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Totally agree.... A start has been made by changing the crass UK Settlement Laws which legally allowed members of the royal family to marry or adopt any religion but Catholicism......and if I were in the Scottish Government, my immediate reaction to that change would have been to ban all Orange and Hibernian Parades as constituting incitement to hatred....and waited to see the effect of that before making life difficult for the ordinary football fan, with the usual political wooliness when it comes to crafting bills. Never quite understood, not just the Scottish penchant, but the UK penchant for allowing marches which will by their very nature, produce a reaction from those who disagree with them....usually violent. ..and many of which are intended to do just that. When does freedom of speech, assembly and the right to be a complete dick get subsumed by the majority, who can cope with life without hating anyone, right to go about their daily business without having to avoid flailing fists and being kettled for being in the wrong place at the wrong time? Why call it a Bigotry bill anyway..isn't bigotry covered to the last dotted i and crossed t in lots of other laws. Why not call a shovel a shovel and call it a Bill "to outlaw Protestant/Catholic sectarianism which has no business existing in Scotland anyway.and a lot less business existing in the beautiful game"........but that wouldn't be PC, would it..even when we all know what triggered it? The racist, homophobic, and (whisper it) anti-gypsy etc remarks/chants have already been addressed umpteen times elsewhere....both via the EU and UK wide laws ...and can, could have been, and probably were, prosecuted when complaints were made. Imo.no complaint....no hurt feelings and the recognition that it is good natured banter fan to fan....but that would be too commonsensical.....to look at time, place, context and level of offence caused. That is, imo, the one drawback of the internet..it does allow the completely irrational PC individual to spend their lives trawling the internet to find something which offends them...and when you add PC lip readers and Youtube to the mix......the complaints by people who were not actually there grow exponentially. Shades of Mary Whitehouse and her compaining to the Beeb about stuff she had never heard/seen .and the Beeb actually taking notice of her. Fan to individual player bigotry is a different matter altogether..but again the sectarian issue only applies to the numpties who support the Big 2..most of whom outside Glasgow don't do it because they know anything about the background, or even what they are celebrating/denigrating..but because it is part of the whole Rangers/Celtic rivalry and a learned behaviour. I guarantee that vast swathes of Celtic fans in the North are not Catholic....and while vast swathes of Rangers Fans may be theoretically Protestant....I'd guess most of both sets might put Church of Scotland on census forms, but never have entered any kind of church outside School end of term church services. I have always had Celtic as my second team after my home Highland League one, until ICT got into the Premier...and Celtic have now been relegated to third in my Saturday checking of scores, and ICT elevated to first...and my sister is a rabid Rangers supporter..and as far as I am aware supports no other team. Neither of us are religious, though technically brought up C of S..but we did, in our younger days do rivalry to the nth degree...she liked the Beatles, I liked the Stones, for example....and our choices of teams to support had less to do with the backgrounds of the teams and a lot more to do with hacking the other off..and going along with our friends. I do think that many clubs have the facility to police their own fans......I should think that ICT would be aware of those fans who buy tickets as ICT supporters and go to games against the Old Firm wearing Celtic/Rangers scarves, and I know there are some who do.......even if they support ICT all the rest of the time. Not easy to change attitudes......even when those who have the attitudes haven't a clue where they came from....but I think you should start locally to change attitudes...and if enough clubs do that then maybe, eventually , attitudes will start to change. Little point in Rangers and Celtic trying to remove the bile of sectarianism, when other clubs do not do the same.

The only way that any team will win the SC is to win against any and all teams in their path. If we have the desire and motivation to win this cup then we have to beat anyone. So lets get up and at em. I predict us beating Dunfermline then getting a draw v Celtic at TCS. Going down to Glasgow and winning the replay on FEB 8th 2012 Full draw: Hibernian v Dundee/Kilmarnock Motherwell v Morton St Mirren/Hamilton v Ross County Inverness/Dunfermline v Celtic Ayr v Falkirk Rangers v Dundee Utd Hearts v St Johnstone Aberdeen v Queen of the South

An even bigger incentive to beat the Pars. Forcing Celtic to go 'all the way up there'. They already have to do it twice a season and it's just not fair on them. Why should they have to travel all the way up there when they've just had to go to Peterhead?

