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T'was I in the layby, and I'm just sticking to my guns that I refuse to put a penny into this club until Scot Gardiner is shown the door (as are many who just decided to dodge the game altogether). I put £400 down to sponsor Niko's shirt, ~£300 for a season ticket and however much it was for the home and away tops (as well as cup tickets and food), aaaand frankly I feel like I've been had on for a jolly, hence the protest(s). Gardiner's torn this club limb from limb and pile drived it firmly into the ground. The Concert Co., the Battery Farm, Clickbait Proponents, WATP55 Kits on the Order's most celebrated day, Dodds and Dunc, Evaporated P&R deals, Relegation, late tax forms, and most importantly, sending club stalwarts down the Ganges. The list goes on. Once that muppet has gone, I'm more than happy to put my money back into the club, but why should I assist someone who has shown nothing but distain for the fanbase and taken us all for a bunch of imbiciles?

I don't get why you keep saying this tbh. Most of the folk I know that haven't renewed are long standing fans not glory hunters. I've supported the club through 2 guises for 48 years. What league we are in is not an issue to me

I just don’t follow the logic of people who choose to deprive the club of cash because they ‘don’t want to pay SG’s wages’. If you buy a season ticket or match ticket, he will get paid. If you do not buy a season ticket or match ticket, he will still get paid. Therefore you are not paying his wages. He will get paid his contractual entitlement whatever happens. Even if he leaves tomorrow, he will still be getting paid until his notice period expires. The only circumstances he does not get paid is if the club goes bust. If you put money into the club by buying tickets, it will boost the player budget, that is the variable, discretionary cost the club has to play with. More money = more players, better players. Similarly if revenue falls short of projections, they will just have to offload more of the remaining players for whatever pittance of a transfer fee they can get, or none at all just to get the wage bill down further. But SG will still be getting paid in full. Your stance is futile and just weakens the team.

I think that oversimplifies the situation. Whilst many will verbalise it as 'not paying towards SGs wages' it is ultimately about getting him away from the club. If he was out the door and still being paid the remainder of his contract I would be more likely to return. I hear the arguments for him being hard to extract and that he is working his notice but nothing is happening and we're not being told how or when that will be. For me the only means I feel I have to try and get the club to listen is by withholding my money and others may be the same.

They must have boycotted the game! About 20 or so in the South stand.

The frustration is I want nothing more than to invest my hard earned cash into the club via a season ticket purchase, but to do so there has to be an acceptable level of genuine communication and transparency from the club to allow me to trust the governance process within the club going forward. No business man would invest in the club until they have completed their due diligence to ensure their investment is protected so this is my personal baseline for financial commitment this season I'm afraid. As you correctly say others may see things differently and what is non negotiable for me may be inconsequential for someone else.

Cry, laugh, do whatever the sod you want. But you have your opinion, and you have mine, but when I (among others) have punted hundreds into the club to be treated like a mound of dugshite on a hot summers day by Gardiner and Co. there shouldn't be any issue when people take up against it

I used to call Butcher a narcissist but Gardiner is a true Personality Disordered Narcissist. Demonstrations and social media abuse will simply go right over his head. He is in full control and he evidently has his own agenda to follow

That's not it at all. They are refusing to buy season tickets as a protest against Gardiner's continued presence at the club. They are fully aware that by doing so, they are not depriving him of his wages. Quite simply, when Gardiner leaves the building, permanently, then they will buy their season tickets. He'll have to get a move on though, otherwise I'll be looking at a half-season ticket a few months down the line.

A really positive and constructive reply LB. I’m in the camp for change and would back additional action (protest) to show there is a (large-ish?) body of supporters that want change at the top. SG gone being a starter. My fear is a lot of ‘my type’ are in the geriatric era and demos are looked on with dread. There has been no clear leadership in my view from the ST on the matter. Possibly the desire not to be seen out of step with their dialogue with the Board being a factor. Nor any willingness to alienate supporters that do not support any from of protest or holding back buying season tickets. I understand that position from the ST but I don’t agree they should be passive right now when the clubs existence is so perilous. I referred in my note earlier that we have insufficient fan numbers to influence change. By extension if we had a larger fan base I would have expected to see a ‘champion’ to the cause of further action / protest. We just don’t have the numbers, much to my angst (to really any serious club approach to build the young fan base for years). As such the natural division of opinion with the current fans is being used by the board to just sit tight and tough it out with absence of any communication. A tough few months ahead still to trundle before some clarity is forthcoming I fear!

If done en masse it could become the werther wave

In what way do you think you would be assisting HIM, as opposed to assisting the club, the team and your fellow fans, by enabling us to have a better team? I totally get why you want rid of SG but to me a boycott just seems to be a nose/face thing.

