Leaderboard

A long way to come home after getting beat but well done to all those fans who made the effort to support the team

Sizeable turnout today and vocal for large parts. It’s what was needed to reaffirm to the players we’re behind them and to confirm to prospective buyers we’re a solid investment. Lengthy and solid clapping the troops off the field at the end in spite of the result was a nice touch of solidarity and support.

Would like to add our good wishes to Scott and the team. We heard an interview with him before rhe game today and he spoke really well, focusing on the football and also saying he made sure to says thanks to the released players for their hard work and contributions - it was a breath of fresh air.

A positive Caleyaway today despite the score. We were decent for an hour but in the end it wasn't to be. Don't think Dunbarton a happy hunting ground for us? 25 cup finals to come. It isn't over till it's over

It is such a tight league with just 5 points separating the other 9 teams. It doesn't look as though any other team is going to get detached from the pack and therefore we are likely to need to reach a decent points total if we are to avoid ending up bottom. Averaging a point a game usually has teams in the relegation mix so we are likely to need at least 36 points on the board, or in practice as we are at minus 3, to get 39 points from our remaining 25 games. That could be, for example, 11 wins, 6 draws and 8 defeats. I think that is difficult but achievable. But we do need to start winning games soon. Another 3 or 4 defeats before the New Year and will need to show title winning form for the rest of the season just to avoid relegation. It was great to hear of the good support from our fans today. It will be crucial that we get better home support than we have been getting recently. It is not the fault of the current playing and coaching staff that we are where we are and they really need us to get behind them.

Just watched the after match interview, it was so refreshing, honest, upbeat despite result today and not blaming anything and everything for the loss. Much more positive. Onwards from here.

Some of the people who have been running this club in recent years seem to be re-enacting some great big game of Monopoly - buying, selling, wheeling, dealing in all manner of tradable items. Meanwhile the club has gone from Mayfair to Old Kent Road without even passing Go and collecting £200. I think the administrator is going to get his eyes opened when he realises the amount of complete nonsense that’s been going on, allegedly in the name of football.

Don’t give up hope! As Scotty has said, the players only knew on Thursday if they still had jobs, and the new management team had little time with them. A result would have helped today but we still have 25 games left. Every game is critical, so let’s get behind the players at home next Saturday.

Yes, good to see a more positive post. I too wish the new set up all the best. I've supported ICT, and Caley before that, for too long to give up now. I've generated quite a following of locals here in sunny Berkshire who follow ICT results keenly. We don't travel north to many games anymore (as most of us are 'getting on a bit' nowadays). But I've been touched how many people, even outside my close friends, have come up to me in recent weeds to wish ICT well. Onwards and upwards

This could be the start of exciting times....maybe. Wishing the new management team and players all the very best. Could Scott become the new 'Pele'? That would be brilliant. Come on ICT

A positive thread for once 🙂 Wishing the team of Scott Kellacher & Billy Mckay a winning start to their Head coach / Assistant roles. Going to be tough ask to make up ground, but we have to get behind them and support like we have never supported before! Its not impossible.

Good luck to them, the players and everyone employed by Caley Thistle in these difficult times for the club. Let’s all get fully behind them. They’ve been thrown into such a situation through no fault of their own.Three points today would be a fantastic start.Regardless of today’s result and future on field results I think we need to remember it is good that we now have people running the club who have its best interests at heart.Let’s try and get back to the feelings about the club in Steve Paterson’s halcyon days.A nucleus of fine local players, a well set up attack minded team, consistently punching above our weight.Come on the Caley Jags!

Yes something positive after a week of doom and gloom we will get behind Scott a local lad and Billy who is near enough a local for a new beginning.

…gave us a well needed laugh though Scotty

I gave up listening to Duncs spiel and Dodd's..this was so refreshing. There were so many things he could blamed...but didn't. Well done Scott.

A long way to go yet Robert Like you I'm not giving up hope.

With Annan winning tonight, we’d have ended up bottom of the league on goal difference without the 15 point penalty. Anyone can beat anyone in this league. We now need to ensure we start beating everyone! As I said above, let’s not give up hope and get behind the team 100+% next week.

For all of his faults as a manager, there is absolutely no way a Duncan Ferguson side would be conceding 3 goals to Dumbarton, or to any team in this league for that matter!

Today would have been a bonus, albeit one we should have tried to take. Players didnt find out until literally Thursday if they had a job or not. Would have been hard to concentrate on the task at hand. The real work starts now. A full week or training, a new mindset (hopefully) and a slow steady progress ... we can but hope anyway. Otherwise, you are right, League 2 next year and a rebuild.

Yeah I think that tells us the story of how this season will pan out. A rebuild needed for next season in League Two.

