Leaderboard

I've just watched the video and found it very disappointing. It was a total poor me show from the remaining directors who spoke more like they felt they were victims when they are in fact the enablers who allowed this to happen. The audacity of Gordy Fyfe to stand up and wax lyrical and take credit for the community trust whilst totally ignoring his responsibility as a director of the football club is other level. I still can't understand how they can claim ignorance to what was happening when so many fans on the outside could see it. As I've said before where do they think all the loans they were giving were going? They prattled on about puma deals and losing money on young players who moved on but that's only accounts for a fraction of the money the club has lost in the last 5 years. They avoided questions they didn't want to answer by saying they wanted to look forward but spent most if the time themselves talking about how they'd been duped in the past. Grassa even tried to defend Ross Morrison at one point which was unbelievable. Scott Young is the only one I'd make any allowance for and the other two should hang their head in shame at having pushed him to the front the way they have. Now more than ever I want administration. Not only to try and fix the clubs financial position but because the last of that board (Scott aside) also need to be gone.

All they have done is blame others, no point saying 'we take responsibility now' & 'we cant look back'.Its too late as where was the ownership of responsibilities during their time - IMO however we restructure or end up there needs a clear out with Bennett & Fyfe and any of the historical legacy gone too. Watched the video, overall they got a fairly easy ride TBH. AS spoke well but that I feel protected the vitrol towards the directors and gave them an out to pass everything over to Alan or Charlie knowing they are more palatable to the fanbase.

Very impressed with directors last night. Honest , forthwright and in pain. The crowdfunder is essential. It shows cash on hand to administrator. It shows community support and shows support for savage who will be £1m down by end of administration. Support if you can all the way to 16th. With a 1500 fans a week we can survive administration but not liquidation. But every matchday has to make money. Every matchday we should celebrate the amount of money we made not the crowd size. Then this could never happen again. Every week until we make money tell us the loss on the tannoy. Open everyone's eyes. The council should hang their heads in shame with their lack of support and the impact of the planning decision .Use your vote when you get one.

Feels like the meeting was little more than an exercise to gauge fan feeling on administration while trying to get/keep people on side by rallying everyone behind anger towards Gardiner. There's nothing in reports that we didn't already know or suspect and no detail on what we're spending £260k a month on. That should have been the first question answered.

That's my point. It doesn't cost 200k + per month to pay wages, put on games and keep the power on...what is the overspend for?

The problem is that even fans who want to buy the new away kit in a large or extra large size to support the club financially can't until (reportedly) January. If, as we are led to believe, we paid well over the odds for a Puma deal why are there no shirts in, what I assume to be, two of the most popular sizes? Plus there is no new training wear and various pieces of last season's gear is out of stock. I know we need to move forward but these issues are having a lasting impact on attempting to do so positively. If we had an adequately stocked shop surely this would generate much needed funds.

But we have the best defensive record of out any teams in Scotland that have conceded more than us and are unbeaten this season other than the 2 games we lost. If it wasnt for artificial pitches and other teams in this league we would be sitting top. On that basis pretty sure Dunc is happy how things are as he doesnt have any interest in looking at league tables anyways.

Ain't that the problem?

It was mooted before that the club was paying significant accommodation and relocation costs. IF we pay for certain players (contract or loan) - a flat plus bills, car, travel back 'home' + general expenses that could be £3k a month on top of a salary (not withstanding some of those services may be owned by director or their acquaintances). Add onto that directors/managers etc expenses such as those listed above for the players but much higher level (luxury) travel, business meetings, lunches, hospitality, accommodation etc - could have been spending significant cash every month for 'jollies' under the guise of networking & work. All of the above is speculation but if you see it as a cash cow to milk for personal gains its easy for directors and senior levels to exploit it all Others we know about Paying off Dodds Paying off Robbo? Paying any cancellation penalties for the Kelty deal Crazy puma kit deal (thats £10k pm)

Staggering incompetence with a sprinkle of malicious intent. Under Gardiners reign we're probably finished as a club aiming to be in the top tier of Scottish football for a long, long time.

Administration soon after October 16th now looks inevitable following what I thought was a very good meeting, packed with around 200 attendees. It was fairly clear that the Board and Alan Savage pretty strongly “prefer” Administration as the lesser of two evils, the other being Option Micawber - soldiering on and “waiting for something to turn up”. It was equally clear that much of the reason for holding the meeting was to test the temperature of the water as regards Administration and a show of hands between Admin and Micawber was roughly evenly divided. Alan Savage said that he would meet the cost of administration - which he also expects to remove a vast pile of debt. There seemed to be a stoical acceptance that the resulting 15 point penalty might very well result in League Two football next season. Anger directed at Gardiner was palpable, with the astonishingly inept kit deal leading the charge - followed very closely by many of the other sh!tshows that plagued the five year infliction of this individual on the club. It’s clear that the crowdfunder has only minimal chance of even getting close to its £200K target, but that already seems to be receding into the background. There’s probably more I could write but the video will tell it all.

