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Apologies for taking so long to present the results! Thanks to all who completed the questionnaire, there was some great information and I couldn?t have finished my dissertation without your input. Unfortunately I haven?t got my mark back yet so I can?t say whether it was good or not! Basically the results were very positive for the club. My key message was that the club could introduce a long term strategy, values, and such like in order to push the club forward, instead of working on a yearly basis. I argued that this will form part of a cycle whereby bringing in more people to watch the game brings in more money, better players, building the reputation of ICT and the cycle continues, resulting in a stronger, more stable team and club, becoming an accepted ?part? of the SPL. I understand that it?s not as simple as this but that?s what my dissertation basically came down to. Unfortunately, using a free survey site prohibited me from filtering the results and making especially useful conclusions, for example, x age range feels ... Anyway, here is a rather long summary of the responses as promised. 252 individuals completed the survey, 78% male, and 22% female. The majority were 17-25 (48%). 2% were under 16, 7% were over 60, and the 3 remaining age segments, 26-35, 36-45, and 46-60 accounted for 12%, 12% and 19% respectively. 46% were employed full time, 37% were students. The remaining 17% were ?other? category, part time, or unemployed. The next section included questions assessing the respondents? interest in football. 41% rated their support for Inverness CT as very enthusiastic. 18% responded very unenthusiastic and 41% were spread fairly evenly across the 3 middle options (somewhat enthusiastic, neither enthusiastic or unenthusiastic, and somewhat unenthusiastic). 42% were season ticket holders. 24% said that ICT was not their favourite team. 17% attend 0 games in a season whilst 34% were able to attend most home games (16 - 19 games). 12% and 11% attended 6 to 10 and 11 to 15 games respectively. For reasons why people support ICT, by far the greatest reason was that they were from or live in the area and want to support the local team. Other reasons were that they supported either Caledonian FC or Inverness Thistle FC before the merger and it seemed a natural progression; some liked to support a smaller club with a strong team spirit and the ability to cause a shock by beating bigger teams; others liked the family atmosphere at the club; some simply enjoy watching football. A significant proportion was introduced by family members and has continued the tradition. The third part to the survey gathered details in relation to people?s attendance decisions. 36% would be very likely to recommend attending an ICT home match. A further 24% would be ?likely? to do so. Compared with other entertainment options in the region, most respondents felt that ICT offered about the same level of enjoyment if not slightly more. On a scale of 1 to 5 where 1 represents a much better experience, 30% selected 2 and 29% selected 3. Only 11 people (6%) said 5, or much worse, while 44 people (22%) chose 1. Determinants of attendance included weather, prices, form, quality of opposition, whether the game was an early, late or midweek kick off, and whether there was an alternative game on the television. The modal response for each aspect was no effect, suggesting that Inverness? fan base is loyal and inelastic. Other responses were predictable. Good weather, lower prices, and better opposition are likely to encourage greater attendance. A good run of form is shown to have a positive effect whilst 30% reported midweek games are a somewhat negative effect. Bad weather and especially high prices also have a negative influence on respondents? decision to watch an Inverness CT game. Other football being shown live on TV had a slight negative effect, but over 75% reported that it had no effect on their decision to watch ICT. In terms of satisfaction with the different aspects of the experience at the stadium, ICT scored well. 75% of respondents were either very satisfied or satisfied with the quality of football. The youth and community department was also rated highly. Match day entertainment received a mixed response: 22% were somewhat satisfied whilst 23% were somewhat dissatisfied. The refreshments service is certainly an aspect that could be improved given that 38% expressed dissatisfaction with it. Fewer than 5% were very disappointed with the responsiveness, professionalism and understanding of their needs when contacting ICT. Between 21% and 24% were very satisfied with the same aspects. The following open questions were to gain more detailed answers regarding ICT?s competitors, and the aspects that encourage or discourage attendance. Pubs, shopping, golf, the gym, cinema, and the theatre were some of the activities respondents said that they may spend their money on instead of an ICT match. Others stated that they considered Ross County, rugby internationals, and Celtic and Rangers to be Inverness CT?s greatest competitors on match days. Some simply enjoyed spending their weekend at home instead of going to a football game. A highly noticeable response was the perception that ICT had no competitors. Most reported that the factor that encourages them to attend a game most is the opportunity to see entertainment. For some, attending games has become routine, and they have no intention of breaking the habit. One response which summarised this was ?I want my team to win and I want to be there to see it?. Common determinants were weather, form, opponents and prices. It would seem that a large proportion of Inverness supporters live outside of the town and will try to incorporate a visit to the stadium into other weekend plans. Watching Inverness is considered by many to be a social event and so the attendance of friends affects their likelihood of attending. There was a degree of disagreement as some reported the good atmosphere encouraged them to attend whilst others said that the lack of atmosphere discouraged their attendance. The range of determinants that discouraged respondents from attending was far wider. They included the price and quality of refreshments, ticket prices, transport issues, poor form, poor opposition, poor weather, road conditions, security, abnormal kick off times, work commitments, the match day experience, the repetitiveness of games and lack of competition in the league. In order to assess the awareness of Inverness? marketing efforts, the sample was asked to list all the current activities they were conscious of. A few answered none and the most frequent answers were banners outside the stadium, the recent strip competition, press and radio coverage and adverts, emails and the work of the youth and community department. When asked to rank initiatives in the final section of the survey, the loyalty scheme and season ticket perks were most popular as they were noticeably rated 1 or 2 more frequently than the other options. 34% of respondents selected ?1? for the loyalty scheme. Special nights before midweek games, including a meal and match ticket, and a weekly e-newsletter were least popular. I have not yet presented my report to the club however I intend to do this when I am next home. Thanks again

