https://www.facebook.com/ICTFC

 

Club Statement

As one major part of our planned strategic restructure of the club, ICTFC are delighted to announce an innovative agreement with League 1 side Kelty Hearts which will see the club move our training base to the Fife club’s New Central Park Stadium.

This creative partnership will mean that we will hire their excellent facilities which include a 3g pitch, onsite grass pitches and offices for our coaching staff, as our training base during the week starting from this coming pre-season in June.

The last few years have seen the geographic challenges in getting players to move to the Highlands become ever harder for a number of reasons.

Caledonian Stadium will always be our home, but other factors in Scottish football have changed and where we train should not be an impediment to the quality of the players we can attract to Caley Thistle, or to our potential to progress.

The commercial success of the city of Inverness – which will always be our home - both as a tourist destination and a place to live, has led to very high prices for the accommodation we require to house players. In addition to these high costs which our competitors do not carry, the extremely limited housing stock in Inverness continues to be both a challenge and a huge factor working against us.

Increased playing budgets in and around the central belt has meant that on many occasions, even when we have offered players more favourable terms than our competitors, sometimes even agreed deals, we have then been told that the player has changed his mind due to challenges relocating their families. Support structures in and around the families of players may all be in and around the central belt, partners will have jobs where they live and moving kids schools to the Highlands and moving home itself can just be seen as impractical for a one or two year contract.

It makes it particularly challenging for us to sign senior players, a category which through no fault of our budget, or of previous ICT Managers, we have struggled to attract in the last few seasons.

Similarly, our location means that we miss out on the opportunity of signing promising players from the larger clubs in Scotland, on loan or otherwise.

For the avoidance of any doubt we absolutely intend to continue to develop our own homegrown Highland boys and we will take the appropriate steps to make sure that by being creative, innovative and practical, they do not miss out on the chance to have a pathway to first team football with their team. We have a proud tradition of introducing local players in to our first team and this will absolutely continue.

We obviously never intended to be in the same division as Kelty when originally exploring this concept, but football throws strange things at you sometimes and having reassessed the proposition and judged that the pros still far outweigh the cons, we would like to thank the Board of Kelty Hearts and MD Stefan Winiarski and his management team for considering this unique to the SPFL partnership, and then seeing and agreeing on the possibilities and benefits for both clubs.

To reiterate, by moving our footballing department's training base to central Scotland, both the club's Board of Directors and the club's First Team Management feel we give ourselves the best possible chance to attract the highest quality players to the club, allowing some of the players we sign to also live in and around the central belt while playing for ICTFC.

We now look forward to taking further positive strides on and off the pitch to address the football and financial challenges we face we believe this exciting opportunity to help us attract players previously not available to us and build a better squad, is one of the first steps we can make and we hope to develop further innovative partnerships.

Inverness is and will always be our home.

The Caledonian Stadium will always be where we play our football. We hope this venture will help us achieve our goal in giving our supporters a team to be proud of.

Edited May 24, 20242 yr by The Mantis

5 minutes ago, Fraz said:

All options are valid. An echo chamber is never a good thing. 

If you feel the current regime are right with their stellar record of -  failed concerts, failed live streaming, awful commentary on said live stream, alienating the volunteer media team, souring the relationship with the local authority, failed battery farm application, employing Robertson as a Sporting Director (we're still paying him) where he did virtually nothing, extending Dodds' contract then sacking him 6 games later, promoting Raise the Roof and then closing the stand, releasing a WATP orange strip on the 12th of July, paying Ferguson £4k a week with a past record of failure (then failed to keep us up when the manager we turned down kept his team up), failed hospitality, ignoring and alienating the Supporters Trust, damaging our reputation with local businesses, having our lowest finish in a quarter century, stopping all family activities like Christmas parties and end of season events, not having player of the year, having no openness or even basic communication...

If you think after all they've achieved in the last 5 years, they're the ones who have the answers, that's your perogative.

That is a very good summary! Brilliant infact 

3 minutes ago, FrontRow said:

That is a very good summary! Brilliant infact 

I can't take all the credit, much of it came from Sandy Sutherland on Twitter. 

