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I received an email today with an update of the last 15 days which is something the club should be doing.

I actually think the move has been dreamt up by Gardiner because he knows how so deeply unpopular he is in Inverness now, that moving the football operations to Kelty means he no longer has to be present in Inverness and run the gauntlet of the coming into contact with the locals! I wouldn't be surprised if he's manipulated the figures to show the board a much greater saving than will actually be achieved in order to push the deal through. It's a win win for him!

Considering that we were told that the Battery Farm was going to take in £3.4M, I think that what has actually transpired must surely be classified as a failure alongside the scale of the club’s problems. And don’t start me on the Concert Company. I still cringe at the thought that what was talked up as a financial panacea failed miserably and left a lot of honest traders out of pocket whilst hammering the last nail into the coffin of the club’s credibility with the local business community. Meanwhile, Scot Gardiner presented the fact that the club had ring fenced stadium rent for itself before the CC went bust- hence increasing these traders’ losses - as some kind of achievement at the AGM. I suspect that there will be people in the very local business community that the club needs to get on board now shouting “Karma!!” and laughing their arses off at what is now happening.

It’s such a pity Cammy’s not getting his opportunity to make the no1 shirt his own in the new season. Kelty no doubt a major factor in his thinking.

I would have to argue that the CC and the BF were pursued as means of attracting the large amount of money needed to bail a seriously financially challenged club out of a big hole, but they have only realised pennies in comparison. As a result, more than two years have been wasted on a wild goose chase instead of something far more useful, and as a result the club appears to be on the brink of insolvency. That to me is a financial disaster a bit like someone getting into a million pound debt but letting it run because they think they’ve won a pools jackpot - and then discovering it’s only a thousand quid.

Annan v ICT 13 July Euros final 14 July. Potentially a bit awkward if any of our players get a late call up.

Agreed. The ineptitude of the Board is breathtaking. There are guys on the Board who run successful businesses but yet they seem utterly incapable of taking the simplest of decisions to ensure we actually have 11 registered players who can play the first competitive game in a few weeks time. Meanwhile, good players, who may have stayed had appropriate actions been taken sooner, are jumping ship and nobody can blame them.

There will be little chance of that happening unless there are major changes soon!

If the Kelty move is going ahead then it makes sense for them to cut the local guys as much as possible as they will be awkward re the training situation. Do we have to accommodate them through the week down the road, spend hours travelling or just train separately? (which would be ridiculous)

Gutted Cammy hasn't stuck around as I believe he would've been first choice with Ridgers moving on. Then again maybe big Dunc didn't rate him as GK is the only position he hasn't brought in his own player.

Kelty is like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

Thanks for the detailed response, Charles. The accumulated losses from the very start to date is something shown in every set of ICT company accounts submitted. It's a figure in plain sight near the bottom of the balance sheet. (So there's no need to trawl through every set of accounts to add all the years' losses together. It's done for you, so to speak).

This club has never been able to come especially close to generating income to match its football expenditure and I can’t see how anyone could conceivably think otherwise. For several years after the near financial collapse of 1999, £5M from Tullochs kept it going but more recently that has given way to raising extra share capital (significantly almost £1M from Muirfield Mills) and cadging loans such as from Ross Morrison. Unfortunately, two attempts to raise income by non-football means - the Concert Company and the Battery Farm - have been catastrophic financial failures and the former (or possibly arguably both) also brought severe reputational damage. Thank you for revealing that all-time losses come to £6.7M. I had only got as far as establishing £3.5M (more than half of that) within only the last six years, so it’s clear that the funding gulf is accelerating. I’ve made the ballpark estimate that, additional to initial stadium funding, ICT has cumulatively needed £10M of other people’s money to get to where it is today. But if you think that’s a lot, I would also estimate that the corresponding figure for Ross County is around £20M and in the last 10 years alone £11.4M in loans from its parent company have been written off, so loss making seems to be accelerating there as well. The difference between the two clubs is that Roy MacGregor has been a far larger, more reliable and longer term source of “bailout cash” than ICT’s. In fact the scale and longevity of Roy’s support have been quite remarkable - although what happens when that eventually dries up is another matter. As far as ICT is concerned, I’m struggling to see a sustainable way out of this…. but as sure as hell, decanting the first team to Fife sure isn’t among the options. On that particular subject, judging by what random people I’ve had casual conversation with over the last week, I have been absolutely dismayed at the laughing stock that the club has now become in the public eye.

No. It is not simple fact that these projects made us a lot of money. The Battery company was sold to 3 of the Club's directors who could simply have put the same anount of money into the club had they so wished. Time will tell whether the Directors taking over ownership of the company is of more benefit to the club than if it had stayed with the club. It is true the club received an income from the concert company's activities, but had the club just done the sensible thing and rented the ground out to a production company who knew what they were doing, the club would still have received significant income. No doubt the Concert Company was happy to pay the club a bigger sum for the rental of the stadium and the time of club employees etc than a proper production company would have done, but any extra income was at the expense of local business who were left out of pocket by the failure of the enterprise. If the club made more out of the venture than they would have done by simply hiring facilities out to a production company, then the decent thing would have been for the club to honour the debts from its own profiteering. Against any profits the club may have made from these ventures are the opportunity costs. Both projects, and the concert fiasco in particular, have resulted in huge reputational damage to the club. As a result, the club will have been losing significant income which might have come from local businesses in terms of sponsorship and hospitality. Club staff and directors have been spending a totally disproportional amount of time on these vanity projects and have been ignoring the bread and butter business of the football club. A little bit more focus on the footballing side of things and we might not have been relegated this season. A bit more focus on the wide range of shortcomings highlighted in the Supporters Trust's matchday survey and we might be seeing a few more through the turnstiles and spending a bit more when they do come.

