A bit of Recreation at the Indodrill

 

Matchday 6 has Inverness travelling to Clackmannanshire to face one of the top sides in the table and a team we often struggled against away from home through the years, especially in more recent times. With events off the field of play casting further dark shadows over the future of the club, it's a tough ask for the players to remain focussed when their futures are at stake thanks to the incompetence and now unrivaled power hunger of our former tyrannic leaders.

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Match/Ticket Bus (10:00 am) Info

Investment Topic on CTO

Payer Sponsorship on CTO

Hospitality v Cove Rangers

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Venue H2H v Alloa

Pld

Won

Drn

Lst

For

Agst

+ / -

Home	20	8	10	2	36	22	+14
Away	22	11	5	6	45	22	+23
Neutral	1	0	1	0	4	4	0
Total	43	19	16	8	85	48	+37

We do have the edge over Alloa, but that was in a previous life before Gardiner & Co decimated our club. Our new look squad will find a battle hardened Wasps a difficult byke to cycle, like we often did over the years and they will no doubt have a sting in their tail. Our last meeting was in the Championship in season 20/21, and we have lost twice and drawn three of our last five encounters.

Last 10 Competitive Meetings

1 - 1 (A)

2 - 2 (H)

1 - 2 (A)

0 - 2 (A)

1 - 1 (H)

3 - 2 (A)

2 - 0 (A)

2 - 2 (H)

3 - 0 (H)

2 - 1 (A)

Who could forget the dramatic ending in the 1999 Challenge Cup Final when 4,043 fans were at the Shyberry Excelsior Stadium in Airdrie to watch a Martin Cameron inspired Alloa lift the Challenge Cup after a 3-3 draw, extra time and penalty shoot-out. All this despite a Paul Sheerin hat-trick and an unikely hero in Alloa Keeper Mark Cairns who scored the fifth penalty then saved the clincher from Teasdale.

Starting XI Mark Cairns Jimmy Boyle Derek Clark Paul McAneny David Beaton Craig Valentine Ian Little Gary Clark Martin Cameron Willie Irvine Mark Wilson

Les Fridge Richard Hastings Ross Tokely Mark McCulloch Stuart Golabek Charlie Christie Mike Teasdale Barry Wilson Paul Sheerin Davide Xausa Dennis Wyness

Gregor McKechnie Max Christie Mark Donaghy

Kevin Byers Martin Bavidge Martin Glancy

It was bitter disappointment for Caley Thistle as they lost their first ever senior cup final on penalties. They came from behind three times in normal play then again in extra time to take the game to a penalty decider. Alloa took the lead in 20 minutes when Gary Clark hit a low ball past Les Fridge from 15 yards. Barry Wilson equalised in 29 minutes with a neat chip over the keeper. A defensive error let in Mark Wilson to score Alloa's second in 33 minutes but Paul Sheerin equalised from the penalty spot just after half time. This lasted 2 minutes before Martin Cameron made it 3-2 with a 15 yard angled volley. Another penalty goal by Sheerin made it 3-3 in 56 minutes. 14 minutes into extra time Alloa again took the lead when Martin Cameron beat the defence and ran on to score. Paul Sheerin completed his hat trick 8 minutes from time with a 16 yard shot. It was 4-4 on penalties after the regulation 5 attempts each. Alloa keeper Mark Cairns was the hero when he scored to make it 5-4 then saved Mike Teasdale's penalty. The Cup was on its way to Alloa after an exciting match.
Alloa Pens (Irvine, Boyle, Cameron, Little, Cairns) Beaton miss.
Inverness Pens (McCulloch, Tokely, Byers, Wilson) Sheerin, Teasdale saved.
Report by Ian Broadfoot

The Season so far

ALLOA Athletic: D D W W D  Alloa are unbeaten and they began the League campaign with draws at home to Queen of the South and away to Dumbarton followed by a home win over Stenhousemuir and another win away to Annan at the same ground we lost 1-0. Last time out they drew 0-0 at Gayfield. Last week was Challenge Cup action and Alloa pulled off a shock 1-3 win over Partick Thistle who had opened the scoring through our olde 'friend' Brian Graham. However, three second half goals from Kevin Cawley (65', 76') and Scott Taggart (90'+5 pen) gave the Wasps a tremendous result and a home tie against Arbroath in the next round. That was Cawley's 79th & 80th goals for Alloa.