Oops don’t know what happened there Sorry moog, If going to one stand you mean the main stand I assume you are going to put the existing north stand fans in the non covered side, no thanks. Where we are in the north stand we get no rain and as long as I am clothed correctly for winter I am roastie toastie there. Couldn’t imagine sitting in the uncovered stand being battered by wind , rain and snow. especially when they remove my winter fuel payment I wouldn’t be able to thaw out at home. ( joking, give it to those who need it)

Some light relief for you on Thursday afternoon.

The thing that irks me most about the meeting was the response to the question over the fans donations to the crowdfunding campaign. It was stated that the funds will be used for running costs, but administration is all but inevitable. Therefore the funds will be lost and won’t be able to contribute to a positive cause (save ICT??), why ask fans to contribute when even Alan Savage is saving his money for the administration process? Basically I dont think it’s a ‘Save ICT’ fund at all. The crowd fund should be ring fenced and used when we reincarnate.

I would suggest that after an administrator has come in and cut the outgoings on wages any idea of a coaching 'dream team' of former players would be a complete fantasy that only the likes of Scot Gardiner could dream of.

Going forward, I would like to see only Scott Young remain of the current board. He is newer on the scene, not tarnished with the same brush (quite so much) and I know he has been working with the Trust and others to try and be more open, even before SG was removed from post when talking to fans was almost seen as treason in the corridor of power. It's a hard one with GB, I do believe he has the club at heart, and there is a rumour that he did tender his resignation at one point several months ago but rescinded it. However, at the end of the day he was there through much of the past few years of the Gardiner hurricane, and as a former ICT player himself should at the very least been somewhat vociferous when players were being treated like sh1t or at the very least speak with them about things. Several players have said no-one spoke to them at all and that is plain wrong. Inaction on this front is tantamount to condoning it in my eyes, but that's just my opinion. If AS believes he is not tarnished or has something to bring to the table going forward, then I can live with him still being in post, but if it's the same old 'jobs for the boys' or sentimental positioning because he was a player and now owns the Caley Club then no thanks. I would like AS to remain in some capacity. By the time this is over he will have dropped nearly £1m into the pot and restored some sanity, albeit too little too late it would seem. If we are to come out of this, then we will need strong leadership, and all hands to the pump. We will also need governance and sensibility if we do start to take small steps and someone wants to start taking more risky bigger steps. He - I believe - can provide this, assuming he has the stomach for it and doesn't want to just relax like most 70+ year olds. As for whoever else comes on board ... I would hope this is where the Trust can gain a representative for the fans. If we are headed for administration then Stronger Together monies could hopefully be used to secure a shareholding and representation. Other than that, it has to be someone bringing something to the table and hopefully not serial fantasists or venture capitalists or equity partners ... any of those and we are well and truly f***ed !

I’m sure AS has Charlie Bhoy already part of the Admin strategy. Keeps him in a role that they may hope Celtic offer some kids! Just a thought!

Even more mind boggling that we are struggling to survive and we still have a merchandise available. I’d have thought this would have been snapped up by now.

Cant be so, afterall the board members had no idea what was going on and the 'big bad man' did it?

I'm going to go off at a tangent here and talk about football. Bizarre eh? Since administration is inevitable and we'll be deducted 15 points, is Duncan Donut going to try and win games now?

With the information about the Puma kit deal , how could the club be paying so much yet have a very popular away kit that nobody in a large size can now buy until (reportedly) January??! It's mind-boggling....

In fairness, on reflection, I can see why it was a "look forward" approach, cos all the rats left the sinking ship before they had to shoulder any blame for causing the ship to sink in the first place. Woulda just been a load of "I'm not sure"s and unanswerable questions, cos nobody there is senior enough to have had a foot in those events.

Any clear out must not include grazza, fyfey or charlie, they ‘did nuffin’!

Ross Morrison's legacy.........................

