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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

9 minutes ago, DWH said:

Drastic action is needed: getting rid of Gardiner is not enough.  We need people in there and throughout the club who seek the best interests of ICT and nothing else

Dont forget the ability to pump endless tens of thousands of pounds regularly with no return. Not many of them running to be front of the queue to take the reigns.

3 hours ago, Achfary said:

The stadium/fan's bar

Only thing that he said in the pod that actually piqued my interest. Glad he's actually looking into revamping it, needs a vast overhaul to get people in well before the game. Current state its in just feels like a pint in that rarely-ever-used side hall of a Village Hall...

Just nothing about it currently puts it forward as a competitor to having a pint in the city center

1 hour ago, DWH said:

Drastic action is needed: getting rid of Gardiner is not enough.  We need people in there and throughout the club who seek the best interests of ICT and nothing else 

We are miles away from that just now. 

Call an EGM and appoint Kristine CEO, Chair of a one person board and first team manager?

2 hours ago, bdu98196 said:

Its also very clear this is a gamble and big roll of the dice to get back to the Championship at first time of asking,

There's been a few of these comments but remember, it's come as a surprise that we are in the same division as Kelty. This was happening even if we were in the Championship. It's not a response to relegation 

Edited May 31, 20242 yr by Starscape

3 hours ago, ymip said:

The other point that enrages me is his assertion that 90% of the people that he's spoken to outwith Inverness thinks this is a great idea. I don't know about anyone  else but I live outwith Inverness and have colleagues/mates at home and abroad who have all voiced an opinion on Gardiner's hare-brained scheme and not one person has suggested it's a good idea. Probably because they're generally football fans who understand that football is not simply a business venture and fans are inextricably connected to their club/city. A frankly delusional statement which  undermines his credibility.

I have seen two people in total online who are ICT fans who support this move. I can't count how many ICT fans have diametrically opposite viewpoints (including myself). Plenty of folk who are not football fans or not ICT fans saying 'whats the big deal' but almost to a man (or woman) they live south of Perth (as do the ICT fans who are in support of the move). 

 

1 hour ago, Charles Bannerman said:

Call an EGM and appoint Kristine CEO, Chair of a one person board and first team manager?

People like Kristine and the other hard-working staff at the stadium could likely do a better job, that's for sure and crucially, if they were out of their depth or needed assistance they would ask for - and get - help. Any time I have been over and popped round the stadium, it's been Kristine, Keith, Charlie or other folk I know who always have a cheery hello and time for a quick chat .... These buggers cost me hundreds in the club shop each time I have a conversation, as it gives the wife and son time to browse the merchandise!!!  Probably raised more money for the club that way than the CEO! 

41 minutes ago, Scotty said:

Plenty of folk who are not football fans or not ICT fans saying 'whats the big deal' but almost to a man (or woman) they live south of Perth (as do the ICT fans who are in support of the move).

My wife and I were in Stenhousemuir last weekend, visiting her relatives.  They are big Stenny fans, but they thought that the proposed move was a "disgrace" and a "joke".  The Warriors are very closely integrated into the community there.

And I'm about 450 miles south of Perth, and I'm certainly not in support of the move! 

3 hours ago, EvilWhiteStripe said:

Chairman and CEO gone??

And the manager too, please.

Loads of people saying that stuff has happened, nothing coming out.

When are our accounts due out?

I was in Edinburgh yesterday meeting retired work colleagues one Aberdeen supporter whose father played for them in the fifties, one Celtic supporter and a bluenose from Dundee who follow football and all thought it was a crazy idea 

18 minutes ago, ictchris said:

Loads of people saying that stuff has happened, nothing coming out.

When are our accounts due out?

The source is someone who was at an event in the stadium today. Gardiner and Morrison out, Kelty switch off. I imagine they are crossing i's and dotting t's at the moment before an announcement is made.

I may only make one game a year being 3600 miles away, but I'm not in support of the move!

P.S. Really jumped on to say thanks to all of you...been reading the forum for years as it's the only way to find out what's really happening day to day (not just the last few weeks)

36 minutes ago, ictchris said:

 

When are our accounts due out?

Today, but they are a year out of date as to the end of May last year. 

25 minutes ago, INVTONC78 said:

I may only make one game a year being 3600 miles away, but I'm not in support of the move!

P.S. Really jumped on to say thanks to all of you...been reading the forum for years as it's the only way to find out what's really happening day to day (not just the last few weeks)

I’m sure I’m not the only one hoping you have made a fortune in the USA and are looking to invest in ICT! 😀

1 hour ago, INVTONC78 said:

I may only make one game a year being 3600 miles away, but I'm not in support of the move!

P.S. Really jumped on to say thanks to all of you...been reading the forum for years as it's the only way to find out what's really happening day to day (not just the last few weeks)

You are in my time zone I think, just a bit further south (of the border).  We've got a fair few on here residing outside the UK so dont hesitate to jump in ... 