23 minutes ago, Fraz said:

All options are valid. An echo chamber is never a good thing. 

If you feel the current regime are right with their stellar record of -  failed concerts, failed live streaming, awful commentary on said live stream, alienating the volunteer media team, souring the relationship with the local authority, failed battery farm application, employing Robertson as a Sporting Director (we're still paying him) where he did virtually nothing, extending Dodds' contract then sacking him 6 games later, promoting Raise the Roof and then closing the stand, releasing a WATP orange strip on the 12th of July, paying Ferguson £4k a week with a past record of failure (then failed to keep us up when the manager we turned down kept his team up), failed hospitality, ignoring and alienating the Supporters Trust, damaging our reputation with local businesses, having our lowest finish in a quarter century, stopping all family activities like Christmas parties and end of season events, not having player of the year, having no openness or even basic communication...

If you think after all they've achieved in the last 5 years, they're the ones who have the answers, that's your perogative.

That's just the stuff we know about.

3 hours ago, STFU said:

Talking of busses.  That will be another local long term backer (D&E Coaches) getting the two fingers as we'll now be giving money to a central belt based coach company to drive the team to all games.

If it is D&E it will be empty coach down the A9, team coach up the A9, Team coach back down the A9 and empty coach back up the A9 for a home game four trips double the cost!  And our local derby with Cove via Kelty to pick up the team!

We will have to hire a team coach for home and away games so I think it will be Gardiners Coaches from Fife 

Just thinking,the current Chair, CEO and board are destroying our club and identity.If all of them are happy with this move then we need to know, or is there any of them unhappy enough to call an EGM.

Now aware of the extent of discontent,cognisance has to be taken of this body of strong opinion.

Failing that,we as supporters need to act and all we can do is not renew our season tickets.This is the only way we can stop the demise of ICT.Surely if the board see that season tickets are dramatically down, they will rethink and U turn.

Whatever the outcome of this latest debacle, the Chair and CEO need to go.We cannot just stand by and watch. 

36 minutes ago, Douglas Mackenzie said:

Just thinking,the current Chair, CEO and board are destroying our club and identity.If all of them are happy with this move then we need to know, or is there any of them unhappy enough to call an EGM.

Now aware of the extent of discontent,cognisance has to be taken of this body of strong opinion.

Failing that,we as supporters need to act and all we can do is not renew our season tickets.This is the only way we can stop the demise of ICT.Surely if the board see that season tickets are dramatically down, they will rethink and U turn.

Whatever the outcome of this latest debacle, the Chair and CEO need to go.We cannot just stand by and watch. 

Sadly I don’t think there’s a chance in hell they will do a U turn. 

9 hours ago, Drake said:

We can finally attract any Central Scotland based player that we can afford.  

No we can't!

Why would any central belt player choose to join a club which requires players to face a 3 hour journey to play "home" games followed by a 3 hour journey back - in the middle of winter?  We will only be able to attract central belt players who can't get a contract at a club which is based in the area where the ground is.

And we might not be able to afford to offer them as much as we would if we were based at home.  Apart from the significant loss of gate money that this absurd plan will result in, there will be significant additional costs in hiring the facilities at Kelty and in relocation and travelling costs.

More importantly, this move will likely mean we can only sign central Scotland based players.  Players who are currently based in Inverness won't want to move South in order to play for Inverness!  The idea is preposterous.   Players from elsewhere are not going to relocate to the central belt to be close to the training facilities of a club which is actually located 3 hours away.  We will be a team stuffed with central belt rejects with no connection with Inverness and who will be off as soon as they get a better offer.

The absurdity of this is compounded by the fact that central belt players have never featured particularly strongly in Inverness teams over the years.  Dip into your copy of "Milestones and Memories" and look at the biographies of the 25 players who made the most appearances for the club up to 2019. Only 3 came to us from central belt teams  (Barry Wilson, Bobby Mann and Mark Brown.  Also, Mike Teasdale came to us from Dundee but he was from Elgin and wanted to play closer to home.  We had 2 or 3 from Aberdeen (e.g. Dennis Wyness) but most were either local or were signed from English clubs.  Other key players for us over years who didn't make the list include David Raven, Jonny Hayes, Adam Rooney and, of course, Billy Mckay, who were all signed from English clubs, and local talent in the form of Ryan Christie and Mark Ridgers.  

