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This popped up 5 hours ago. apologies if posted already. Worth a view if anyone fancies it.

Biggest challenge with that is the structure of Scottish football and the inability to invest into longer term contracts aiming to develop and generate income through trading sales. With 10 team divisions where 4 top teams and 2 bottom teams end up in some kind of play-off at best clubs either short term invest to try go up all while avoiding lengthy commitments if they went down. Its typical of throughout the leagues why we see 1 or 2 year deals at best, this results in minimal transfer incomes if at all. The media laud over Celtic and their trading model of buy cheap and sell for profits which is easy when guaranteed to be top (1 or2) and European football to balance the books. Other clubs cant operate that model (especially outside top 5 or 6 in the country) - while we can develop young talent and get compensation (often decided by tribunals and not the levels a trading sale would bring) the opportunity to keep young players on longer term on a better wage structure to increase profits is too high risk. Looking at the contract lengths and then transfer business across the lower leagues its clear that sales are rare therefore limiting incomes to footfall and external avenues. Its absurd that a business needs to operate in a detrimental manner within a business sector to survive as they cannot rely on market stability to invest in core products that bring largest sales revenues.

Voted by CTO Online Keith Bray PotY Keith has had a great season picking up points for outstanding performances throughout the season, scoring 11 goals including a hat-trick away to Cove Rangers. He picked up two yellow cards in the season, and has been a tremendous all round player for the team on the ground or in the air. Keith also won the Official ICTFC Young Player of the Year Award x2, voted by the players and by the fans. What a season for the young man from the Western Isles! He signed a four year contract with Dunfermline in January and were lucky to keep the young man for the second half of the season to help us remain in this league avoiding the play-offs. Good luck for the next stage of your development, I'm sure with your commitment and focus you will go on to greater things. Player of the Year Winner with 70 points is Keith Bray Second with 64 points Luis Longstaff Third with 57 points Adam MacKinnon Fourth with 52 points Charlie Gilmour Fifth with 47 points Musa Dibaga Sixth with 35 points Remi Savage Monthly Winners July Keith Bray August Adam MacKinnon September Musa Dibaga October Adam MacKinnon November Luis Longstaff December Luis Longstaff January Alfie Bavidge February Luis Longstaff March Keith Bray April/May Joint 1st Bray - Gilmour - B Mckay Well done Keith and all the best for the future with Dunfermline and hopefully at a bigger club in the years beyond. Here's what we will be missing and what the Pars will be gaining... Here is the breakdown of Keith's PotY winning season:- Goals Scored Jul 20th, 2024 League Cup (H) vs. Bonnyrigg Rose 3 - 0 (17') Nov 9th, 2024 League (A) vs. Cove Rangers 2 - 1 (67') Jan 18th, 2025 League (A) vs. Annan Athletic 3 - 0 (49') Jan 21st, 2025 League (A) vs. Queen of the South 2 - 3 (74') Jan 25th, 2025 League (A) vs. Alloa 2 - 1 (21') Mar 1st, 2025 League (H) vs. Montrose 1 - 1 (80') Mar 11th, 2025 League (H) vs. Stenhousemuir 4 - 1 (47') Apr 5th, 2025 League (A) vs. Cove Rangers 3 - 0 (36') Apr 5th, 2025 League (A) vs. Cove Rangers 3 - 0 (13') Apr 5th, 2025 League (A) vs. Cove Rangers 3 - 0 (72') Apr 26th, 2025 League (H) vs. Arbroath 3 - 0 (9') Hat-Tricks Apr 5th, 2025 League (A) vs. Cove Rangers 3 - 0 (3 goals) Thank you again for all your votes throughout the season please continue for the next one Thanks to IBM for compiling the PotY stats throughout the season along with other background chores to help keep CTO up to date. View full article

I don’t think anyone at ICT is really in a position to make “Uncle Roy” observations, given the extent to which ICT has also burned through other people’s money over the years. Fair enough, Roy MacGregor has put vast amounts into County and in recent seasons that’s typically been over a million a year. But Caley Thistle, from the very start, hasn’t exactly been paying its own way either and since the club was founded, I’d estimate that it’s gone through a ballpark £15 million of money it hasn’t earned in order to get where it is just now - ie broke for the second time in its history and playing third tier football. Once you add the £5 million Tullochs put in during the early 2000s to £3.3M of non- Tulloch share capital, the £4M of debt that’s about to be written off and the roughly £2M AS will have put in (£800K purchase price plus admin costs plus coverage of current losses) and add other significant odds and ends chipped in as a matter of goodwill by various wellwishers, then you are pretty well at £15M. And that doesn’t include sources of public money such as £900K from the CGF and other substantial six figure contributions from the likes of the EU and the Football Trust. However there are two main differences, apart from Roy having very likely put in a fair bit more even than what’s gone into Inverness. Firstly, County’s external subsidy is overwhelmingly from a single, known and (for as long as it lasts) reliable source while, especially latterly, Caley Thistle have had to engage in a constant scramble round various sympathetic wealthy individuals, never knowing what the outcome might be. And secondly “Uncle Roy” will doubtless be running a very well managed ship over there, whereas between around 2018 and last August when AS appeared, Caley Thistle was an ever deepening administrative shambles with expenditure totally out of control. And therein lies what I believe will be Alan Savage’s greatest challenge - creating a business entity that can be sustainable in the long term, but in a sport where it’s accepted and normal practice for players to be consistently paid above their market value. As a result, clubs sail perilously close to the financial wind… so close in fact that it just needs an episode of incompetence such as ICT has just endured to bring the entire house of cards crashing down around everyone’s ears.

The club need to get the pricing right (again), and from there it's up to the team to entertain and fans to do what they can to bring others along. On the pricing.... I'd do away with different pricing for Main and North Stands. Nobody under 12 should pay. 12 to 16 should be a nominal cost. Bring back the 16-25 Then full adult prices above that....I may even be tempted to scrap, or at least reduce the cost benefit, on over 65 tickets....I await the backlash Things like the "pay what you want" also worked well, and something like that near the start of the season might get a few new people in early. Friends for a fiver tended to be 'abused' because it was mostly used to get those already paying as they go in for less. Couple of historical bugbears that need dealing with.... Stop certain Directors from handing out handfuls of free tickets to their mates for every game! Stop players from giving out free tickets to fans who then go around behaving like they're the best supporters in the world while scrounging freebies and not financially contributing .....I await some comments on this point also Given the fact that all trade creditors, which will be mostly local businesses, aren't going to get paid what they are due, rebuilding that relationship might be tough.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2025/may/02/duncan-ferguson-questions-everton-rangers-dundee-united-newcastle-scotland The Guardian is asking for questions for Big Dunc, ahead of the publication of his book. I have submitted the following question: "What do you think of Inverness Caledonian Thistle's performance this season after you left them, and after they were deducted 15 points for going into administration?" I doubt if it will see the light of day