Was reading this article this morning and wondered what people make of this idea - the role of the sports director and adoption of a club philosophy. I’ve been watching Highland rugby clubs success over the years and their structure and philosophy ie developing young players, totally amateur (no pay), respect for everyone at the club, and most importantly having fun, seems to be working well. 

https://trainingground.guru/articles/stuart-webber-climb-of-the-canaries

1 hour ago, FrontRow said:

Was reading this article this morning and wondered what people make of this idea - the role of the sports director and adoption of a club philosophy. I’ve been watching Highland rugby clubs success over the years and their structure and philosophy ie developing young players, totally amateur (no pay), respect for everyone at the club, and most importantly having fun, seems to be working well. 

https://trainingground.guru/articles/stuart-webber-climb-of-the-canaries

lots of good stuff here but absolutely everything depends on having an understanding very wealthy owner - which we unfortunately don't have.

7 hours ago, caleyboy said:

lots of good stuff here but absolutely everything depends on having an understanding very wealthy owner - which we unfortunately don't have.

In either regard.

On 4/7/2019 at 3:40 AM, caleyboy said:

lots of good stuff here but absolutely everything depends on having an understanding very wealthy owner - which we unfortunately don't have.

the other factor that modern football (and fans) don't have in abundance that is needed here would be patience. We all want instant results (and I include myself in that) but to develop a real sustainable club model either requires a root and branch re-organisation of football within the entire country (Iceland style) or for an individual club to start building from the ground up and wait 10+ years to see the fruits of their labours which in the current climate would be financial suicide. 

Our current board get a lot of criticism and I believe that is entirely merited, but that's a different topic. However, where I do think they are on the right track is the idea/desire/plan to get the club back to being fiscally responsible and sustainable and to try and develop from within. Unfortunately, whilst the idea is good, I dont think we currently have anyone with the capability to put that plan into action efficiently, especially after recent departures (and those to come).  

 

 

have any of you read ‘The Barcelona Way’by Damien Hughes. Fascinating read on how a couple of people within Barcelona club created a commitment culture from top to bottom. It means you don’t go boom and bust. Brilliant read for anyone interested in sport or business 

Edited April 8, 20197 yr by FrontRow

Quote from the 2nd para of the article:

"So we came back to three things - employ someone who can implement a certain style of play, be open-minded in the transfer market and promote young players from within.

In appointing the head coach, that person had to fit in with those three things. Daniel (Farke) has been brave enough to play homegrown players and make them better and as a club we have given him support in doing that because it’s one of our criteria for success."

I seem to recall we had a manager that fitted the above description but folk didn't like it so we fired him and appointed a rookie with no football management experience, philosophy or style. Reinventing the wheel may be good fun but it's not productive, the past three years of torture could have been easily avoided by sticking with JH's style of football throughout our teams. The reality deniers on here will try to justify JH's removal because he wasn't good at this or that but the fact remains we finished 3rd in the premiership qualified for Europe and won the SC on a shoestring, it could have been the start of something brilliant and success attracts players who want to play for your club especially when they are getting good money moves elsewhere by performing well but no, the board had to exercise their authority, appoint their favourite son, supported by at least 50% on this forum, so please, no more plans about how to run a club successfully especially one with no money, we had it and we blew it, end of, that opportunity has passed us by.

Do you just copy and paste the same stuff about Hughes whenever you get the chance? It certainly seems like it.

1 minute ago, RiG said:

Do you just copy and paste the same stuff about Hughes whenever you get the chance? It certainly seems like it.

Only each time someone else suggests reinventing the wheel or start craving what they already had.

I’ll be honest with you I didn’t follow Ictfc much in those days and certainly have no interest in what the boards and politics of the past have done (rightly or wrongly) Im coming from a completely neutral, but interested (have a kid in youth set up) viewpoint. I spent all my days down canal park and tbh still go there a lot. However, I have started going to Ictfc games this season and enjoyed it for the most part. Anyway it’s still worth reading the book just got the chapter on  ibrahimović!  

1 hour ago, wynthank15 said:

Only each time someone else suggests reinventing the wheel or start craving what they already had.

 

7 hours ago, wynthank15 said:

I seem to recall we had a manager that fitted the above description but folk didn't like it so we fired him and appointed a rookie with no football management experience, philosophy or style. Reinventing the wheel may be good fun but it's not productive, the past three years of torture could have been easily avoided by sticking with JH's style of football throughout our teams. The reality deniers on here will try to justify JH's removal because he wasn't good at this or that but the fact remains we finished 3rd in the premiership qualified for Europe and won the SC on a shoestring, it could have been the start of something brilliant and success attracts players who want to play for your club especially when they are getting good money moves elsewhere by performing well but no, the board had to exercise their authority, appoint their favourite son, supported by at least 50% on this forum, so please, no more plans about how to run a club successfully especially one with no money, we had it and we blew it, end of, that opportunity has passed us by.