Of  course "Milestones and Memories" is a great reminder of all the brilliant achievements of this club before Gardiner arrived.  Top of the list has to be winning the Scottish Cup.  It is worth noting that only one of the entire matchday squad (Danny Devine) joined us from a Central Belt club.

Our club has never relied upon Central Belt players for its success and there is no reason why it should now.  To embark on a strategy which will likely mean we can only recruit Central Belt players, and then only those who can't get a contract elsewhere, seems to me to be the height of folly.

 

14 minutes ago, jagster said:

Sadly I don’t think there’s a chance in hell they will do a U turn. 

Especially when it is a done deal, contract signed.

Doofers Dad  makes a great deal of sense every time he posts. Perhaps the pathetic individuals on the board should take a good look at his comments and come to their senses before it is too late. Our club will be a laughing stock in Scotland and beyond if this ridiculous state of affairs is allowed to continue. It is bad enough moving everything to Fife but what makes it even worse is that Ferguson and Gardiner are still there when it is obvious to almost everyone that they are the real problem. 

 

Absolutely no c**t of any worth will be signing for this club under the current shambolic regime, be it in Sneck, Kelty, or Timbuktu.

32 minutes ago, DoofersDad said:

No we can't!

Why would any central belt player choose to join a club which requires players to face a 3 hour journey to play "home" games followed by a 3 hour journey back - in the middle of winter?  We will only be able to attract central belt players who can't get a contract at a club which is based in the area where the ground is.

And we might not be able to afford to offer them as much as we would if we were based at home.  Apart from the significant loss of gate money that this absurd plan will result in, there will be significant additional costs in hiring the facilities at Kelty and in relocation and travelling costs.

More importantly, this move will likely mean we can only sign central Scotland based players.  Players who are currently based in Inverness won't want to move South in order to play for Inverness!  The idea is preposterous.   Players from elsewhere are not going to relocate to the central belt to be close to the training facilities of a club which is actually located 3 hours away.  We will be a team stuffed with central belt rejects with no connection with Inverness and who will be off as soon as they get a better offer.

The absurdity of this is compounded by the fact that central belt players have never featured particularly strongly in Inverness teams over the years.  Dip into your copy of "Milestones and Memories" and look at the biographies of the 25 players who made the most appearances for the club up to 2019. Only 3 came to us from central belt teams  (Barry Wilson, Bobby Mann and Mark Brown.  Also, Mike Teasdale came to us from Dundee but he was from Elgin and wanted to play closer to home.  We had 2 or 3 from Aberdeen (e.g. Dennis Wyness) but most were either local or were signed from English clubs.  Other key players for us over years who didn't make the list include David Raven, Jonny Hayes, Adam Rooney and, of course, Billy Mckay, who were all signed from English clubs, and local talent in the form of Ryan Christie and Mark Ridgers.  

Of  course "Milestones and Memories" is a great reminder of all the brilliant achievements of this club before Gardiner arrived.  Top of the list has to be winning the Scottish Cup.  It is worth noting that only one of the entire matchday squad (Danny Devine) joined us from a Central Belt club.

Our club has never relied upon Central Belt players for its success and there is no reason why it should now.  To embark on a strategy which will likely mean we can only recruit Central Belt players, and then only those who can't get a contract elsewhere, seems to me to be the height of folly.

 

Erm, the reason we have not relied heavily on central belt players is because they won’t flipping move away from their homes, that’s the problem! You might not trust SG, fair enough, but do you think our previous managers were all lying when they have told us this over the years?
 

You also mention Bobby Mann, one of my heroes, an example of how we can recruit. We tempted him north with the opportunity of full time football and it worked out well but he jumped ship at the first opportunity to go back down the road to his wife, despite helping us to the Premier league.

