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The only positive I can take out of tonight is that I'm spared the need to attend any further games this season. An utterly dismal season from start to finish. I've not seen one decent performance this season and feel massively disillusioned by the whole ICT experience. I've dedicated a ridiculous amount of time, money and energy following the club over the years but unless there are some major changes this summer I seriously need to consider whether I can justify dragging myself and ymip jr around the country watching a product which has been mind numbingly appalling this season. From my perspective the club has little or no direction and has fundamentally lost the spirit that set us apart and drove us through the divisions. I've felt next to no affinity with the guys out on the park this season who largely seem to be mercenaries with no sense of what the club means to us and the struggle we've had to get to where we are. Not sure another raft of jobbing trialists is going to address this problem. I don't think I'm alone in feeling disenchanted with the way the club is headed and unless something is done about it as a matter of urgency then I fear we're facing a very bleak future.

Really hope that Tokely is still here next season. The only player who will really fight for the team in derby games.

I completely understand what your saying but my solution will be different if this happens. I won't be going to any games involving 'Rangers'. I'll treat it as a weekend off football. I couldnt't go and support another team though. It's either Caley Thistle or nothing at all. If Rangers emerge as a newco and carry on in the SPL, I might invoice them for the games we've lost at Ibrox. £25 quid to watch us lose (like in December) against a team fielded fraudulently.

Not sure if this is right forum to post this but couldn't resist, please feel free to move it

Shame its only given 3 weeks to get the early bird prices as to find several hundreds of pounds for mum dad and the kids needs a bit more time and I don't think too many people save it over the season knowing they only have 2 weeks after the season ends to get next seasons, A little more time would have been beneficial to most I would imagine.

Well Maurice - as we probably cant pick or attract a decent striker we are going to have to make one ourselves.

A sign of how difficult times are when some people cant afford bog roll

Motherwell 3 ICT 0 - 23/07/2011 ICT 0 Hibernian 1 - 20/07/2011 ICT 3 Dumbfarmlife 3 - 06/08/2011 ICT 0 Rangers 2 - 13/08/2011 Aberdeen 2 ICT 1 - 20/08/11 Ayr 1 ICT 0 - 24/08/2011 Having watched the "shambles" of the pre season performances and the tactics, formations and performances of the above - on 25/08/2011 I began to fear for our season and awaited CHANGE. Still feckin waiting with forlorn hope that some sort of "pressure" will bring about change in 2012-2013.

True, but given that the SPL board is currently - Ralph Topping (SPL Chairman), Neil Doncaster (SPL Chief Executive), Eric Riley (Celtic FC), Stephen Thompson (Dundee United FC), Derek Weir (Motherwell FC) and Steven Brown (St Johnstone FC) it seems that the SPL clubs are not independent of the SPL board which seems to be the point you were making. Absolutely right. This "incubator company" is complete tosh and only there to appease Rangers fans who won't support a new company if the old Rangers were liquidated. Let's not liquidate old Rangers but leave them hanging there with debts of £130 million in the vain hope that one day these debts can be settled and old Rangers and new Rangers can rejoin. Meanwhile new Rangers carry on spouting their bile up and down the country. The whole thing stinks and I want no part of it any more. But that's just my personal opinion and I respect the opinion of anyone who thinks otherwise.

So Alex a club (us) who won't even have a vote re newco Rangers will suffer financially while new Rangers will carry on regardless. How is this a fair protest. As a smallish spl club we would suffer more than most if folk stay away. By all means don't give Rangers any money but not supporting our club because of this is so unfair imo.

I can't see why people would feel the need in punishing Caley for Rangers' wrong doing. End of the day, it's inevitable what's going to happen for Rangers - liquidation. Rangers will get what's coming to them. 3 year ban in Europe, points deduction and a X amount percentage of the revenue from SPL. I can't see how the SPL will be a crooked league, if they don't do sanctions then you have to start asking questions. We need to support Caley financially at every chance we can, so we don't end up like Rangers. Next season will provide a good reason to renew season tickets with C*unty coming up to the SPL, we need a bigger and better support than them and prove that we are better than them. As Old Caley Girl says - Boycott Ibrox. That way Caley won't be harmed.

Pay towards the sporting integrity of the league ? Cash for integrity? Im a wee bit confused. You cant buy integrity.

esson- tuffey- tokely- gillet- hogg- jones- tansey- hayes- :thumbup: tade- mckay- piermayr- maybe proctor- willams- golobart- winnall-unfortunatly ed baldy- :abduction:

What surprised me last night was the lack of fight from Dunfermline. Only for very very brief spells was there any urgency from them and, had I been a Dunfermline fan, would have been very disappointed at this. As for us, the game sort of summed up our season, crying out for an out and out striker anmd had we scored one goal, which I thought we merited, i think we would have gone on to win comfortably. Hopefully the team can give us a big performance against Hibs now that the pressure is off but,as everyone knows, changes needed for next season. While everyone is aware that changes to personnel are required, I also think it eqaully important that we develop a system of play that all the players understand and know their roles. To me, that has been one of our biggest problems this seas, not having a system that everyone seither understands or seems comfortable with.