 

1 hour ago, Yngwie said:

I’m sure I’m not the only one hoping you have made a fortune in the USA and are looking to invest in ICT! 😀

Not with Ross Morrison's telephone antics they won't. Be fighting over who didn't phone who back

6 hours ago, Charles Bannerman said:

Call an EGM and appoint Kristine CEO, Chair of a one person board and first team manager?

Was an opinion piece in P&J yesterday by Mike Edwards (a former STV journey) headlined

"Where Inverness Caley Thistle trains is irrelevant, so bring on Kelty move"

It had the sub-headline of:  To get out of this league and back into the running for a tilt at the big time requires radical plans.

Having never heard of him before, his Wikipedia lists many impressive accolades and philanthropic work.  

That said, this P&J article opinion column was very poor. It came across as incredibly conceited:

"You should have seen the look on many football managers' faces when I turned up to meet them in the three-piece suit they'd seen me wearing on the TV news the night before while outside the High Court."

The actual argument in Mike's op-ed price was that Jim Jeffries told him Kilmarnock FC trained at the University of Glasgow facilities.

"I was perplexed.  I always thought provincial Scottish football clubs had to be part and parcel of their local communities"

• Mike:  You can drive from Kilmarnock to Glasgow in thirty minutes.  Just about the same time as it takes to drive from Inverness to Fort George... 

The article was poor in other respects.  His deep 'love' of football was on show:

"Once we'd got the dreary business of his injury-depleted squad and the formation and system he'd [Jim Jeffries at Killie] deploy on a Saturday out of the way, we got chatting..." (perhaps about his three-piece suit and its appearance at the high court the night before?)

And the chat with Jim did not leave Mike at all impressed:

"He was amiable enough, but I wouldn't want him on my team in a pub quiz"

I initially assumed it was Mike's perception of Jim Jefferies' general knowledge that put him off, but it could just as easily have been Jim's attire, or perhaps his choice of evening TV...

Most revealing - and the only interesting or insightful part of this entire pompous and vain puff piece -  was that Mike apparently emailed ICT two years ago and offered to be a director, dangling the princely sum of £475,000 as a long-term, interest free loan as the carrot.  He got no response. 

Anyway, before the club scrambles to fish out that email and call off the Kelty move (or more likely, as the jilted lover, get in there and dump Fife Council before they dump us), Mike has since invested the sum into buying up holiday homes in the area instead, and the rent pleases him.  

To be fair, I may have totally mis-read Mike, as I didn't understand many of the words he uses, such as 'imbroglio', cri de coeur or 'contretemp'.  

There have been too many like Mike  - namely Graham Rae, and now it seems, Ross Morrison - who see ICT as a personal plaything where only their (usually harebrained) idea is the right idea, where if it seems right to them, it must be right everywhere, and where the real, generational support is treated as a nuisance, as in this opinion piece.

Hiring Yvonne Crook and Scot Gardiner as CEOs - both completely laughable and indefensible hires  - are warnings ahead:  how can the Supporters Trust and the club be emboldened to protect ICT's scarce resources in future from these vainglorious types and their nepotism?  

15 hours ago, IBM said:

I was in Edinburgh yesterday meeting retired work colleagues one Aberdeen supporter whose father played for them in the fifties, one Celtic supporter and a bluenose from Dundee who follow football and all thought it was a crazy idea 

Did you catch the train home this time 😀

2 hours ago, jagster said:

Did you catch the train home this time 😀

Yes 🤣

4 hours ago, Achfary said:

 

Having never heard of him before, his Wikipedia lists many impressive accolades and philanthropic work.  

 

Mike’s a long standing supporter of ICT and, I think, Caley before that. You can often see him sitting amongst the ICT support, so maybe there’s a nuance there that you’ve missed. I admit that I haven’t read the piece. 

One of the many interesting revelations in the RM interview on the pod was that an  receipt of about £300,000 expected in April had not come in yet (did I catch that right?).  What could that be? The only sums of that magnitude I can think of would be monies from the football authorities, a transfer fee or sell on clause from another club, or perhaps a tax/VAT refund but I’m not sure what could have given rise to that, or any of them really. Any ideas?

🪂 £££

12 minutes ago, Yngwie said:

One of the many interesting revelations in the RM interview on the pod was that an  receipt of about £300,000 expected in April had not come in yet (did I catch that right?).  What could that be? The only sums of that magnitude I can think of would be monies from the football authorities, a transfer fee or sell on clause from another club, or perhaps a tax/VAT refund but I’m not sure what could have given rise to that, or any of them really. Any ideas?

Land adjacent to the ground being leased out?

1 hour ago, Yngwie said:

One of the many interesting revelations in the RM interview on the pod was that an  receipt of about £300,000 expected in April had not come in yet (did I catch that right?).  What could that be? The only sums of that magnitude I can think of would be monies from the football authorities, a transfer fee or sell on clause from another club, or perhaps a tax/VAT refund but I’m not sure what could have given rise to that, or any of them really. Any ideas?

Players wives started an OF? 

30 minutes ago, Fraz said:

Players wives started an OF? 

We trying to save the club or get Gardyne back?