First Leg v Smokies

 

After an edgy quarter final play off win over Partick Thistle, we face Championship team of the season Arbroath on Tuesday night at 7:05pm. Dick Campbell takes his team North as favourites to progress to the final, with St Johnstone being the likely candidates for the opposition. The game will also be screened live on the BBC Scotland channel. 

Arbroath have had a fantastic season falling just two points short of automatic promotion and finishing second in the Championship, six points ahead of third placed Inverness, and with a superior goal difference of seven, and losing only five Championship games all season. The one thing in our favour is that we beat them twice, the most recent a slightly flattering 3-0 win a couple of months ago.

TICKET INFO

OFFICIAL PREVIEW

Venue H2H all comps

Pld

Won

Drn

Lst

For

Agst

+ / -

Home	21	16	2	3	56	18	+38
Away	19	9	4	6	26	22	+4
Neutral	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Total	40	25	6	9	82	40	+42

This seasons meetings with the Smokies

3 - 0 (H)

0 - 0 (A)

0 - 1 (H)

1 - 0 (A)

Interestingly, over the final six games of the Championship, Inverness were the team on form, finishing with a flourish ahead of the Play-Offs

			Overall					Home					Away
Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	F	A	W	D	L	F	A	W	D	L	F	A	+/-	Pts
1.	Inverness CT	6	4	1	1	12	5	3	0	0	8	1	1	1	1	4	4	+7	13
2.	Arbroath	6	3	2	1	13	6	2	1	0	11	4	1	1	1	2	2	+7	11
3.	Kilmarnock	6	3	2	1	9	6	3	0	0	6	2	0	2	1	3	4	+3	11

Last time we faced Arbroath we were on an eleven game run of no wins since we thumped Morton 6-1 at Cappielow on December 11th

CTO Report March 12th: 3-0: The spell is broken: A blistering start by Inverness put them on their way to a first win in 12 starts. Goals from Shane Sutherland and Reece McAlear set them on their way inside eleven minutes. Billy Mckay sclaffed in a third with twenty minutes to go and there was no way back for Arbroath who lost ground at the top of the table with Dick Campbell sent to the stands. As Partick Thistle lost to Morton, we closed the gap to two points behind them with Raith still one point behind us. Away to Rovers next week. That's a massive game now as both sides chase a play-off spot. I said to my grandkid's at the game "that was an emphatic win" At only seven years old, Ava said "granda, what does win mean?" Yes, it's been a long time coming...

 

Well done Mark, great stuff.   

68 clean sheets, that's some size of linen cupboard pal!

TEAM NEWS

Roddy MacGregor has cracked a bone in his jaw and could be out for the next few games. Tom Walsh is likewise after being injured inside twenty minutes at Firhill. Wallace Duffy missed the last couple after being injured against Accies on matchday 36. Scott Allardice made it onto the pitch as an injury time sub for the first time in months, so that's a positive and here's another one, Aaron Doran came on as a sub for the last half hour after taking a knock at Cappielow on matchday 35.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A well deserved April's Player of the Month award for Logan Chalmers who has chipped in with some massively important stunning goals recently in our drive for promotion.

He scored five goals in a five game purple patch starting with a match winning fiercely struck brace over Raith Rovers. He followed that up with a belter against Ayr United, a sweet winner against Killie and a wonderful solo thumper against Queen of the South.

After a somewhat slow start, Logan has benefitted from more game time and you can see why he is highly rated by parent club Dundee United

That's some left peg lad. 💪

 

 

 

 

 

 

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24 minutes ago, IBM said:

And Dick Campbell said Christmas came early for Inverness tonight 

He’s a w⚓️

1 minute ago, jagster said:

He’s a w⚓️

And Innes and Gunn agree 🍺🍺

Historically ICT flourish in cup ties - and yes, this was a cup tie - with nine men. Nothing between the sides, there was never going to be, but ICT lads showed the character.

 

Willie the Gollum was a joke in the juniors and there was relief and laughter when he got kicked into the top flight. He hasn't improved.

Well done to Billy Dodds his management team and all the players for their great effort to hang on throughout the 120 minutes plus the penalty shoot out to see our team through to the final play off next week.  Playing against 12 men is difficult!  

 

It appears that Willie Collum also reports for the BBC.  This is what the BBC report said about Devine's red card.  "The visitors were reduced to 10 men when Devine contested a high ball with Jack Hamilton and the defender pulled the Arbroath frontman to the ground as he looked to race clear."  

Brilliant spirit from the lads winning in such difficult circumstances.  My thoughts are with Shane who was obviously in a lot of pain and looks to have sustained a pretty serious injury.  

