Leaderboard

History should never hold the club back and stop it moving forward, but the heritage of Caley & Thistle is an important part of the football story of Inverness and is certainly important enough to remain as the official club (trading!) name. Similarily, #ICTFC is just the result of changes socially and may well go out of fashion in a few years. The club shirt, letterheads, official communication, etc. should always bear the full club crest, IMO. It's the old first impressions argument. The badge looks great, is unique both in name (full) and design and as such is instantly recognisable. Social media, web content, etc. are all suitable for the ICTFC abbreviation and 'Pride of the Highlands' (However cringey, amateurish or generally rubbish it may be!). I don't see why it has to be either or, both have their place, but there should be a separation because, as said before, having 'ICTFC Pride of the Highlands' as the official crest is, to my mind, unprofessional and needlessly cheapens the overall identity of the club.

Such irrelevant information would be of little interest to anyone other than the odd obsessive.

I think folk need to get a grip. We're still going through a transitioning period. This could be a blessing in disguise and allow us to settle and focus on the league. No need to start playing the blame game. No one said it was going to be easy. We need to be showing our support on Saturday, no negativity.

Very disappointing to be out of the cup, and two bad results in a row makes things worse. However, quite a few would have predicted this result. They're on great form and confidence is high, playing at home on a Tuesday night on a plastic pitch against a team on low confidence after the result on the weekend. Easy to get disheartened at this stage, but I'll wait until we play County to begin to make any sort of judgement on the start of Richie's reign.

Poor night, but we need to get behind the management and players on Saturday and try to help them find form.

Says Rural Aberdeenshire!! It's surely relevant information to the club so they can target the correct people for future season ticket sales I'm back living in Inverness now but you are correct I will freely admit I don't have a season ticket, I'm working class with all sorts of expenses, remember not all folk fit in the middle class to upper class bracket and can easily afford season tickets or hand out £30 quid Never said it did matter or it made you a better/worse fan, I agree the more supporters the better however it's obvious when attending home games that there are fewer Invernessian accents in the stands. It's merely an observation from personal experience Lastly let's hope the track and field in Rio starts soon, you never know we might get a break from having to read the drivel that spews oot the gob of the self acclaimed athletics expert, sadly I doubt it though Dougal

The answer to the last question is simple. The club own the crest and the rights to it and accordingly have the authority to change it. However, the first question remains a very valid one to which, as yet, they have provided no answer.

Here's our Preview Not sure if Scotty is back yet.

Well, it wouldn't have been 1-0 to Alloa, that's for sure.

And in good voice

Hardly. Not the first prem team to be beaten by an on-form team. Just a typical cup upset

Season has just started for goodness sake! No need to panic yet.

Keep the faith

Good for a penalty if nothing else

. Yes thanks I'm listening to that but you are right not great the live text on bbc Scotland sport giving more information

Inverness CT Starting XI: Fon Williams; Raven, McNaughton, Warren, Tremarco, Tansey, Polworth, King, Vigurs, Mulraney, Boden. Subs: Mackay, Horner, Brown, Draper, Doran, Sutherland, Fisher. Alloa Athletic Xl: Parry, Taggart, Waters, Graham, Marr, Goodwin, Longworth, Robertson, Spence, Kirkpatrick, Flannigan. Subs: McDowall, Wilson, Hoggan, Hetherington, Holmes, Layne, Cawley.

Thank feck there's a game tonight

And one of the most appropriate and effective means of retaining our roots is by our Club badge which retained the names Inverness, Caledonian and Thistle. Do you honestly think that "ICTFC Pride of the Highlands" helps to look forward with an open mind?

another 2 booked, now down to 4 seats left.

Ha Ha you don't even live in Scotland and don't have a season ticket but find it more important to not only be born in Inverness but be conceived their too. You are the king of the wind up merchants.

Our crest is not heraldic in nature so of no interest to the Lord Lyon whether you regard the role as archaic or not.

down to our last 6 seats to sell if anyone still not made their mind up!

+ 1 RiG

Alloa are looking for a second Highland scalp in the League Cup after victory over Ross County in the group stages saw the holders knocked out. Jim Goodwin returns from suspension for the in-form hosts. Inverness CT winger Aaron Doran could start for the first time in 13 months following his return from a serious knee injury. Defender Josh Meekings and second-choice goalkeeper Ryan Esson will return to training later in the week. Caley Thistle sailed through the group stage of the League Cup but came unstuck at the weekend, opening their Premiership campaign with a 2-0 loss at Partick Thistle. Alloa have made a flying start to the season, maintaining their 100% record with a 4-0 win at home to Peterhead in League One. Inverness manager Richie Foran: "Alloa have had a great group stage. "They conceded less goals than us, finished top of their group, and had a great win on Saturday as well, scoring four goals against Peterhead. But I believe in my players." Alloa boss Jack Ross: "This will be a very difficult game against a full-time side, but I could not have asked any more from the players ahead of it.

