Leaderboard

4-0 FT. Biggest Scottish Cup margin of victory this afternoon, which surely makes us favourites for the tournament.

We got the job done, which was the main thing seeing what happened in some other games. I thought we started well and were trying to utilise the pace of Samuel, but after the early disallowed goal by Doran, we reverted to slow build up play and taking passes when shots were on for most of the first half. Gilmour’s goal was needed as otherwise the first half would have been one of our worst 45s this season. We showed a bit more urgency at the start of the second half and should have been 2 up with the penalty. I felt the red was a bit harsh but he was wresting with Doran for about 10 yards! Samuel’s kick was saved comfortably but he made amends a short time later with Carragher getting the assist. We failed to capitalise until the late double from Brooks added gloss to the score line. MacKay also pulled off one fine save to maintain the clean sheet. We started as a 3 5 2 with Duffy and Longstaff as wing backs, with all of Anderson, Carson and Gilmour in central midfield. We switched to 4 at the back late on after Ujdur went off, with Longstaff at left back. He did ok, but I felt Duffy was the more dangerous of the wide players. Carson had a quiet first half but made some decent passes after the break. It was good to see Doran and MacGregor get game time, along with Samuel and Brooks being amongst the goals. So job done with a good result after a largely unconvincing performance.

He came on for Doran and got just over half an hour. He took his goals very well (the first was a cracking finish) and all the players seemed delighted for him. I think he does have potential. He is still young and learning. I’m not sure if Doran got a knock in the penalty incident, as he headed towards the touch line behind the goal for a few moments after it. Hopefully his substitution was just a precaution. Someone commented above that Doran should have taken the penalty but I don’t think he was ready to, given the nature of the challenge. I can’t argue with a striker stepping up to take it although Gilmour may have been a better option at the time. A shout out to the ground staff. The pitch held up very well and didn’t look to be cutting up at all. A few seasons back there’s no way the game would have gone ahead.

Scottish Cup 4th Round It's a break from League action this weekend should the weather allow after a week of heavy snow and Arctic like conditions across the North of Scotland. The club have been busy clearing the pitch on Friday with six inches of snow on top of the covers. The visitors, should we get the green light, are Broomhill. No no no, not Broomhill at Nethybridge, but Broomhill FC from the Scottish Lowland League who play their home games at Dumbarton Football Stadium. They come from the same League as Cowdenbeath who we played in the last round and found it difficult to break them down until the introduction of Wotherspoon and Billy Mckay, so expect the same again with our rather depleted squad. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Match/Ticket Info Offski ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Well done Rhys Beaton: First down to help at the Stadium>>> It was all hands to the pumps on Friday morning after the massive dump of snow this week left the pitch covered. With the hard frost since the beginning of the week it was the best thing for it to leave the snow on top of the covers to protect the grass beneath, let's hope the big thaw does not end up flooding the pitch. Mantis gave us a qick résumé on Broomhill: This is the team that played out of Alloa as BSC Glasgow, before becoming Open Goal Broomhill (or “Podcast FC”) when they were taken over by Si Ferry, but that partnership was dissolved and they are now simply Broomhill FC. Broomhill Sports Club originally ran youth football teams back to 2004 and the senior team has been kicking around the LL in its various guises since 2014. Last Round: We thrashed struggled to overcome the miners of Cowdenbeath until the late introducton of David Wotherspoon and Billy Mckay that saw us squeeze into the next round. Of course Spoony is now off to Tannadice and Billy is carrying a knee injury so that leaves us with, erm, nothing. Here's the Broomhill Match Report from their own website Match Report | Cumnock Juniors 0 – Broomhill 3 | 26/11/2023 | Townhead Park by David McIntyre Broomhill scored three goals without reply to fire themselves into the Fourth Round of the Scottish Cup. It was another successful away fixture for the Broom in the Scottish Cup as they headed off to Townhead Park, home of Cumnock Juniors from the West of Scotland Football League. The match started at lightning pace as both teams looked to get an early foothold in the game. Broomhill were boosted with the return of some of their injured players, giving manager Stephen Swift more options to change the game. Cumnock Juniors grew into the match and had been doing better with their possession. Although Cumnock had more possession they failed to create many goal-scoring opportunities to trouble Luke Scullion. In the 29th minute, Broomhill took the lead after Ally McColm rifled a low shot into the bottom corner. The goal was created with lovely play down the left-hand side of the pitch involving four players. After the goal, Broomhill took control of the match and continued to pressure Cumnock’s defence. The second half could not have started any better, with Corey O’Donnell doubling Broomhill’s advantage. Martin Grehan assisted the goal with a lovely touch to set up O’Donnell with a 1v1 with the keeper which the striker deftly dispatched. The second goal was huge, as it allowed Broomhill to play more freely. Every time they attacked, there was a sense of enthusiasm as they moved up the pitch. The two goal scorers were involved in the third after O’Donnell’s initial shot was parried into the path of McColm to fire into the back of the net and fire Broomhill into the next round. We have a great History......in the past Don't we. Latest Team News Devine, Harper, Mckay all carrying niggles, Samuels out, Harry out, MacGregor not mentioned. Basically we are down to the bare bones of players likely to be involved in first team games. By my calculations we only have around 15 outfield players fit, plus two capable youths (Bray, Thompson) and four still injured although Roddy seems to flit between still injured or on the bench. Basically, if you have a pulse, you're in the squad. Broomhill manager Stepen Swift saw his side knock Cumnock Juniors out in the last round at Townhead Park with this ultimately comfortable away win. Broomhill went 4-3-3 against Cumnock Att: 322 - Goals: McColm (30, 65) O'Donnell (49) Scullion McKnight Smith Moy (Hunter 70) Ellis Miller Murphy Chalmers O'Donnell Grehan McColm (Max Wright 69) Subs Not Used: Barr (gk), Ben Wright, Robinson, Omar

