Training Ground Derby

The second quarter of the season kicks off on Saturday as Kelty Hearts pay us a visit for a scheduled 3:00pm start at the Caledonian SarensPSG Stadium. This is the reverse fixture from our opening game of the season when we won 3-0 at Kelty as we kicked off the campaign in style despite a five point deduction. Scott Kellacher has scooped the manager of the Month award for August and September but we began October with a disappointing 3-1 defeat at Hamilton Accies who now top the table followed by Stenhousemuir and the Caley Jags. It was a KDM weekend last time out and we eventually overcame a decent Forfar Athletic side although we had to be patent to overcome them. Kelty were also in KDM action last week and beat St Mirren B 2-1, a brace from Ricco Diack enough to see off the young Buddies side. Not been the best of campaigns so far for the Maroons who sit second bottom of the table at the moment with only two wins and a minus ten goal difference.

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Match/Ticket/Bus/Info

Hospitality

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Nearly one year in charge for Scott!!!

Next week marks one year since Scott Kellacher took over as our Head Coach! 🔴🔵

To celebrate the milestone, Scott will be taking part in a special fans Q&A, which will be filmed and shared across ICTFC social channels on the anniversary next Thursday.

💬Got a question for the gaffer?

Send it by email to [email protected]

🕙Deadline for questions: 10am on Monday!

We tweaked our team a bit at Forfar with Devine, Spoons, Longshot and Chalmers all starting on the bench and Alfie Stewart helping out Dons B at Elgin. Ross Millen started at RB but went off injured before the interval.

League1 Results: Phase1

1. Kelty 0-3 ICTFC

2. ICTFC 2-0 P'Head

3. ICTFC 1-2 Stenny

4. Mont 0-2 ICTFC

5. ICTFC 1-0 Alloa

6. Cove R 0-1 ICTFC

7. QotSth 0-2 ICTFC

8. ICTFC 4-1 E Fife

9. Accies 3-1 ICTFC

• 🍺Bar 94 will open at 1200, last orders at 1430.

• 🍺Bar reopens at full time.

• 🚍Buses will leave the Bus Station for the Stadium at 1245 and 1415.

• 🚍Buses return to the Bus Station 10 minutes after the full time whistle and at 1800.

• 💰Bus fare is £2.70 single (contactless payments or cash accepted) Over 60 / Disabled and Under 22 Concession passes are valid, giving free travel on the service to passholders.

• 🎟️http://eticketing.co.uk/ictfc - ST Holders can bring a Friend for £10 (if you have one, if not, ask James Taylor)

Kelty caught up with a game last midweek at home to Alloa but they went down 2-0 having lost 1-2 to Peterhead in their previous League 1 fixture.

1. Kelty 0-3 ICTFC

2. Mont 1-2 Kelty

3. E Fife 2-1 Kelty

4. QotS 2-1 Kelty

5. Kelty 0-1 Sten

6. Kelty 0-4 Accies

7. Cove 0-2 Kelty

8. Kelty 1-2 Head

9. Kelty 0-2 Alloa

Pos	Team	Pld	Gd	Pts
1	Accies	9	11	17
2	Stenny	9	4	17
3	ICTFC	9	11	16
4	Alloa	9	2	15
5	E Fife	9	-2	14
6	QueenS	9	1	13
7	P'Head	9	-2	13
8	Monty	9	-4	11
9	Kelty	9	-10	6
10	Cove	9	-11	2

Some tasty fixtures this weekend as we embark on the second round of games this season. Front runners Hamilton Accies are sinking further into the financial mire as the SPFL have withheld a £70,000 payment to Accies after expressing concern over the club’s ability to fulfil its fixtures until the end of the season.  Sounds familiar! That apart, they continue to defy the odds by being competitive on the park as are Stenhousemuir. Would be a good time for Cove to get back to winning ways this weekend. The games at Alloa and Palmerston are evenly balanced so all in, it's a weekend where results could go either way.

Inverness and Accies are way out in front on the Goal Difference charts with +11. Bearing in mind we started the season five points adrift of the rest, we can be pleased with our first quarter report card.

