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The above link was posted on a friend of mine's facebook earlier today after our loss to the tims, and for some reason it's hit a nerve... This is one of the main reasons I don't go to games when the Old Filth are in town. IE Our own supporters get chastised for standing, chanting and having a good time, yet in the South stand the fans can party and no-one bats an eyelid.

PEOPLE THIS WAS ONE GAME!! the last seven games everyones been saying how well we are playing how good we are and how we are going to push up the table. one poor performance and you want an entire new squad. you want tokely rid off after one poor performance in 300+ good performances. GET SOME FECKING PERSPECTIVE!!

Interesting also to see Lennon's interview. Celtic have now won their last 15 matches and Lennon was heaping praise on his players for what he felt was a very good performance. They certainly defended well but they did not create much and relied on bad defensive errors for their 2 goals - if that was a performance to rave about then Lennon cannot have a particularly high opinion of what he expects of his team. Even accepting that what the 2 managers said after the game is something of an exageration of their true opinion and considering their opinions in the context of what I felt about the performances of the 2 teams yesterday, it seems to me that the 2 managers have pretty similar expectations of the quality of the product they expect from their teams. We lost by just 2 goals to the best team in the country but our manager is damning in his criticism of his team's performance whilst Lennon waxes lyrical about his. That suggests that both managers know there is not a lot of difference between the 2 sides. That is something to be positive about - it is a reflection of how far we have come and it really doesn't serve any purpose to read anything into yesterday's performance beyond the fact that it was disappointing. It is also a bit disappointing to see a return of the Foran bashing again just because we lost to the best team in the land. He may not have been particularly effective yesterday but I don't think his attitude can be faulted. Two incidents stand out for me. The first was when Tokely made his 2nd howler: Foran went to him and clearly offered words of encouragement which is what a captain should do. The Foran of old may have given Tokely a mouthful. The second was in the 2nd half when he dwelt too long on the ball and was dispossed on the edge of the Celtic area. The ball was passed up the field as Celtic counter attacked and it was Foran himself who had run back quickly who made the interception of the final ball in the ICT box. If others had demonstrated the same level of effort yesterday, the score may have been different.

Sorry but IMHO thats a quite ludicrous reason for not attending yesterday The old firm ashamed of nothing offended by everything I'm afraid you sadly come into that bracket with that kind of attitude A full north stand bouncing with our fans and we could have had the exact same scenario yesterday but due to the stay sways that was sadly not an option The apathy of the Inverness football fan makes a quite depressing read Say what you want about the Celtic support but they generated a lot of cash for ICT yesterday certainly a lot more than home fans Dougal

No doubt I'll get slated for starting a thread on this subject but I believe it needs to be highlighted, and this is by no means me having a go at the ICT fans including myself who were in attendance today Less than 5800 today for a Scottish cup tie against the septics is an absolute disgrace considering what a massive game it was for the club To be outnumbered by the away support at home should never happen but it seems to be the norm when it comes to important cup ties at TCS, we can't put it down to Celtic having a huge fanbase because I recall it being the same scenario when Elgin came calling a couple of seasons back The north stand looked half empty from my seat in the main stand and that must have looked terrible on sky sports to a world wide viewing audience Our attendances are on the decline this season but the question is why? Why don't Invernessians get behind their team and back them in numbers has the novelty of SPL football worn off? ICT need to do something to attract more Invernessians through the turnstiles as they are clearly failing in found so at this precise moment! Inverness's population has grown quite substantially over the last two decades yet our fan base hasn't which means there is a serious problem in my opinion ICT should be targeting all the primary and secondary schools in the city with complimentary tickets, get the younger fans interested and who knows it might get the new generation of Invernessians interested Thoughts? Dougal

The reason I didnt stay away. It was a home game. I like going to watch ICT play. Its far better than watching tv, just like any live event is far better to watch it live, than to watch it on tv. I tend to get carried away at the football, if I tried that at home I would get 'carried away'. The weather didnt bother me I just put on more clothes. As for the Celtic/Irish/Argentina fans they are as predictable as ever and I still believe we can p1ss them off next weekend.

I thought the attendance was shocking for an old firm game. I put the blame on the club. Everything they do does not take into consideration the fans. Whether its the state of the car park, the rubbish 'pub', the lack of incentives to attract new fans, the food, the club shop, the announcer, hospitality... i could go on. 2nd rate - its like amatuers are running our club. County put us to shame with most of the things i have mentioned.

just a thought but how about next season trialing an entire season ticket. meaning that you pay a one off fee that gives you entrance to all the games, cup, friendly the works. would be a good start if you asked me