Below is the text of Will Clark's report in the Courier. Interim chairman Scott Young says administration is the most likely outcome at Inverness Caledonian Thistle next week. However, he says there is still a chance of interested buyers agreeing a deal to takeover the club by next Wednesday. He was speaking as Inverness Caledonian Thistle held an open meeting to talk about the perilous financial situation it is facing. Inverness Caledonian Thistle say they need to raise £200,000 by Wednesday, October 16 or the club will be forced to go into administration and become insolvent. Inverness also need to find between £1.4 and £1.6 million so they can continue until the end of the season. It was reported that there has been expressions of interest from Denmark, United Arab Emirates and United States about investing in the club. Young says for any deal to save the club from administration, it must happen by Wednesday, October 16. But he says at present, administration at Inverness Caledonian Thistle is the most likely course of action. He said: “I think at the minute it is probably the most likely route that we will have to go down. “But I am a glass half full, rather than a glass half empty and I still remain optimistic that we might be able to get something over the line before then. “We may not, in which case, I and the board can hold our hands up that we tried and looked at every option that was available to us. “If we go down the administration route, we will embrace that and we will look to come out of it even stronger. “But there are communications with several interested parties.” Around 200 people turned out to the open meeting on Monday night at the Caledonian Stadium where they had the opportunity to ask the board questions. Along with Young, also taking questions were directors Graeme Bennett and Gordon Fyfe, chief executive officer Charlie Christie, honorary president Roddy Ross and financial consultant Alan Savage. Young was pleased with the turnout at the meeting, saying it showed fans cared for the future of the club. “I am a fan first and foremost before being a director. We were as honest as we could be to questions and I think fans appreciated that. They might not have agreed with everything we said or we have done. But they realise the situation that we are in. They will go away more understanding than they were before the meeting tonight.” He added: “All going well I see us having a future, I don’t know what kind of future at the minute, but hopefully a future where we can learn a lot of things.” Alan Savage, who was appointed as a financial consultant for Inverness Caledonian Thistle believes that administration is the best way forward for the club. He believes that it is the club’s best chance of survival, even if it means a 15 point deduction in League One and having to fight a battle against relegation this season. Savage said: “The club has the best chance of survival if it goes through administration. If it falls into liquidation, it has no chance. It is the better of two evils. “If we are insolvent then something has to be done.” Savage, who is the owner at recruitment company Orion Group, also admitted that administration would result in staff at the club losing jobs, including players leaving the club. But he said they would do their best to look after them and also ensure the club has a future to look forward to. He said: ”There will be some players who will move on which we would try to mitigate at Orion and we would try to find people jobs. “We will try and look after some of the suppliers who may suffer. “We are a community club at heart, we want to do the right things. “We are in a mess due to five years of neglect and we have to face up to that. “If we can go into administration in control, which we will be, that will benefit the club. We will have the ball and we will run it.”

I think £200K seems to be less than the average monthly expenditure. I don’t know what turnover has been because the accounts aren’t required to state it, but £2 million mightn’t be a bad guess. Add the projected £1.2M for the current year to that to get expenditure and you’ve got £3.2M which is a bit over £260K in a month. There therefore has to be some concern if (or rather when) the £200K isn’t reached, then how are they going to manage to pay the October wages?

Not offering Harper a contract and missing out on some dosh for him was another masterstroke.

Play better football, score some goals, provide some entertainment therefore get more bums on seats - that on Dunc and the players IMO

The charge document at Companies House was signed off by Scott Young, and witnessed (presumably he didn't have sign-off powers) by Gardiner. As for Carlisle - as CEO Gardiner would have had some financial powers with, one would expect, an upper limit on how much he could spend or commit without consulting the Board. I suspect that no one will have thought about him turning down potential income!

Who authorised this? Other than Morrison, who had the power? The same goes for the Carlisle gift - was Gardiner authorised to do this especially at a time when it looked like his time was up?

Will the wealthy Chairperson of Carlisle F C do the honourable thing and put some solid money into the Fund?

To be honest, it was a strange one. On the one hand, I'm glad the nerves have been settled on Admin, but on the other, the whole thing felt a bit short, and the whole "lets focus going forward" angle kinda shot down most of the point of the meeting, given the grievances in the ST Email were to be brought up for that exact reason. High (or low) light, mind, was the collective "Jesus f*cking Christ" when it was announced that Gardiner spaffed away an £80k compensation fee from Carlisle for Cammy Harper, and torched half a million on a 4 year deal with Puma...in May...when we were already 10 miles up **** creek...

No. Savage did say though that some money in bank needed to convince Administrator we could get through the process? We are losing 1.75 million the last few years though so is 200k a month much short of the mark though?

And Roddy. CC said that he found an email from Gardiner telling Carlisle we wouldn't be seeing compensation. Unbelievable stuff

For the current club management to say they are unaware of any money changing hands would suggest that no such transactions ever reached the official accounts. If they had, Mr Savage's forensic audit would surely have revealed them. If Carlisle believes that money did change hands, then where is it?

Maybe it's just resting in someone's account...

There seems to be some uncertainty there. The people who currently run the club aren’t aware of any money having changed hands, but it’s been alleged that Carlisle have suggested that it did.

Think of it as a sticking plaster.

I think it’s inevitable now - bit like being 3-0 down in the 89th minute and I can’t imagine what BS will be uttered tonight to make me feel any different.

Realistically, is it now time to look at transferring our loyalties elsewhere? Easy enough for me - many years ago if Caley were playing away (from Telford Street) I was quite happy to head down to Grant Street and lend my support to Clach, a team for which I still have a soft spot. With the possible demise of our team, the additional revenue from a thousand odd displaced (and disillusioned) ICT fans could help make Clach a viable contender for the Highland League title and then the Scottish League playoffs, just in time to move operations to the vacant Tulloch stadium. A lick of white paint and we're ready to storm up the leagues again!! 😂

Perfect solution! Knows the players, current CEO, Chairman and Board members abilities. Most importantly Cheap. Already has contract for wages, digs and transport. Given the opportunity I’m sure Garry would introduce a more open attacking game. Give him a chance!