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But not the main two we are asking to be removed. Personally, I want Gardiner and Ferguson gone as they manage the day-to-day activities on and off the field. They have no loyalty to the club beyond that of employer and employee (and that's both fine and fair). The chairman on the other hand has 'skin in the game'. He was an ICT supporter long before he was chairman and is one of those dipping his hand in his pocket. Both of those facts complicate any call for his head ... However, he himself may feel he has to fall on his sword as the head of the board that employed the aforementioned pair in the same way that Kenny Cameron did when we were relegated from the Premiership.

A call to unity after radio silence is pretty hilarious, particularly after years of fans, supporters trust, S94, volunteers and local businesses being brushed aside. The club has shown for years that it doesn't value supporters' concerns or their contributions (unless it's money).

Daft question perhaps given ghe lack of financial transparency in recent times but do we have any insight on ST sales projection vs actuals within the clubs budget for full time status during 23/24 ? Irrespective of whether we do or don't that is one imperative, along with boycotting official club merchandise, we as a collective can utilise to drive home the demand for change at the top highlighted in the excellent trust statement. The fan base need to consider rallying to make the club sit up and take note how many long term supporters do not intend to renew (or if ex ST holders return) unless they agree to fall on their swords (metaphorically of course) A list if it could somehow be collated would have more impact than individual emails. To those who say this is harming the club I would contest do we shock the patient in the hope of a positive response or await the inevitable. I purchased a ticket for the covid season to support the club because I was lucky enough to be able to & never saw a ball kicked in anger whilst it is now apparent Gardiner bedded in his authoritarian regime back stage. Those at the top have subsequently taken the goodwill of the dwindling fan base post covid as a given whilst completely taking it for granted. They have fixated on vanity projects, disappeared repeatedly down rabbit holes, mis representing OUR club in the process and completely taking their eye of the nuts and bolts of running OUR football club. Now they issue this statement after 72 hours of radio silence. Talk about not reading the room. Renew our hope & we'll renew our commitment.. Rant ends

I’ve always renewed my season ticket but whilst the CEO is still here my money stays in my wallet. I’ve spent loads over the years on ICT but the CEO obviously dodged the training in interpersonal skills as, when I’ve been anywhere nearby him, he looks at me as if I’m dirt under his shoes. I’ve worked and been a team member in high places with people who valued me. My ICT cash has gone towards his likely inflated wage so, until he goes, ICT will miss out. I don’t think I’m alone in my thoughts.

The chairman writes of 'unity' and 'continued and valued support', yet the club constantly conducts itself in a secretive manner and withholds simple information, such as JR's gardening leave - which we later find out about anyway via an Edinburgh news article!?! What is shocking in every action/inaction/decisions the club takes is the complete disdain it has for its own fans! We're mugs!!

What a pathetic statement and it took a whole 72 hours to come up with all that dribble .Great about staying full time Thats a plus but unless the useless failure of the CEO gets away from our club there is going to be a very empty stadium and following . Not hearing any support for Gardiner . He is the core of all that is wrong with our club and has to be pushed. Failure after Failure with him at the helm . What’s the next failure coming from him . Rumoured to be on 100k a year . At 10k a year it would be too much . Are fans going to renew season tickets knowing some of that money is going towards paying his wages ? Won’t be my money that’s for sure .

You have to assume that the club has been working out what our 'backers' can afford to write off and what guarantees they can extend for the forthcoming season before making moves in terms of staying full-time, changing manager, impact on non-playing roles etc. It's also worth noting that full-time football is no guarantee of promotion. Queen of the South have been fulltime since they got relegated and finished seventh this season, behind a lot of part-time teams. Falkirk and Dunfermline have both had extended stays in the third tier as full-time clubs in recent history.

They are past redemption. Clueless and don't give a stuff about fans

How'd he get one of Big Dunc's positional coaching charts?

It was a nothing statement, served simply to attempt to pacify the support over the claims of lack of communication. The only news that was given out was about staying full time, this was only a confirmation as some of us already knew this was highly likely. Supporters are feeling relegation every bit as much as the club why so this contempt? Its like the supporters don't matter.

Yes, but you should see their gardens!

The club has never been very forthcoming about ST sales although I think Scott Young may have given a figure recently at a Supporters Trust meeting. I think it was somewhere in the region of 1300 but hopefully someone can give a more accurate figure. Inevitably there will be some who will not renew in any case, simply because we are slipping down a level . Also, I assume there will be a price reduction at the lower level. So, for the sake of argument, if the average ticket price was £250 and 1000 people bought season tickets, there would be an income of £250k from season tickets. I have always been in the camp of saying that a boycott would harm the club. I'm really not so sure now. There are clearly a lot of people saying they will not renew whilst the CEO remains in post. Collectively we have the power to withhold his wages till he is gone. Hopefully the Board will come to their senses before a boycott is necessary but if not, a season ticket boycott could be a powerful tool to knock some sense into them.