I like John Hughes, I always have, even before he was our manager. He seemed like someone you could have a laugh and a joke with and had a wicked sense of humour. However, lets indeed talk about reality deniers and note that it has been well documented that JH did not operate on a shoestring. He had the largest budget of any manager in our history. I would say he used that budget wisely and got results as you have noted, but it was definitely not a shoestring !   

However,  two things soured his relationship with the club . The first was when private discussions about the next years (reduced) budget were conducted in the media and the second was his reaction to the club's refusal to let him speak to Dundee Utd after Jackie McNamara's departure. This led to irreconcilable differences between club and board. He was not some innocent party here. There was enough blame to go around. In my mind, we got two things wrong at that time, and with the benefit of hindsight I am sure you could ask Kenny Cameron and he would agree now. The first was refusing to let him speak to the Arabs. If our manager - any manager - wants to speak to another club then let them ... and don't let the door hit them on the way out ! If they are not committed to ICT then they can go. The second was appointing Richie. Every single one of us wanted Richie to succeed but Kenny showed too much loyalty in the end by not sacking him earlier, and that hurt us big time. I appreciate what JH did for us when he was here, but lets not erect the statues or canonise him just yet ! 

As for blowing opportunites to run the club succesfully ... I disagree. We have had several opportunities over the years, starting with Pele, and it could be argued our current manager kick-started our golden era in the 2003/04 season when we first got to the SPL.  If you recall he had to fight tooth and nail to get our board moving and for the SPL to let us in, and had he not taken up the offer from Hearts - which I believe was the only team that could have lured him away at the time - then who knows what our history might have been ......    

 

7 hours ago, Scotty said:

I like John Hughes, I always have, even before he was our manager. He seemed like someone you could have a laugh and a joke with and had a wicked sense of humour. However, lets indeed talk about reality deniers and note that it has been well documented that JH did not operate on a shoestring. He had the largest budget of any manager in our history. I would say he used that budget wisely and got results as you have noted, but it was definitely not a shoestring !   

However,  two things soured his relationship with the club . The first was when private discussions about the next years (reduced) budget were conducted in the media and the second was his reaction to the club's refusal to let him speak to Dundee Utd after Jackie McNamara's departure. This led to irreconcilable differences between club and board. He was not some innocent party here. There was enough blame to go around. In my mind, we got two things wrong at that time, and with the benefit of hindsight I am sure you could ask Kenny Cameron and he would agree now. The first was refusing to let him speak to the Arabs. If our manager - any manager - wants to speak to another club then let them ... and don't let the door hit them on the way out ! If they are not committed to ICT then they can go. The second was appointing Richie. Every single one of us wanted Richie to succeed but Kenny showed too much loyalty in the end by not sacking him earlier, and that hurt us big time. I appreciate what JH did for us when he was here, but lets not erect the statues or canonise him just yet ! 

As for blowing opportunites to run the club succesfully ... I disagree. We have had several opportunities over the years, starting with Pele, and it could be argued our current manager kick-started our golden era in the 2003/04 season when we first got to the SPL.  If you recall he had to fight tooth and nail to get our board moving and for the SPL to let us in, and had he not taken up the offer from Hearts - which I believe was the only team that could have lured him away at the time - then who knows what our history might have been ......    

 

Thank you Scotty. I feel like I've made a similar post half a dozen times. 

At our level it's all about loyalty.

As soon as we become successful, our managers tend to be lured away by bigger clubs who can offer better wages and conditions than we can. Are we all so loyal to our employers that we would reject an offer from a rival employer which doubled our wages? I think not, so we have no right to criticise an ICT manager who takes up a better offer.

Sadly that is our current position - bring in a manager we can afford, encourage him to succeed on a shoestring budget, and if he does, then he soon gets snapped up by a bigger club, and we're back to square one.

As for loyalty, well I don't think we'll get much better than the current incumbent. He's been here before, been lured away, and eventually, for various reasons, come back. Somehow I think he'll be with us for a good while yet and so I'm optimistic about the next few years.

but lets not erect the statues or canonise him just yet ! 

