughes took his third different Scottish club into Europe without ever having managed either of the Old Firm.

His previous successes having been with Falkirk and Hibs, two of our oldest clubs which boast substantial latent supports that can be expected to turn out in numbers when big matches come around, this was of a different order.

Inverness Caledonian Thistle is a club so new-born in relative terms that there remains an element of post-natal depression around the Highland capital which, allied to a lack of tradition, means there is no real depth of loyalty among the citizenry.

On the one hand the way the club was conceived means some of those who supported the clubs which were forced together to give Inverness a club that could compete in senior Scottish football remain resentful about why that happened. Meanwhile those not previously connected to a local club are only now, in this year of ICT's coming of age, getting the chance to anticipate the sort of special occasion that can develop lifelong attachment.

"It's a small provincial club," said Hughes.

"I think we play in front of around three and a half thousand, so it is a remarkable story. We've not got the budgets or anything like that."

That unprompted observation invited a follow-up question because it had been announced, just half an hour or so earlier, that the attendance at Dens Park, on the day that saw ICT qualify for Europe for the first time in the club's short history, had been 5123, of which 240 had made the trip south.

Two hundred and forty... It is worth spelling it out since, for all that they offered disproportionately noisy and enthusiastic support, it seems sad that so few wanted to be there.

So, I asked Hughes, does he have any sense that what is being achieved might start to woo the locals.

To his credit, not only did the former Celtic player immediately identify the elephant lumbering around the room, but he charged directly at it.

"You had to go in and what you have to do is you need to galvanise them; you need to stimulate the guys, you need to get the football side right and we've done that," he said.

"The buy-in these guys have given me is fantastic, but I still see Rangers and Celtic supporters leaving on buses for the Old Firm games."

Such frustration has regularly been vented through the decades in Scottish football, as so much of the nation's attention and, consequently, resources have been concentrated on two football clubs.

However a Scottish Cup final appearance and the chance to play in Europe represents a huge opportunity for Inverness, a 300 mile plus round trip from Glasgow, to accelerate the process of winning hearts and minds, which the club has, according to Hughes, been working hard to do.

"We work really hard," he said.

"I bet you we're the hardest working community group in the schools, I guarantee you that. These guys are into hundreds and hundreds of schools, but when they go in they still see Celtic and Rangers strips and the peer group of these young kids they don't want to follow Inverness because it's not fashionable.

"What we're doing over the past couple of years, we're hoping we change that mindset and if we're playing out part on the pitch to get these kids to support these kids to support their city club that's the biggest thing for me.

"We've seen it, we see finals, semi-finals, you see photographs and it's full of young kids covered in Inverness. That's what makes it worthwhile."

It was, admittedly, only on moving further west when my own oldest son was four years and just getting into sport, that I gave this greater thought.

As he sat in the stands a few yards away from the press box last Saturday it occurred to me that he has every right to curse me for the affliction of having been persuaded that he should always remember, in sporting terms, where he comes from.

In spite of the result, though, he seemed to enjoy what is now, thanks to his work, a relatively rare chance to see the Darkers play having supported his local heroes, offering sensible analysis of the match afterwards without hyperbole or recrimination.

A good day all round I thought, but a shame that a few more from Inverness were not there to savour what was, by Hughes and his men, a great achievement.