I expect the restructuring to consist of getting rid of things and people who are good for the club and retaining those responsible for getting us into this mess. It's time for the other directors to make a stand and prove me wrong.

Charlie's comments aren't exactly following the corporate line. I hope he is not speaking out like this now because he knows he and the youth set up at the club are going to victims of the structural reorganisation.

“My priorities are to build a strong support team to generate the income needed to field a side capable of progressing to the Premiership of the SPFL and – parallel to that work – develop a strategy for the club which will give confidence to the local and regional business community as we look to garner their support for what is, after all, their team" Scot Gardiners own words 5 years ago. Using the above as a bench mark for performance he has been an abject failure in his role at the club. He may well have built a strong support team but then so did Stalin and we all know what happened during the purges. He is a barrier to the club achieving improvement in all 3 areas identified and there is tangible evidence to support that supposition

https://www.inverness-courier.co.uk/sport/charlie-christie-ict-need-to-re-engage-with-fans-351355/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook

We deserve to be treated so much better Liz. I'm also with you. No money going anywhere near that man Away days only it is

Aye, the one responsible will still hang on to his job. If he had an ounce of decency he would resign but he hasn't ... and he has a track record for this kind of behaviour. Nothing but a self-serving scum bag. First home game of the new season let's appear in numbers tell him what we think of him ... and then boycott until he is gone.

Looking at the statement “Dear Caley Jags “ as the statement starts , does this just not smell of Scot Gardiner releasing this ? Certainly looks like something this fool would put out on behalf of his double act Morrison . Playing all iCT fans for fools they think .But fans have been bitten and will not lie down and forgive . Trying to save your battery farm Investment by trying to stay attached to ICT to try use the folk of Inverness will not work .Pair of clowns who between them are not fit to manage.

I think the whole situation is getting to me because for once I actually agree with you, someone knock some sense into me again Genuinely though, I think and fear that there's a lot more to come and a lot more that we'll never know about until it's possibly too late.

FTFY

What’s the issue here exactly? For months the fans were moaning he was at the club. They finally done what you wanted and you’re shocked we couldn’t do it for free?

The current management team did not want a sporting director making decisions about the signing of players etc, so he was removed so DF and GB could make those decisions themselves.

An abortion of a statement which easily could have gone out right after the game. Puting this nonsense out stalls them time and they hope the unrest will simply go away. Staying full time I guess is still a positive but we will be in the third tier so wages will be very low safe to expect a fresh group of loans and jobbers incoming. The route we are going down is not sustainable. Dougal

Bannerman and his ilk would allow us to merge with anyone if they saw personal gain on the horizon. He’s already put it out there in the local press but back tracked immediately when he realised the outraged backlash he got from same article. Morale of the story Do not trust the weasel!!! Dougal

Indeed. We have a core of good staff at the sharp end and they will almost certainly be the ones that suffer either by losing jobs or by being expected to do more with or for less ... it is at the top end where the skills are blunt and fingernails will cling to power as long as they can. Anything less than an announcement that the first two people to go are Gardiner and Ferguson will be utterly wrong. I am not sure we can afford to pay them off as I don't know their contracts, but for the sake of the club, its ethos, its community, or what is left of it, I am not sure we can afford NOT to do it.

They would get more people contributing if they weren't so high and mighty. I'll not give the club a single penny more until Gardiner is gone. I didn't buy a season ticket for that very reason. Others have done the same. There are plenty who have been contributing but have seen one cluster f&%k after another and all going back to Gardiner. Every single supporter who has bought season tickets, match tickets, shirts etc has contributed and quite rightly should have their say! Without support the club doesn't exist - worth remembering that the fans make the club not the other way around.

Read the full statement HERE "We have been working for a number of weeks on a comprehensive restructuring plan for what we believe is the best way forward for ICTFC, details of which will be announced in the next few days, but following last night’s Board Meeting, I can confirm that the club will remain full-time next season and I thank everyone in advance for showing some patience as we make sure that plan is finalised". Key Points from initial Statement (only 3 days late) Club to remain full time Focus on long term stability More news to follow. (this must be the tip of the iceberg!) So far, this is not the news the we on Caley Thistle Online wanted to hear. Pleased that we will still function as a club, disappointed that resignations have not been offered yet. Keeping fans waiting in silence for three days is unforgivable and relationships are drifting further apart than ever before. Silence is not the way forward, we deserve better.

I think that’s all fair comment, but is it not simply a case of he who pays the piper calls the tune?

Gardiner and Big Dunc must know their coats are on shoogly pegs when the blue rinses have turned against them. Not 100% convinced self entitlement route is the way to go though. Gardiner and Dunc it’s time you start packing yer bags. Dougal

Try and chill out Lizi. Put your feet up, pour yerseif a dram and enjoy an entertaining read - which I would personally recommend.

