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SACK THE BOARD


TopSix

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On 2016-12-31 at 3:41 PM, TopSix said:

Wholesale change needed. We're going down. Sack the board. We need investment, new ideas, new direction. 

You were binned for this post at the time ... seems like you were right on the button ... that negative like count needs reversed.

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50 minutes ago, RednBlackComeback said:

You make a good point. The last person to publicly criticize the Board was JH and look what happened to him! 

Yes. TBH unless there is an early regime change it is very likely the same will happen to Charlie.

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JH's public criticism of the board was his way of manufacturing his exit. He had the biggest budget of any ICT in history and was moaning publicly about the lack of money. He did well with Butcher's team but couldn't bring in talent himself. 

He had to go.

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2 hours ago, Fraz said:

JH's public criticism of the board was his way of manufacturing his exit. He had the biggest budget of any ICT in history and was moaning publicly about the lack of money. He did well with Butcher's team but couldn't bring in talent himself. 

He had to go.

This is not about JH. This guy is nowhere near the quality of our most successful manager of all time. 

.

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1 hour ago, Fraz said:

JH's public criticism of the board was his way of manufacturing his exit. He had the biggest budget of any ICT in history and was moaning publicly about the lack of money. He did well with Butcher's team but couldn't bring in talent himself. 

He had to go.

Agreed JH had to go  He worked the situation to his advantage and left the club with money in his pocket (money the club could ill afford).That's why the cheap option was taken in appointing Ritchie. In private industry and you were promoting somebody into a more senior post, but this person was untried in and lacked experience,

it would be on a trial basis of 3 or 6 months (a common practice) and not 4 years,  Ritchie must have been smiling all the way to his Bank Manager asking for a mortgage.  This is why the Board must go and go quick. Let's try and get proper businessmen in to run our club. IT IS THE BOARD WHO ARE RELEGATING OUR CLUB

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On Sat Apr 29 2017 at 8:22 PM, caleyboy said:

This is not about JH. This guy is nowhere near the quality of our most successful manager of all time. 

.

Like it or not in terms of achievements and silverware he is the most successful manager we've had but comparatively, no he's not the most 'quality'. I don't think I claimed that he was. 

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5 hours ago, Fraz said:

Like it or not in terms of achievements and silverware he is the most successful manager we've had but comparatively, no he's not the most 'quality'. I don't think I claimed that he was. 

Ok but I think you'll find Foran's budget is bigger than Yogi ever had

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On 29/04/2017 at 5:19 PM, cif73 said:

You were binned for this post at the time ... seems like you were right on the button ... that negative like count needs reversed.

Appreciated. 

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8 minutes ago, ictforresfan said:

Threatening to tear up individual children's contracts, due to a poor performance is a regular thing that Christie and some of his coaches use and that's not the worst. Verbal abuse and threatening behaviour towards young players is the norm and has been for many a year.

ictforresfan - these are pretty hefty accusations which, if you are unable to bring forth evidence to confirm them, could very easily be construed as defamatory.

Edited by Charles Bannerman
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7 hours ago, ictforresfan said:

Charle Christie is one of the clubs main problems.

It's an absolute joke of a youth system that he runs and has been for years. Then for the Directors to bring back Charlies best mate and ex head of youth, Danny Macdonald a few months ago, jobs for the boys and all that. 

Charlie and Danny before him, have provided the clubs managers with very little to work with from the youth system over the last decade. Charlie was only really interested in getting one player through the system, that was his son.

The coaching quality that is offered to the youth is amatuer at best. It's time that young players and parents stand up and tell the truth about what's been going on. Threatening to tear up individual children's contracts, due to a poor performance is a regular thing that Christie and some of his coaches use and that's not the worst. Verbal abuse and threatening behaviour towards young players is the norm and has been for many a year. Not really an environment for developing confident, talented players and talent there is, in the Highlands, until Charlie and his crew gets a hold of them!!

ICT need a manager who will develop the club from the bottom up. A manager who will be allowed to bring in his own people, starting with a Head of Youth. Someone with experience and an interest in youth development, eg. Steven Pressley, Danny Lennon, Austin MacPhee (Austin who!!).  

I think there needs to be a reality check around youth development. The SFA's estimate for boys "making it" through youth development across Scotland is about 5%. So 19 of every 20 kids that enter will be turfed; on average only one from each year group will come through. Looking back over the past few years, ICT are probably just about on that average. The problem is nationwide, not just here. It is very often not the best player at 11 who makes it, more of which later.

Speaking as a parent with a young player in one of the squads, here are my observations:

ICT's youth development is under-resourced compared to the elite clubs. For those who don't know, teams with youth development are split into "elite" and "the rest" at U12 level and above, based on level of coaching badges amongst coaches. ICT don't make it into the elite group, so stop playing the likes of Celtic, Dundee United, Aberdeen, Hibs etc. Instead, it's Alloa, Airdrie, County, Elgin etc. The quality is not great - you really noticed the difference when Celtic came to town in the U11s - they had top quality coaches, sport scientists, video analysis. That on top of better raw material through 10x the catchment made a huge difference. They didn't always win, but they usually played much better football.