Scotty, Charlie Christie suggested there should be a statue to Yogi outside the ground and he could see up close the changes that JH made at the club. What irritates me the most is the fact that the style he imposed on the players was the correct way to go in my opinion and should have been the template for years to come whomever was in charge at the club. The other irritant is the refusal of many to acknowledge just what he achieved at the club, he fundamentally changed our style of play which resulted in our getting trashed by Dundee Utd in the SC  but he kept at it despite the players inability to get it right at times. Even when we lost some of our best players and had horrendous injuries he kept getting results because of the style of play. JH's departure didn't just result in relegation it set the club development back years. By the way I loved the style of play under Pele but JH took us a step further where we looked like a proper controlled footballing team. The match against Astra (who were no mugs) without watkins and shinnie plus some injuries was one of the best performances I have seen from iCT despite the 1-0 loss.

If only the replacements he brought in were half as good as the ones that left, maybe his 'style' would have continued to be successful. But they were mince and it wasn't. 

Fairly simple really. 

1 hour ago, wynthank15 said:

but lets not erect the statues or canonise him just yet ! 

Scotty, Charlie Christie suggested there should be a statue to Yogi outside the ground and he could see up close the changes that JH made at the club. What irritates me the most is the fact that the style he imposed on the players was the correct way to go in my opinion and should have been the template for years to come whomever was in charge at the club. The other irritant is the refusal of many to acknowledge just what he achieved at the club, he fundamentally changed our style of play which resulted in our getting trashed by Dundee Utd in the SC  but he kept at it despite the players inability to get it right at times. Even when we lost some of our best players and had horrendous injuries he kept getting results because of the style of play. JH's departure didn't just result in relegation it set the club development back years. By the way I loved the style of play under Pele but JH took us a step further where we looked like a proper controlled footballing team. The match against Astra (who were no mugs) without watkins and shinnie plus some injuries was one of the best performances I have seen from iCT despite the 1-0 loss.

Good Idea, get one of Pele instead

On 4/11/2019 at 7:47 PM, Satan said:

If only the replacements he brought in were half as good as the ones that left, maybe his 'style' would have continued to be successful. But they were mince and it wasn't. 

Fairly simple really. 

Really, how would you have replaced Watkins, Shinnie and Christie within our budget genius?

Not signing the likes of Nat Wedderburn, Tobi Sho Silva and Dani Lopez for a start. Increase the budget right away.

JH sure could sign expensive turnips.

49 minutes ago, wynthank15 said:

Really, how would you have replaced Watkins, Shinnie and Christie within our budget genius?

Watkins, Shinnie and Christie were all signed up by the club when the budget for signing players was far less than Hughes had at its disposal.  What successive managers have been good at is identifying young players with promise or perhaps some not so young who appear to be under-performing at the clubs they are at, and realising that potential.  Esson, Warren, Raven, Tremarco, Draper, Tansey, Mckay, Doran are all examples of that and there are many others.  But that stopped with Hughes.  He had the biggest player budget any manager of this club has ever had, but just who are the signings he made who have gone on to give the type of impact at the club that the players I have listed have done?  

This all day long.

Yogi, great coach, good at improving players.

Yogi awful recruiter of talent. 

Don't be naive, Yogi played his part in relegation, he wanted to push the club forward for his own ego, raising budgets and then wasting it on players. He has a very high opinion of himself. Financially we are still recovering from this. The warning signs for our relegation season with Foran were starting to appear under Hughes.

our financial demise started a long time before Yogi got here.

3 hours ago, caleyboy said:

our financial demise started a long time before Yogi got here.

Eh? Some of our best financial results have happened when Yogi was here.

 The change from modest basic plus good bonuses changed on his watch and under public pressure from him following the cup win.

clearly this was exacerbated during the Foran season however a reasonably tight ship changed with his arrival 

4 hours ago, Tree said:

Eh? Some of our best financial results have happened when Yogi was here.

 The change from modest basic plus good bonuses changed on his watch and under public pressure from him following the cup win.

clearly this was exacerbated during the Foran season however a reasonably tight ship changed with his arrival 

I really don't understand what you are trying to say.

16 hours ago, caleyboy said:

I really don't understand what you are trying to say.

Our demise started on Yogi’s watch!

4 hours ago, Tree said:

Our demise started on Yogi’s watch!

so you are blaming yogi for our financial situation. Bizarre!!!!!!!

6 hours ago, Tree said:

Our demise started on Yogi’s watch!

If anything, it was Foran's doing. The lack of wins, lowering gate receipts. And obviously getting relegated didn't help matters. Don't know how you can blame Yogi for it, when in fact, he was the one who took the club to levels nobody had ever considered before.

We have been trading on a sticky financial wicket (with the odd exception) for most of our history. The demands for success on the park have dictated our basic infrastructure, or should I say lack of it. I have heard that some wealthy individuals have pumped in some serious lump sums over the years just to keep us afloat but unless they have a serious agenda how long will this continue? If we don't go up this year I can only see a vastly reduced budget along with whatever that brings.