Well done, Jack. In the past I may have concluded that someone was pretty miserly to watch from the layby, but I salute your stand and the reasons why you did it. Maybe I will bring along a camping seat and join you one day, if we don't see change soon.

More fool them if they want to play daft laddie and bury their head in the sand. There are numerous accounts of fans including me who have tried to contact them and not got so much as an acknowledgement.

Interesting idea, Leaky. I am not attending games at the moment - hoping for evidence that SG is gone soon - but I feel that I protest by not putting money into the club at present, so no need for further action. I do feel bad about it, but I don't earn a great wage and work hard for it, so I do not want to risk seeing it disappear into the pocket of SG. The price of season tickets is also ridiculous, but, under the right circumstances I would stretch to pay this for this year at least, in order to help the club out. However not until there is change at the club. Although I do not wish to protest, I felt that the meeting organised by the Supporters' Trust was beneficial and would welcome more meetings like that if there is anything worth discussing. I totally respect the rights of others to have their own views and to proceed as they see fit as far as game attendance is concerned.

I thought 22. Don’t think any Rose fans boycotted the game as only one person on the bridge and he was wearing an ICT top.

Really good performance in the first half. Good, slick passing and looking to get behind their defence 3 well worked and well taken goals with 2 other excellent efforts. Indeed it was the most entertaining half of football I've seen since Ferguson arrived. 2nd half was not so good. Looked as though we set out to keep things tight and not allow Rose back in - which we did well enough but at the expense of ambition at the other end. Lots of subs from both sides resulted in a lot of passing the ball in the middle of the park before giving the ball away followed by Rose passing the ball in the middle of the park before giving it back to us. The starting XI all did well which is encouraging, but clearly we have a very limited and inexperienced squad. Bonnyrigg were awful though. Bigger tests lie ahead. If money for the squad is not forthcoming we will be hard pressed to survive in league 1.

Great first half, I was pleasantly surprised with our tactics and overall play, well worth 3 up at half time. Should have gone back to the Innes at half time as 2nd half died the death, lots of subs some of which showed how thin and young our squad is. Some played like they belonged others will need plenty porridge if they want to compete in this obviously physical league. Oh, young Ferguson... jeez ! Canna jump canna run, hope once he learns to face towards the goal something might happen. Anyway a good win and it will surely boost the confidence.

Well done to the team. A nice win and a few goals will do wonders for the confidence.

So does this mean that Scot Gardiner has been banned from the directors’ box?

I am of the opinion that I am actually now going to put money into the club by buying merchandise as I usually do with Birthday money (I'm 39 on 12 August ) as I do that most years. I won't change just because of one man, he's only our CEO nothing more, nothing less! Yes I'm not happy with how he's running the club at the moment but that won't influence how I support the club. As I've said on this forum on numerous occasions (mainly to justify my stance on attending ), I work weekends so can't attend matches due to the love of my job :). One day in the not to distant future I hope to be able to attend matches because my dream career job is to work in an outdoor nursery and, incidentally there are 2 in the Inverness/Moray area at Tornagrain and Elgin but my preference is Fort William (that may be slightly off topic so apologies). If I did indeed move down then the next thing to overcome would be my shyness when meeting new people because I would love to meet up with fellow fans either in bars etc before matches or even at matches because, once people get to know me, they grow to like my humorous sense of humour . Hopefully that is a sufficient response to your poll questions @Leaky Blinder because I can't vote due to lack of attendance at matches.

Well there we go that just highlights how out of touch the so called local media are then. Dougal

Who is submitting the planning application?!

Breaking News - Discounted Season tickets for the A9 layby will be available untill the end of July. Plans to install a couple of benches are ongoing

If only the club did something positive to temp fans to put money into the club!!! For instance, ask Scot Gardiner to announce his final day of employment but at least confirm rumours about him staying are false. In the light of the IT meltdown extend the date for discounted season ticket sales by two weeks. Innovate by saying season tickets will be discounted after each home game to reflect remaining fixtures.

Aye the orange ones ..

Where is the line drawn I wonder .. perhaps opening a Werther in a flamboyant manner ?