The frustrating thing is that when you look at that list on paper then it makes you think that all we really need to do is add a goalscorer. Despite what the results may show, I think this squad started the season better than they finished it. I think a variety of things knocked the stuffing/heart out of them over the course of the campaign and our weakness was in not being able to deal with the hits and blows. I wouldn't go so far as to say they lost their bottle, but the last few weeks there's been a feel about things which some have put down to lack of effort, but could just as easily be a lack of self belief or a feeling of "what's the point?" because no matter what they do they haven't been getting fair return. I stick by the opinion that our biggest mistake this year was hyping up expectation by talking about top 6 before we even got out of the traps. I get the whole ambition thing and the need to get the players fired up but you can motivate people without filling their heads with sh*t. The more we slipped away from that goal the worse the performances got and the more irate fans got....a recipe for disaster as it set us up for early failure (failure to meet the target) and only served to add additional, unneeded, pressure. I'm not going to pick out individual players because I think every one in the current squad is capable in terms of footballing ability and the decision is probably more to do with keeping the players who are mentally strong to bounce back from this season and start afresh from next season....but I say again, PLEASE CAN WE KEEP THE EXPECTATIONS REAL AND NOT HANDICAP OURSELVES FROM THE OUTSET.

We are safe and to be honest that is all that matters. Game was poor but no worse than what we've seen in the last few weeks. We were better than Dunfermline but as per per usual lacked a cutting edge especially in front of goal. Graeme Shinnie's finishing was absolutely abysmal but apart from that i'm content with a point...even if Dunfermline are the worst side in the league. Only positives really to take were the return of Andy Shinnie who showed his class despite looking understandably rusty, the minutes silence which was well observed and the weather which was beautiful. Time to write off season 2011-12 and start doing some hiring and firing, roll on next season.

Proper dismal stuff. The only players who deserve any praise at all after that are Esson for not letting a goal in and Andrew Shinnie for showing glimpses of the quality he had pre-injury. We can't defend without fouling, we can't break up attacking play before it reaches the defence, we can't play short passes to our own team mates, we can't run at a defence to worry them in the slightest (Even a defence with Alex bloody Keddie in it), we can't cross, we can't move for the ball at throw-ins, we can't utilise corners. We can't even waste time in the bloody corner FFS! Rumour has it that Butcher set out the team to only play for a point, because the last time we did that in the SPL that really worked out well for us. Unless there is MASSIVE change made to this entire squad for next season, we will absolutely be relegated. Anyone hoping to beat County with showings like that are delusional. We have a team of mercenaries who don't give a flying f**k about this club and won't care about the derby. County are choc full of players who know how important the derby is and a few who have an axe to grind against Butcher.

It was great seeing him back tonight. I was critical of him earlier this season but I have been proved wrong. He showed some neat touches tonight and made some good runs with and without the ball. I would say he was our MotM despite only playing about 20 minutes.

I'm not going to be negative. I am going to list only positive things from tonight: Andrew Shinnie showed more creativity in his cameo appearance than the entire ICT midfield has done all season. The minutes silence was impeccably observed. It was a nice night. There we go.

What a hideous game, between two utterly dreadful teams. Steve Paterson's ICT side from a decade ago would have walked all over both these sides. This was the sort of match which makes me think that, in the event of a goalless draw, neither team should get any points. I feel ashamed that we felt the need to take the ball to the corner flag at the end, rather than go for a winner - there are 2 games left for goodness sake, it wasn't the last match of the season. So little happened that the BBC highlights will have to show the minutes silence and the mascot's outstanding half-time antics just to make up a full 5 minutes of action. I can't even say that we were set up to play negatively and go for a draw - we're not well organised enough to manage that. It was the same plan as last week, and the week before that, and the week before that...they say a fool is a man who makes the same mistakes over and over again, but expects different results. Well, the punting high balls at a 5'8" centre forward hasn't worked all season, but we were at it again. Doran and Shinnie looked like they had instructions to get to the byline and cross high balls - to our 5'8" centre forward who had to win a header against to 6ft-plus centre backs. I'm pretty sure that we weren't playing on a potato patch tonight, but you'd have though otherwise given the abysmal first touches and rotten passing on display for the most part. Foran had a shocker; Tansey played one beautiful Hollywood pass to release McKay in the second half, but that hardly made up for all the much shorter passes he gave straight to opposing players. Graeme Shinnie, like every other time he has played as a wide midfielder this season, looked like a defender who doesn't know how to play as a wide midfielder. Bizarrely, our Plan B in the first half appeared to be to punt high balls at him instead of McKay! I thought Nick Ross at least showed some good touches, and I was disappointed when he was subbed. I felt McKay offered very little, and Tade caused the defenders more hassle in 3 minutes than McKay did in 87. Our defence were solid enough, but still managed to gift a few chances. None of the back four looked comfortable on the ball for a second, and when Dunfermline pressed high up the pitch we gave the ball away very cheaply. Ryan Esson probably gets my MOTM, simply on the grounds that his handling was assured. So that's one win in fourteen, and no wins in our last eight home games since 21st January. At least this season is over for us. But I've yet to see any reason why next season won't be just as bad if big changes aren't made.