Brilliant outcome to another inept Willie Collum showing. Defended brilliantly and whilst we didn’t do enough to win it in 120minutes, same can be said of Arbroath.

Couple of points re the Young fans behind the goal, your support of the team was magnificent and really helps, but please stop with the throwing things onto the pitch, what on earth do you get from it? All that happens is the club get fined, and to be honest I cringe at that behaviour, and like to think we are better than that as a club.  Really unnecessary.

Yeah that looked a really nasty one for Shane, hopefully he’s back in time for the start of next season.

So, what goes 11, 10, 9, 8, 9, 10, 9, BOOM!

I think Billy's emotional interview tells its own story in how we all feel

And to it against the odds AGAIN (Remember Hearts in 2014 anyone?) makes it all the more special 😀.

Don't know how to feel after that. Delighted to get through; furious with the refereeing 'performance'; concerned with our performance; worried if we'll have enough players to field a team in the final; pissed off with the 'fans' hurling missiles on the pitch; gutted for shane;  proud of the defensive display; impressed by the determination of the players; ...

All emotions in a day in the life of a Jaggie ! ❤️🖤

11 minutes ago, CaleyTennis said:

 

And to it against the odds AGAIN (Remember Hearts in 2014 anyone?) makes it all the more special 😀.

Now we need to go one better than the class of 2014 and win the final!

Shocking refereeing deprives us of Duffy and, subject to an appeal we should win, Devine for the first leg.

It looks like we have lost Sutherland too.

Somehow though I’m starting to think we may just do this. I’m scared to be optimistic but we have great team spirit and the feeling of wanting to overcome adversity may just get us through this.

Well done to all!

My nerves are shredded, but what a feeling. Also a feeling of deja vu, remember the Hearts game? play a team in maroon, we are down to nine men, they can't take advantage of having two men extra, we defend like crazy in extra time, and we win it on penalties. Campbell said something like arbroath had 600 passes to our 200 or so, but does he not understand that passes don't win games, goals, or in our case, penalties do. How Gollum gets away with some of the decisions he makes, is unbelievable. Michael Stewart had him sussed with his comments on Gollum. It always has to be the Willie Gollum show, but try as he did, he just couldn't get arbroath over the line. I really hope we can at least bring in some youth team players, to fill the bench, or we are going to have to rely on agents Rooney and McCart to win the next one! Well done all at ICT, you made a happy man very old! 

Random thoughts:

1) Are there still referee supervisors in Scotland?  That is, someone sitting in the stand, observing and reporting to the SFA on the performance of the referee and other officials.  If so, what would they make of last night?  VAR is hugely controversial, but last night surely strengthens the case for it.

2) Was surprised and disappointed that Samuels was substituted at half-time.  Hoofing long balls in his direction hadn't worked, but might have worked a lot better in the second half when playing with the wind.  Even the commentators said so.  He has to start next week - he has stature, and also acceleration.

3) Shane Sutherland - looked a bad one - I wonder if we will see him again.  Two things came to mind - at best, dislocated kneecap, but at worst, anterior cruciate ligament.  6 weeks or so for the kneecap, 6 to 9 months for the ligament.

4) Kirk Broadfoot - earlier in this thread we were saying that he had been poor recently.  So he takes the Man of the Match award, and scores the winning penalty.  What do we know?

5) Not being able to immediately replace an injured player is daft.  The rule - subs can be made on no more than 3 occasions plus half-time during the 90 minutes - needs to be amended to allow replacement of injured players.  Mind you, that would be misused - "Hey Jimmy!  You're injured - come off!" - so just scrap it.

Thank you Willie Collum. 

Magnificent result against the odds. Players looked absolutely drained at the end...apart from Mark Ridgers. 

We now play a side that drew in Turkey with Galatasary in the Europa League in August. Quite an achievement for our players to be on the same pitch as the St Johnstone players in the SPFL play off games.  Hope we have 11 fit players for the two games. Not sure if Tom Walsh will be allowed by the SPFL to play on crutches.

Hope Shane is not too badly injured.

 

Well Done to the players, management, travelling fans and everyone connected to the club last night.

I too, felt I was back in 2014 as the number of players on the pitch kept reducing, but it made the victory all the sweeter. 

Keep on Believing!

I say, well done all the players last night with total commitment.

Great support from the fans also.

But the few idiots who threw items on to the pitch, wise up!! 😠

Edited May 14, 20224 yr by No Shin Guards
I say, Typo

Great spirit, determination and organisation from the team and management. Horrible conditions and pitch limited any football so was delighted to see the penalties which were taken with aplomb. Well done young Cammy with his spot kick - big pressure on such a young lad and as for Kirk! balls of steel! 