INVERNESS CT:  D L D D W  Our season got off to a slow start with a draw at home to Dumbarton followed by a penalty defeat at Annan. Another two draws against Montrose (h) and Kelty Hearts (a) before our first win of the season over Queen of the South at the Caledonian Stadium a fortnight ago. Last weekend we beat Stirling Albion 3-0 to send us into a fourth Rnd tie away to Livingston thanks to a brace from Adam Brooks and a strike from Adam MacKinnon.

Pos Team Pld W D L F A Pts Table ahead of Matchday Six 1. Kelty Hearts 5 2 3 0 8 3 9 2. Stenhousemuir 5 3 0 2 10 7 9 3. Alloa Athletic 5 2 3 0 5 3 9 4. Q.O.S. 5 2 1 2 4 3 7 5. Inverness CT 5 1 3 1 3 3 6 6. Montrose 5 1 3 1 3 3 6 7. Annan Athletic 5 2 0 3 5 9 6 8. Dumbarton 5 0 5 0 9 9 5 9. Cove Rangers 5 1 1 3 6 9 4 10. Arbroath 5 0 3 2 3 7 3

          League 1 Fixtures all @ 3:00pm

• Alloa Athletic v Inverness CT 
• Annan Athletic v Dumbarton FC
•    Kelty Hearts v Cove Rangers
•      Montrose FC v Stenhousemuir 
• Queen Sth v Arbroath 

 

Latest Team News

Alloa

Manager Andy Graham has a wealth of experience at his disposal. Alloa'a line up in their recent league encounter with Annan Athletic shows some well experienced players in there, notably strikers Conor Sammon and Kevin Cawley. Former Morton defenders Calum Waters, Scott Taggart and midfielder Luke Donnelly are now at Recreation Park. Stefan Scougall is also well experienced having been at St Johnston and Carlisle United in more recent years.

 

Inverness have one or two filtering back into the squad. Jack Newton has returned from Dundee United after getting injections in his knee  without requiring a major operation. Keith Bray and Luis Longstaff will also join the squad again after injury. I would imagine Big Musa will retain the gloves whilst Newman proves his fitness on the bench with the other two returnees joining him on the sidelines.

 

 

4 hours ago, Hiro said:

Yawn.  Same as multiple games last season- get into the lead, make defensive substitutions, lose said lead.

He is incapable of learning from his mistakes.

 checking the score, goals, subs etc, ferguson took off billy on 69 mins which is more or less the time he is taken off most  games. He brought on bray who quite a few demand he gets more game time. Alloa get their 2 goals in minutes 70 and 73. Next 2 subs are 82 and 86 so loss of 2 goals/points is not down to them.

Billy can't last 90 mins if we want him fit and ready for the next game.

I don't know as much about footie tactics as some on here but what is ferguson supposed to do different than he did today. With the starting eleven picking itself every week surely bray is the first option from a very young/ weak bench.

Edit......

I was at dingwall today with RC supporting grandkids.

Don Cowie who was defending a 2 goal lead all of the second half made 6 substitutions. Tony Docherty who did very well with Dundee last season and has had a decent start this season, made 5 substitutions 2nd half chasing the game.

Both worse than ferguson ????

Edited September 14, 2024Sep 14 by bishbashbosh
Usual

11 hours ago, bishbashbosh said:

 checking the score, goals, subs etc, ferguson took off billy on 69 mins which is more or less the time he is taken off most  games. He brought on bray who quite a few demand he gets more game time. Alloa get their 2 goals in minutes 70 and 73. Next 2 subs are 82 and 86 so loss of 2 goals/points is not down to them.

Billy can't last 90 mins if we want him fit and ready for the next game.

