http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/21471225

 

I think he makes a fair point and is probably justifiably feeling frustrated that attendances are not going up in argurably one of our best seasons ever.

 

However...

 

Personally, like the league system, I don't think the odd tweak in pricing or scheduling would make much difference. What would, IMO, is the introduction of summer football. The SPL would be pretty much the only (football) show in town over the summer months (the 2/3 weeks of World Cups  and European Championships aside), SKY would almost certainly be keen to show live UK football (think Rugby Super League for a case in point), supporters would be more encouraged to come out on a summers evening rather than a cold winters night, travelling becomes easier for fans not having to worry about treacherous journeys, being snowed in or just general discomfort of a long journey in poor weather, players would be plying their trade in good conditions rather than frozen fields and sodden pitches.

 

The traditionalists will no doubt argue against it but the truth is that Scottish football will never again be able to compete with the English or European competitons for fans - people will just watch on TV now. Surely there has to be some realistic thought given to it and to perhaps think a little bit outside the box? The international calendar issue is nonsense - the Scandinavians have been playing in the summer months for years.

 

Is summer football a no-brainer or a non starter?

Just an interesting point i thought i'd mention. The attendance against KIllie was 2529 for a wed night game with Real v Man utd on the tele, not great i am sure every one will agree. Now according to wikipedia, inverness has a population of 58963 which means ROUGHLY 4.28% of the population were at the game. Now take the Aberdeen game tonight. No high profile Champions league game on tv and is not a midweek match. The attendance was 7841 and according to wikipedia the population of aberdeen is 220420 which means ROUGHLY only 3.6% of the population showed up. Now i know these are rough figures and away fans are included in the calculation but it makes for slightly better reading 

Just an interesting point i thought i'd mention. The attendance against KIllie was 2529 for a wed night game with Real v Man utd on the tele, not great i am sure every one will agree. Now according to wikipedia, inverness has a population of 58963 which means ROUGHLY 4.28% of the population were at the game. Now take the Aberdeen game tonight. No high profile Champions league game on tv and is not a midweek match. The attendance was 7841 and according to wikipedia the population of aberdeen is 220420 which means ROUGHLY only 3.6% of the population showed up. Now i know these are rough figures and away fans are included in the calculation but it makes for slightly better reading 

 

It's a very valid point. A place the size of the Granite city, with its catchment area, would certainly expect to be attracting more fans.

But look at Edinburgh. The Capital, the central belt location, approx 450,000 population with only 2 senior teams...they should be filling their grounds' modest capacities on a weekly basis.

    As for our 2,529 gate vs kilmarnock, it should be remembered that the corresponding game in August only attracted 3,000. That was the first home game of the season for us football starved punters. A Saturday 3pm kick off. No other distractions/excuses like Xmas shopping (!) and there was a reasonably healthy Killie support that day.

So despite the weather and Champions League in midweek we didn't actually leek many fans at all.

    Our average this Season at the stadium is on a par with last Season...and, whisper it, commensurate with our debut season in the SPL- with the novelty of Rangers, Celtic, Hearts, Aberdeen, Hibs, Dundee United etc coming here on league duty for the first time.

Our average attendance across all the seasons in the SPL is around 4400. So yes, we're slightly down on that but other clubs have seen significantly bigger falls.

For the record, here's the latest figures for this season. (Taken from the SPL website.)

 

Celtic               45,953

Hearts             13,384

Hibernian        10,693

Aberdeen        10,073

Dundee Utd      7,472

Dundee             6,544

Motherwell        4,889

Kilmarnock        4,864

St Mirren           4,442

Ross County     4,184

Inverness CT    4,017

St Johnstone    3,791

Edited February 16, 201313 yr by Sneckboy

I'm sorry, but there is no way there was 2529 supporters at that game. There was much less than that.

However, further to my previous post, according to wikipedia again, both kilmarnock and motherwell have smaller populations than inverness but get larger crowds than we do. I suppose they may have a larger catchment area though and this is why there crowds are a bit larger

Take the circumstances into consideration Terry. Poor night weather wise. Should be acclimatised by now!! (Spelling!!) Better quality footie on the telly, Champions League, and where we could be warm and refreshed at our leisure. Inverness does deserve ICT but things have gone pear shaped since the Barnsley offer. Fans are cash strapped , three aways in two weeks don't come cheap. We are trying hard to support the team but sometimes household finances dictate if we can go to a game or not.

Summer football. If you want to play on the beach at Nairn!! Club pitches are ploughed fields from mid March at best and it's only due to the brilliant groundsman/women and the clubs that we can play till the end of May. The only exception to this would be Ross County!!

Can somebody in the know explain this one for me?

 

In the pub last night a friend (a Dunfermline fan who comes to a few Caley games with me) told me about his experience at the Celtic match.

 

Having come all the way from Forres and pitching up at the gate he was told there was no cash entry. So he went to the ticket office only to be told that the police wouldn't allow the club to seel any tickets less than one hour before kick off.