Our next 3 fixtures are:

• Away to Peterhead 25th Oct

• Home to Montrose 01st Nov

• KDM at Home v Arabs 06th Nov

Kelty Hearts won the last fixture at Inverness at the tail end of last season.

A snippet from our report: Dibaga was unable to continue in the second period with young Szymon Rebilas taking the gloves. We still failed to trouble Adams after play resumed and it was no surprise when we went behind with Kelty looking much faster when they broke forward compared to our pedestrian approach. McCarvel raced through to slot home ten minutes from the end before Cole tied up the points with our defence in disarray. A thoroughly disappointing afternoon with little entertainment value. Let's hope Calum Jones puts on a better show in Bar94.

Kells knew it and was no a happy Bunny: “We didn’t start well, and we didn’t work anywhere near hard enough like we did when we won at Cove last weekend. “This is really frustrating – there are no excuses for that. “We might not play well, or some things don’t come off in play, but we need to work much harder.

Diack was sent off in their last league game for two bookings so presumably is suspended for tomorrow.

I’m looking forward to this and to us hopefully getting our league season back on track.

0-2 after 24 minutes ☹️

We have pulled one back before half time, all to play for in the second half, we have to come out flying! I have not managed to the game today.

Chanka Zimba on for Luis Longstaff injured.

2-2 now Zimba, game on.

Edited October 18, 2025Oct 18 by IBM
typo

I guess I’d have taken a draw when it was 0-2, but that’s a poor result and bad day for us with our rivals getting good away wins.

4 minutes ago, Yngwie said:

I guess I’d have taken a draw when it was 0-2, but that’s a poor result and bad day for us with our rivals getting good away wins.

Yeah a little worrying. Glad it’s still only 3 points from top though. Next two games against bottom half sides means we really need to be taking full points.

2 points thrown away because of poor defending and a ridiculous penalty decision. We huffed and puffed and deserved to get level but nowhere near clinical enough at times. Still trying to score the perfecgoal far too often instead of having a shot.

Another diabolically poor refereeing display yet again where we got no decisions going fie us.

We shot ourselves in the foot today by starting slowly and gifting two goals to Kelty. I was in line with the first and am convinced it was onside. For the penalty, Chalmers confirmed in Bar 94 after the game that he did make contact with the Kelty player although he felt it was soft: if it was at the other end we’d have been yelling for it but it was needless as the player was heading away from goal.

Both our goals were excellent. Devine said in Bar 94 that Mckay gets the credit for the first goal as it’s a move he’d developed for them in training. Wotherspoon’s cross for the second was perfect.

On the day, we just weren’t good enough to overcome the head start we gave Kelty and, whilst their time wasting and general antics were frustrating, the onus was on us to break them down and we failed to do so.

As Devine said afterwards, we need to start games better and that will be the focus before the next game.

A disappointing afternoon that we need to bounce back from.

Edited October 18, 2025Oct 18 by Robert

First half was a shocker. We really should’ve been 3-0 down, Kelty missed a bit of a sitter early doors after a through ball left them with just the keeper to beat but a miss hit spared us. We learned nothing from that and their first goal came from a similar through ball!

We had most of the possession first half but did very little with it. Far too many times we’re passing when we should be shooting!

Bavidge cut a frustrated figure getting little service. His strength is his pace, but our lead up play is so slow, predictable, and sideways that he hardly had a touch.

Second half we started well and deservedly equalised. But then we slowed down again and lost our momentum. The substitutions seemed to make us worse? We did have chances to score again but poor finishing let us down.

Must be said that the atmosphere today was soooo quiet. Admittedly there wasn’t much to get excited about but it really needs to be better. I think it definitely affects the players?

A thoroughly disappointing result and a frustrating watch having helped Kelty to a two goal lead. We were cut open too easily for the opening goal and if you want my opinion then the referee could just as easily have booked the Kelty player for diving having left his foot in there to ensure he made contact with the defender (Chalmers).

At the end of the day we lost ground on the top two and struggled to create clear openings. We also had too many passengers today.

Accies pumped Montrose 4-0 and Stenhousemuir beat Cove 1-0, both away from home. East Fife drew with Alloa and in the late game, Peterhead beat Queens 3-0.