There's a lot of discussion on different threads around much the same theme and it is really summarised by discussion about how to get more people into the grounds. Yesterday's crowd was a bit disappointing although it was not surprising given the fact that it was televised. What I think is of far more significance is that only 17,822 turned up at Ibrox today. OK so this was being televised as well but more ICT fans went to the game yesterday than for a normal league match whilst substantially less than half those who support Rangers in the league turned up today - this on a day when Rangers desparately needed the support of their fans. Whilst this (and the result!) certainly illustrate the level of problems Rangers are now facing, it also illustrates a more general problem in the game which the fans are the victims of and can do little about. It is, of course all about money. The reason why the the gate at Ibrox was so low today is that most who watch them week in and week out are season ticket holders and many of them will have felt that they simply couldn't afford to pay extra to watch a cup game. In other words the financing of the game is driving the fans away. It has long stopped being the people's game and is now the preserve of the middle classes. There is a lot of money in the game but it doesn't get to where it is needed. The top players get far too much money as a result of an unholy alliance with the agents, football authorities, TV companies, sponsors and the clubs which pander to short term finances rather than the long term interests of the game. The agents want the players to be paid as much as possible so that their percentage is as big as possible. The TV companies want to maximise their income from subscribers and advertisers and therefore have to show matches and players that the TV audience wants to watch. In the hope that they can get a decent share of TV revenues, clubs have to invest in the best players they can afford if they are to offer a product the TV companies will buy; this means they have to get as much revenue as they can through the turnstiles. The sponsors and advertisers want a return on their money so will pay the big money when they are guaranteed big audiences, And the authorities go along with this because they want their leagues to attract the best players and the TV money. This means that whilst a lot of money comes into the game, it is not shared in a way which benefits the long term interests of the game. Instead it goes disproportionately to the best players rather than to the clubs further down the pecking order who are nurturing the stars of the future. It even gets to the ludicrous position where some of the top clubs have far more players than they really need but they hang on to them, paying them fabulous wages for not playing on the basis that it is worth paying them not to play rather than having them playing for another team and making it more difficult to maintain a position amongst the elite who get the lions share of the TV and sponsorship money. This means that there are less quality players around for the teams in the lower reaches of the game with the net result that the customer coming through the turnstiles pays more to watch a poorer product whilst there is more top quality product available to watch on TV. The suprising thing is not that attendances have dropped, it is that they have not dropped by more. As long as market forces dictate, we will increasingly have a situation where a bigger and bigger share of the income from the game is shared out by the top players. What we need is international collaboration to cap the wages merry-go-round so that more money is fed back to the grass roots of the game so that smaller clubs can keep the better players and so that admission charges can be reduced to bring the fans back to watch them. Sadly, that just ain't going to happen and the downward spiral of football below the top echelons will continue.

Minority my erse You either don't live in the real world ,wear blue tinted spectacles or both When you hear a packed Ibrox in full voice or any Rangers support in any away ground in Scotland or Europe it is the majority not a minority who belt these songs out Wisen up Dougal

I have retired you

I have a wife, children and a grandchild to support = plus the tab at the local.

You crack me up....complaining about lack of support from the local area in one thread and hoping that we don't convert people to the cause and bring them in on an another!!! How exactly do you suggest converting one of them, once an Orc always an Orc IMO You maybe quite happy sitting next to union jack waving bigot but I'm most definitely not With that kind of attitude I can see now why you previously voted yes to kill of your previous team Dougal

ONLY hope of getting bums on seats is to DRASTICALLY cut admission prices for adults. Desperate times call for desperate measures. It should be about survival at the cost of profit!

You crack me up....complaining about lack of support from the local area in one thread and hoping that we don't convert people to the cause and bring them in on an another!!!

It must be getting near the time when some teams are going to have to go part time due to lack of income? All things aside, I think we would see more fight from a bunch of part timers than we saw from ICT yesterday. As for lack of atmosphere, NOTHING your going to do is going to change the reserved and apathetic nature of the people in the highlands. thats a FACT!

We should employ Mr Woo for the HT entertainment.

Internal politics anyone?..............Nah Ah prefer fitba IHE

Starting a conga in the North Stand ? Why didnt I feckin think about doing that ? Have to agree with Dougal here as it is much the same with the likes of Aberdeedn, Hearts and Hibs. Our away support is treated like dirt by some factions but that is down to the crowd controller and individual stewards. When there is a moderation of leniency we have a great old time. Lets face it the bigger the trvelling support then the less the stewrads will become involved due to the concern of crowd disturbances.

Its good to see that Nick Ross has got his Mojo back

Sorry but IMHO thats a quite ludicrous reason for not attending yesterday The old firm ashamed of nothing offended by everything I'm afraid you sadly come into that bracket with that kind of attitude A full north stand bouncing with our fans and we could have had the exact same scenario yesterday but due to the stay sways that was sadly not an option The apathy of the Inverness football fan makes a quite depressing read Say what you want about the Celtic support but they generated a lot of cash for ICT yesterday certainly a lot more than home fans Dougal Like Gringo said .... Our own supporters get chastised for standing , chanting & having a good time ! so i can fully understand it being a good enough reason to stay at home

I think part of the reason in dwindling attendance is the total lack of atmosphere , today for example was actually embarrassing ! I dont recall one song or chant of encouragement for our boys in fact its been like that for too long ! Is it any wonder our team play better away from home ! So maybe we should stop moaning about the team performance & take a look at ourselves !!

?20 a ticket and live on SKY and bad weather, I'm surprised there was as many as stated above. With the lack lustre performance today I don't think attendance will be going up in the near future.

we were shocking today!!!!!! celtic didint even play that well but outplayed us. REF WAS ****!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lukemackay are you ******* blind? Blatant penalty, proc and tokely should be nowhere near the starting line up.

We have complained for years about the stranglehold the OF have on the Scottish game, and we know that the status quo does not work for anyone. So, there seems little point in clinging to the old simply through the fear of the unknown. In fact, it is not so unknown, as in the 80s there was proper competition, when RFC were weak. I think most of us would relish the return of that kind of competitive environment, even if we attract less sponsorship money. Young players would come through as they did in the past and as a nation we would find our proper place in the footbal hierarchy. The Irish comparison does not really work either, as they have no real history of competitive football leagues, while we do. The reinvention of our league should be our priority, not the retention of a failed model that is strangling the game.