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I think there are a few mixed messages in here. Urging youngsters not to bring pyro into the ground is not being against the youngsters, it is actually being supportive. It is simply reminding folk that bringing in pyro risks criminal sanctions being taken and nobody wants that to happen. To some though, the use of pyro will be seen as an act of bravado - an act of rebellion against authority. At the end of the day, if they get a criminal record, they will only have themselves to blame. Regardless of what the dangers may or may not be and what happens in other countries, the bottom line is that it is illegal here. If you don't like the law, campaign to change it, but don't break the law just because you don't like it - it aint worth the risk. One of the sad things about this debate is that it sidelines the one simple thing that really would make a difference to the atmosphere in grounds - the reintroduction of terracing. It has been absolutely great to see the youngsters jumping up and down and hear them chanting at the front of Section E these last two games - it has brought an atmosphere that the football on display abjectly failed to do. But the irony is that the youngsters would be able to do that far more safely if the bloody seats weren't in the way. There is also the issue that standing at the front has annoyed a good few folk who had to move to other seats because their view was blocked - that could be a real problem with a bigger crowd. There is no doubt that properly designed terracing supported by common sense crowd control is perfectly safe. By having everyone in that area standing and allowing a bit of movement within the area it really helps to bring together those who want to create a noise. The reintroduction of terracing is long overdue and would make a far bigger impact on the creation of atmosphere within grounds than the relaxation of legislation on pyro could ever do.

Well, someone had to say it. It would be fantastic if another Highland team reached a final and indeed wrecked Celtic's annual right top a treble.

Ach, who cares. After a season like last year, going to Hampden twice and winning twice, finishing 3rd in the league and a never to be forgotten trip to Bucharest as a bonus, this year was always going to be an anticlimax. Let uncle Roy's plaything have a bit of the limelight for a change. They'll need their shades on though after so long in the shadows p.s. Will McIntyre be the first C(o)unty manager to move on to bigger things rather than get the boot?

I think it's good for the Highlands if County do well but not too well and certainly not as well as us. For that reason, I would be delighted if they beat Celtic as long as they didn't go on to win the thing and we would remain the first team in the Highlands to have reached a League Cup final. However, my main emotion surrounding this match is that if we'd played the first 70 minutes of the quarter final with the same purpose and intensity as the last 20 minutes it would have been us.

Press Release from the Club: Press Release : 27th January 2016 : For Immediate Use PAY WHAT YOU CAN : ICTFC REACTION Inverness Caledonian Thistle FC are pleased to say that we are happy with the outcome of Saturday’s Pay What You Can initiative for our home match against Partick Thistle. Both home and away fans attending the game were given the opportunity to pay what they felt able to afford, which saw a rise in the expected attendance. 3556 supporters, including 358 visitors, took in the match which finished honours even…gaining ICTFC a point which keeps us in the top half of the league table. This was an increase of just over 800 fans from a comparable match in December 2014; the last time the two clubs met on a Saturday at 3pm in the Highland capital. Commercial Manager Iain Auld said: “We first trialled the ‘Pay What You Can’ initiative in January last year for a midweek fixture versus St Johnstone and the confidence gained from the fan’s response to that lead to the decision to run it again this year; and to do so for a Saturday 3pm match.” “The numbers still have to be fully analysed and we’ll also seek feedback from those attending for the first time and those who attend less regularly before drawing any definitive conclusions on where we go from here. However, the data from this, and other initiatives, will allow us to better understand how many more Caley Thistle fans are out there just now and how much they are willing to pay. We’ll run that information alongside what we know of existing fans and then look to see what we can do to increase attendances on a more regular basis without jeopardising the club's financial position.”

I always like to see the "wee" teams do well, but not County. We are in direct competition with them for players, fans, sponsors etc and any success and additional money they have can only be detrimental to ICT.

I hope they beat Celtic but then get thoroughly pumped in the final.

...but we didn't and it isn't. We are now facing the very real possibility that County could finish above us in the league and progress further than us in both cup competitions. Hopefully that dreadful prospect will motivate the manager and the team to play routinely with the purpose and intensity shown in that last 20 minutes. In the meantime, I am in the "good luck against Celtic but may you get thoroughly gubbed in the final" camp.

This seems to have passed under the radar, but on 13 January Dani signed for Arenas Club de Getxo, which is near Bilbao. They got promoted to the Spanish 3rd flight last summer, and ground capacity is 1,200. 40 years ago their manager was a young Javier Clemente, who went on to manage Spain. http://arenasclub.com/el-delantero-madrileno-dani-lopez-es-el-nuevo-refuerzo-del-arenas/

No, they didn't.