We seem to have been somewhat outthought on Saturday with Mulraney being nullified and largely bereft of ideas with things improving once Draper came on. I would be inclined to drop Mulraney and Polworth to the bench and bring in Draper and Doran from the start. There is absolutely no room for complacency or experiment here. Forget our past cup hammerings of Alloa, they are a very good team now and are in a rich vein of form. They topped their group humiliating County in the process and on Saturday battered a very good Peterhead side who themselves have been in good form. This is a trophy we are capable of winning but we will need to be at our best and fully focused to clear this hurdle first.

Oh the irony Bannerman trying to rubbish a story because he thinks it's fabricated to suit the authors agenda LOLZ Dougal

Caleyboy you're wasting your time trying to get an official answer as it won't happen, communication between the middle/upper class and the likes of the working man rarely if ever happens Sadly Scottish Football has now lost it's working class roots, money has destroyed the glorious game Dougal

I wouldn't

And? It strikes me that there are three possible affiliations: caley, thistle and caleythistle. Whilst we shouldnt forget whence we came, we should look forward with an open mind

9 seats now left to sell don't miss out

Bons mots surely

Sounds about right, though, for a club which, to the very end, banned women from entering its boardroom Seriously, though, the points made there are bang on. If it's costing £4M to run a club, then it has to get that money from somewhere and gate receipts are an important part of this. It's quite clear that ticket prices have to be set at the point on the elasticity of demand curve which maximises income. The difficulty is that players' wage expectations are such that it's difficult for most clubs to make ends meet. Take ICT. The ballpark attendance is maybe 3000 odd, depending on opponents, and prices probably maximises income. Drop the ticket price and attendance won't rise in proportion. Increase the price and gates will fall more than in proportion. Meanwhile the ballpark, possibly quite variable, player wage is believed to be around £1000 a week. This begs questions. Are players who can only attract 3000-odd fans worth £1000 a week? Is that wage level artificially inflated by the football environment in which it exists, thus creating a false market? I suggest that the answers there are No... and Yes. Football is operating the economics of the madhouse where TV reveneues and billionaires with more money than sense are distorting the market at the very top and this is working right down through the system, helped on its way by benefactors such as at Dundee United, Ross County, Rangers etc who - for their own reasons - choose to donate money so that expenditure can well exceed real revenue. To be fair ICT,although quite far down that list, has also had episodes of this over the years - eg Ian Fraser, Tullochs and the more recent Muirfield Mills investment. Between one thing and another, the game has created an artificial situation where players are paid hugely above their realistic market value. For instance, that £1000 a week is well, well above the average working wage and you do have to question whether it can be justified for a 25 hour week which includes playing in front of 3000 people in the top tier of a very poor national set up. But since everybody else is offering similarly inflated sums, clubs have to stretch every financial sinew they have - which includes raising ticket prices to the very limit of the income they can generate. One of the biggest absurdities is the Highland League where Nairn's recent, highly publicised abandonment by their sponsors has really got people talking about - and frequently criticising - HL wage levels. Let's be realistic. The HL is the fifth tier of, as I've said, a poor national set up. Skill levels are pretty low, fitness levels even lower. With all due respect to them, they are by and large not very good, and hugely inferior to many other local performers in other sports. They train - often reluctantly - just twice a week and play in front of crowds in the lower end of the three figure bracket. But there are not a few HL clubs paying signing on fees well into the thousands in addition to hundreds of pounds a week in wages. These remuneration levels are totally nonsensical - even before you consider that there are world class performers in Rio who are actually out of pocket getting where they have.

There is no doubt that the tickets are very pricey. My first match at Kingsmills back in the sixties cost me a shilling (five pence) at a turnstyle marked 'Boys and OAPs' Clearly no thought that girls might like to attend the football back in those days. Thankfully, things have changed for the better since then. One other thing that has changed for the better is that instead of watching your milkman, postie or PE Teacher turn out for a tenner a week we now have the privilege of watching a team of full time professional athletes competing in the top tier of our national football league who already have one major national trophy in their CV playing in a modern all seater stadium. The harsh fact is that to bring that level of football to Inverness now costs circa four million pounds a year and that money has to be found somewhere. The club are not fleecing supporters, indeed they offer very competitive season ticket packages and the occasional one off deals but the fact of the matter is that if we want to continue to watch football at the level we currently do we are going to have to pay for it. If the club could get twice the attendance by halving the cost they would but they have attempted to go down that route but it doesn't work unfortunately.