Hi LB, I understand and like the multi-choice of where fans can select there preference on how they support the club. For me, it’s a simple ‘fight’ for the soul (if I can use that term) of the club. There are three support ‘groups’ as I see things:- 1) Attend the games as it’s the club you support irrespective of the team performance / results and who runs the club. 2) Attends and support the club, would like a stylish team and results, but indifferent about off-field ongoings to get involved. 3) Supports the team, but consider a new approach and set of leaders is required. Willing to promote change. I don’t differentiate between the home or away games support. Irrespective of which camp you fall (I change my leaning sometimes), I believe the fan base is too small to the have any real effect. The future direction of the club imho will be decided by who (individual or group) puts up the money to gain control of the board. There are few, if any individuals in the highlands willing to dig into there pockets to pay of the ‘leavers and debt fee’ before looking at stadium or team investment, (really can’t blame them). If there was 5 or 6 thousand supporters the decision would be more appealing from a financial position. Alas they are not and having supported the club from its conception, I don’t see any signs of increase in core base support in the numbers needed to effect change. So whist we the fans may pick and chose where we place our badge on how we support the club, we may have to just accept the level we have reached is where we actually should be. Ultimately what I think I am saying (poorly) is, we are all supporters of the club and want it to do well, but as things stand, with the exception of ‘Kelty’ have little influence on how it is controlled. Just my tuppence worth!

I think we are looking here at yet another way where football and its customer practices are quite different from what you’ll find in any other business. If your local Tesco is a shambles, not giving you what you want…. and if the person at the checkout is habitually obnoxious…. then rather than campaign to make Tesco better, particularly by getting rid of the checkout operator, you go and shop in Morrisons instead. That’s because you don’t feel any sort of affinity or emotional attachment to Tesco, so not using them and shopping elsewhere isn’t a difficult decision. However when Caley Thistle fans feel outraged about how the club is being run, precious few will go and watch County or Clach or Nairn instead because they want to do something to make their existing arrangements better. It’s not quite Stockholm Syndrome, but fans’ ongoing affinity with a body, which is an absolute fundamental of football, and despite it behaving very badly, is certainly in the same ballpark. So instead, there’s a ST boycott, which is risky since (change metaphors!) the attempt to save the patient by forcibly trying to cut out the cancer is in danger of killing them. I also wonder how many are boycotting because they see this as a definite means of action that gives them the feeling they are doing something, and how many because, morally, they feel unable to give their money to a body operating in the way that ICT has been doing? Or both. What seems a bit strange is that the current campaign has largely been restricted to the boycott, with all its inherent dangers, and there has been virtually no other high profile, public action. For instance, I don’t even know if the single guy in the layby yesterday was even protesting - or if he just didn’t want to spend £18. But what I do know is that the media had been prepared for the possibility of some kind of public demonstration in or around yesterday’s game, but nothing materialised. Older contributors will remember the massive publicity coup which was the bus full of banned rebels that was parked at the Comet end of Telford Street in 1994… ironically in a controversial situation that prompted massive public demand for season tickets. (This, by the way, ISN’T an incitement to civil disobedience…. simply some modestly philosophical thoughts about the precise nature and effects of the boycott.)

Are suggesting that fair weather fans don’t want to admit to being so, and instead find another justification for staying away? It is inevitably a factor for a section of the support but I certainly wouldn’t suggest it applies to people on this forum who I know to be long term, diehard fans.

Where are we covering the that a seaside leagues caley doesn't appeal that much but off-field events just provide a useful narrative to stay away?

What about the 350 away support?

With Annan beating Arbroath 0-3 and Dundee not playing today, it looks like our League Cup campaign will be over after the Group Stages. That means a weakened squad will probably see out our final two group games against Arbroath on Tuesday night and Dundee next weekend to allow us to prepare better for the League 1 campaign.

NPL Review for Game 02 First home game of the season and a great start albeit in the cup. A win is always a confidence booster so let’s hope things are starting to look good on the field. No points awarded in the Correct Score section for this game. Just under half the entries got the ICT First Scorer. Joonya got the Crowd Section bonus – 13 under. noho makes a first appearance in No.1 slot in the table. Total Entries 20 Predicted Match results H – 10 D – 5 A – 5 The Results HT: 3-0 FT: 3-0 1st ICT: Brookes 1st Opp: -- Crowd: 682 Correct Predictions HT: 0 FT: 0 1st ICT: 9 1st Opp: -- Crowd 5 pts: 14 Crowd 10 pts: 0 Crowd Bonus 2Pts: 1 Bragging Rights Joonya 13 Jokers Played None Your Points Joonya 13 Doofer 11 CDN Girl 10 Caleyjag 9 noho 9 CaleyCanary 8 Ictross 8 Jodie Carnie 8 Scotty 8 Lmclmm 7 caleycalum 6 MrCaleyjag 6 old caley girl 5 SOS 5 Jock Watt 4 Robert 3 Gringo 2 Mrs Gringo 2 big cherly 0 TABLE - 02 01 - 21 - noho 02 - 20 - Joonya 03 - 18 - Ictross 04 - 16 - Gringo 04 - 16 - Lmclmm 04 - 16 - Caleyjag 07 - 15 - caleycalum 08 - 13 - CaleyCanary 08 - 13 - DoofersDad 08 - 13 - MrCaleyjag 11 - 11 - Jodie Carnie 11 - 11 - Doofer 13 - 10 - CDN Girl 14 - 9 - old caley girl 15 - 8 - Scotty 16 - 5 - SOS 17 - 4 - Mrs Gringo 17 - 4 - Robert 17 - 4 - Jock Watt 20 - 0 - big cherly

That works both ways.

