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Is this topic not overstating the situation? We are losing 2 players (Grant and Russell) who can be considered as part of the current established first team. Golly and Roy are both on the fringe (mainly due to age), Hogg only ever came up here for a few months of football, and the remaining players are all fringe players (for varying reasons).

A couple of words got dropped from your post

Ian Black nabbed in drugs bust

I have long since thought that the KEY to ICT's success over the years was the fact that the team was never tinkered with too much when it came to new faces arriving. And because of that...there was a great deal of camoraderie and team spirit built around the core of the team. BUT, now.....it looks like that ethos has been thrown out the window, with wholesale changes being required for next season. Isnt it something like 14 first team squad players being let go or something? Anyhoo....i think this could rip the heart out of the team. It just isnt the ICT way

How are they going to get in then

While I agree a little with your thoughts on the camorarderie and team spirit it is up to TB to keep this going, I have no doubt in my mind that he can and that he has total belief in himself and the players that he has kept. Like Tree said it is really only 2 big players we are losing that were fixtures in the first team and even then I think most of us knew that from the way RD was in and out of the team he was going to go sooner rather than later. Lets also not forget that our young boys have come through the ranks so have the ICT way instilled in them, I believe this is what TB sees and the nucleus of the first team has been kept together. I know it might not seem like the ICT way but in order to progress in all walks of life we sometimes have to do something we don't want to do. I just think there is more to the releasing of GM and RD than the fans will know and find out other than what we are being told. As for certain players who are free agents, I agree with Scotty please don't sign Colin Samuel, he's not what we need and would not show the ambition that we as the fans want to see from this.

But can they kick a football? maybe it wasnt that difficult catching a man who was at the time chasing a two headed golden unicorn on roller skates. You've never experimented with drugs have you ?

He has signed a 2 year deal with Dundee United A lot of people were suprised to hear the Calderwood was getting rid of him at Hibs, as were a lot of us when he was deemed surplus at ICT IMO we still made a mistake forcing him out

But can they kick a football? maybe it wasnt that difficult catching a man who was at the time chasing a two headed golden unicorn on roller skates.

Crawley walked away with the Conferance title this season. They are a decent team with great ambition. I suspect they will do very well in Div 2 next season. Russell could do a lot worse.

Taking a nose dive perhaps!

Apart from that squirly doodle me whatsit shot he got into the press for, has he really done much else since he left?

I think you've inadvertently come up with a great newspaper headline for this story!

Many posters have, in the past, taken the club to task for a lack of ambition. An example of this is when the club would say our aim is to finish 11th and avoid relegation. Lots of posters have come on and said we should aim much higher than this. Well that is what we seem to be doing now as what we have tried in the past hasn't really worked and moved the club forward to the next level. After our first spell in the SPL, had we really moved forward as a teama nd a club, don't think we really did and squandred some good opportunities to take the club forward. For that the blame lay with various managers and the Board. I think we now have a manager who has the ambition to try and move things on, not so sure about the Board, so, as Caley D says, let's show a bit of patience and see what happens next season, or maybe the season after that without losing patience quickly. There is a real chance here to move the club on or maybe some supporters do not want that?.

As fans we've always asked that the club be ambitious. Maybe this is the price we have to pay for that ambition and only time will tell whether or not it's worth the cost. As much as we may disagree with the method, tinkering year on year has achieved little more than the status quo...do we just want the same thing year on year? Should we just accept that we are a lower end SPL team which occasionally gets the honour of being "the best of the rest" in a good season and relegation in a bad one? I go through phases of fear and excitement. Fear that it could all go tits up, and excitement at the prospect of Butcher getting it right and what that might deliver. Not necessarily next season, but for the longer term future of ICT. Aside from that, my biggest fear is that we as fans may lose patience too quickly if we don't see instant results at the start of the new season and we get calls for sackings in September, or something equally ridiculous.

They would be better received than some old fuddy duddy.

What's the deal with Scots? On mine, I put down my language as English only, and as far as I'm aware, Scots is a dialect of English. So how do you know if you can speak it? I'm sure people think they're speaking English (aren't they?) and I can watch as episode of Still Game without a dictionary or subtitles (unlike in the Scheme!) so where does that put me?