8 hours ago, Yngwie said:

So, what goes 11, 10, 9, 8, 9, 10, 9, BOOM!

 A man and his dog going to mow a meadow.

What a result, fantastic penalties, I was almost in tears at the end of that.

Conditions terrible for a  decent game, wind spoiled it, pitch poor, which fortunately also nullified any threat from Arbroath bar one chance (I think they had 24 shots but only 2 on target) fair play to them they got in our faces and we couldn't play any sort of passing game, but even running with the ball was tough the way the ball bobbled around

Willie Collum is a terrible advert for Scottish referees, how he sent of Devine is beyond me, Duffy very unlucky , he was done for a bit of a lunge despite clear getting all of the ball and barely any of their player who made a meal of it. Hope we can appeal Devine because the defence has been excellent.

Good news is we will have two decent pitches to play on. bad news is we will miss Shane [and Walsh], Good news is in Chalmers, Doran, Mckay and Samuels we have players who can do some damage to St Jonhstone [ if we keep the ball on the deck]  Will Allardice play a part, and is there anyway we can wheel MacGregor out? As we will need everyone we have over two legs

Special mention to Hardy for that great run in the 2nd half, if he had got the ball on target, that might have been goal of the season...think he will play a decent part over two games

And well done Broadfoot, for MOTM performance, who must now have two black eyes!

Can we keep all the players on the pitch for the next two games? and NO objects on the pitch! [Great turn out though]

Tickets on sale for Friday. Hopefully we can get a big crowd for our biggest match in years:

https://ictfc.com/premiership-play-off-final-1st-leg-tickets-on-sale-now

Wish now I’d recorded that, what a night. Just out of ma scratcher and emotionally drained. Never seen Gayfield like that, cars parked all the way to the harbour and beyond.

Apart from a short spell when Devine went off I never felt we were losing this. Arbroath offered very little and ICT defended as if their lives depended on it.  Like @IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER I thought we’d start playing if we got to half time level but the pitch must have been worse than it looked. The wind dropped too. Shout out to @alternative maryhill if you caught the train but missed the drama! Might have been different if wee Joe had finished his miracle run at the death…

Just a question of whether to eat the smokies now or keep them for later.

I'm quietly reflecting on another night of high drama in the topsy/turvy history of our beloved ICT.  Surprisingly, I slept quite well, due to, I'm sure, the several drams consumed during the game to keep me calm, and a couple afterwards in celebration.

My informal Berkshire branch of the ICT fan club were in constant touch throughout the game, mostly in castigating that apology for a referee, Willie Collum.   Next Friday at least 10 of us are all playing in one of our golf club's important annual competitions, which finishes with a dinner at 6pm.  Great timing for us all to stay on at the club and watch the match v ST J, together.

Anyway, another memorable night in store, I hope.   Congratulations to the whole team and management for last night's magnificent, backs to the wall, performance

Well well, the morning after the night before.

Firstly, it's impossible to ignore the elephant in the room, or should that be the donkey on the pitch, how that man can be regarded as our best official by anyone other than the egotistical W Collum is utterly beyond me.

The man is a disgrace and I genuinely can't decide whether he is genuinely biased or merely hopelessly incompetent.

He was right that Devine was the last man, he was right that a foul had been committed but it was blatantly obvious that Devine was the victim of the foul rather than the perpetrator. As far as Duffy's second yellow is concerned, he made a textbook clean tackle winning the ball which Collum very clearly saw nothing wrong with until he was influenced by the antics of the Arbroath player writhing on the ground.

He ruined any chance of the match being a spectacle and made our position almost  although as it turns out, not quite impossible.

Like many others, when we went down to 9 men my mind immediately turned to Easter Road 2014.

What an amazingly commited and resilient performance from the lads after that that left my heart sometimes in my mouth but more often bursting with pride

Make no mistake, we rode our luck but deserved to and in the end deserved to win.

I was one of those calling for Broadfoot to be 'rested' for this game and I don't mind admitting that I was entirely wrong. Man of the match for me and not just for his coolly taken decisive penalty but, saying that, they were all heroes.

The fans were magnificent too apart, it has to be said from the idiots throwing objects onto the pitch. It's illegal, embarrassing and utterly juvenile. We value your noisy and enthusiastic support but if you are going to behave like that I, for one, would prefer that you stayed at home.

The final will be a challenge with so many injuries and suspensions and with those who are available thoroughly fatigued but we are there, we have a chance and we have shown over the years that when it comes to what is effectively a cup tie we are capable of upsetting the odds.

The dream lives on. This morning I am a happy and immensely proud ICT fan.

CTO Report