Camera not the best, not a demo, just a refusal to pay gardiners wages me thinks. next to the sign post on the bridge.

Was impressed with the first half. Pick outs bray and strachan who put in a few dangerous balls from the left. Being super critical I thought we passed the ball a bit too much, making 3 passes to get the ball to a player when 1 would have sufficed. 3 good goals and a turn and shot in the box that came off the post high up. Rose were a very poor side. 2nd half we did absolutely nothing, reminiscent of last season when leading after half time we sat back and let them dictate the play. We made subs and a couple who came on looked like they were still in primary school, buts that’s me getting old. Billy was poor today not sure if it is early season or he is done. best part of the day was watching a game without hearing the vile bile shouted at the board, Gardiner. You could have heard a rustle of the werthers original paper being unwrapped.

Delighted to see the score. Well done boys.

Don't think there's anyone here who wants to see the team do badly.

Many of them should not. They are complicit in everything bad going on around the club, either directly, or by their inaction and silence. Not one of them broke ranks and spoke publicly over the atrocious treatment of staff, players, fans, sponsors or shareholders over the last several years. If one of them had, then perhaps that person could or should be the one that fans could galvanise behind as we try to rebuild our club. 100% that is the way things will be spun, but we know the truth, as do those in power and any one of them that wants to blame shift should hang their heads in shame.

Echo the thoughts of others and wish Mark, as well as any other players pushed out by this Junta the very best for the coming season and beyond. Hopefully, some of our most loyal servants can be tempted back to a coaching or other role within the club at some point in the future when we re-establish a forward-facing community club ethos.

Scot Gardiner effect in full swing. Can count the fans on a Dingwallians hand...

Slightly off topic but is it true that Billy McKay is the new coach of the Under 18's. Another cost cutting exercise to give him two wages to be closer to his previous one

Not really. 'The club' provide no real support, financial or otherwise (maybe some 'in kind' like an occasional home strip or the use of the pitch once a year) that I'm aware of to the women's team or academy. All the organisation and management is done by volunteers. In fact I believe that the women actually pay so they can play and cover some the costs of pitches, ref's etc.

At present we are heading for relegation survival in league1 with the current squad would be a quite remarkable achievement. A torrid season ahead and the fans that are still going should go easy on the kids who will be turning week in week out remember it’s not their fault. Dougal

Mark has been a reliable keeper for us over the years and its quite a coup for Buckie to get him signed on. Its not always about money and Mark has been forced jnto doing whats best for him and his family at this point in his career. Another masterstroke from the current regime that allowed this to happen to a decent guy and great servant to the club, treate shabbily, like many more this season.

That's a total rewrite of what played out. Fans were consulted at the meeting and the trust then went against the majority view that there should be a coordinated boycott. It was only more recently that the trust changed their stance on this. As I already said in another post they were going to organise/back a protest but that never transpired. This seemed to be offered as an alternative to supporting a boycott. Right now it does feel like the trust are no better than the club in promising one thing and doing another and that's not good. We both appear dissatisfied with them but for different reasons and that is telling in itself.

'Off the field' aspects have sickened me also tbh. Never been so detached from ICT as I am now. The Board are pure chancers, charlatans, ego maniacs, narcissists etc. That coupled with DF's mind numbing anti football tactics means I will not waste my time going to see ICT for the foreseeable tbh.

Clearly flippant comments are lost a bit online or to those who struggle to comprehend light hearted comments. Your inability to understand the link between what is going on 'off the field' and what we have ended up with on the field this season is, I suppose your own issue. Perhaps one day you'll be able to see the connection. Perhaps in hindsight if fans (myself included) were not so willing to just keep throwing money at the club year on year recently the board et al may have taken notice before things reached the awful stage it has. We have, 'off the field' thrown hundreds of thousands at an impotent CEO and incompetent managers. If you don't think that impacts the 'on the park' situation then I don't know what to say. I sincerely hope you enjoy the game though tomorrow regardless.