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Much as I want our football club to thrive, there are rather more important issues impacting on people's day to day lives which will influence how I vote in the next Council elections.

following the bewildering behaviour of certain Highland Councillors in seeking to overturn a democratically lawful decision to award the club with planning permission for the ICT Battery Farm, I feel we must enlighten our fans re just what has been going on in relation to this most crucial matter and I will answer all and any questions relating to the Battery Farm I’m finding the above statement from the club very uncomfortable as a supporter of the club. Its seems that anyone who does not support the battery farm somehow does not support the future of the club. Its also a bit of a contradiction that, the club are objecting to the overturn of a democratically lawful decision, even though the council are more than lawfully entitled to call this decision in to the full council. But the chairman made it clear that if the planning decision went against them they could raise a challenge with the Scottish Government! This all feels like a publicity stunt to bully the councillors to vote in favour of a planning application that many do not feel comfortable with. It’s also disappointing that the club are finally engaging with supporters but only taking questions relating to the battery farm. When really most of us are wanting answers as to how we got to this situation and would question the running of the club in general. The current board really do not seem to have any other plans if the battery farm fails. Without the accounts being made public, its hard to see how bad things really are financially but rumours are the club could have made up to a million pounds in losses. When you compare this to other clubs like Ayr and Morton who have both managed to make small profits despite having a similar support to us, what is going so badly wrong with us? So many questions, but I feel this meeting will be nothing but Highland Council bad and its all their fault if the club fails!

Presumably the meeting has been arranged to try and get fans onside and distract from the ludicrous position that we are in where a battery energy storage scheme is critical to the future of the football club.

Deary me. Are these club pressers written by Morrison or Gardiner after a couple of shandies? Yokel bumpkin chat.

Jhesus another feckin smokescreen to divert us from actual football. They will also just tell us what they want us to know. Yet another publicity stunt.

I guess it's good that the club is communicating with shareholders and the wider fan base, but I am not clear what the meeting is meant to achieve this late on in the process. If my understanding is correct, the application will be discussed by the full Council on 14th March, so presumably this meeting will be seeking to encourage folk to lobby their local councillors. I am sure the club has already lobbied all councillors. Frankly, I rather doubt that anything I might say to any councillor is going to make them change their mind now. I also doubt that there will be anything in the presentation which couldn't be made available in a posted statement and which couldn't have been communicated well before now. The matter is in the hands of the Council, so there is little point in discussion within the club. What the club should be doing is explaining to its shareholders and supporters why it has delayed submitting its annual financial statement and telling us when the AGM is to be held. There are questions that need to be asked of the Board well beyond the narrow confines of "questions related to the battery Farm".

To be fair, the rot set in before Morrison and Gardiner were in charge. Our high point came with the cup win and coming 3rd in the league in 2015. This was achieved with a bit of help from bigger clubs who had managed to self-destruct, but was also the culmination of a history of good management leading to our best squad ever being pulled together by Terry Butcher. He left us for Hibs, and Hughes capitalised on his inheritance by leading the club to success in the following season. Sadly, it has mostly been downhill since then. Not only was Hughes unable to recruit the quality of players Butcher had, his style of play was, at times, mind numbingly boring. Rather than building on the success of the 2014/5 season, fans started to drift away and the team started to struggle. What Hughes was good at was persuading the Board to give him money to pay players higher wages on longer contracts. Hughes then left at the end of the 2015/6 season and the Board, under Kenny Cameron, made the bizarre decision to appoint Richie Foran as manager on a 4 year contract. Foran did not have the experience or the resources to halt the slide and inevitably, we got relegated. Cameron resigned as chairman with Willy Finlayson taking over on a temporary basis. Foran left within days but apparently with 3 years of his contract still to pay off. John Robertson was appointed manager again and hopes were high that his appointment would see us return to the top flight, but with the financial shackles created by the mismanagement of the previous couple of seasons, it was not to be. Graham Rae took over as Chairman and he appointed Yvonne Crook as CEO. Crook might have had business experience but she knew little about football. She lasted less than a year before being replaced by Gardiner in April 2019. Morrison took over as Chairman soon after that. So, to be fair, the current management team inherited a difficult situation where the club had financial commitments for payments which were producing no benefit to the club. They were also hampered in their efforts by the Covid pandemic. But whilst they inherited a mess and have faced obstacles not of their making, the way they have gone about trying to reinvigorate the club have undoubtedly done more harm than good and have antagonised a lot of people on the way. It's time for a new approach.

But hold on.....just noticed , if they draw and we win we will jump both of them on goal difference

Indeed - straight out of the dictators playbook. If the intention of, and rhetoric during, the meeting is to rally support due to the alleged existential financial threat failure of this project carries, then I would say that any questions relating to this peril are fair game. It is described as an "open" Q&A after all and this situation is ripe for going all in with a "3 whys" grilling.

I'd be surprised. The Courier and P & J largely regurgitate the same information already available in the public domain then have the cheek to stick it behind a paywall.