That's interesting as, unless I'm misunderstanding the area you are referring to there seemed to be no problem with Celtic fans occupying the west stand at 'our' end in the last game.

And how many of the 1601 who turned up on Saturday went because it's such a lovely little ground? I don't suppose for a moment that anyone stays away simply because there is not a fourth stand but it is surely undeniable that a better atmosphere would encourage a few more to attend. I accept it is not something the club can do anything about anytime soon but there should be the long term aim of correcting the errors of the past.

1 win in the last 12 games meant his number had to be up . No way were the owners going to trust Warnock in the January transfer market . so winning the championship counts for nothing? The Championship and the Premier League are 2 different beasts , attempting to compare them is just plain stupid . he won them the championship, they are currently not in the bottom 3 despite 1 win from 12 id say their doing alright. their going through a run of bad form at the moment but thats no reason to sack someone. every team has bad spells some longer than others. if they were bottom of the league fair enough but their not. managers get the sack far to often for me they arnt given a chance.

A lot of the trouble for refs seems to stem from players trying to con them into making decisions by blatantly cheating , maybe if managers clamped down on their players for diving, feigning injury etc then the refs job would be a lot easier .

All the more reason to join in 10p Bowling!

What does "getting the balance" right have to do with refereeing? Surely their job is to apply the rules in a fair and consistent manner and has nothing to do with creating balance??? It is something, without doubt, that referees do...seek balance. We've all seen it, he makes a dubious call for a corner or a foul and then the moment the ball is kicked he blows for the slightest bit of contact between two players in the area just so he can give the ball back to them. It must be one of the very few places where two wrongs are considered to make a right and only serves to highlight that Refs are incapable of admitting when they make a wrong call in the first place and reversing the decision...instead of allowing play to continue and then trying to undo one error with another. Totally bizarre. On the subject of wrongfully issued red cards....Without bringing in technology (which I am against, but accept it may be inevitable and a necessary evil) then the only practical and workable solution I can think of is that the Referee is not allowed to make a straight red card decision on his own and must have the agreement of one other official (one of the assistants or fourth official) before issuing the card. If nothing else, this would force him to stop and take a moment to think about it before brandishing the card. As an aside, and on the subject of assistant refs. They need to start earning their keep as well. More and more over the last few years there seems to be this trend for them to wait to see what the ref does before giving their opinion/decision on something...or more accurately, mimic the refs decision.

I'll be heading to the Hampden walk. Will be another training day in the lead up to the Highland March!

Wow, that is very unfortunate!

It's just a bit of light hearted banter, Laurence, but that's what you get when you post pictures of yourself. I made the same mistake myself with folk saying I look like Mary Feldman - can't see it myself, but there you go.

Have to agree with one major point Dougal makes. 'STAGNATION' off the field the club has made little or no progress since we first appeared in the SPL. The stadium is hardly welcoming is it .Maybe that's why we had only 1600 yesteday for the first home match since Christmas Eve. The 3rd or 4th lowest attendance in the Cup is embarrassing.

If I knew what a feckin wum was I may agree At least Dougal usually provides a rationale for his argument and doesnt half stimulate debate - perhaps that us what a wum does. Or is a wum like PullmyFinger and myself on this thread who answer with dross and a personal attack. At least Dougal and others would understand that mine was of ironic banter and not simply churlish in an infantile manner.

What manner was that? The poster is a bigger wum than Johndo and I can only remember 1 post where he said anything positive.

Damned if they do and damned if they dont. Its not so long ago that Golobart was being slated for being too fancy and trying to play his way out of situations. Now he's slated for clearing the ball as quick as possible. Same with Gillet. Not so long ago since Butcher was being slated for trying to stick with the same players. Now he's slated for trying to slot a very minimul squad together. As for comments about 'loanee mania'. Thats no fault of Butchers. Thats entirely down to budgets. I'm quite sure Terry would love to have the sort of budget where he can bring in the right players on decent deals. Alas! thats not likely to happen at TCS in the near future. Especially with such a dismall crowd for a saturday afternoon home game against a fellow SPL team.