I don't know as much about footie tactics as some on here but what is ferguson supposed to do different than he did today. With the starting eleven picking itself every week surely bray is the first option from a very young/ weak bench.

Edit......

I was at dingwall today with RC supporting grandkids.

Don Cowie who was defending a 2 goal lead all of the second half made 6 substitutions. Tony Docherty who did very well with Dundee last season and has had a decent start this season, made 5 substitutions 2nd half chasing the game.

Both worse than ferguson ????

It's not Bray coming on that's the issue. It's great to see him getting more minutes.

The problem is the subsequent change of formation which lost us the initiative and clearly took time to adjust to.  We signed another defender on deadline day when we very specifically needed a forward who can hold the ball up once Billy is subbed.

Excellent to see the “this leagues there for the taking” comments starting to roll in. Maybe a bit sooner than I thought but there we go. 
 

What manager should we sign then to win this **** easy league? 

 

Blaming the pitch again I see. Change the record "Big Dunc". 

1 hour ago, RiG said:

Blaming the pitch again I see. Change the record "Big Dunc". 

No idea why this got a red dot. He mentions the pitches every match. It's tedious and he just can't help himself. 

Seems to me we fall apart when he takes Billy off? Probably due to change of formation but I wonder if Billy is also a leader on pitch? 

Calum MacLeod has looked very impressive of late and scored a deserved goal. If Billy wasn't so greedy at times we might have scored more. Alloa's first goal was a brilliant move from winning the ball on their own byeline to heading into the top corner. Meh!

Taking in the highlights, and admittingly it’s not a proper ‘take’ of the match as a whole, I have to align with the posters that say this was two points dropped. We had more than enough clear cut chances to ‘kill’ the game of before subs or Alloa came back into the game. DF’s changes or game plan may have contributed, but we have to take the chances (some sitters) when they come along. Time catching up on B McKay for me! 

1 hour ago, RiG said:

Blaming the pitch again I see. Change the record "Big Dunc". 

Being 2-0 up with 20mins to go and failing to win the match, it's blatantly clear that it's all down to the pitch! 🙄

15 hours ago, big cherly said:

[Ferguson, not big cherly]: ‘We’re undefeated, we only lost that one to Annan on a penalty’.

So why isn't Everton on the phone to him right now?  Mind you, we'd be looking for a lot of compensation - about a couple of weeks' of Dyche's salary

Stemhousemuir are above us in the table. Then again, we've got a very young team. Very young. Most of them don't play mind you, including some of the better ones. Still, Stenny have got it easy with their part-time team.

5 minutes ago, Starscape said:

Stemhousemuir are above us in the table. Then again, we've got a very young team. Very young. Most of them don't play mind you, including some of the better ones. Still, Stenny have got it easy with their part-time team.

Is QoS a full time team too? If that’s the case there are currently 4 part time teams above us. I wonder how many hours a week part time teams train versus how many hours the full time teams in the league train. Can’t be much in it surely. We do have a young team, but young Callum Macleod scored a great goal yesterday, just shows what can be achieved by talented youth when given a chance. 

4 hours ago, RiG said:

Blaming the pitch again I see. Change the record "Big Dunc". 

Exactly. It's quite frankly a pathetic excuse. We're a full time professional team. I have seen us train on the astro at the rugby club. Whatever anyone's views are on synthetic pitches it shouldn't be a massive issue for professionals to adapt, particularly given virtually every pitch we will playing on in this league is synthetic. 

If Ferguson isn't implementing training to adapt and familiarise to it that's his blunder. 

3 hours ago, big cherly said:

Taking in the highlights, and admittingly it’s not a proper ‘take’ of the match as a whole, I have to align with the posters that say this was two points dropped. We had more than enough clear cut chances to ‘kill’ the game of before subs or Alloa came back into the game. DF’s changes or game plan may have contributed, but we have to take the chances (some sitters) when they come along. Time catching up on B McKay for me! 

Billy is currently playing a role that requires a lot of running and that won't be helping him. I think it's huge credit to him that he's out of his natural position and remains so influencial in games for as long as he does.

