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Funnily enough, being a born and bred Invernessian is not a requirement for being on the Board of the Supporters Trust. What is a requirement is a willingness to work with the Club for the mutual benefit of the Club and its fan base. None of the Board Members are anonymous. There are just the 5 of us. We would dearly like there to be more so that we could do much more for the club and its fans, but nobody else in a position to help has come forward. For supporters who do have a genuine interest in ICTFC and being involved in collaborative working between between the Club and its representative supporters body, nomination papers for election to the Trust Board will be sent out to members early in October prior to the AGM in December. There is therefore time for anyone who is not currently a member of the Trust but who would like to do something constructive to help the Club and our fellow supporters, to join the Trust prior to the issue of nomination papers. Of course the success or otherwise of the Trust is dependent not just on active members but on the size of the membership. Imagine what a powerful voice for the supporters body the Trust would be if its membership was similar in numbers to the number of season ticket holders. You can help make the Trust's voice more effective by joining here.

It takes quite a few people (and resources) behind the scenes to keep the site running smoothly and every year we do look to see if anyone is interested in helping out in some way. From a technical standpoint, I am always looking for bugs to squash and improvements to make so that the site runs as quickly as possible and without error. I am always interested in people with technical skills who can make suggestions or tweak things here and there... and I am still on the lookout for someone with PHP/MySQL knowledge that can help us migrate our current stats application to a late version of PHP7 or to PHP8 which the main site is now running on. That's a bit outside my current capabilities and at some point it means a portion of the site may no longer work if I am unable to get it updated somehow. On the content front the @tm4tj can never have enough assistance. We do have things like the NAPS competition ably managed by @MrCaleyjag or the NPL Prediction league and the SPFL prediction leagues run by @Gringo but Manfer is always looking for help with previews, reports and other articles. There is a small core group of users who help out but there is always room for more. This could be previews, reports, other unrelated articles, blogs, or simply data entry or looking after things like our calendar, player profiles or other history bits and bobs which I know interest a lot of folk if the 'ex-ICT' threads are anything to go by. If you are interested in helping out, and will be able to do any of the stuff listed above ... or have other ideas how you could help, then let us know. Reach out to myself or @tm4tj through email or on here and we can have a chat about it.