We need to do passy passy forward not passy passy sideways

1 hour ago, Robert said:

We shot ourselves in the foot today by starting slowly and gifting two goals to Kelty. I was in line with the first and am convinced it was onside. For the penalty, Chalmers confirmed in Bar 94 after the game that he did make contact with the Kelty player although he felt it was soft: if it was at the other end we’d have been yelling for it but it was needless as the player was heading away from goal.

Both our goals were excellent. Devine said in Bar 94 that Mckay gets the credit for the first goal as it’s a move he’d developed for them in training. Wotherspoon’s cross for the second was perfect.

On the day, we just weren’t good enough to overcome the head start we gave Kelty and, whilst their time wasting and general antics were frustrating, the onus was on us to break them down and we failed to do so.

As Devine said afterwards, we need to start games better and that will be the focus before the next game.

A disappointing afternoon that we need to bounce back from.

Yet again a poor first half from us. We were at our usual slow sideway or backwards football, allowing them to get set to defend with ease, but in contrast, kelty scored the first goal on the counter with 3 forward passes.

Their 2nd goal was a farce. Cross looped up to back post, Munro had it in his hands when Devine (I think) crashed into him and Munro dropped it for a corner. From there we switched off marking in the box, Allan maybe, and the chalmers contact was stonewall penalty. Can’t blame the referee for our failings. Once we drew level we were on top but substitutions changed that.

Kelty were a different team from the one I saw us brush aside down there, but then they had 8 first team regulars out injured that day.

Devine is controlling the slow negative passing. When we have the ball at the back he starts the sideways stuff and he has his arms at his side, palms going up and down to the ground, gesturing, slow it down guys.

Surprised then to hear Devine say we need to start games better. It is either kellachers instructions to play the way we did 1st half or Devine is ignoring him and playing his own game.

won’t be easy next week at Peterhead, they have 3 wins on the trot now and are only 1 point behind us. Yet another 6 pointer.

That was a Hard watch today. Certain players offered nothing, pedestrian sideways and backwards passing that gets us nowhere and yet again we gifted the opposition goals. Bavidge looks a shadow of the player he was last season but we aren’t playing to his strengths.

Pretty much agree with what's been said - we never really got started till we were 2 goals down.

We dominated the game after that and deserved to pull one back just before half time.

Much more urgency in the second half and the equaliser was inevitable after piling on the pressure.

We had SO many opportunities to take the lead but spurned them all.

One of the more frustrating aspects of our play was the time it took to build up an attack, almost as if we were allowing the opposition time to organise their defence before we started to knock the ball around looking for the perfect striking opportunity, which was invariably blocked by a defender.

Had to laugh when one of the Kelty players went down with "cramp" and as their physio came rushing onto the pitch, a player signalled to him to slow down. Their time-wasting was quite blatant and frustrating and I think it earned them 2 or maybe 3 yellow cards. Of course if the roles were reversed we woulda done the same!

I actually enjoyed the second half - very energetic and entertaining, despite the result.

That might be a better point than we think, mainly because we came back from two down, would have been a real downer to lose that having been done by Hamilton in the previous match. Zimba is looking a real handy player to have around. I suspect Scott and Billy will have learnt a couple of lessons from that game. Stewart did not start the game and he has does a lot of the buzzing around in midfield [as would the McKinnon of last season], so my question is can we afford to play both Chalmers and Wotherspoon in the middle at the same time?

Hamilton are on a good run, and were initially my thoughts as our main rival before their issues off-field, this seems however to be spurring them on, and I think this might be a season determined by who has the 'strongest legs' over the long haul.

Saturday was a hell of a day for me football wise, all three teams I follow coming back from losing positions, Palace equalising in the 97th minute to prevent a certain Ryan Christie winning the game for Bournemouth, Sutton United in a match I was at, equalising in the 96minute, and Caley coming back from the dead. Gosh I love football, my nails don't.....looking forward to my trip up for the Montrose game!

Kelty's highlights

21 hours ago, Ronaldo said:

We need to do passy passy forward not passy passy sideways

And do it with a bit more urgency. When we play at such a pedestrian pace we make it quite easy for the opposition

No offence, but see all these awful AI images all over the site, can we get them TF?

I don't know what you mean?