We are now only a couple of weeks away from pre season. Any chance of the Club updating who has officially been released and who has been signed or offered deals??????? I know the Chairman has indicated Duncs and I assume Bollan will be in charge, but let’s hear officially. The Chairman despite his love of the Club, did not seem like he knew what was happening!!!!!

Annan Athletic is definitely on my horizon, I can get the West Coast mainline train from London to Carlisle and then its half an hour from Carlisle, probably an overnighter in Carlisle. Dumbarton is also an possibilty, obvs will still try to get to home games. I felt once we ended up in the relegation play-offs, we were unlikely to beat Hamilton. Annoyingly we missed out on safety by small margins, as we did promotion play-offs the year before. I see quite a few blaming the players for having no fight, I'm not sure thats true, tactic's seem more to blame, and as I said several times lack of a proper winger. [Shaw and Longstaff could probably have done the job, but Shaw was used as a centralised player-maker before his injuries, I thought Longstaff showed promise but was out injured too long too] We had some injuries, but I still think a team that included Devine, Savage, Boyes, Harper, Kerr, McKay, Alex Samuel, Duffy, Gilmour, Laval, Ujdur and Anderson should have been good enough...I never really understood why Bray was allowd out on loan either, he seemed to be the stand out player at the start of the season. Ferguson managed a new manager bounce, but seemed to run out of ideas quite quickly. Still we got rid of Doddsball.... I wonder how people who wanted him out feel now, was that the right decision with the wrong replacement? I kind of understand the reasoning behind using Kelty as a training base, but obviously also understand why that rankles, it might ease one problem, but what happens to the youth team? Frankly the size of our home crowd, is always going to be an issue from the financial point of view, I just wish I could win the Euromillions, but until then, it seems hand-to-mouth stuff Anyway hopefully ICT can keep going, it might be a slow process to get back to the better times, but hopefully we will come back stronger...eventually

I don’t think you’re too far wrong there! The vital component is Tullochs. The debt in 1999 before they came in was said to be £2.3M; that disappeared as a result of a deal over the stadium which was subsequently donated back to the club, Tulloch’s £729K in shares - the biggest single holding - was later donated to the ICT Charitable Trust and Tullochs built the North and South stands on less than 7 weeks to ensure that the team came back from Aberdeen early in 2005. For several years Tullochs controlled the Board and there were even a couple of very modest profits in there. The Tulloch interest had departed by the mid-2010s and it’s since then that financial decline has set in again. I’m not arguing a 100% cause and effect here because there will have been other factors but there’s a strong link between financial and playing success and the Tulloch involvement.

Spent yesterday at The Gathering. It was at the Bucht due to the work at the Northern Meeting Park, and used a surprisingly small section, albeit there must have been upwards of 5000 there. The bar and catering worked well though. Highlights were Torridon (despite being Staggies), Trail West and headliners Skerryvore. The weather was amazing.

You seem to be working on the premise that the club had no costs relating to the concert and battery farm projects. You also can't ignore the associated financial implications. Concentrating on these projects instead of the bread and butter activities meant the club had no income from things like hospitality, player/match sponsorship etc.

There definitely some good years in the middle but from memory I think they were mainly our years in the top flight, where incomes are so much higher, and as an added bonus players can be sold for significantly higher amounts (£1m between Christie and Niculae being our best ones)

My first phrase was that the projects failed miserably, and I’m not disputing how damaging they have been in various respects. Just pointing out that they have made significant financial contributions to help te club’s finances. So you could say they were catastrophic and I would agree, but they were absolutely not financially catastrophic. Let’s not be in denial that they actually made us a lot of money, which is simple fact.

Has anyone considered that this Kelty move is probably a tempoprary thing to give the club some breathng space. I totally understand the level of anger but if it came down to it i would take Gardiner out over the Kelty move. His presence is clearly damaging relations.

Thanks Cif - I hadn’t been familiar with the term “retained earnings”!

Both project failed miserably in terms of meeting their targets, but I’m not sure you are right that they were actually catastrophic financial failures. I know it’s not what anyone wants to hear, but these Gardiner projects seem to have made significant non-footballing contributions to ICT. RM stated last week that the club’s interest in the battery farm was recently sold for £250,000, and in the previous year or two there were statements that the club rented the stadium and provided other services to the concert company for sums that would surely have been well into 5 figures. So it seems to be the case that these crazy, failed schemes have actually generated more income than a year’s worth of season tickets.

