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Nostalgia ain’t what it used to be… but Will never forget that enthralling night 24 years ago.

OK I'll bump it...don't care if it's nostalgia...Best football day ever...

let's debate the topic rather than the moderation actions. Bottom line is that there were several posts that broke our terms of service and we removed them. Whatever your opinion of the CEO, and mine are pretty clear in my posts, it does not mean name calling and personal abuse are accepted. never has been, never will be. We did not close the topic nor ban the poster from the topic, we simply removed (hid) the posts and communicated privately with the poster. That person then complained about the thread title so I removed the 'dictator' reference as that was the easiest option. I really don't have the time or patience to try and please everyone or babysit people. If anyone wants to debate the moderation decisions, then drop me a PM and we can chat. Otherwise lets stay on topic please.

Same kind of night, too. I still wear the same hat and scarf to games. Over the years, beating Celtic became a bit boring, though.

Pretty disappointed that posts removed and title changed. Haven't seen anything over the line personally

Or more of an observation based on evidence. Evidence such as banning anyone from ICT talking to Wyness Shuffle podcast crew. Pretty much the behaviour of a dictator I would say. Not much freedom of speech there I'd say. Not much freedom of speech in removing 'Dictator' from subject of topic either.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2024/feb/08/love-me-for-a-season-boyzone-set-to-become-face-of-non-league-chorley-fc I can only think that IHE ruled himself out. How could he not be "the face"?

I was never any good with sums but is 2 million not a seven figure number ? Let's face it we will never know. The accounts can show what is wanted to be shown

You’ve made quite a few interesting and informative contributions on this subject, which I appreciate and I’m sure others do too. I’m curious though - is it the case that you didn't want this application to succeed?

All that can only happen if there's anything left after clearing debts.

Please tell me you've washed it!

On the topic of Scot Gardiner as per the thread title. Does anyone else think he exhibits the behaviours of a dictator?

Well the cash inflow to the club is over £1m and the amount they risked on the planning application, don’t know but I would guess to be in the tens of thousands and at worst still a small proportion of the cash gain. That is a low risk, high reward project, and I don’t see how it realistically risked the club’s existence. Criticise them all you want on other matters, it’s justified, but on this particular one surely even you can put your grievances aside and acknowledge that it’s a rather miraculous rabbit out of a hat!

Agreed. Maybe my other recent topic 'Most boring ICT ever' should be made diluted as well and changed to 'Most ICT ever'?

I'd say it was more of an opinion than an act of abuse.

Have they? Until we know how much is involved here and the level of debt that needs serviced, then we really don't know what they've done. If you blow £10000 on scratch cards and win £10000, is that playing an absolute blinder or just getting lucky? These guys put us in the position we were in and have taken a serious risk with the clubs existence. The decision in the clubs favour scraped through on the margin of 1 vote. Not sure that counts as low risk. Even if there is a net financial benefit, are these really the right people to be leading the club and in control of the money?

Well at least the waterways might be positive!!!

A forum member questioned why it had been allowed to remain. Some other, more insulting comments were removed from the thread at the same time. As a reminder, criticism is absolutely fine but personal abuse is against site rules.

Based on the highlights I thought Hibs were better than Celtic last night.

“I was pleased to be there in person today at the Highland Council’s HQ to see democracy in action.” That is quite a reach from the esteemed chairman after months of emotive public lobbying. Of the 5 councillors who were allowed to participate in the vote, none of them represented the areas impacted by the development. Donald Trump democracy.

If I remember correctly the clubs financial report usually surfaces under the cover of darkness around about February so we will probably have a clearer picture of how badly the club is holed under the waterline soon. Up to May 2023 anyway. I think operating losses have been ranging between £400K and £800K in recent years. The cup final would have helped the 22/23 numbers. The rumour I heard was that most of the money from the cup run was swallowed up by a debtor demanding repayment of short term cash flow he had provided. I imagine the report for year ending May 23 will show the club is still weighed with debt > £1.5M. I would expect the 23/24 season has been terrible from an operating perspective made even worse by all the ongoing personnel sagas. I wouldn't be surprised if the black hole that first needs filled is > £2M.

The only success he can point to is being above a team that has taken 3 points from a possible 54!

Maybe we can buy Ross County now and use them as a feeder club (again).

Ian Broadfoot would have written "Going Electric"!

We don’t know the detail of the transaction. The land was gifted to the club so it may be that the cash coming to the club is due to it being sold on to those developing the scheme (that is my guess though) so there has never been any scope to maintain an ongoing income stream. The Chairman did say on Saturday that the delay in planning did result in the club receiving less than it would have, as it took the deal beyond a critical milestone. We don’t know what the scale of the seven figure sum is as I don’t believe that has ever been made public. Now the challenge for the Board and CEO is to use the money wisely to secure the long term future of the club, securing the ongoing income streams (no indication to my knowledge as to what they are other than the Red John Park and Ride), making the match day experience more appealing to fans, and allowing the club to be in promotion contention next season (in the Championship, not League 1).

The Chairman said at the Supporters Trust Meeting on Saturday that the club will get a one off seven figure cash injection very quickly (I think he said in 10 days). There is no ongoing income stream from this. The cash injection will pay off debts and allow investment which will secure future income streams (such as the use of the North Car Park as a Park and Ride for the Red John construction workers. I agree that we need transparency as to what it means, what the plans are, what it means in the long term etc. It has to be good news though, as the consequences of rejection would have been significant and far reaching.

So what now? Club need to be more up front as to what exactly will the result of this decision be. Are we talking security for a few years, or the foreseeable future?

From the same BESS planning application: "As a community owned project, the development will directly contribute to the local Highland economy over its life." The obvious inference from this statement is that a "community" entity owns the BESS project. And, this entity will reap the financial rewards via the profits it generates through its life. But, as has now been exposed, the club plan to cut and run from the project as soon as they get a whiff of a windfall that can plug their current self induced financial black hole. What other myths are in this planning application? The narrative has been, and continues to be, incoherent. The much peddled socio-economic benefits used to justify industrial development on protected green belt land are clearly just a smoke screen for bailing out the clubs dire finances.

I did think Motorbikes was a strange one, but you may be a full on Harley Chick for all I know...lol

A motorbike can park anywhere a car can park, so if there's room for cars, there's room for them. I park at Rose St regularly and it's never full in the summer. Only time it's full is peak shopping time at Christmas, and not even certain it was then either last year.

Hibs would have had someone watching our game today and we will have had them thinking that they will come up here and win but the pressure is all on them and we seem to play better against the bigger clubs. Even after the game today I think we can win this game!

I wouldn't be looking forward to this if I was a Hibs fan.

Hibs are on a bad run and got thumped 3-0 at home by St Mirren today. They’ve 2 points out of 18 in the league and scraped past Forfar 1-0 on the last round. We need to approach it positively and believing we can win it. We’ve caused bigger cup upsets and it will do confidence a power of good if we can get a positive result.

Hopefully Hibs will be tired and we will steamroller them with our impressive new signings and have the game sewn up by HT.

Yesterday was an historic day for the Club. Today brings back great memories of the convoy under police escort out of Paradise. Hibs appeared to be very unlucky last night so are they coming to the Boyle under General Montgomery or can our new squad produce? Duncan just cannot motivate or coach the team to win at home. The odds are against us.