We might still get 90 minutes from him in his more natural position up front. The question is whether he's more valuable to us in that role or his current role.

1 hour ago, Starscape said:

Stemhousemuir are above us in the table. Then again, we've got a very young team. Very young. Most of them don't play mind you, including some of the better ones. Still, Stenny have got it easy with their part-time team.

Don't forget that we're unbeaten if you don't count defeats and have the best defensive record in the country if you don't count those who have a better one.

4 hours ago, old caley girl said:

No idea why this got a red dot. He mentions the pitches every match. It's tedious and he just can't help himself. 

Seems to me we fall apart when he takes Billy off? Probably due to change of formation but I wonder if Billy is also a leader on pitch? 

Yes he mentions the pitch being terrible (which it is) but he certainly doesn’t use it as an excuse. Nothing wrong with stating this, they are getting removed from the top flight and quite right. 

4 hours ago, snorbens_caleyman said:

So why isn't Everton on the phone to him right now?  Mind you, we'd be looking for a lot of compensation - about a couple of weeks' of Dyche's salary

Reckon that was Big Dunc’s message to Goodison - look at me I can go 2 up and hang on for the draw…

8 hours ago, Hiro said:

It's not Bray coming on that's the issue. It's great to see him getting more minutes.

The problem is the subsequent change of formation which lost us the initiative and clearly took time to adjust to.  We signed another defender on deadline day when we very specifically needed a forward who can hold the ball up once Billy is subbed.

Ah well, as I said , I wasn’t there Saturday you obviously were so I take your view on board. Thanks for the insight.

7 hours ago, ICTPaisley said:

Excellent to see the “this leagues there for the taking” comments starting to roll in. Maybe a bit sooner than I thought but there we go. 
 

What manager should we sign then to win this **** easy league? 

We are one of only two full-time sides in the league and the bulk of our starting XI have plenty of Championship experience. There's no "big-ish" club fallen on hard times in the league and every team I've seen this season has been bang average at best, so yes the league is there for the taking in my opinion. 

I agree that the astro pitches in this league are appalling but if he hadn't managed to relegate us then we would be playing on grass in the Championship so time to suck it up and get on with it. If he dislikes them so much perhaps he should consider his position.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion on Ferguson's tenure and mine is that over the 12 months he's been in charge I've seen absolutely nothing to suggest he's in any way the right man for the job. I don't think I'm alone in reaching this conclusion but I appreciate others may see things differently. 

 

 

23 minutes ago, ymip said:

We are one of only two full-time sides in the league and the bulk of our starting XI have plenty of Championship experience. There's no "big-ish" club fallen on hard times in the league and every team I've seen this season has been bang average at best, so yes the league is there for the taking in my opinion. 

I agree that the astro pitches in this league are appalling but if he hadn't managed to relegate us then we would be playing on grass in the Championship so time to suck it up and get on with it. If he dislikes them so much perhaps he should consider his position.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion on Ferguson's tenure and mine is that over the 12 months he's been in charge I've seen absolutely nothing to suggest he's in any way the right man for the job. I don't think I'm alone in reaching this conclusion but I appreciate others may see things differently. 

 

 

Remember that Ferguson was supportive of our move to Kelty where we would be using... checks notes... a synthetic pitch 🤦‍♂️

8 hours ago, ICTPaisley said:

 

Excellent to see the “this leagues there for the taking” comments starting to roll in. Maybe a bit sooner than I thought but there we go. 
 

What manager should we sign then to win this **** easy league? 

 

I’m not sure if there’s sarcasm in the **** easy league comment. If there is, then I don’t see why. This certainly should be easy for a full-time club (despite our problems), and the few games we’ve seen justify the view that the other teams in it are hardly Goliaths of the game in stature, skill, etc.  Jeez, are we now to accept that this league is a challenge and we’d be doing well to avoid the drop from it?!
 

That said, we only scraped past Montrose in the play-offs and got beat by Hamilton - so even before everything blew up it was clear that DF didn’t have it to deal with teams of this league’s standard, and it’s continued. That’s down to tactics - slow, negative and not utilizing our players’ attributes properly.