Well I was wanting Auchlenleck Tablot before the draw - now I'm glad we didn't get them cause they would've won yesterday. But seriously, that was bad, really bad. Plan A seemed to consist of long hoofs towards 5"7 Billy McKay who was up against two centre backs, both well over 6 foot! Absolute nonsense, no wonder he did nothing. Plan B by the way, didn't exist! As soon as Gillet was sent off the team seemed to have no idea what they were doing - Hayes, McKay and Tade seemed unsure what their actual position was. Foran is a far better player in the middle of the park than up-front and it showed yesterday. Golobart was solid enough, but three times he tried to shoot from miles out which was just pointless. The substitutions seemed awfully odd too - Cox was poor throughout and should've been hooked for Meekings by half time at least, but no, that change doesn't happen till the game's nearly over. Why was wasn't Sutherland put on when chasing the game? In fact, why wasn't he on from the start? Doesn't seem to get a game half as much anymore and he was the type of player that was needed yesterday. Also, I think the calls for Tuffey to replace Esson will die down now - his distribution, particularly from his feet was very poor and he looked quite prone to errors. Things can only get better I suppose.

It has indeed been a marvellous achievement by all concerned to construct our stadium. No-one would ever wish to say anything against all those people who put thier hands in their pockets and spent hours, days, weeks etc of their time on our success since entering the leagues. BUT. The fact is the stadium has no atmosphere and in it's present form never will. I always thought that when we got past the Caley/Jags thing and moved into a new era of youngsters supporting the club that we would 'grow a crowd' of noisy fans from the youth of Inverness but that hasn't happened. Dunfermline had about 100 fans at today's game and they constantly and consistently out shouted our fans. The stadium is partly to blame. Really surprised to learn about the Gas pipe thing! How on earth did we get planning permission to build the stadium knowing that this pipe is so close. Anyone with half a brain could have guessed that someday we may think about building a fourth enclosure, unbelievable. Well done Dougal for raising this, freedom of speech and all that. Bah humbug to those who cannot take the post in the manner in which I am sure it was meant.

Becos Dougal Dickkhead requests

OK, so Dougal is trying to wind people up (and succeding very well, it would appear!) but to be fair, the point that our stadium is probably the worst in the league is one that I would certainly agree with. Putting aside all the reasons for why it is where it is and the way it is, it is undeniably a windswept ground with no atmosphere. And I accept that there is no money around to do anything about it and we are stuck with it. But the Board must realise that the lack of atmosphere is a major factor in keeping crowds down and, probably more important, will be a factor in players not wanting to play here. When playing at home players want a good atmoshere to lift them and it simply doesn't exist at TCS. I've heard more singing at a wee free funeral than I heard at the ground today. Continued long term success requires a better stadium than we currently have and that must be a long term objective for the Board. It is surely not controversial to suggest that if County get promoted and make improvements to their ground, they will have a better ground than us. After all, let's face it, they already have a better ground than us.

i reckon the red card was unjust, i felt at the time Gillet got the ball. anyway i think these pictures cover the main talking points for the match

Dougal should maybe stop and think before he spouts. The first thing to say is that our end stands are not temporary, contrary to the opinion of some. They are permanent stands of a design, used in many stadia, that could, if so desired, be dismantled and rebuilt elsewhere. There is nothing temporary about the tens of thousands of tonnes of concrete thay sit on. The misconception that the structures were temporary came about when we applied for permission to erect temporary scaffolding type stands to allow us to start playing at TCS from the beginning of the promotion season. Secondly, we dont need a fourth stand. Even St Johnstone are going to a three stand stadium. All that County are doing is building the same type of stand as we have, at one ends and extending the other stands to accomodate a few more seats. Superiority is what is displayed on the field of play. Not what the stadia looks like. Perhaps, dougal, if you feel they will be the more superior club with the more superior stadium then you should feck off over the bridge and stop spouting your crap on these forums. They rest of us will take pride in what we have achieved, what we will achieve, where we are and what we have.

Completely unsubstantiated anecdotal evidence can really be so tedious! care to name a worse stadium in the SPL than TCS Charles ?

Completely unsubstantiated anecdotal evidence can really be so tedious!

You are a complete shambles of a wind up merchant. Be gone. *Back on ignore*

Could we not connect the gas up & form a deflatable bouncy castle type stand !

I am quite happy in temporary North Stand thank you Dougal.

we are in the spl and will stay who cares what county do not me