Arachnophobia Should we fear the Spiders from Hampden as the new Championship season gets underway on Saturday with the visit of Queens Park. It's a 3:00pm kick off and a season of anticipation or maybe trepidation is almost upon us. TICKET PRICING Only form to go on for this season is the League Cup which saw Inverness qualify to face Motherwell in the knock out stages of group G. We ended our League Cup Group G games with a disappointing home draw against Cove Rangers despite Roddy MacGregor heading the opening goal. Megginson pinned us back but we took the bonus point in the ensuing penalty shoot-out. Queens Park failed to progress from their play-off Group H where Dundee and Hamilton Accies progressed. However they did manage a couple of wins thumping Stranraer and Forfar and drawing with Accies. They lost narrowly 1-2 against Dundee. Accies qualified a point ahead of the Spiders virtue of the penalty shoot-out win to pip Queens by a point. Queens Park, a club steeped in history, join us in the Championship this season along with Cove Rangers. They only finished fourth in the table behind Cove, Airdrie and Montrose, but came through the promotion play-offs to get into the Championship having beaten Dunfermline over two legs and then beating Airdrie in extra time to win promotion thanks to a Simon Murray penalty. Mind you, they have won the Scottish Cup ten times, albeit the last time was back in 1893. I remember it well. They have been playing out of Ochilview Park recently as they await Lesser Hampden to be upgraded. Here's one for you: They can boast a record attendance of 95,722 against Rangers in a Scottish Cup first round encounter on January 18th 1930 at their home ground of Hampden Park. That's a world record for an amateur side. They are now a professional outfit as of 2019 and on the up, consecutive promotions will see them ply their trade in this seasons Championship after years in the doldrums. Welcome to the Spiders Last 10 Competitive Meetings v Queens Park 3 - 0 (H) 1 - 2 (H) 2 - 0 (H) 2 - 1 (A) 1 - 0 (H) 3 - 2 (A) 2 - 2 (H) 2 - 1 (A) 1 - 1 (H) 3 - 0 (A) Venue H2h v Queens Park Pld Won Drn Lst For Agst + / - Home 9 4 3 2 14 11 +3 Away 6 5 0 1 13 8 +5 Neutral 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Total 15 9 3 3 27 19 +8 League - (Div 3) Saturday, August 20th, 1994, 3:00 PM at Telford Street Park, Inverness Attendance: 1,500: Referee: M Pocock Ian Broadfoot reporting on our first ever competitive meeting against Queens Park. Caley Thistle's mid week efforts against Dundee had taken their toll and they went a goal down in 14 minutes - a McAllister header to McRitchie was short and Garry Orr took advantage with a goal from 15 yards. Four minutes later Maxwell made it two when he bundled in Edgar's corner. In 53 minutes McKenzie had rare chances for the home side but he hit the 'keeper twice. The match was over a few minutes later when a Garry Orr pass set up Graham who beat McRitchie with an angled drive. Two minutes later Maxwell headed a fourth. Full Time: 0-4 Mark McRitchie Dave Brennan Mike Andrew Mike Noble Mark McAllister John Scott Danny MacDonald Graeme Bennett Alan Hercher Paul McKenzie Wilson Robertson First Competitive Meeting Aug 20th, 1994 League ((Div 3)) (H) 0 - 4 Most Recent Competitive Meeting Jul 31st, 2010 League Cup (Rd 1) (H) 3 - 0 League Cup Match: Tuesday, September 2nd, 2003, 7:00 PM at Caledonian Stadium, Inverness Attendance: 968 This report comes from Ian Broadfoot back in 2003, the last time Queens Park beat Inverness in the Highlands. The Spiders gave Caley Thistle a dose of their own medicine when they produced a shock cup win away from home. Barry Wilson played for the first time following his return to the club. Queens belied their third division status with some lively play and they soaked up early pressure - a Steve Hislop drive was turned over the bar and Richie Hart hit the woodwork. It was not all one way as Ross Clark hit the bar at the other end. Caley Thistle scored in 26 minutes when Paul Ritchie turned in a Wilson cross but the lead only lasted two minutes. Bobby Mann brought down Clark and Steve Reilly converted the resultant penalty. Half Time: 1-1 Queens took the lead in 59 minutes when poor defending allowed a Reilly free kick to reach Ally Graham and he shot low past Mark Brown. With four minutes left Queens substitute Derek Carcary should have made it 3-1 but he shot wide with only Brown to beat. The drama was not over as the home side were awarded a penalty in injury time when Reilly handled in the box. Mann's kick came off the post. Full Time: 1-2 There was bitter disappointment in the home camp but no real complaints. Latest Team News Shane Sutherland and Tom Walsh are long term casualties. Wallace Duffy came off injured against Cove Rangers. Danny Devine has missed all the League Cup games and pre-season along with Sean Welsh. Eric's Queens Park roundup: Under new manager Owen Coyle, Queens Park have trimmed the Squad with more than 10 departures in the summer. Four players have arrived all on free transfer basis. Jason Naismith a right back signed from Kilmarnock Fc: Dom Thomas midfielder from Dunfermline FC: Pat Jarret an attacking midfield player, from Stoke City where he has gone from Youth teams to the U23 level: Grant Savoury who spent last season at Peterhead FC is a centre forward. Loan in: Josh McPake, forward (Rangers). Out: Jai Quitongo, forward (Greenock Morton); Grant Gillespie, midfielder (Greenock Morton); Michael Doyle, defender (Hamilton Academical); Stuart Morrison, defender (Queen of the South); Willie Muir, goalkeeper (Alloa Athletic); Peter Grant, defender (Clyde); Bob McHugh, forward (East Kilbride); Darren Lyon, midfielder; Will Baynham, forward. Loan ended: Luca Connell, midfielder (Celtic); Luis Longstaff, midfielder (Liverpool); Connor Smith, midfielder (Heart of Midlothian); Connor McBride, midfielder (Blackburn Rovers); Ronan Darcy, midfielder (Bolton Wanderers). Queens main threat will come from the now experienced Simon Murray. The thirty year old striker has previously been at Arbroath, Dundee United and Hibs. Dom Thomas will be an excellent asset and along with Louis Longridge will provide stability in the midfield. View full article

Sean Welsh has had to undergo an operation on his knee but he’s not expected to be out for long. Danny Devine was going some routines on the pitch last Saturday before kick off so is hopefully nearly ready. I read in the Courier (I think) that Allardice is a doubt as he got a broken nose in the Cove game. Deas is suspended for the first two league games. I’m looking forward to this one. It is early days and we won’t be able to draw conclusions, but this is a game we need three points in to get us off to a good start.

Sligo won 2-0 tonight so 3-0 on aggregate. We need to see the cup game at Motherwell as one we want to win and can win, and hopefully we set up a lucrative last 8 match. Sligo are currently 5th in a 10 team league, 20 points off both top and bottom. They may have benefitted by playing in what is mid season for them, but the result is embarrassing for Scottish football.

Thanks Scotty We have had a number of helpers over the years and are grateful for the help we do get. From my point of view I have received fantastic support over the last couple of seasons from IBM who now runs the PotY department and EWD who does the number crunching and brain shrinking stats in the background. That allows me more time to add mostly previews and reports. However, if there are any budding reporters out there, give me a shout and we can maybe add something new to the articles, you must be fed up of my drivel by now. Mr Caley Jag had been in touch recently and I'm hoping he can take up the backlog of player profiles that had been neglected over the years, that's one area of our stats that needs addressing. Our games/goals/appearances should now be pretty good thanks to IBM & EWD helping out, but there's always something else that needs updated or input. Drop us a message, don't be shy. We will eventually get through all the mail and get back to you.

Let the pain begin. Thanks for keeping this going MrC. As you say, hopefully more folk will join in the torture

How long until we see @IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER wearing it and singing Oh-2-be !!

Following last night’s debacle, Motherwell and Graham Alexander have parted company. Is that a record: binning a Manager before the league season has even started?