Well that or calling the meeting short/hoofing people out for bringing up alternative issues.

I agree with the developing view in the other posts - the haste at which this has been organised seems quite unusual. This is not the sign of an organisation operating a smooth and well thought out fan engagement process. It does not require a huge leap of imagination to suspect this is all reactive and/or a tad desperate ahead of next weeks vote. It is possibly risky too. If fans start twisting the agenda to other important matters i.e. the lack of financial reports and AGMs, or the companies house shenanigans with last minute year end date changes, or why there are still so many expensive non-playing employees on the payroll, they could be in for a tough and revealing night.

Looks as if the locals haven’t taken too well to the visit of Duncan and the lads!

I’m away on Wednesday so won’t be able to attend. Had there been more notice of the meeting, I’d have been able to rearrange commitments to attend. I hope some sensible, searching questions are asked (and answered) relating to the club’s financial position, the delaying of the accounts, what actions will be taken if planning is rejected, what the future looks like etc etc. The club has rightly been criticised for poor communication with fans, so I hope this is a genuine desire to be open and honest, not just in the presentation but in answering questions, even difficult questions that they may not like. There have been positive signs from the Chairman and Scott Young attending the Fans’ Meetings organised by the Supporters Trust, and I hope this meeting is a sign that the club (belatedly) recognises the need for positive fan engagement. I look forward to seeing what feedback is provided by those who do attend.

A very poor February without a win! In our loss to Queens Park the referee Euan Anderson picked up the worst performance so far for the season Another loss at home to Hibs in the Scottish Cup followed with 3 draws home to Partick, away to Arbroath and home to Dunfermline. The winner for February is again Alex Samuel with Cameron Harper and Cameron Kerr very close behind. The PotY standings are now Nathan Shaw leading, second Billy Mckay, third Nikolay Ujdur, fourth Max Anderson, fifth David Wotherspoon and sixth Cameron Harper. David Wotherspoon still hanging in there but Cameron Harper is closing in and Alex samuel is picking up plenty votes. With a good start to March I hope we can get a couple of home wins to follow on! Please keep voting.

Shame the fans didn't have the same power to remove club directors who's decisions are leaving the club with a very bleak future.

Most likely to manage fans expectations on potential cut backs if the vote does not go in the Club,s favour. Also to keep the issue alive in the press in the run up to the now contentious meeting.

Doesn't sound like it'll be good news. Begging bowls will be getting dusted down.

Really hoping there'll be minutes on this. Been unable to attend the Open Meetings at the Innes and Caley Bars, but this is far more important than those.

Don’t even mention it! Last spring, when I was still writing a column for the Courier, I did one on what I’ve been saying here - that I don’t think the immediate local area can support two sizeable clubs and, that in a normal business scenario, a merger would make sense BUT (very large but) football is NOT normal business so the idea was inconceivable. However they published this online with a headline claiming I was calling for a merger and, with most people unable to go behind the paywall, I got serially slaughtered for something I didn’t say… and even rejected. In a football environment, it’s a total non-starter.

There's no chance of a merger, ever. Both clubs have too much history in the Scottish Leagues to even have it being considered a possibility. It'd be like Aberdeen and Cove Rangers merging, ones got a ton of history under their belt and the other made a quick rise through the leagues. Neither set of fans would allow it to happen in fear of losing their own club's history, which can draw comparisons to our own merger, but that was to get into the leagues rather than for the survival of a big name team in the Highlands. Once Uncle Roy either kicks the bucket or withdraws support, and nobody moves in, then I can only see both sides being in the same situation as Dunfermline or Falkirk, floating between League One and the Championship.

Sounds fair enough, but personally I would go for County's stadium - far more atmosphere. I appreciate that parking can be an issue in Dingwall, but we could raze our current stadium and its "temporary" stands to the ground, develop a large car park and operate a park and ride to Dingwall. In that way, one of Gardiner's grand ideas might finally come to fruition.

I was wondering how long it would be til someone suggested the M word! I’d be open to a merger but my terms would be ICT’s name, colours, stadium and history, merging with Roy’s money.

Yes, but the problem, as CB states, is that there are two such clubs. Very close to each other - Bing maps says it's 13.7 miles between the postcodes of the two grounds. And the roads are half-decent. Long gone are the days of my childhood when it was a slow trek round by Beauly and Muir-of-Ord. In terms of pulling power, ignoring those of us who have history before 1994 - and who are inevitably becoming a smaller proportion of the support - then I don't think it's unreasonable for someone, especially an incomer, to choose which of these local teams to support. In which case County, at the moment, will win out. And Dougal has already pointed out the differences in the companies that support the two clubs. Even there we see that Uncle Roy is keeping them going to the tune of more than £500K a year. I suspect that when he pulls out - he's 71 now, so who knows what his plans are - then if there are no similar sugar daddies for either club, then a merger/takeover will follow soon after. And that's before we look at the problems of attracting the best players and coaching staff to the north, where, unlike the Central Belt, there are no other top clubs within 100 miles. I wish it were otherwise, but it's difficult to argue with geography!