First goal under the new management let’s hope there’s many more to follow

Having a pop-up restaurant franchise may or may not work. Look at something like Tiger on The Wall which started during covid and became very successful. Doing takeaway initially then sit in later when allowed. The Caley Club also have a similar setup where the restaurant pays X amount a month (presumably under some kind of rolling contract) to use the kitchen and serve food within certain times. The kitchen facilities at the club are at best used once a fortnight during the season, or at the moment not at all. So it seems reasonable to use that space to generate some income. No different than if we had a 4G surface as a pitch and let it out when not required. So long as there's no risk financially or reputationally to the club and it doesn't take up huge amounts of staff time to manage I don't see the harm in exploring it. The main issue with the Concert Company and BESS was that the board seemed to bank on these for the financial future of the club before it was guaranteed that they would be successful, causing a huge crisis when they have failed. I very much doubt that'll be an issue with renting out a kitchen space.

Can I have just the one T

Until Scott Gardiner initiates legal action.

How long are their contracts, is it a certain length or only until new owners are found 🤷? Tbh I actually hope it's the first one because that way it means they've been a success Tactics etc will also be interesting because Scott especially, has been first team coach under many managers including Terry Butcher so will have picked up a lot from these managers so let's hope he IS a success as manager

Go for it guys. We are at our best when the odds are against us and we can triumph in adversity. Time for our Highland spirit to come to the fore!

Coaching Statement: Following on from the announcement that Scott Kellacher is stepping up to Head Coach, the club can release a further update regarding the management team. Our Head Coach Scott Kellacher will be supported in his weekly coaching and on match days by Billy Mckay, club Head of Youth Ross Jack and Senior Academy coach Gordon Nicolson. We hope all supporters will rally round the team at this time, starting with tomorrow’s match against Dumbarton.

Massive disappointment in the end. So much positivity in the bar and in the stand, and the team were excellent first half, or maybe it just seemed that way after a year of sideways crab-like fitba. Great to see a team getting forward on both flanks. Hilton’s goal was pretty much Dumbarton’s only attacking effort of the half, completely against the run of play, but what a worldie giving Musa no chance, although he was allowed too much room to turn. The Sons started the second half much better and I always felt that if they scored first, they would win. One or two experienced pros such as Wallace and Carlo. They stuck to the basics, defended well without trying to be fancy, and hit us on the break. A couple of unforced errors cost us. ICT heads dropped at 2-1 and we never looked like coming back. Fantastic support today and great applause for the team at the end. Rather weird coming to a team with such a poor support when you are used to Championship crowds like Partick and the Pars. Hardly heard a sound when they scored. Big uphill task now.

At least our fans never did this 😂

Gutting result. Kinda feels like our fate is now sealed and the rest of the season will be a waste of time, with home attendances dwindling even further.

New management team, clean slate, fresh beginnings. Good luck lads, lets give Dumbarton a right good humping and start making up that points deficit!

HALF TIME: 1-1 No changes at the interval. Brett Long saved from Mckay's low shot five minutes after the restart and the defenders mopped up the loose ball. Dibaga again denied Hilton just before the hour. Ryan Blair edged the hosts ahead after a corner was recycled. Blair finished with a curling shot behind the keeper. Hilton had been causing problems and he notched his second of the game and Dumbarton's third after driving forward and shooting into the bottom corner. A late flurry of activity saw Remi Savage head over from a corner and Sons sub Mumbongo shooting narrowly wide. The last action had Long saving from Nolan as time ran away. FULL TIME: 3-1 Scott Kellacher's first game in charge ended in defeat at the Rock. Not the start we had hoped for but it was a big ask made even more difficult with Devine and Gilmour missing.

I don’t think the team would have not tried for the bonus of a win. Honest guys trying their best. slow steady progress will not keep us in league 1. so yes looks like league 2 awaits and starting next season on -5 points. the nightmare will be Inverness derbies the season after, but hopefully it will not come to that. what yngwie said above, I would have said it, but save the face palms etc I would have received.😀

I really fancied us to win today. Losing to Dumbarton is a nightmare

We’re not a Kelty based club, but we are a Glasgow club instead now!

Good luck to the team today, players and all coaches. Feels like we're getting our club back. With Ferguson thankfully gone, feels like the last of the biggest chunks, footballing wise, of SG's infection has been chopped off.

If you want to claim that the club “made money” out of the Concert Company, then you also have to accept that what it did was to indulge in morally reprehensible sharp practice that allowed it to asset strip the Concert Company of ground rent and staff fees before the CC went bust, leaving a large number of honest and innocent traders out of pocket in order to allow that profit to be made. That the CC was in practice, although not by law, part of the FC and the FC, possibly benefiting from its associated status, hence hung out the CC’s creditors to dry whilst filling its own pockets, was morally a disgrace. This has done the FC vast reputational damage, which is reflected in a lot of the schadenfreude that still can be seen in the replies to the many recent newspaper reports of its near demise. At the last AGM in April 2023, I pressed the point of the losses made by the CC and was appalled at Gardiner’s smugness when he told the meeting that the club had contrived financial benefit from a situation where its own gross incompetence had led others to lose a lot of money. That is one of the reasons why it’s only since Gardiner’s departure and other events of this summer that I have again managed to feel comfortable about having anything at all to do with the club.