I hope we get Ross County in the next ro...

No, loaning from Elgin, THAT would be rock bottom!

The scoreline flattered us. Broomhill were very poor and this should have been an opportunity to take a few risks with taking players on and playing more adventurous balls into space. We didn't do that though. For most of the game it was boring tippy tappy passing going absolutely nowhere. When we did play a ball behind the defence, it was either misdirected or had too much on it. Had Gilmour's shot not found its way through a crowded box just before half time, I am sure the team would have been booed off at half time. Broomhill went down to 10 men early in the 2nd half. The man advantage on top of what should be better fitness levels should have resulted in us using the width of the pitch to really stretch the opposition. Whilst we dominated possession, we never created much. Fortunately, Brooks was sharper in the box than the tiring Broomhill defenders and Samuel took his chance to make amends for his poor effort from the spot. Despite his penalty miss, Samuel deservedly got the sponsors MOTM award. Given that he is apparently not good enough for the County matchday squad, that says a lot about the level the rest of out team is at. The answer to IHE's question is "no". We haven't got what is needed. Of course it is great to be through to the last 16 of the cup, but if we don't play better than this in the league for the rest of the season, we are going to be struggling to avoid the drop.

Big team, big cup Wee team, wee cup

Tossed the coin today, heads I go, tails I don't. Tails it was. No appetite to watch ICT at present, poor football, back office dictator and cold weather. Sad, but just not got the interest in ICT that I previously did.

Can’t believe we are even talking about this 6 months after the kit launch, but our current away kit looks nothing like those Rangers ones you posted (apart from the sleeves), and doesn’t it actually have more red than orange?!

It is flair we need on the park; not flares off it.

The Prodigal son may well offer a few other players to us ...........

I just hope they have registered him correctly.

But why oh why give Samuel the spot kick

Bit of a worry that it took over 40 minutes to make their keeper work. Still, 1-0 up through Gilmour, just his second goal for the club.

OK Just confirmed, Game is ON!

Loaning players from County! Surely this is rock bottom, which gives me hope that the only direction for the club from this point is up.

I have grandkids in Inverness and Dingwall. watch ict home games with 5 kids, we are all season ticket holders and when ict away I go with my 2 grandkids in Dingwall to watch premiership county. I know, but I have to spread grandad time. samuel has been at Dingwall since august 21 and I think he was injured for a long while but last season featured again in the squad. More a last 5 to 10 minutes take on player at county. He is a battering ram when on and gets about the centre half’s in a way Jordan white and Simon Murray can’t. Very strong boy. may do well for us, I hope he does. One thing guaranteed is you got 100% effort when he did come on, and the centre backs knew they had been in a game, at least for the last 10 minutes or so. I am not knocking the lad, give him a chance, just me saying what I have seen the last couple of years.

If any other exiles are interested in this book, the Trust's website now has a mail order option. (Though I haven't tried it with a non-UK address). They have good stock of the book. Many thanks to Mark Watson at the Trust for his help!

