I am fairly certain that most fans/posters on here know that at the end of this season there is likely to be a mass exodus of players leaving so my simple question is, would you rather we replaced them with experienced players or youngsters because I am clearly in the youngsters camp but would also believe that we may need some experienced players no matter what league we're in but especially if we're in league 1 which is the worst case scenario but also the most likely unless we can win our 6 pointers against Arbroath, Queens Park and Dunfermline 🤔.

I don't know who's here for next season but I would imagine that the key ones to retain if at all possible are Billy McKay and Mark Ridgers : ictscarf:

33 minutes ago, tm4tj said:

You would almost think they were doing this to spite us all for disapproving the move to Kelty and asking Gardiner to leave because our club is being ruined. This is unprecedented crass behaviour. Are they bringing the game of football into disrepute? Shocking performance from those within who have done irreperable damage to the brand.

I have never been so disengaged from anything in my life. Not sure I can stomach much more of this.

That's exactly what it feels like. Surely no club could be so clueless and incompetent as to act this way. The only reasonable explanation is that this is by design. It's made even more ridiculous as most fans are looking for some positivity, some kind of reason to reconnect, get their season tickets, to buy the merch. However the club refuse to communicate anything to fans (or players for that matter) regarding, well anything at all. Utterly bizarre and pathetic in equal measure. 

According to wikipedia our squad as of 24th June is as follows.

No. Pos. Nation Player 6 DF  NIR Danny Devine 7 MF  SCO Charlie Gilmour 9 FW  NIR Billy Mckay (captain) 11 FW  ENG Austin Samuels 12 MF  SCO Roddy MacGregor 14 DF  SCO Jake Davidson 17 DF  SCO Lewis Nicolson 18 FW  ENG Harry Lodovica 19 MF  ENG Luis Longstaff 23 FW  SCO Ethan Cairns

No. Pos. Nation Player 24 FW  SCO Adam Brooks 25 MF  SCO Calum MacKay 26 DF  SCO Matthew Strachan 28 MF  SCO Keith Bray 29 MF  SCO Robbie Thompson 31 MF  SCO Calum MacLeod 32 DF  SCO Sam Nixon 33 DF  SCO Jack Walker 34 DF  ENG Remi Savage 44 DF  AUS Nikola Ujdur

I have no idea if it is correct but it is certainly more accurate than the club's own website.

Club Board meeting tomorrow to decide which of the directors is going to give Mark Ridgers a call.

MacGregor and Samuels for one are both out of contract and have essentially left the club. Allegedly so have folk like Ryan Esson.

With every passing day I get more and more angered by the utter contempt those in charge at ICT seem to hold the fans in. We've had no communication for weeks and then they pop up to say "Give us some money!" before slithering off again. We only find out that players are leaving because other clubs announce they are signing them and / or they announce it themselves on social media. 

The way supporters and players have been treated over the last few months is despicable (as mentioned before here). I genuinely don't think that anyone left at the club cares. If they do they have a funny way of showing it. As a result, I don't give a f'ck about the club right now and I certainly won't be parting with any of my hard earned cash to buy a strip or anything else whilst fans continue to be held in low esteem. Those in charge are riding this club into the ground and part of me thinks there are some who are enjoying it.

Edited June 25, 20241 yr by RiG

Can't sign players if we don't have money to pay them.

Just now, STFU said:

Can't sign players if we don't have money to pay them.

If the Company is not a going concern legally, the Directors should stop trading.  

The club is in limbo just now, nobody seems to be in charge and it has very little money. Nothing is going to change for the better unless or until the proposed new investment comes in.

 

From the limited info available, here's my educated guess at what Caley Thistle's retained/released list would look like pic.twitter.com/xfuBRg4OTu

— Narey's Toepoker (@Nareystoepoker) June 25, 2024

 

Argh, somehow I left Ridgers off the released list

 

 

Edited June 25, 20241 yr by hislopsoffsideagain

The thing about all this is, the fans want to support the club.  People want to buy tickets, they want to just support a normal club.  All the board need to do is not be petulent, incompetent, puffed up small-town losers but they can't because that's what they are.

1 hour ago, Yngwie said:

The club is in limbo just now, nobody seems to be in charge and it has very little money. Nothing is going to change for the better unless or until the proposed new investment comes in.

We all understand the club is in limbo and more investment is needed for us to be viable for the current situation, but that does not in any way excuse the club's reprehensible behaviour towards its own staff and supporters.  Indeed, it actually makes it even more inappropriate.  With the exception of Morrison, all the Board are still in place and the CEO is still there.  Between them, there is surely enough knowledge and manpower to ensure basic communications and decencies are carried out.  There should also be sufficient common sense to understand that their own abject communication failures are making the task of rescuing the club far more difficult.  Their behaviour is causing them to lose players who actually want to be here and will undoubtedly strongly discourage others who may have been interested in playing for us. It is also stopping fans and sponsors from putting much needed money into the club and, quite probably, the larger investors we so urgently need.  Their behaviour is consistent with a group of people who actually want the club to fold.  Any hope that the "hugely promising discussions" mentioned in their June 14th statement will produce any sort of future for the club are disappearing by the minute.  