better make the beating to death a little bit more worth my while then MMMMMMM...... Nice

Risking a beating here!!!

You're pretty screwed if you're colour blind!!!

Ram Battering ? Im getting the RSPCA on to those 3 nutters.

John Sutton has signed for Hearts! Can't see them being after Adam as well.

Realistically....I don't think the club needs all that much additional (financial) investment. We're seeing a lot of change in the way clubs are run and many are moving away from business models that rely on continual investment....we are already ahead of the game on the front, and always have been, even if it has cost us all our assets. I'd far rather see us growing the business to support growth on the playing side...and any investment should be directed to doing that. I'm probably a bit of a nerd when it comes to my choice of football related reading. Whilst most are reading the match reports and player stories I tend to seek out articles which are written around the business side of football....and there's plenty of them out there. Unfortunately, the bulk of those articles are stories of clubs who have found themselves in serious financial difficulty because the business has been grown using cash from owners/benefactors and that suddenly dries up for one reason or another and I don't want to see that happen here. One of the most unfortunate catch 22's in football is that investors tend to be fans and as fans their passion for success can often overrule their head for business. ICT spent 10 years chasing Sutherlands promise of SPL football....and, IMO, I think we were guilty of putting that promise ahead of other things and some mistakes/unwise decisions were made along the way. In saying that, hindsight is a wonderful thing, and compared to most other clubs we've rode our mistakes pretty well and (some) lessons seemed to have been learned. David Sutherland could have cut his losses long time ago, indeed we have seen "offers" over the years and they have been rejected as they weren't felt to be the right thing for the club....and rightly so. We don't want/need a Whyte coming in and promising to feed money into the club to keep it going, we want/need someone with plans, good plans, for growing the club properly and in a manner that means we can continue when they depart. We need to be tapping new markets and casting our net a little wider in order to realise and maximise the potential that already exists.

Fantastic signing for county and will definately sure up their defence. Munro clearly wants to stay in the area and that is why he has not gone to a better club. I have no doubt whatsoever that he could have had another 2-3 years in the spl with the likes of St Johnstone or St Mirren. All the best to him, he has been a one of the ICT greats

http://news.bbc.co.u...ll/13509642.stm Having read that - seems its a caveat brought in for the OF, surely this makes a mockery of the SPL as a competition? I know we can do the same, but clearly its not been designed for us smaller clubs, all to favour pandering to OF demands as usual. Poor show SFA If the league kicks off on a certain date and fixtures scheduled then the clubs have to accept that if they want to be part of that league - perhaps those not wanting to play on schedules dates in favour of money making 'glamour' ties should forfit the match on that day and award the teams that are willing and able to play the 3points?

The reasons for having a 3d TV should jump out at you. If they don't, maybe you need glasses!

"Yeovil Town have announced a second pre-season friendly against the recent conquerors of Celtic, Inverness Caledonian Thistle . . . " Good intro!

The fairest solution would be to have the first old firm match midweek so that the game that they miss is an Old firm game. But they wont do that will they Another solution, see if it helps one of our clubs in Europe if they miss a game. What should be an absolute must is that the game that they forfeit MUST be a home game to be played midweek.If they want to go away playing games to make cash and raise the profile of their clubs then it shouldn't be at the expense of other SPL teams.

Really? You sure about that? Does not seem to fit other theories I have heard !

We also have a supply of these postcards available in the club shop

How are they going to get in then

This is not a laughing matter, the poor lad's career is at steak.

Duncans been coaching the youths for a couple of years now. I think its testiment to how well he does the job that, not only does he get a full time position but, eight of his youths were signed on first team contracts this year.

Red and black verticals?

Can someone translate this post for me please ?

Grant was 1 of the few who had the balls to stand up to Butcher the bully and Butcher would walk past him and totally ignore him , he hasn't spoke to Grant or Russell for over 2 Months . source? a player that has played most games this season like grant munro i highly doubt terry ignored him Why do you doubt it ? Terry ( like most managers ) has his favourites and Grant and Russell were not in with the in crowd . Butchers mind was made up when Grant was red carded against Aberdeen at the end of January .

What the club needs is SERIOUS investment, something the Builder is not prepared to do. We are at a stage where we need to kick on to the next level or we will lose our fine management team and stagnate.

Duff is crap and should not be offered a contract