What a disgrace that Levein has ignored the fantastic form of Ryan Essson and opted instead for two keepers who have spent most of the season either injured or on loan to a lower league team. The full Scotland squad for the matches against Wales and Republic of Ireland on 25 and 29 May is as follows: - Goalkeepers: Matt Gilks (Blackpool), Allan McGregor (Rangers), Iain Turner (Everton) Defenders: Phil Bardsley (Sunderland), Christophe Berra (Wolves), Gary Caldwell (Wigan Athletic), Stephen Crainey (Blackpool), Grant Hanley (Blackburn Rovers), Russell Martin (Norwich City), Steven Whittaker (Rangers), Danny Wilson (Liverpool) Midfielders: Charlie Adam (Blackpool), Barry Bannan (Aston Villa), Scott Brown (Celtic), Kris Commons (Celtic), James Forrest (Celtic), James McArthur (Wigan Athletic), James Morrison (West Bromwich Albion), Barry Robson (Middlesbrough) Forwards: Craig Mackail-Smith (Peterborough), Chris Maguire (Aberdeen), Ross McCormack (Leeds United), Kenny Miller (Bursaspor), Steven Naismith (Rangers)

There's not one of those midfielders you would take out the squad for Nick Ross I'm afraid, he's a great talent but needs more nurturing and games to progress further. The boy also needs to bulk up a wee bit to make it at International level. The only one I could see would to leave out would be Barry Bannan but then he has Premiership experience and also is a different kind of player, he is in the squad for the balance. Give Nick another two years and if he keeps on progressing the way he is then he'll be a stick on for the squad, it's just too early yet, let him play some more U21 games. As for Esson he's really unfortunate other keepers play in better leagues although I would have had him in instead of Turner, as a goalkeeper your prime is round about his age as he is showing now. Look at Jim Leighton, lost his place in the squad for years and came back into the fold in his mid 30s if my memory is correct around about the same time Goram was at his best.

i know im probably going to get a flurry of red dots for this but........ this was an inevitability, a fair number of our squad has been getting towards the golden age of there playing years recently and sooner or later these guys would have to be let go. it is sad to see such players leave but on the flip side to everyones feelings of sadness at them leaving i would like to ask a question what would people feel if the older guys legs started giving way next season?? other clubs are bringing through a fair number of younger players who will have the pace to beat the older slower players who may have a wealth of skill but that wont help if they are 20 yards behind someone

Can the chanters chant and sit down or will they just annoy the full price paying customers in Section E?. Their language certainly needs to be modified. Do we really want foul mouthed anti-social yobs in our family friendly club?

I came up with an answer to the problem with the split which actually solves another problem...more on the second problem at the end. The problem with the current split is that teams in the bottom half cannot climb any further than 7th and top half drop below 6th. You then have the argument about our situation where our points tally would have taken us to 5th....and the counter argument that it's maybe in part due to "easier" competition in the closing games. So, how do we get a split (to maintain fixture numbers) where teams can still move freely up and down the table without the easier/harder games argument? Well, you don't split it top and bottom..... Instead you take the league places after 33 games and you split into two groups of odd placings and even placings. Those in places 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 & 11 form one group, the rest another group. This means that the level of competition across the remaining 5 fixtures is spread across all levels and as such you can justify allowing teams to move freely up and down the ladder based on the points they earn. The other problem it (likely) solves is that you don't have the worry of an OF title decider (Police don't want it, SPL are scared of it). As they are going to be, more often than not, 1 & 2 after 33 games they will be in different groups. If they are 1 & 3 then someone is splitting them and any OF match isn't likely to be a title decider so a lot less tension involved.

Now that an area has been set aside for a singing section that has the full support of the club I hope all you guys and girls out there who've been asking for it for a few seasons now will make full use of it. Personally I think this area of section E is as good as G was but gives a cushion from the family section thus reducing the number of folk who may be offended by some of the songs and chants.

Just up on BBC, Rooney has agreed a 2 year deal - http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/scot_prem/9480349.stm

"What a shi*ty home support" from the guys in the North Stand trying to gee up our own fans, funny and apt.

Mark Brown