Blood, Sweat and Tears….that’s what some believe it’s going to take to dig Inverness Caledonian Thistle out of the current hole they find themselves in as they sit adrift at the bottom of the SPL with only Falkirk still within immediate touching distance. The Inverness Board are still to confirm the appointment of Terry Butcher, but you’d have to be going around with your eyes shut and your fingers in your ears this morning if you were to be in any doubt that it’s a done deal.  With word that Butcher travelled back to London last night then we can only imagine the delay in the official announcement is his return to Inverness again this afternoon so he can be properly paraded in front of the press and cameras.

Terence Ian Butcher, born in Singapore on the 28th of December 1958 and with 77 England caps behind him will be the next ICT manager. At six foot four inches, Terry was an uncompromising centre half and made his name playing for Ipswich Town from 1976 to 1986 where his displays caught the eye of then England manager Ron Greenwood. Butcher won the UEFA cup with Ipswich in 1981 with Bobby Robson as manager. In 1986 Butcher joined Glasgow Rangers and during his spell at Ibrox as captain, Rangers won three league titles and two Scottish Cups. In 1987 he suffered a broken leg which ruled him out of the European Championships. His next injury was the one that saw his blood stained and bandaged head plastered all over the tabloids, but his courage was not in doubt as he played on despite the stitches and severity of the damage. He finished the game against Sweden battered, bruised and covered in blood. This typified Butchers spirit and gained him hero status amongst the England support. His managerial career began at Coventry City, when he became player manager at the tender age of 32, the youngest manager in the football leagues. Despite a promising start by Butcher to his first management job, he parted company with Coventry after just over two years. His next appointment was at Sunderland, where survival was achieved, but once again he was sacked with Sunderland still at the wrong end of the league. In October 2001 he became assistant to Eric Black at Motherwell and eventually took over the manager’s post as Motherwell struggled financially. Big Terry has been credited by many for the way he guided Motherwell through a difficult period and built his own team, which reached the Scottish League Cup final in 2005. He had an unsuccessful period as manager down under at Sydney FC, but rumour has it some sections of the Sydney support were not in favour of an outsider such as Butcher being appointed. He was sacked in 2007. A brief spell as assistant coach at Partick Thistle ensued, before heading back to England to manage Brentford, but this also ended in a sacking after a poor run including five wins in twenty three matches. Sounds familiar to ICT fans. More recently, Butcher has been a pundit for Setanta and is the current Scotland assistant manager. Butcher is a well respected figure in the game, although his success at management level would appear to have been restricted to Scotland.

It is uncertain at this time whether or not Butcher will continue in his Scotland and Setanta rolls whilst managing Inverness Caledonian Thistle FC.