As for the ICT experience of coaching: There's a mixed bag. All try their very best, some are not much more than unpaid volunteers. The SFA's mantra below U17 is to concentrate on development not results. This is probably my only criticism of the system here: Results are everything. This encourages classic 70s football of long ball from the back, flick on and stab home. No touches for 8/11 players, but celebrated instead of criticised. All the coaching during the week centres on passing and possession seems to be abandoned at the weekend. The other classic error is to focus on one or 2 "stars" at this age and ignore the rest. Picking a winner at 12 on the basis of talent alone is bound to fail in almost all cases. Football is so much more than raw talent: Discipline, fitness, attitude are all justt as important and you don't know who'll shine in those areas until later. Equally, the big guy who's shaving at 10 might be the most powerful then, but will be caught up with at 17 - don't put all your eggs in that basket. Ryan Christie is an excellent example of the small guy who didn't really shine in the younger years, but turned out to have the unique mixture necessary. Select too early and you might just miss the real star.

So, the youth set up is what it is. Under-invested, yes, but the question is whether more money would really pull through more than the average 1/year of lads who have all the ingredients. The direction of travel from the SFA seems to be to reduce the number of development squads and focusing investment. If that happens, far fewer kids will be given the opportunity, selection will be far too early and the Ryan Christies of this world will slip through the net. ICT will almost certainly not have a youth development squad any more, which would be tragic.

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Exactly, IHE. Whatever we're doing football-wise as a nation is just not good enough. Yes, I meant to mention the training facilities, which are rank. Ross County definitely did much better out of the "Highland Football Academy" deal than we did - they got indoor facilities (which they have now badged as theirs!), while we got a first generation astro pitch at Charleston which needs to be replaced. In fairness to County, they have enhanced their facilities beyond the indoor astro with an excellent outdooor astro pitch.... we haven't.

The other thing I meant to add is that Charlie Christie did not bring Danny MacDonald in - he was brought in by the Board at a level above Charlie to oversee the youth development + the community team. I doubt Charlie was too pleased about the appointment tbh!

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Have to agree with all of the above re youth development. Growing up , AstroTurf was the surface sold on making first touch and passing better, yet as a country we produce fewer first class players now than we did when kids played on streets and in fields with jackets as posts. I know the game is greatly different now, but kids are over coached from an early age, instead of letting them enjoy and learn to love the game before we get into serious stuff.Do we think Patrick paying £4m for training facilities will produce more talent and better end product than currently? Can't see it myself.

Better end the post as starting to sound like my Dad, and besides, they are away to lock the doors to my care home.

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If we  got astro down at the stadium would the stadium be more useful for development work? IIRC, Mantis wrote about the Faroes having a national stadium children were able to play / train on. I think we should be looking to the Icelandic route and focusing on young players, taking them through as a team. 

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12 hours ago, PerfICT said:

Picking a winner at 12 on the basis of talent alone is bound to fail in almost all cases. Football is so much more than raw talent: Discipline, fitness, attitude are all justt as important and you don't know who'll shine in those areas until later. Equally, the big guy who's shaving at 10 might be the most powerful then, but will be caught up with at 17 - don't put all your eggs in that basket. Ryan Christie is an excellent example of the small guy who didn't really shine in the younger years, but turned out to have the unique mixture necessary. Select too early and you might just miss the real star.

 

This is one of the crucial considerations and shows an excellent insight on PerfICT's part into the generic process of sports coaching. Apart from frightening the hell out of Pele when he asked me for some suggestions for fitness work after the 1997 D3 title and doing an odd running related session for Charlie and Neale Cooper, I have no background whatsoever in football coaching. However in 40 years of coaching athletics I've covered a range of events from Primary school up to Great Britain level and the quoted passage is just as relevant in developmental terms.

My experience has been that the superstar 11 year olds very seldom make it through to full senior level for a variety of reasons. The "shaving at 10" issue is a major factor and there are so many other environmental considerations and questions of attitude which also intervene that the banana skins between early teens or thereby and adult status are legion. The other consideration is that a player may be a stand out as, say, a U13 but that's only a one or two year age band. Once they reach senior status, they have the whole world as potential opponents and rivals.

The 1 in 20 ballpark figure is an interesting one. I assume that this is 1 in 20 even of the relatively small sample already selected by clubs at, say, 11 which does leave you with a very small slice of the population. I also wonder if parents and indeed young players themselves realise that even once they've been "signed by Caley Thistle" (or any other leading club), the chances of them making it right through are still pretty remote. Indeed even when you get to under 20 level, the odds against making it among the full cohort of professionals are still quite long. This really isn't all that surprising, given how few established professional players there are within the population as a whole - or looking at it another way, how small a slice of the population have the talent levels to succeed long term.

One thing does rather concern me about football, and please correct me if this is no longer the case. I had, however, been under the impression that many clubs, benefiting from the widespread desire to become a professional footballer, work by taking in large numbers at around 11 and progressively offloading them when it becomes apparent that they won't make it. That may suit the football clubs and possibly milks the delusion I spoke about earlier. However, it appears that these young players, once it becomes apparent that they won't travel too far up the tree, are simply binned. Then you have to wonder how much of a sporting future there is for them anywhere else once football clubs have declared them surplus to requirements. Will they transfer sports and try to excel at something else? Or, now demotivated, will they persist more casually with football and end up in the "kick and rush, then off to the pub" of the amateur Leagues and waste their sporting talents.