We had great success recruiting from the lower reaches of the English system instead, but the next Warren or Tansey is not going to relocate to play League 1 football in an astroturf based part time league that gets pretty much no media coverage. And in terms of persuading players to relocate, there’s also a huge difference between being able to offer £1,500 a week, to £1,000 a week, to £500 a week - the pond we fish in becomes a puddle!

Is there any chance that this could be ICT trying to play politics by trying to embarrass the Highland Council?
 

The hope being that by arguing that it’s too difficult/expensive to compete being based in the Highlands that it leverages enough pressure through fan and media indignation and incredulity (tick…) that the Council will intervene and perhaps push through on the battery farm, or more?  
 

It’s a helluva Hail Mary to throw if so.

Drew Hendry gives the fans his support will Douglas Ross be next?

SNP politician Drew Hendry calls for Inverness Caley Thistle to rethink Fife training move decision (inverness-courier.co.uk)

Welcome intervention from a Jambo.

5 minutes ago, IBM said:

Drew Hendry gives the fans his support will Douglas Ross be next?

SNP politician Drew Hendry calls for Inverness Caley Thistle to rethink Fife training move decision (inverness-courier.co.uk)

If politicians want to help they could

1. Get serious about dualling the A9

2. Make sure the battery farm gets approved 

Hi everyone,

I’m Jack, I was the Kitman for Caley between 2015 and 2022. 
 

To see where this club is going just saddens me. Unfortunately I was part of the relegation from the Premiership in 2017 and was part of the sides that just couldn’t make that final hurdle to get back up for all those years (I’ve always believed that the season that was curtailed by Covid we would have got promoted through the playoffs).

I feel so sorry for the members of the back room staff, who I still call friends, whose futures at the club will be in serious doubt now. I know for sure that if I was still at the club there would be no chance of me relocating to Fife.

Who knows how this move to Kelty will go, I’m pretty certain having been involved in dressing rooms for over 10 years that it will be incredibly difficult to instil a strong team spirit at a training ground that to the players will feel like being a stranger in someone else’s home, 140 miles away from the city you are supposed to be representing. 

I loved working for Caley. I loved how relaxed it all was, how kind everyone was. It felt like a place where everyone looked out for each other. I know it’s cliche but it really did feel like a family. It was never perfect but you felt like you belonged to something that mattered. Somewhere along the line all that has been lost and that breaks my heart. I hope it all works out for the best and the club can return to something resembling an institution that Caley fans can be proud of. Unfortunately right now, I just can’t see that happening anytime soon.

 

 

 

 

Edited May 25, 20242 yr by Themidgetmaestro

12 minutes ago, IBM said:

Drew Hendry gives the fans his support will Douglas Ross be next?

SNP politician Drew Hendry calls for Inverness Caley Thistle to rethink Fife training move decision (inverness-courier.co.uk)

Politicians EH !  scratching around for votes.

if he knew anything about camper vans, that would be handy to get the players up for home games.

23 minutes ago, IBM said:

Drew Hendry gives the fans his support will Douglas Ross be next?

SNP politician Drew Hendry calls for Inverness Caley Thistle to rethink Fife training move decision (inverness-courier.co.uk)

Can't be bothered with politicians tbh. They're all only in it for themselves!

12 minutes ago, Themidgetmaestro said:

Hi everyone,

I’m Jack, I was the Kitman for Caley between 2015 and 2022. 
 

To see where this club is going just saddens me. Unfortunately I was part of the relegation from the Premiership in 2017 and was part of the sides that just couldn’t make that final hurdle to get back up for all those years (I’ve always believed that the season that was curtailed by Covid we would have got promoted through the playoffs).

I feel so sorry for the members of the back room staff, who I still call friends, whose futures at the club will be in serious doubt now. I know for sure that if I was still at the club there would be no chance of me relocating to Fife.

Who knows how this move to Kelty will go, I’m pretty certain having been involved in dressing rooms for over 10 years that it will be incredibly difficult to instil a strong team spirit at a training ground that to the players will feel like being a stranger in someone else’s home, 140 miles away from the city you are supposed to be representing. 

