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First ever all lower league Scottish Cup final. One club hasnt won the cup for 104 years. The other has never won it.

I'm not so sure that Hibs are not currently in the Premiership because of past financial mismanagement which in their case was about 25 years ago - long before even Caley Thistle's financial near-death experience. I would be more inclined to say that Hibs are not in the Premiership for the altogether more conventional reason of having been downright rank on the park!

On Friday night, Toby Agdestein finally scored his first goal for Haugesund! http://www.soccerbase.com/players/player.sd?player_id=56447

More to the point, it was the striker's first goal ever, at his 4th professional club!

'All kick-offs are 3.00pm unless stated ' should probably read 'Your match probably isn't at 3pm or even on a Saturday unless it says so and it serves you right for not being a corporate sponsor or TV company you unwelcome non-OF supporting little oik - signed, Neil Doncaster'

Keep on playing, keep on attracting supporters (though I fear the return of the union jack mob will bring even more of the Invernessian Loyal back out of the shadows), hopefully be able to field more local youngsters, win the odd cup, stay as much as possible in Spiffle 1 and get as high up as possible. Can't really hope for more. But there will be good days and bad days and its the former we live by.

Through the entire competition there have been 9 ties between Premiership and Championship sides with Premiership sides winning on only 3 occasions. The Rangers and Hibs have both beaten 3 Premiership sides. On top of that, County needed a replay to see off a league 1 side, we needed a replay to see off a league 2 side and Hamilton memorably got well beaten by a league 2 side. That's 7 of the 12 Premiership sides getting knocked out by lower league opposition. This is all evidence that the top flight is a pretty weak league at the moment.

Thanks for putting up the footage Manfer. You're a brick. I have viewed these highlights and ICT could have scored a few more if lady luck had been in attendance. But then, again, a miss is as good as a mile, isn't it? Bad luck in not scoring is matched only by the fact that you do have to accept the bad with the good and, frankly, just get on with it. It is, and ever will continue to be, quite impossible for every new year's team to meet all our expectations and we will just have to face the fact that sometimes our team will merely engender our expectorations. Last remark by approval of IHE. I do feel that the somewhat beleaguered Bughtie is merely trying to dwell on the positive aspect of support, as he has done consistently from the very inception of his membership, rather than the brutally frank, but often seen to be negative, criticisms of the team. He conveys the impression that he firmly understands that attempting to emphasize the positive is preferable to the negative since it is more inspiring, uplifting and motivational to everyone around the club , especially when times are tough as they are now. I agree with that philosophy because who wants to be around moaners all the time and we can't get out of the doldrums by putting people to the sword for every slip-up, be it players, managers or Board members all of whom must, anyway, by now be keenly aware that their livelihoods are at stake one way or another. When we hark on about simulation I have to smile as I dwell on an action which is once again negative when we could just as easily place a letter "t" after the letter S and start a thread on how we can uplift and motivate . I am very far from suggesting the restriction of anything anyone wants to opine about ICT except that I simply prefer the tempered route at this juncture because I sincerely feel that it will bear more fruit in both the short and long run. As one of my more poorly-motivated ex employees once intoned directly to me when I fired him for ignoring my specific instructions on how to do a job ,and nearly lost my company an important contract as a result,.."You will get more with honey than with vinegar, S.P."

Sat 16 Apr 2016 Danske Bank Premier C Allen (Cliftonville 0 - Glentoran 2) Dafabet Welsh Premier J Oswell (Hat trick) (Newtown 3 - Gap C Q 2) National League South B Greenhalgh (Hayes 2 - Concord R 2) Highland League C Dingwall (Strathspey 0 - Formantine 10) (Neil Gauld, NOT ex ICT, scored 8 goals!) M Laing (Inverurie 2 - Clach 3) S Leslie (Inverurie 2 - Clach 3) S Duff (Turriff 2 - Cove R 2) L MacKinnon (Buckie 5 - Rothes 0)

The only refreshing thing about being in the bottom six is that we avoid going to Celtic Park for a lunchtime kick off.

It'll be like a Challenge Cup final.

The fate of Caley Thistle from now on will be like the attraction of love-making --- it's an up-and-down process. And that's s why we unconditionally support the team through thick and thin 'cos we love 'em? eh?

I agree with IHE's summing up of the young man's first post--you put a lot of work into this excellent effort and this is appreciated. Just for the record, Stevie May runs only on his front toes so I wouldn't offer him a full wage until he lands on all his toes. Like "coming down to earth" so Stevie May focus, like? Then he can give us the full Monty. That's fair, what? Meantime we could go after Gardyne of Ross County who can wriggle and roll with the best and can make a mean pass to boot. As for the beans issue, are you aware that Heinz has now devalued their beans by half-filling the can with colored water--my wife knows food alright and she attests to this duplicitous crime. The Pimpernell organisation has been on the case for half a year and the results are now in. They still haven't learnt that doing this puts clients off the product and thus Heinz has now put hundreds of Canadian workers out of a job by closing their very large plant in Scotty's eastern territory in Canada --only a hop, skip and a jump from my place in the West, i.e. about 2000 miles away. There was no pension for the fallen, and no prospects of another immediate job being offered. Sign of the business times, eh? So, why would you buy a loser's beans? I don't because I've already bean there, done that and instead I buy the "No Name" brand which we all know, though, is sold by the already horribly wealthy Canadian owners of large Superstores ,like the fabled Jimmy Pattison whom IBM would love to learn about since Jimmy made his original fortune selling cars. Now he hob nobs with the Queen . But at least we get a full tin and a rather naughty taste which heats up the blood and even might be described as rather saucy. I could go on but I fear the wrath of the beaks so it's goodnight from me and it's goodnight from him --er, was that Ronnie Corbett perhaps?

Thank you Scarlet for your support and comments. A good analogy of stimulation there