I don’t think it’s where we are that’s the issue

The short answer is yes, it does affect players. I don't know the sports science behind it, although I think it may be due to the infill material where soil under grass, even when hard and compacted, is still softer than the infill then cement/concrete under turf. Hate that we have to play on it and we absolutely need to be factoring this into training if we are not to have an even more horrendous injury list this coming season. Artificial turf has come a long way since the carpet burn Astroturf like they have/had at the Bught, and some of it is now FIFA approved and woven into real grass and such like, but with all due respect, I don't think we are encountering the top of the range stuff in League 1. It's too expensive to maintain and very few clubs could afford it including most Premiership clubs. Went down a bit of a rabbit hole with this page but seems to have been a lot of research, mostly on American Football, done in US universities that do correlate turf and increased injury risk. https://www.sportsfieldmanagement.org/knowledge_center/synthetic-turf/#accordion_injury_research

You are a professional at it though.

And I believe we have been paying Barry Wilson as well

Gardiner et al clearly have a degree of business kudos. Pity it's all about lining the pockets of his mates like Robbo!! Shame none of it is in the interests of 'standard' ICT employees or for the good of ICT. Pure poisonous ideology on his / their behalf.

It beggars belief that he is still on the payroll. You got to wonder what other unknown secrets lie in between the walls of the dump? Dougal

Not that long ago I was loyal to my own team and then it merged with one of its oldest rivals to produce a team which eventually did very well in a higher league and so to get my football fix I ****d off to the Longman to enjoy the Caley Thistle project. With your flaky logic I suppose that makes me a glory hunter!

Indeed it is, but I’d expect there to be plans prepared for both scenarios, with the relevant one then taken forward. Anyway, we are both in the same boat here, wanting our club to survive and prosper.

Yes and you can bet we will still have a fulltime CEO to oversee it all.

Anyone who wants to go watch a merged Caley & County clearly cares right now more about following a team doing well or in a higher league then loyalty to their own team. On that basis they are all free to **** off to Dingwall and enjoy the Uncle Roy ego project.

It leaves more questions than answers. Are there changes to the Board? Will we retain a CEO? What about the Manager, Assistant and Coaches? What about the other staff employed by the club, many of whom must be quite low paid. How big a squad will we have? What happens to the Academy? etc etc.

It is, of course, encouraging that we are to stay full time, but that statement is both pathetic and patronising. There is nothing of relevance in it which could not have been pre-prepared and issued a minute after the final whistle. There were people weeping in the stands on Saturday and they have had to wait 3 full days for any kind of comment from the club. And when comment comes, the Chairman has the gall to suggest that the fans' commitment to the club is an inspiration to the Board. Pull the other one! The 72 hour delay in putting anything out to the fans was absolutely shameful and demonstrates just how little they care about the supporters.

That non-statement statement is utter shi*e and says NOTHING except a desire to buy time to see what they can say, or to see emotions die down. Gentlemen - that emotion and sentiment will NOT die down.

I can understand why so many are saying they are not going to be putting any more money into the club at this stage. It is though, important for people to spend a modest fiver to join the Supporters Trust if they haven't already done so. Whatever the outcome of the current crisis, it is crystal clear that the fans need a voice in the running of the club. That voice needs to be loud and representative. To be loud and representative, we need as many fans as possible to join the Trust to vote for those who put themselves forward for the Trust Board. The more fans the Trust represents, the harder it will be to ignore us. The money men on the Board have no right to control what happens at our club. The purchase of a season ticket, club merchandise, car parking, a half time draw ticket, food and drink all add up. Long standing fans will themselves also have put in thousands to the club over the years. Many fans will have spent a similar proportion of their disposable income on the club as the Board's money men have. In some cases, maybe more! We have a right to demand change and to have our say in the running of our club.

It's taken the three full days to come up with that statement just pathetic!

Staying full-time is a hugely positive first step. We now need to hear what the restructuring looks like but it absolutely must involve a new manager and the exit of the CEO.

This is so spot on! Seeing lots saying the same too

Ok, bud, you just enjoy yourself being a Main Stand happy clapper. Make sure to not get too many Werthers Originals stuck in your false teeth before you start having a fit over the slightest form of noise at the games...

With gates of around only 2k fans, we are well behind most clubs in the Championship and even likes of Falkirk or Hamilton - so the level of spend is commensurate with the shortfall in income due to lack of alternate streams (£3m over 5 years is £500k per year so lets get that in perspective in relation to the clubs assets - property, facilities. players). Perhaps its the change in fan expectations and waking up to realise the size of club we are operating at and the premium costs associated with recruitment being outwith the central belt all means we are actually League One sized/structured as such have been punching for many years!!!