I loved working for Caley. I loved how relaxed it all was, how kind everyone was. It felt like a place where everyone looked out for each other. I know it’s cliche but it really did feel like a family. It was never perfect but you felt like you belonged to something that mattered. Somewhere along the line all that has been lost and that breaks my heart. I hope it all works out for the best and the club can return to something resembling an institution that Caley fans can be proud of. Unfortunately right now, I just can’t see that happening anytime soon.

 

 

 

 

Thanks for your post Jack I am sure there will be a lot like yourself who have been involved with the club over the years who will be wondering what is going to happen to our club.  I can see you have your doubts as many posting on here I just hope with enough fan pressure this might change but I don't see the powers at be changing their minds.

37 minutes ago, Yngwie said:

Erm, the reason we have not relied heavily on central belt players is because they won’t flipping move away from their homes, that’s the problem! You might not trust SG, fair enough, but do you think our previous managers were all lying when they have told us this over the years?
 

You also mention Bobby Mann, one of my heroes, an example of how we can recruit. We tempted him north with the opportunity of full time football and it worked out well but he jumped ship at the first opportunity to go back down the road to his wife, despite helping us to the Premier league.

We had great success recruiting from the lower reaches of the English system instead, but the next Warren or Tansey is not going to relocate to play League 1 football in an astroturf based part time league that gets pretty much no media coverage. And in terms of persuading players to relocate, there’s also a huge difference between being able to offer £1,500 a week, to £1,000 a week, to £500 a week - the pond we fish in becomes a puddle!

Nobody is disputing that it is hard to get players from the central belt to move to Inverness.  But given that our previous success has generally been achieved with very few central belt players, that fact that central belt based players don't want to move here is simply not the massive problem that the club are making it out to be.  But however big the problem actually is, adopting a model which relies on recruiting central belt based players who don't want to live in Inverness, whilst effectively precluding players who do want to live in Inverness, does not seem to be the solution.

27 minutes ago, Themidgetmaestro said:

Hi everyone,

I’m Jack, I was the Kitman for Caley between 2015 and 2022. 
 

To see where this club is going just saddens me. Unfortunately I was part of the relegation from the Premiership in 2017 and was part of the sides that just couldn’t make that final hurdle to get back up for all those years (I’ve always believed that the season that was curtailed by Covid we would have got promoted through the playoffs).

I feel so sorry for the members of the back room staff, who I still call friends, whose futures at the club will be in serious doubt now. I know for sure that if I was still at the club there would be no chance of me relocating to Fife.

Who knows how this move to Kelty will go, I’m pretty certain having been involved in dressing rooms for over 10 years that it will be incredibly difficult to instil a strong team spirit at a training ground that to the players will feel like being a stranger in someone else’s home, 140 miles away from the city you are supposed to be representing. 

I loved working for Caley. I loved how relaxed it all was, how kind everyone was. It felt like a place where everyone looked out for each other. I know it’s cliche but it really did feel like a family. It was never perfect but you felt like you belonged to something that mattered. Somewhere along the line all that has been lost and that breaks my heart. I hope it all works out for the best and the club can return to something resembling an institution that Caley fans can be proud of. Unfortunately right now, I just can’t see that happening anytime soon.

 

 

 

 

Sorry jack, Caley ceased to exist long before 2017. 
you worked for Inverness Caledonian Thistle. Or as I call them Inverness.

15 minutes ago, bishbashbosh said:

Sorry jack, Caley ceased to exist long before 2017. 
you worked for Inverness Caledonian Thistle. Or as I call them Inverness.

Caley , Inverness, Thistle , jags call it as u like . Much more going on the now than being petty .

1 hour ago, bishbashbosh said:

Sorry jack, Caley ceased to exist long before 2017. 
you worked for Inverness Caledonian Thistle. Or as I call them Inverness.

Wow, you must have been really struggling to say their name between 94 and 96 then.

I found this quite funny tbh 😀