1 hour ago, ymip said:

We are one of only two full-time sides in the league and the bulk of our starting XI have plenty of Championship experience. There's no "big-ish" club fallen on hard times in the league and every team I've seen this season has been bang average at best, so yes the league is there for the taking in my opinion. 

I agree that the astro pitches in this league are appalling but if he hadn't managed to relegate us then we would be playing on grass in the Championship so time to suck it up and get on with it. If he dislikes them so much perhaps he should consider his position.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion on Ferguson's tenure and mine is that over the 12 months he's been in charge I've seen absolutely nothing to suggest he's in any way the right man for the job. I don't think I'm alone in reaching this conclusion but I appreciate others may see things differently. 

 

 

This was the exact same as last season. 
I’m no fan of Dunc but he’s only ever lost 1 game by more than a goal. Every time I seen them last year I felt the other side was bang average. I’ve never once though we were ‘pumped’
 

There are very fine margins in these leagues. How many fans expected us to bounce right back this season given our circumstances?

Let’s look at Falkirk recently in this division. I think it was around 6 years they were here, absolutely ridiculous to think we should be walking this league.
 

 

Edited September 15, 2024Sep 15 by ICTPaisley

31 minutes ago, ICTPaisley said:

This was the exact same as last season. 
I’m no fan of Dunc but he’s only ever lost 1 game by more than a goal. Every time I seen them last year I felt the other side was bang average. I’ve never once though we were ‘pumped’
 

There are very fine margins in these leagues. How many fans expected us to bounce right back this season given our circumstances?

Let’s look at Falkirk recently in this division. I think it was around 6 years they were here, absolutely ridiculous to think we should be walking this league.
 

 

If not the fault of Duncs ( and his coaches), who else is responsible……. the players???? Was the team last season not capable of staying up? Is the team this season not capable of competing for promotion??? 

I think we all need to just step back a little and let us reach the half way through the season. We can make then, I suggest, a better assessment of whether we are capable of being champs, playoff, mid table or fighting relegation. 
Let’s take stock of a few things.

Being full time is no guarantee for automatic promotion. It provides our F/T players the benefit of applying themselves fully to working on their fitness, skills, teamwork and manager game plan. The part time clubs have operating since there existence in an PT operation and know how to get the best out of there players.

Experience counts; (more so over the season). We’re short of that currently with the young-ish team we have. Other teams are I suggest more settled in this area. 

Whether we like it or not artificial pitches present a challenge when your (our) home pitch surface is grass. Yes we can train in them at the Bught, but it’s still a disadvantage for us. 

We still have the geographic issue of our division rivals having easier access to player pools. DF may be able to access English loanees in Jan, but we need AS to provide the funds!!!!

Lastly, let’s not loose sight we are just attempting to get the club back on its feet after a monumental six months. We’re not out of the woods yet.

Finish by saying I want the team to be playing in the championship next year. However I think it may be the season after, but I’m prepared to support them  whatever league they play. 

Edited September 15, 2024Sep 15 by big cherly

15 hours ago, ICTPaisley said:

Yes he mentions the pitch being terrible (which it is) but he certainly doesn’t use it as an excuse. Nothing wrong with stating this, they are getting removed from the top flight and quite right. 

He mentions terrible pitches every single week. It's tedious and seems to be nothing more than some kind of justification for his failures as a manager. If it's not an excuse he needs to belt up about it because we are in a league full of astro pitches. As @ymip mentions, had he not taken us down then we would have avoided these surfaces that he dislikes so much.

13 hours ago, ICTPaisley said:

I’m no fan of Dunc but he’s only ever lost 1 game by more than a goal. Every time I seen them last year I felt the other side was bang average. I’ve never once though we were ‘pumped’

Only losing games by 1 goal is hardly some kind of badge of honour. For most of those games we were utterly bang average and posed almost no threat to the other side for the majority of those games. We lost so many games by a single goal precisely because that was all that was needed to beat us. And that was down to Ferguson and his ultra cautious style of football. It seems we are still seeing that this season and it's very much to our detriment.