Funny how we all see the game a bit differently. I actually thought Polworth was among our better players, at least in terms of showing a bit of fight getting forward. I agree that he's not a deep-lying midfielder - I'd have Draper in there ahead of him every time - but personally I'd like to see the less-industrious Vigurs dropping to the bench and Polworth playing in behind Boden, unless Foran thinks that Aaron Doran could do that job. Not sure that Boden and Fisher would work together up front - I think there would be serious lack of mobility and movement up there, but could be wrong.

I think this is simply Dougal's latest pathetic attempt to suggest that Inverness people don't support Caley Thistle because they are grossly offended in their tens of thousands at what no more than 250 ever voted against - quarter of a century ago. On the other hand his pronouncements are so ridiculous that you have to think that he's just a long term wind up!

No, It's nothing to do with any affiliation I may or may not have had. I just feel the name and the strip are far more important symbols of what the club is and where it has come from. If people feel we really must continue with the identity of the two clubs which merged then I would suggest the name of the club and the current strip do that very well. And if we must have a badge as well, then something completely un-associated with the 2 former clubs would perhaps reflect a more forward thinking ethos. Something along the lines of that iconic image of dolphins leaping out of the water under the Kessock bridge would be a symbol of a modern successful and ambitious club from a modern successful and ambitious Inverness. Surely far more appropriate than this constant fixation with 2 former clubs of rather parochial ambition?

The photo caption says - "Homes near Inverness Caledonian Thistle’s stadium have almost doubled in value over 10 years". OK, so the price of caravans has gone up because these are the only "homes" remotely close to the Caledonian Stadium. (DD posted his reply as I was typing mine.) Quite frankly, I think that story is a lot of hot air and probably placed as a press release by vested interests in the housing market in order to generate publicity. There is absolutely no evidence of any cause and effect relationship and indeed the Inverness scenario is quite good evidence for the lack of one. They are claiming that the biggest effect is around the Caledonian Satdium but on the other hand it has conspicuously few houses near it compared with other Scottish grounds. There is therefore more evidence there of the reverse correlation. Also, if there was a cause and effect relationship present, then it would presumably be at least in part a result of fans wanting to live near the ground for access purposes. However ICT has almost the smallest fan base in the Premiership, but yet the "effect" is said to be the greatest, so again an apparently negative correlation. This assertion is also counter-intuitive since immediate proximity to a place where you get thousands of sometimes noisy and unruly people passing your front window on a fortnightly basis would more sensibly be a factor which would depress rather than inflate house prices. Equally counter-intuitive are the contrasting figures presented for Ibrox and Celtic Park in the darkest East End. Commonwealth Games housing development is far more likely to be a factor in the latter case. It would also appear that this is simply a postcode lottery since it's postcode on which the assertion seems to be based. So between one thing and another, I think this is a complete red herring based at best on coincidence which has in treality nothing at all to do with the presence of as football ground.

Yawn

I hear you're getting a lift from TSNY. Hope you're not in a rush to get to / back from the game

can see us kick out the cup tonight and even more crap v county on sat

Laughing stock I'm afraid.

It was always going to be a long hard season

OK, I'll amend that very slightly. From what OCG says, it seems that a half time tea and pie - presumably served by other women - was OK.... or possibly part of an obligation to entertain all committee members of visiting clubs. But women, since they were banned from being members of Inverness Thistle FC, were also banned from attending meetings there in which Inverness Thistle FC were involved. I learned that from a conversation I had with INE's CEO Fiona Larg when I was writing Against All Odds. Fiona was INE's lead merger negotiator but told me she had to hand over to her Chairman Norman Cordiner when it came to meetings at Kingsmills because she wasn't allowed to attend. These meetings included one particularly fraught night of shuttle diplomacy on which the whole thing could easily have foundered. Before completing the final draft of the book, I checked this with Thistle sources who confirmed the story which was also not contradicted by any of the Thistle representatives on the ICT Board who all read the entire manuscript before publication. The tale is to be found on P40. Indeed the only thing in the book that anyone did query was when I referred to Ian Fraser, who had recently bought £300K+ of shares which are now owned by the Hospice, as "Coffin John". Someone told me "You can't call him that because down here we call him 'sir'!" It didn't take long for things to change there.