The view from the boardroom at the Caledonian Stadium is the finest in Scottish football. In January, the glistening Moray Firth and snow-topped hills provide a picture of beautiful serenity. What Inverness Caledonian Thistle would give for a 2025 befitting this environment. The club begin the year scrapping for safety in Scottish League One after receiving a 15-point penalty for entering administration in October.

A potted history of the club shows they were formed after an acrimonious merger between Caledonian and Inverness Thistle, previously of the Highland League, in 1994. The new side raced through the leagues, took Scottish Cup scalps – most memorably in 2000, when Super Caley went ballistic and Celtic were atrocious – and featured in Europe. When Inverness won the Scottish Cup in 2015, the season after a narrow defeat in the League Cup final, their position in the upper echelon of the game felt secure.

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The Inverness contribution, though, always went beyond points and prizes. The football team gave the city wider relevance and a huge economic boost. Visiting supporters revelled in the journey north, the overnight stay, the break from humdrum away trips.

Alan Savage did not ride into the Highlands as a white knight. Far from it. In 1980 he moved from Warrington to work as a subcontractor at the Ardersier oil and gas fabrication yard. “I was on the dole by 1986,” he says. “I wanted to form an agency to get about 30 people out working on the yards, which would pay for the kids to go through university if I also did a bit of gardening and some bed and breakfast. Modest ambitions.”

Family homes were on the line. “Lots of people take risks to make money,” he says. “If you fail, you are an idiot. It’s fine if you are successful but if it goes the other way …”

Savage’s Orion Group now has a global network of offices and turnover of close to £300m. The 74-year-old is one of Scotland’s most accomplished businessmen.

His football attachment began on the terraces of Old Trafford watching George Best. The businessman retains corporate seats at Manchester United. He is scathing about the Glazers and only marginally less sceptical about Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s approach. It feels as if Inverness are benefiting not only from Savage’s finance – he has ploughed in £500,000 to keep the club operating through administration and estimates the remainder of the season may cost him the same again – but also his candour.

“It is the most expensive train set you will buy,” he says with a smile. “The club was insolvent, it could have been liquidated, so I intervened. The quantum of the problem was through the roof. They were going to lose £1.6m in 2024‑25. It’s difficult to lose that money on a turnover of £3.8m.” But why get involved? “I have done well out of Scotland, I have done well out of Inverness,” he says. “I like Inverness. I owe it to people to support the club and it just feels the right thing to do.”

In the Heathmount hotel before the game against Dumbarton on 4 January, supporters stop Savage to offer genuine thanks for his actions. More than 50 volunteers had turned up at 9am to remove frost covers from the pitch. Administration has been tough but the club have a pulse and an obvious sense of togetherness. Without Savage’s backing, the gates would have been locked.

The captain, Danny Devine, is in his second spell at Inverness, having been part of the team that won the Scottish Cup. “It has been difficult, as you can imagine, but everyone has tried to be positive,” the 32-year-old says. “With Alan’s help, not too much has changed on the playing side. Everyone is grinding, sticking together because it is crucial to stay in this league so we can hopefully start to build next season.

“We don’t have a very experienced team, which has maybe helped; some boys don’t grasp the full extent of the situation.

“Fortunately we still have a job, we have a chance to play and we are very grateful for that. It’s up to us to repay the supporters and Alan now. It is a great club, maybe it has lost its way the last few years but we are trying to get people back onside and we are slowly doing that. When it is good here, it is really good.” Attendances are impressive, at around 1,900 for the recent visits of Dumbarton and Cove Rangers.

There is resentment towards the club’s previous regime that is easy to trace. Savage has been outspoken on that very subject. Perhaps this is inevitable. It does, however, feel unfortunate. While wrong decisions were undoubtedly made, there is no evidence of anybody doing anything to harm Inverness deliberately.

The club are not unlike many others in Scotland’s lower leagues where hand-to-mouth existence is commonplace. Inverness need roughly £12,000 a month merely to heat and light their ground. Dumbarton’s visit attracted 35 away supporters, which is perfectly typical in the third tier. Still, the relationship between the club and the city before Savage’s return – he was the chairman from 2006 to 2008 – was clearly fractured. When a sandwich supplier appears on a creditor list to the tune of £26,000, there is obvious cause for embarrassment.

Savage has been in talks with potential American investors and even contacted the Danish billionaire Anders Povlsen to see if a Scottish lower league club would appeal. There may yet be bumps in the road. Property adjacent to the stadium, controlled by a company involving former directors, is a key area that must be clarified. The club also have no majority shareholder who can be replaced.

“I want the money to go to the football club,” Savage says. “I’m trying to get it out of the shit, I don’t want to pay for the shit. The best way out would be a consortium, led by me and I could look after it for a couple of years. I think it can be done.” He cites Brighton as a comparable English model.

In the manager’s seat is Scott Kellacher, once a boy wonder of Inverness youth football who returned home after a stint at Celtic. It feels appropriate that the 44-year-old is leading the on-field fight. “I have loved every minute of it because I love this club,” he says.

“This place has given a lot to me so it’s important I give everything I have to try and get us back to where we want to be. I have always tried to be the local guy who helps out in the community and they are giving me a bit back now. The football club is a massive part of this city.”

There was a huge question over whether that could remain the case. Savage has summoned spirit to place Inverness back towards the straight and narrow.