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On the bench last night when Gambia lost 1-0 to the Ivory Coast who have a few Scottish based players - did they come home on the same plane?

The first public mention of Administration came at the fans’ meeting in the Social Club last May, from Alan MacKenzie who is a financial lawyer and a former club Vice Chairman. More recently, he was behind last week’s meeting that seems (we hope!) to have concentrated several minds in the direction of a solution. I think that the reality is that Administration should probably have come rather earlier than it did and the overwhelming evidence for that suggestion is the absolutely desperate state the club eventually got into - so desperate that a buyer has, predictably, been difficult to find. There were clear signs as long ago as 2018-19 in the form of the need to raise £1M in share capital, that the club’s finances were in a desperate state, and since then there has been an astonishing catalogue of financial profligacy and consequent deepening debt, including Morrison’s secured £1.6M, that finally rendered the club the complete basket case it currently is. Much of the problem is that the club’s finances were allowed to sink into the mire for far too long - on the strength of the naive assumption that red herrings and white elephants such as concert companies, battery farms and park and rides would straightforwardly emerge as panaceas.

Presumably Alan Savage is not party to the organisations who have expressed an interest to the Administrators in buying INVERNESS THISTLE AND CALEDONIAN F.C. LIMITED. Consequently if the hurdles to gaining control are resolved the Administrators can update potential bidders and set a new deadline for offers - presumably quite a quick one. Any consortium Alan is able to create would not necessarily emerge as preferred bidders. With regard to Scotty's analysis what we do not know are the unknown variables that have impacted on decision making. Beyond that his analysis seems very reasonable and balanced.

Alan Savage came straight out after the meeting and spoke to the press asking for anyone interested in joining his consortium to come forward. That doesn't suggest anyone else around the table was enthusiastic about doing so. I definitely don't have any inside track. I try and look at the information available and see how it fits together. That normally involves ignoring everything other than direct citations in the press etc. as it can often muddy the waters. I get why everyone is praising Alan Savage as the saviour but there's still, in my mind, a big question as to whether his pushing for administration was the cause of talks breaking down last August or the result of it. It concerns me that may have been his first act of brinkmanship in all of this. We were promised transparency but things are still very far from clear.

I think the majority of players will sadly move on. There is no such thing as loyalty in football these days. The players understandably will need to look after themselves first and I’d imagine some are talking to other clubs with pre contract agreements already.

Where is the idea that it is not? I guess we have to wait and see... unless you have the inside track on this somehow? I think we all acknowledge this has been the case. However, desperate times call for desperate measures and be honest with yourself... did you ever think 10 of them would be around the same table in the same room at any point? Its brinksmanship, pure and simple. Some may be so deep in they can't afford to lose hope of getting some return, while others may be waiting for an opportunity to see who blinks first. The announcement last week kind of tells them all that this s*** is real and whether anyone blinks or not they better get their finger out and work together, if not for the good of the club, then to avert their own investments from swirling down the drain. Many of us will lose £250 in any buyout, and lets be honest, if you did not regard that as a donation 30 years ago you were fooling yourself. Its irritating but unlikely to pull any of us down. However, for those with a large shareholding then the outlook may be different. Is a percentage of any sale of the club where you get something preferable to bankruptcy and little to no reimbursement? Can you do it even if you have to collaborate with someone you perhaps dont want to? Again, I have no idea what is true and what is not, who is in and who is out, who are best buds these days and who still hates each other's guts, I just know that somewhere in the near future we will all look around and decide who falls into which category ....

Two key points for me also. Whatever we do, we need to live within our means or develop revenue streams to increase those means. It was not ideal when we had to have a cup run each year to make the books balance, but that was a hell of a lot better than recent past. Can't think of anyone well-known off the top of my head. I know one of the MLS teams was interested in investing in 2019, but that ship has sailed, and they not only have new ownership structure in terms of shareholders but also all new backroom team in place including team president. One of the others (Vancouver) is up for sale right now and may end up moving or being bought out locally and the other has an Uncle Roy type figure running the show but I can't see it being him. Other teams outside of MLS (eg. CPL or USL) would not have the finances as far as I would be aware. Ryan Reynolds of course is Canadian, but I think he is busy with Wrexham and Deadpool movies. Having said that, there are plenty of other rich Canadians floating around. Unfortunately, I am not one of them

Spot on Scotty! I was hesitant about expressing an opinion as last week as I was just pleased we had some positive indication the club could avoid going into liquidation and retain the Scottish league licence. It was also revealing as it was despairing that the same old egos emerging as pack that will unite as the new ‘saviours’ of the club going forward. I’m hoping for the best and a new (completely different operating governance) structure is in place and not a retread of the past. The devil is always in the details however, and ‘old dogs and new tricks’ is a well used phrase, let’s see if there is a chairman, CEO and board group that can work together with the club’s interest above any personal leaning. Only time will tell!! My preference (that others had earlier muted), was for a completely new outside individual or group to take ownership and work with AS for a period until they could take full control of the reins. A birdy mentioned that a Canadian party was one of the interested parties . Know anything? bc

I am going to say they might have fallen into two camps ... The 'Makwana' camp where the idea/ambition of owning a football club was larger than the capability or bank balance to actually do so and rejected by BDO as a non-starter. The Realistic camp who may have had the funds but pulled back when they saw what a cluster**** our situation was. Former directors owed large sums, fractured shareholder base with many small and large shareholdings, loans with security needing to be paid back, questions over land access or ownership of leases. Many people would just pass (very) quickly by at that point. That leaves us with where we are now ... no external buyers or billionaire rescuers, but a potential consortium of local people who have all done things for ICT over the last 30 years. We (or they) can have a pissing contest to see who did it best, and we will all come up with different answers. Alternatively, we can hope that for once, all (or most) of these people will work for the good of ICT to get us back on an even keel. I would love to see Sutherland, Savage and Mcgillivary put their varying business experiences together for ICT. One drove our formation, another instilled financial stability and fiscal responsibility, and the third brought some flair first time around and without doubt prevented us from already being out of existence more recently. ... as they say, "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts" and that seems to fit well here.

I've seen worse strikes. PJ made a decent save and reacted brilliantly to save the loose ball. Unfortunately for Billy it's just not happening at the moment. He went close with a lob in the first half which dipped just a couple of feet over the bar. He was also involved twice in the build up to Alfie Stewarts goal.

The way I look on it is that, in a situation where attendances might have evaporated on relegation, current League One numbers aren’t all that far below what they were historically across the several years since 1999 when the club was in the Championship. On dropping into League One, they seem to have held up fairly well and remain way above the going rate for this league …. but for how much longer? And as Robert points out, all of that is against a big reduction in away support between Championship and League One.