What kind of idiot launches pyro? There, fixed it for you.

Would that affect the 'rockets' in the directors box?

The only problem with flares in the 70's was getting the blood stains off.

Is this P & B?

Aye nothing less family friendly than orange. You are aligning the club with that nonsense, along with one or two others. Anyone would think you had an agenda. Blackpool play in tangerine – a tone of orange – shirts and white shorts, with their socks combining both colours. Brisbane Roar play in orange shirts – with black diagonal shoulders with a thin, white line under the black – black shorts and orange with black banded socks. Dundee United rock tangerine shirts, black shorts and tangerine with black banded socks. Houston Dynamo don all-orange kits, with black designs on the necks, arms and sides of the jerseys. Hull City play in black and amber (yellow and orange) striped shirts, black shorts and black and amber socks. Istanbul Basaksehir FK play in orange shirts and socks, accompanied by navy blue shorts. Lorient wear orange shirts, with a diamond checker pattern with a subtle wave pattern applied, black shorts and white socks. Luton Town play in orange shirts, with white and blue on the trims, blue shorts and orange socks. Montpellier play in predominant navy and less conspicuous orange shirts and socks, accompanied by navy blue shorts. Shakhtar Donetsk rock orange shirts and socks with thin stripes, with black shorts to match. On the international scene, only two popular countries are among the football teams that play in orange kits Ivory Coast play in all-orange kits, with a touch of green on the shoulders. Netherlands rock bright orange shirts, shorts and socks, with black designs on them.

I dont want to speak for the rest of the pod guys but i'll speak about how we used to arrange and interviews and the changes that the club requested last season. In the early days of getting players on to the pod we would contact the player directly and sort out a date and time to record which wasn't an issue but this changed when i got cocky and started asking players before a game whilst going out to warm up which was rightly out of order and after speaking to Scot it was agreed that any further requests would go through Liam Morrison which was the best way for both parties and that was the case for most of last season and up until Billy left. The podcast has always been fair in its criticism of the team and club but we are generally positive to the point where i was seen as the happy clapper and somehow kissing up to Scot which was never the case. We owe Scot and the club a lot for giving us access to players and staff which we greatly appreciated but now that things changed we don't really know why we aren't being given access apart from being told their media strategy has changed so that's where we are at the moment but hopefully i'd like to think we can get things back on track in the near future.

So it seems, but isn’t that a case in point of what we are talking about here, ie an automatic presumption by the witch hunters that SG has done something wrong when as far as I can see there is no evidence that this is the case? I have absolutely no information on why the podcast seems to be getting shunned at the moment. Maybe the manager doesn’t want players doing unnecessary media work at the moment. Maybe the podcast guys have done something which breached the club’s trust and they are deservedly blacklisted as a result. And maybe the CEO is just being an erse. But he answers to the Chairman and Board and if he has severed a connection with fans without a good reason, I would think it would not go down well with them. Whatever the reason, it’s a very disappointing state of affairs and I hope it gets sorted.

I'm just going to put it out there. I have met SG a number of times, at games and outwith, and have always found him good company, interesting and willing to chat. He's got an almost impossible job, with no money to do it, and most criticism seems to be based on him supporting Rangers, 'Gasp, shock, horror, pearl clutching'. What I really dislike though is that no-one actually knows the facts but everyone is absolutely sure that if it is negative it is true. Yes communication is poor, but as far as I can see we have a SLO, and a communications team, and they are the ones failing. The man has tried things, some have worked, some haven't, but at least he has tried. While I'm on a roll.. Let's be honest about our club and our city. Our attendances of c 2000, if you believe that, are shocking, the cub is in decline and with the best will in the world it is not Scott Gardiners fault. The city does not support the team, for whatever reason, definitely not because SG supports Rangers, and that is what we need to fix. Getting rid of the CEO will not sort that.

Aye & it looked nothing like Rangers see if we did something similar this season it would've been absolutely fine it's the blue tints that ruin it. Walk through any Scottish Town or City with our away kit on say under a hoodie or a jacket don't show the Caley badge & watch how many people assume that you're wearing a Rangers top...

Oh come on. This is the guy that procured an orange strip for an inverness family oriented club and released it on the 12th july. Nothing more needs to be said. If the club wants to align itself with this kind of nonsense then I want nothing to do with it!

Precisely the kind of dismissive/mocking attitude towards fans views we've seen from the CEO.