Nah, we’ve definitely had more than our fair of injuries in the last few seasons.

Valid and fair points @DoofersDad and I can't fault your historic look back over the pre Morrison era. Perhaps they did not inherit the best hand. But Morrison has had about 6 years on the board and Gardiner has been employed as CEO for 5 years. On and off the pitch no progress has been made in that time - there is plenty evidence to underline how affairs are actually in reverse. As you say: the club seems as alienated as ever from the majority of the city population and its businesses. If they can't stabilise the finances and build a vibrant and growing community of supporters engaged and behind the club, they will always be bobbing from last minute loans to financial crisis to harebrained get-rich-quick schemes.

Jhesus I agree with the Magic Roundabout mongrel

Well said Danger You know and I know there are large areas of Inverness who hate us profoundly I.e the communities of Dalneigh and Merkinch being two examples but sadly there are plenty more, they want us to fail and are delighted how much we are in free fall. ICT are a business catastrophe when you compare us to our neighbours 14 miles north. Look at the advertising for example around both pitches they have massive multi national companies pumping money into them while we have one man bands and local yokels etc Our advertising is more suited to a highland league outfit. Many business want nothing to do with ICT especially after the concert debacle but being honest the problem was there long before that. You are 100% right a city of 75k should be able to support a competitive full time senior football team easily. Would dropping down to part time status be such a bad think and regrouping it certainly would be better than administration or worse still liquidation. It happened to the orcs so it could happen to us. Dougal

If that is the case (and I would imagine it probably is) then it illustrates what a serious financial position the club is now in. Yngwie makes some fair points about applauding the club for trying to find innovative ways of trying to keep the club at a level above what income from tickets sales etc could possibly support. That's fine, but the problem is the club has gone about these issues in an arrogant and often incompetent way. It takes the fans for granted in so many ways and simply ignores the contribution they can make. As a result, it has alienated many of the very people who would otherwise be contributing significantly to the long term future of the club. Regardless of the outcome of the Battery project, the club will continue to struggle as long as those people responsible for this alienation remain in charge. Even if they do make genuine efforts to change their ways, nobody is going to trust them. We need new leadership and we need it soon. We need leadership that embraces the supporters as part of the fabric of the club, perhaps even looking to move towards a fan owned model, but certainly having a supporters' representative on the Board. I don't care if we go part time for a while, or it we drop to Division 1 or even Division 2 if that is what it takes to reset and develop a sustainable business model going forward. I used to feel really proud of our Club, but at times now I almost feel embarrassed to tell people I support ICT. I want to feel the pride again, but that is not going to happen whilst the current regime are in charge.

If you are saying we should live within our means then you are effectively saying we should have gone part time years ago after getting relegated and we would likely have been relegated again by now. Can you confirm that if we had, you’d be applauding the board for their financial prudence?! Instead, they tried to get us back to the top flight by maintaining a very competitive (expensive) squad and our impressive youth set up, and got close to promotion a couple of times. In doing so the club racked up huge losses every season and some generous individuals dug deep into their own pockets to keep us going. They have said for years this business model doesn’t work and needs supplemented by non-football income so they pursued concerts and, very innovatively, the battery farm. It’s easy to criticise, especially when we are in such a poor position both financially and in the league, and mistakes have been made, but what specifically should have been done different that would make a 7 figure difference to us now? Should’ve slashed the wage bill, giving up on Premiership aspirations? Go part time, and end up as a League 1 side? Should’ve shut down the youth set up? Should not have loaned us their own money to keep us going? Should not have sought non-football income sources? Those are the only realistic options I can think of. Rather than criticise all the time I just try putting myself in their position and wonder what in terms of the business model I would have done differently over the years. It’s not easy.

Portuguese guy is called Estamos Falhando.

The Courier's daily briefing today has a section about the meeting. Below the intro piece is an invitation to "read more here". When you click on that, you get "Sorry, the article you have requested is no longer available". This article presumably contains a bit more than the basic statement which they published yesterday and which is still available on the Courier site. It may mean nothing, it may be a technical glitch or there may have been a reason why they pulled the article. Just seems a bit strange though.

Of course it does. Genuinely interested to know if you will be going along to hear the club’s perspective on all this - or do you not want to hear it?!

Does that also include the community where this controversial proposal is planned, who had raised legitimate unanswered questions about it, and had zero councillors representing their ward at the last vote?

All fans can really do there is make councillors aware that if they vote to overturn the decision and give our club a very bleak future, it will be remembered by ICT fans at the next council elections. Councillors are there to represent their communities and at the moment the main voices heard by councillors are from a few disgruntled residents.

It's just amateurish waffle peppered with passive-aggressive threats you might expect from a disgruntled fans' group, where the spokesman is the only one with the O Grade in English.