 

13 hours ago, IBM said:

Big Dunc has likely got a jobber lined up from down south.

He will be hard pushed to find a bigger jobber than his own son. 
Maybe Cameron can don the gloves and be Ridgers replacement after all he is a big lad and could be quite a presence in the box because of his height. 
Sounds ludicrous I know but it’s getting to the worryingly desperate stage. 
 

Dougal

I really hope that these posts are being transmitted to the Board and the realisation that the comments are being made by very loyal, longstanding individuals. I am sad to say that like RIG I am completely cheesed off with ICT and the manner in which they appear to think that we are all happy leaving the future of the club in their hands. I simply feel like a complete outsider at the illmoment, being kept totally in the dark. Annan is a 2 hour drive for me but I  worried that my frustrations will explode.

 

1 hour ago, DoofersDad said:

With the exception of Morrison, all the Board are still in place and the CEO is still there.  Between them, there is surely enough knowledge and manpower to ensure basic communications and decencies are carried out.  There should also be sufficient common sense to understand that their own abject communication failures are making the task of rescuing the club far more difficult.

I'm tempted to suggest that everyone goes to the matches, but remains completely quiet all through.  Not a sound.  Let them see what radio silence is like.

Unfair on the players, of course, and totally unrealistic.  But maybe just a few minutes?

15 minutes ago, snorbens_caleyman said:

I'm tempted to suggest that everyone goes to the matches, but remains completely quiet all through.  Not a sound.  Let them see what radio silence is like.

Unfair on the players, of course, and totally unrealistic.  But maybe just a few minutes?

I'm sure the players, all seven of them will be fully understanding 👍

These titles must be on the board's bookshelves

• 'Babysitting' by King Herod*
• 'Whistleblowing' by Paula Vennels
• 'Public Transport' by Jeremy Clarkson
• 'Running a football club' by Scot Gardiner

The sorry, sorry fact of the matter is that even at his very best, even at his very happiest, SG made massive unforced errors (talked himself out of the Rangers job, got himself the heave-ho from Dundee for shirt sponsor debacle, got himself the heave-ho from Hearts for stand seats debacle). The last two he said were his greatest achievements!

Can you imagine how positively he is shaping things at ICT now that the bald man foiled Pixalot, too many acts foiled Concert Company, Norwegian accountants foiled Statkraft, Highland Council foiled Battery Farm, parochial fans foiled Kelty?  

You don't even have to second guess his mindset right now, he already told us (P&J)

What would your enemies say about you?

"I always liked a quote that I thought was from Sir Winston Churchill but it turns out it was from the great writer Victor Hugo: “You have enemies? Why, it is the story of every man who has done a great deed or created a new idea. Do not bother yourself about it; disdain.” So in short, I couldn’t care less. Disdain is good" (SG)

The board, whether out of ignorance, laziness, apathy, Stockholm syndrome, or all of above, continuing with him as their preferred agent are deserving of censure. All the bumpy, overgrown, precarious, pot-holed, highway-robbing, samaritan-abandoned, rock-falling, litter strewn, landslid, flooded, dim and dismal roads lead to SG.  The fact that Savage refuses to acknowledge him speaks volumes.

The chickens have come home to roost, but they can't get in the coop because SG has a wrong tree in it to bark up, a ball to drop, some milk to be spilt, a messenger to shoot, toothpaste to be put back in the tube, a rake to step on, an apple cart to upset, an old dog to teach new tricks to, a boat to rock, a dead horse to flog, and our chips to p*** on

 

*stolen from MidMorningMatters

Today's "Courier" is reporting that they contacted the club for an update on our out of contract players and received no reply.  Sadly, there is nothing surprising about that, but it is yet another example of the club hitting the self destruct button.  Even if the club simply responded to say "Sorry, but we're not in a position to provide an update just now." it would at least be communication.  To simply ignore a request for information from your local newspaper is rude, ignorant and self-defeating. To mis-quote from Churchill again: Never have so few done so much to p*ss off so many.

26 minutes ago, DoofersDad said:

Today's "Courier" is reporting that they contacted the club for an update on our out of contract players and received no reply.  Sadly, there is nothing surprising about that, but it is yet another example of the club hitting the self destruct button.  Even if the club simply responded to say "Sorry, but we're not in a position to provide an update just now." it would at least be communication.  To simply ignore a request for information from your local newspaper is rude, ignorant and self-defeating. To mis-quote from Churchill again: Never have so few done so much to p*ss off so many.