To me, Morrison’s large secured loan has always been one of the central issues here. As I understand the Charge, the security amounts to any or all of the club’s assets - which clearly raises the immediate issue of the future of the stadium. Morrison’s options would appear to be - to insist on full repayment which would immediately put the future of the stadium at risk; to write the whole lot off entirely; to accept shares in the company in lieu of payment and hence become the largest shareholder, although what these would nominally be worth post-administration is anyone’s guess; to do nothing and leave the debt outstanding; or some combination of the above. It’s strange. When they sold off the Social Club for something like £140K to Grassa’s pension fund a dozen years ago or so, I found myself talking about “selling off the family silver”…. but I thought at the time that taking this policy much further (as has happened big time) was inconceivable. In the end, it emerges that this was just the thin end of the wedge. I really find myself getting quite angry every time I ask the question- “How and why the HELL did they persist for at least five years with a policy of gross over-expenditure sustained by ever more absurd attempts to persevere with it?

let's keep the personal jabs out of this thread please. it's going to get pretty emotional, and tempers may flare as things unfold but please debate the topic NOT the poster. We will apply topic bans if people keep taking it off the rails to drop in petty personal jibes.

John Robertson team was 21? points behind dundee and went on to get promoted. Administration and a healthy restart with our great kids is now where we are. It's a challenge not a funeral I hope.

Even though this was expected it still hits you that your football club has been run into the ground by shear incompetence at the top of the tree. The rot started (for me) after we won the Scottish Cup and gradually got worse. I'm confident that we will bounce back..in time. Tonight I feel really sorry for all those good folk who will probably be out of work now. Sad times indeed.

The abiding mystery for me is how the total inertia of the board + CEO continued/ was allowed to continue for so long - over a period of years - when it was crystal clear to all that the entire scenario was steadily going down the toilet. It would be interesting to establish just how long Ross Morrison and Gardiner go back as an “item”, because to me, that was the essential “power couple” in a scenario where the Chairman should have been closely supervising the CEO, but it appears that the converse may well have been the case. The Gardiner - Morrison “axis”, controlled by the former rather than the latter, then appears to have been able to sideline the rest of the board and the amount of money Morrison was putting in to cover losses very possibly also gave him extra clout in relation to the other board members. We therefore have to ask just how accountable the CEO was to his nominal bosses, as the various faux pas that Alan Savage has since uncovered mounted up and expenditure reached incomprehensible levels. The Administrator’s principal task is to try to save the company as a going concern for the future, but I also wonder to what extent he will need to make a deep and critical appraisal of exactly how that company got into the state it did? That, I believe, would be revealing in the extreme.

Way too optimistic 🥹

I'm afraid I agree with STFU on this one. The reality is that there are varying degrees of support for the club ranging from those who go to all the games they can, who buy a lot of merchandise and help behind the scenes, to those who want the team to do well but who rarely, if ever go to a game or buy any merchandise. There is absolutely no reason why somebody at the bottom end of this range of support should be expected to pay good money to watch poor quality football when they would rather be doing something else, or to buy merchandise they don't really want. To imply they have some sort of civic duty to do so will only alienate people and make it less likely they will spend money in the future. The challenge for those of us who put our hands in our pockets and support the team regularly is to persuade others that it is worth spending a bit more money on the club. We can't directly do much about the quality of the product on the pitch, but we can help to make the matchday experience a little better. An example of this is the work the Supporters Trust has done in making improvements to the bar. Having a bar which is open for longer hours, serves better beer and and is generally more welcoming will perhaps persuade a few more people to come to matches and those who already do, to spend a little more.

I haven't enjoyed Big Duncs time in charge but it's decent of him to work without pay and I felt quite sorry for him in his Sportsound interview. Wish him all the best wherever he ends up.

Wrong person in the wrong place at the wrong time! But don’t you just love football, it brings out such emotions! Wouldn’t you love to be DF’s position where just about everyone despises you and your son get’s booed because he’s your son. If I recall rightly, the players were the individuals that contributed most to our relegation, but that shouldn’t get in the way of personal insults. For all of DF’s faults (and there are many in my book), whenever he does depart, he leaves with no malice from me and I wish him well in the future. bc

Sorting the used sock draw? Watching paint dry? joining the dots on a golf ball?

Yes, prompted, I looked at other L1 teams attendances, and [not sure why I was shocked] only QotS gets four figure attendances, most of the others well under. Given the other potential income streams [which is b#gger all prize and TV money, small amounts of local sponsorship, hospitality, merchandise...we rarely get any fees from players moving on] it's hardly surprisely most teams are part-time [I presume the players get just a match fee], and since relegation from the Premiership, a full time Caley would always be struggling without a rich benefactor, or some non-football related scheme [which Caley seem to have tried but only made things worse] To put the numbers into context, I was at National League Sutton United today, and the attendance was 3,400. In my time as a Palace supporter we have diced with death several times, most recently in June 2010 when we were hours from being liquidated [we avoided relegation too despite a points deduction on the last day of the season] so this is not new territory for me [still horrible]. As ever I am hopefully that Caley will exist in some form, ideally when we are away to QotS in November, when I am booked to fly up!...I wonder what the team will look like.