All great apart from some bloke with bad hair celebrating the Rangers cup draw with his mouth full!

Was the crows really 6036?

Me and my mate went to a friendly against Deveronvale the Monday before we beat Celtic in 2003. We were the only fans there so that means we are the biggest fans, no-one can contradict us.

That wasn't an attack, it was a response based on my perception of your post. Around 25% of our crowds are walk up/pay at the gate....so whilst season ticket holders making the decision to stay away after having purchased will not reflect in the figures, there's still ample scope for damage to be done to the average. What's more, plenty of people were hacked off with Brewster from the previous season and that would have had an impact on Season Ticket sales for 08/09. From there, obviously the relegation took it's toll and least season would have seen a bit of a bounce following on from the promotion season. This year will have suffered partly from losing some of those who got caught up in the excitement of the promotion...think that was going to be inevitable unless we had done something extraordinary last season. I was at a meeting/workshop last night about the production of a Scottish Football Fans Charter which is being looked at from the ground up. Everyone in the room was asked to list their good and bad experiences and results/performance on the pitch came a fair way down the list of things that spoil the matchday experience. I am therefore less inclined to attach so much of the blame for dwindling crowds to results/performance. If you accept that last point then you have to start looking at what does turn people off...what makes the matchday experience a good one and keeps people coming back? The answer to that is different for different groups of people. Anything from being treated poorly by staff/stewards (poor customer service) to lack of craic/banter could go down on that list. As fans there's little we can do (directly) about the product on the pitch, but we probably can do something about the other stuff....but only if we are willing to put a bit of effort in to get something back from it. Last night is a good example, only the Supporters Trust and CLAN had made the effort to get people to attend the workshop. The ICT Supporters Club were a no show and C*unty couldn't bothered sending anyone either. Not a go at you, or anyone other specific person, but the opportunities are there for fans to influence and effect positive change, but it seems they are willing to do no more than rant on a forum and hope that others will pick up the work and do everything on their behalf. Until that starts to change then we don't have a strong platform from which to complain about what is happening.

I did say that Terry took over in January, that’s a fact. Any reader would have questioned who was in charge prior to him and could have seen the line above. Given season tickets are sold PRIOR to the start of the season and it was clearly stated that Terry took over in January, I’m not sure how that constitutes figures for the season getting "chalked up against Butcher". It is not a witch hunt - did you miss the part about crediting him with our highest finish in the league? It’s pretty petty to pick up on that to be honest. It was an honest question following an observation on statistics and I didn’t expect to be attacked on it. It’s a shame when someone can’t express an opinion on a forum without being targeted as having an ulterior motive. The manager is one of a great many variables which affects attendances; it was purely a question of what is wrong and what we can do right as a club on the whole.

If the lad does well and is good enough to get a chance with a decent team, then I want him in THIS team!

I have a huge problem with football being an olympic sport. The olympics should be the pinacle of achievement in that sport. So for athletics, swimming, the 20km silly walk etc it is the pinacle. For football, the World Cup is the pinacle. For tennis, winning a Grand Slam is the pinacle. Adding Football and Tennis is only about selling tickets to make up for the lack of ticket sales at the Wrestling and sychranised swimming. Do not get me started on the complete futility of snychranised swimming.

Ya can stick yer blue and white up yer ***e Seriously though, regardless of what we think about quality etc, we are committed to Errea in a deal that is benificial, and is working, for both club and supplier and so long as people buy replicas then I dont see that changing. There is no comparrison with them across the bridge because they dont have a manufacturers deal. They buy what they fancy and get their women to iron on the rest. Last year it was Adidas this year Nike. Next year it could be home woven flax from the peat bogs of Ross-shire that the dolly-pegs are holding on the line strung between the chrome plated 'Hobby' trailers.

The stripes must stay!