I was that fan who spoke on Sportsound today and if you don’t think that part of the problem is those ventures you are way off the mark! The concert fiasco destroyed relationships with local businesses and some are still owed money! Those broken relationships have led to less money coming through the tills! Hospitality is nearly non existent now! Sponsor’s haven’t been contacted to renew deals and some have had free advertisement for over 3 years due to the club not picking up the phone. Yes it’s been going on for a long time and Ross is a fan but the club isn’t being ran properly! We just want a football team to support and be proud off! We have had more communication around battery farms than we have had about any football matters last season!

ICT's financial runaway train started long before the current incumbents. Up to 31 May 2022 (per company accounts on public record at Companies House which anyone can access/view free of charge), the accumulated losses incurred by ICT since formation total an eye-watering £6.7million. We have been a financial basketcase, living beyond our means for years, and years and years. The only reason we have stayed alive this long is a series of benefactors (Morrison being the latest) ploughing huge amounts of their own money knowing they'll never see it again. I couldn't believe it when I heard an ICT fan-contributor on Sportsound today blame battery farms and concerts for our financial woes and saying that we had not lost money from football operations ... Off the scale inaccurate.

5 days a week 52 weeks a year for multiple years. If that is the £300k and it's full payment in advance then maybe not that great especially when you factor in cost of maintenance etc for that volume of use. If it's the annual payment then great so long as we actually get it. We don't have a great record with commercial contracts and agreements.

Might be that, no idea, but £300,000 rent for a car park? SG is CEO of the century if he’s negotiated even a small fraction of that amount for us for renting out a bit of wasteland!

This is, while I appreciate what Morrison is put financially into the club I have zero sympathy. He's created this situation or at the very least allowed it to come about through the business genius of Gardiner. We are moving to Kelty because it's the ONLY way we can survive apparently. Yet we've probably spent the best part of £500k on Gardiner since he came, and for what exactly? He's here to develop partnerships and further the club and has done the polar opposite. We've kept on Robertson as some kind of weird Sporting Director when he couldn't cope with continuing as manager. Thereafter he did the grand total of fk all other than cut the grass at the IRA - and we're still paying him! We give Dodds a contract extension on the basis that he got the SC Final, even though we only made it due to a clerical fk up. We then sacked him 6 games later - and are still paying him to this day. We bring in a 'big name' manager out of left field with next to no Scottish Football knowledge or experience and a history of failure and relegation. Allegedly on £4k a WEEK (OVER £200K A YEAR!) Confirmed by Morrison not to be covered by a Director but paid by the club. This big name then seems to be totally stubborn re his tactics and player selection, never learns from his mistakes and gets us relegated. Even if he takes a significant pay cut he'll still not be on less than £100k a year. Absolutely astonishing array of terrible decisions time after time. Nobody has more blame for your lost million plus quid than you Ross and regardless it sure as fk isn't the fans. We must be among the least demanding fans in the country. All we wanted was to be listened to, paid some respect and appreciation. Failed on all counts.

I finally found the time to listen to it tonight and well done to the guys involved and I just hope the chairman will take heed and sort out the main problem!

You just don't get it! Last season we had a squad which was good enough to gain promotion back to the championship. We were very unlucky to be relegated in such a tight division. Despite a lot of injury problems we were a penalty miss away from 5th and in reality, had a squad that was good enough to challenge for promotion. We might have done so with a better manager. The powers that be on the Board were negotiating this absurd scheme whilst we were in the Championship and not expecting to be relegated. They, presumably, expect this scheme to produce a squad which will put us back in the Premiership. Anything except promotion straight back to the Championship will therefore represent an absolute failure for the scheme. But do you really think the scheme will allow for recruitment of players that will take us back to the Championship, let alone to the Premiership? As previously explained, the scheme makes it far more difficult for any player who actually lives in Inverness or would be happy to come and live in this wonderful part of the country for a year or two. The only players for whom this scheme will be attractive are players living within easy commuting distance of Kelty. These players will also be within easy communing distance of numerous other clubs looking to recruit. So tell me, what makes you think that these guys will sign up for us and a 3 hour trip up the A9 before and after matches, rather than a more local club where they are embedded in the camaraderie of the club infrastructure and the local community? Success will depend on recruiting a very significant number of such players. Logic tells us that the only players we will attract will be ones who can't get a contract with a central belt team. A team of rejects with no link to Inverness are more likely to see us relegated than promoted.

Sorry. Its too late. Even if this decision gets reversed tomorrow I'm probably done. Supported the club in 2 guises for a long long time and have never felt so disenfranchised from it ever. Been building up for a while now tbh with the CEO and board not giving a thought about us at all whilst gambling the clubs future. Withholding my money is the only power I have so will not be spending a penny in the near future.

It’s looking like a central belter in goals

Ridgers is out of contract and rumoured to be joining County. MacKay rumoured to be joining Brora.

Well here’s one local player who won’t be going to Kelty. Anyone know what Rodgers’ contract status is?

If you take out the losses from the first few years and the last few years then that would suggest that during the middle 20ish year period the club was actually living within it's means and achieving success on the park.