 

On his way back in to town, assuming the game was sold out, he saw a tout selling tickets and got one for the Celtic end for £25 and got in 15 mins after kick off. At half time he queued up for 15 mins for a pie, but with the 2nd half about to start was told that they'd run out of hot ones and he'd have to wait 10 mins while they warmed some more up. Asking for a cold one, with the game about to restart, he was told that they weren't allowed to sell cold pies. Meanwhile the queue stretched back about 25 yards.

 

We think we're an entertainment industry. Somebody tell me that this was all some big misunderstanding.

The ticket situation you describe has been the case for as long as I can remember for games against Rangers & Celtic.  It's also not unique to our stadium and is the norm throughout the league for these games.

 

I believe it's also accurate to say that this is done at the insistence of the police.  The reasoning seems to be that they don't want to risk having large numbers of visiting fans without tickets being left outside the stadium where it might create a flashpoint and/or need additional policing.

 

Having tickets available for home fans only would only create a risk of (more) visiting fans ending up in the home end....again creating additional risk of trouble.

 

With the drop in numbers and the fact these games haven't sold out in recent years, then (personally) I'm not sure it's still necessary.  However, I do know that the club are in regular discussion with the police about how matches are covered....and indeed if some matches could be police free....so they are aware and actively looking to improve things in this regard.

 

As for running out of hot pies, this was something that used to be a regular occurrence and has much improved in the last few seasons.

 

From the little I know about food hygiene, it doesn't seem unreasonable that they would refuse to sell cold pies.  I imagine the pies are originally prepared with the intention of needing heating/final cooking and temperature probes are used during that process which indicate that they do have some kind of regulation/guidelines about what temperature the need to achieve during that process before they can be served.

 

Given the lack of complaints about these things recently then it would appear that the problem isn't systemic at matches these days and could be chalked up under the category of "sometimes chit happens".

If we win again on Wednesday I bet TB will praising our support once more in the post match interview.

 

Also can anyone tell me who was at the game yesterday did TB do his usual celebrations with the crowd after every away win

If we win again on Wednesday I bet TB will praising our support once more in the post match interview.

Also can anyone tell me who was at the game yesterday did TB do his usual celebrations with the crowd after every away win

Terry does love our support in the main. Especially our away support. It wasn't the loyal supporters he was having a go at it was the rest that don't come to games he had a pop at. So I see no reason why he wouldn't praise our loyal support that attend every game.

And Yes he did do the celebrations after the game.

Edited February 24, 201313 yr by lukemackay

Let's make something quite clear....TB never slated the support.

 

He asked if Inverness deserved this team....a question I have asked myself a number of times.  Unfortunately for TB his comment was twisted by some of the national press and made to look like he was having a go at the support.

Its no wonder that TB enjoys away games and the away support.   He doesnt have to listen to the constant griping of the "fans??" who sit behind or around the dugouts and whose only joy seems to be to criticise and name-call the management.   People are free to criticise but some of these "fans" only see the worst and are so "glass near empty", they are sad and I really dont know why they go to the games.  The away crowd are noisy and encourage the team, and TB and Mo -  if only that were the case at the home games.  Rant over.

Its no wonder that TB enjoys away games and the away support.   He doesnt have to listen to the constant griping of the "fans??" who sit behind or around the dugouts and whose only joy seems to be to criticise and name-call the management.   People are free to criticise but some of these "fans" only see the worst and are so "glass near empty", they are sad and I really dont know why they go to the games.  The away crowd are noisy and encourage the team, and TB and Mo -  if only that were the case at the home games.  Rant over.

 

Strange thing is that many are season ticket holders to sit right there. I normally sit in the Main Stand due to getting a better view of the whole pitch and quite a few times I've had someone behind me getting on their case within the first 10 minutes for absolutely no reason and I get irritated which in turn spoils my match experience so I end up moving to another seat. One of the best things though by going to away games is that those supporters are left behind back up the road. I always prefer the away games more not so much for that but our support is so much more vocal and nearly always gets behind the team.

Thanks for the explanation CaleyD. I'll pass the info on. Personally I think it's overkill, especially if tickets can be got through unofficial means anyway. It doesn't achieve a right lot (except depriving ICT of £20). Like you I'm no pie expert, but our local butcher sells cold pies no bother. Mindst you the queues aren't so long there.

Did anyone else hear that guy shouting and constantly making stupid remarks about Esson yesterday?  I was going to say that he was doing it for ninety minutes but I actually started before the teams had even come out!  What an embarrassment.  

I never heard anything bad about Esson bar the "Ryan Esson oo oo! Ryan Esson oo oo!" chant.

Nah, this was a guy up the back to the left, who berated Esson constantly and ranted and raved about how much he hated him, much to the annoyance of some people around him, particularly me!

Nah, this was a guy up the back to the left, who berated Esson constantly and ranted and raved about how much he hated him, much to the annoyance of some people around him, particularly me!

Didnt hear anything but nothing surprises me!