Edited by Charles Bannerman
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Yes, CB, the young players and parents are told the statistics by the SFA at U11 at the only session of sports science they get. And yes, the 1in 20 statistic is for those kids already selected for development squads - hardly the odds on which to build a career.

As for your other point: Don't get me started! Why oh why is there not a system between ICT, Ross County, Highland League clubs and Elgin City (for example) whereby boys discarded by one club can be trialed at others further down the pyramid. The best example is Clach and ICT: The coaching staff compete with each other for children at the age of 8 or so. No formal system for exchange of players recruited at the wrong level for ability. I realise the hatred runs deep, but not having the boys' best interests at heart is inexcusable. So many of those dropped give up football altogether or just play street league. Not that there's a problem with street league - great fun and well organised, but how much talent is lost to pro and semi-pro football on account of poor handling by clubs?

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3 hours ago, PerfICT said:

Yes, CB, the young players and parents are told the statistics by the SFA at U11 at the only session of sports science they get. And yes, the 1in 20 statistic is for those kids already selected for development squads - hardly the odds on which to build a career.

As for your other point: Don't get me started! Why oh why is there not a system between ICT, Ross County, Highland League clubs and Elgin City (for example) whereby boys discarded by one club can be trialed at others further down the pyramid. The best example is Clach and ICT: The coaching staff compete with each other for children at the age of 8 or so. No formal system for exchange of players recruited at the wrong level for ability. I realise the hatred runs deep, but not having the boys' best interests at heart is inexcusable. So many of those dropped give up football altogether or just play street league. Not that there's a problem with street league - great fun and well organised, but how much talent is lost to pro and semi-pro football on account of poor handling by clubs?

You are almost tempting me to suggest that football is actually responsible for frittering away a worrying slice of the nation's general sporting talent pool. The irony here would be Scotland's failure to produce senior football players of quality (q.v. the national side) while many other sports which are arguably being deprived of talent by the manner in which football goes about its business are actually doing quite well on the international stage.

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  • 2 weeks later...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p052fk3z?intc_type=promo&intc_location=sport&intc_campaign=1in100&intc_linkname=5live_fac_vidclip1

It seems even the SFA's estimate of 5% of kids in academies making it is optimistic. This article indicates 99% don't make it! Put simply - the model is completely wrong - the focus of the coaching is wrong with too much emphasis on winning instead of fitness, psychology, attitude, determination and technique (probably in that order). While it is quite easy at age 7 to identify those who have techinque, it is impossible to determine whether they have all of the attributes...and you really need the full set. Another issue is the system - at each age group a squad is trained up essentially with a player in each position. What happens if a particular year group is flush with, for an extreme example, goalkeepers? Experience would suggest that one or 2 would be selected at a very young age and the rest discarded because they have to be formed into a team throughout the system and there is only ever need for 1 or 2 goalies. On what criteria would that decision be made at, say, 10 years old? Almost certainly size. Wrong!

Looking at these odds, ICT have done pretty well over the last few years (e.g. Nick Ross, Liam Polworth, Ryan Christie, Graeme Shinnie) from 5 or so years of youth squads - that would be nearer to a 5% hit rate. The problem is that the cash return to the club was zero in 2 of those cases and that just does not make business sense. That said, Shinnie and Ross made significant impacts on the first team at ICT which should surely be the primary purpose of youth systems, but it is impossible to put a value on that contribution.

This is now pretty much off topic for this thread, but I think this makes the point that the Board may well be responsible for many deficinecies at the club, but I don't think youth development is something that they can be blamed for. It's the system that is failing.

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Back on topic I suggest that our dilemma is clear. The Board may have admirably kept us in needed financial stability but have failed miserably in the communication sense generally. I feel that there needs to be a massive shake up but this may not be the time. If we go down then culling the board should be a priority but that will not get us back up pronto or provide us with the spondoolachs to do that. Staying up and the Board will back Forsn and probably in the same vocabulary as Richie vow that they have learned their lessons and nothing will change. The fans can shout and complain as much as we want but we need a new figurehead with finances but they don't grow on trees. 

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2 minutes ago, IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER said:

Back on topic I suggest that our dilemma is clear. The Board may have admirably kept us in needed financial stability but have failed miserably in the communication sense generally. I feel that there needs to be a massive shake up but this may not be the time. If we go down then culling the board should be a priority but that will not get us back up pronto or provide us with the spondoolachs to do that. Staying up and the Board will back Forsn and probably in the same vocabulary as Richie vow that they have learned their lessons and nothing will change. The fans can shout and complain as much as we want but we need a new figurehead with finances but they don't grow on trees. 

Should be the same as any business IHE, if we go down this board should fund the losses incurred by relegation. Those not prepared to satisfy this basic business need should step down as soon as our fate is decided.

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