The young media guy Liam is controlled by what he can and can't post by SG 

6 minutes ago, bigterrybutcher said:

The young media guy Liam is controlled by what he can and can't post by SG 

Absolutely no criticism of Liam.  I am sure we all understand he can only put out what he is told to put out.

3 minutes ago, bigterrybutcher said:

The young media guy Liam is controlled by what he can and can't post by SG 

You have to feel for the ICT staff.  Six of them resigned because of the previous 'CEO' (not a CEO) Yvonne Crook.  Then who do they get after that? Snake oil salesman SG.  

I have every sympathy with the decent folk at the club such as Liam who have had to endure a long line of very suspect and dubious appointments as MDs/CEOs. 

In any normal functioning business when you have a situation where your leadership team have been removed from their roles then their access to any means of adversely affecting the running of the business are immediately terminated and they're escorted off the premises.  What we have here are people (on both the business and footballing side of the organisation ) who are essentially burning the club and its reputation to the ground on their way out the door. It strikes me as wanton corporate vandalism yet our board appear to be sitting back and letting them trash 30 years of goodwill and brand reputation.

Ask yourself what player in their right mind would willingly sign for us? What agent would advise his client to head North? What club would answer the phone to us if we were looking for loanees? 

It surely goes without saying that absolutely no good can come of a guy who's been run out of the club following an overwhelming show of fan power still pulling the strings in the boardroom - does anyone genuinely believe that he has the club's best interests at heart? Are the board really that naive?

Moreover, what on earth are we thinking in leaving a clueless football management team in situ to alienate the skeleton playing squad further? There's barely a player in the Fort George 14 they didn't screw over last season and the atmosphere must be poisonous.

We're an absolute bin fire and these guys are hosing petrol on the inferno. The whole sh1tshow simply beggars belief.    

43 minutes ago, ymip said:

It surely goes without saying that absolutely no good can come of a guy who's been run out of the club following an overwhelming show of fan power still pulling the strings in the boardroom - does anyone genuinely believe that he has the club's best interests at heart? Are the board really that naive?

I nearly said something similar earlier, but I was worried about the libel laws!

He is now in the classic "disgruntled employee" situation, which was always near the top of the list of security risks that I would discuss with my clients.  (Another one was over-reliance on one or more key members of staff - and we seem to have that situation as well.) 

It beggars belief that he is still there, presumably with access to all systems and information.  He should be out on gardening leave.

If he must be there to talk to external consultants or simply to bring the rest of the staff up to date, then all his computer system accounts should have been disabled, his phone taken off him, and he should be accompanied at all times.  If the law allowed it, I'd strap his hands into boxing gloves, too, so he couldn't use any equipment

1 hour ago, ymip said:

There's barely a player in the Fort George 14 they didn't screw over last season and the atmosphere must be poisonous.

We can only hope that, like with the fans, this horrendous situation is maybe cementing the bond between the players. I wouldn't blame any of them for jumping ship, but I hope they are managing to pull together and support each other. Same goes for other staff at the club.

3 hours ago, snorbens_caleyman said:

I nearly said something similar earlier, but I was worried about the libel laws!

He is now in the classic "disgruntled employee" situation, which was always near the top of the list of security risks that I would discuss with my clients.  (Another one was over-reliance on one or more key members of staff - and we seem to have that situation as well.) 

It beggars belief that he is still there, presumably with access to all systems and information.  He should be out on gardening leave.

If he must be there to talk to external consultants or simply to bring the rest of the staff up to date, then all his computer system accounts should have been disabled, his phone taken off him, and he should be accompanied at all times.  If the law allowed it, I'd strap his hands into boxing gloves, too, so he couldn't use any equipment

A colleague of mine handed in his notice and was essentially placed an office for a month with no laptop as they didn't want him to go to a competitor early but also didn't want him working for the company 

 

My last job was supposed to be 3 month notice, only worked 3 weeks of it. As painful as a transition period would be without him there (always going to be a need for some form of handover and delegating of responsibilities), surely it would have been better to have people volunteer to pick up the slack as those will be the people who care about the club.

 

 

According to the girlfriend of one of the players, Cameron Ferguson signed for the Club today. I’m sure it will be announced soon. 

Ryan Esson speaking to the P&J. Same story as everyone else. Shameful...

Esson’s exit from Inverness this summer was a sore one with one brief discussion with the club leading to no further contract talks.

He said: “No one contacted me to say that was me done at the football club and they were going in a different direction with different coaching staff coming in. That’s the real disappointment for me. But that’s football.”

16 minutes ago, CaleyCiuin said:

According to the girlfriend of one of the players, Cameron Ferguson signed for the Club today. I’m sure it will be announced soon. 

Well, I'm sure that was on merit. 

Forfar fans saying he's honking.