I think you are generalising too much. People from across the socio-economic spectrum like to watch football and whilst some people can comfortably afford anything the match day experience offers, there are others for whom just paying the admission price represents a concious financial decision. The pay what you can initiative gives this second group the opportunity to attend the game and support their team. The club should be grateful for whatever they can afford and for any vocal support they give. But the pay what you can initiative also allows others who are maybe less inclined to attended regularly but could afford it if they were. This group of folk are more likely to pay a little bit more for their ticket and to spend on the peripherals. If what they experience makes it a good day out then they will likely be back. It therefore seems to me to make clear sense to have pay what you can matches from time to time. Of course, a key ingredient in this is to make sure the main event inspires folk to come back for more. Sadly that ingredient was missing on Saturday and it will now be even harder to persuade folk to give it another try after witnessing that.

Getting back to the pay what you can attendance. We can't blame the cost of the match as the deterrent. We can't blame the team as you have to turn up in the first place to gain an opinion. Maybe it's kind of like the Interest the city has shown when we get to Cup finals, it wasn't there to begin with but now the whole city gets involved. Maybe the attendance is a work in progress. Even the posters were eye catching and if you clocked one it stood out. Maybe more info or a web address or even an android bar code on ones the next time. If they caught the eye then only a small percentage acted on it. So maybe the difficult bit was from catching the eye to acting on it and actually going. We have seen the positivity from a small but growing bunch of youngsters in the North stand. Why not make the Easter holiday match £5 under 16s or something similar and send a poster headed 'a personal invitation' to every secondary school with in 40 miles or even get the players out at the schools to pin them up on the notice boards. A bar code scanner that takes you to a private web page regarding them being part of the exclusive 100 fans project. It's on their phone and that's a start. When the belief is there that it's going to happen then it will happen. I mentioned pensioners before too as they are the richest of us all. Some people say if you stop moving forward you actually fall behind.

You are right and I hope St Johnstone win!

Add that to St J play an edinburgh team in edinbugh, almost sounds like a faimilar story for a small club......cant think where I draw a parallel from though. Its all about trying to get the 2 biggest clubs an advatage to get them to the final to suit the sponsors and beaks.

I'm guessing it's maybe more hope than expectation or excitement. There has been a lot of pretty tepid football recently from the players we do have available, and people are probably just hoping that Roberts might offer something different from, say, Vigurs. From what I know of him, he can play wide, which is something we've been missing for a lot of the season and, although it was admittedly against much more limited opposition, he scored a lot and showed up well in pre-season, which has probably added to people's hope that he could be a useful player for us. It may be, as bdu98196 says, that he simply hasn't done enough in training to warrant a start in Yogi's eyes, but I can understand why so many people, me among them, wish he was given a bit more of an opportunity.

Here are our average crowds for the last twelve seasons 2003/04 - 2375 (First Division) 2004/05 - 4067 (half season played at Pittodrie) 2005/06 - 5061 2006/07 - 4879 2007/08 - 4753 2008/09 - 4457 2009/10 - 3509 (First Division) 2010/11 - 4526 2011/12 - 4023 2012/13 - 4038 2013/14 - 3558 2014/15 - 3733 2015/16 - 3816 Average over those seasons of around 4399. That's our core support. One reason why the crowds are down now compared to when we were first promoted is the novelty factor wearing off. I've posted about this before but I can remember going to the home game against Aberdeen in 2005 and literally every seat was full, a complete sell out. The last home game against Aberdeen there were more than 1,000 empty seats. I think that there's a constituency in Inverness, and probably everywhere else, that maybe comes to derby games or cup finals or big matches v the Old Firm but don't show up every week. During the early seasons in the SPL they'd show up for games against the 'city' clubs but they don't now. Playing Aberdeen is normal, it's not a 'big' game unless league positions dictate that it is. For example, in the season with our highest average ever we had 6800 for a game against Aberdeen - we got 6400 for the same fixture this season. We had 7000 for a game against Hibs, last time they played us on a Saturday in Inverness the crowd was just over 4,000. We had 1,000 more fans for the game against Hearts. But if you compare games from around that time against more modest opposition, the crowds are broadly similar to what we get now. Overall though, I think the trend is good. For the ten years we were in the lower leagues most run of the mill league games had less than 2000 fans attending. We've developed that into a larger, more loyal fanbase - I remember going to games and there were people on the terraces genuinely more concerned with listening to the Rangers game on the radio than our game. We've got a far better away support, although it does ebb and flow a bit. When I started going to away games, it was usually a smattering of a few dozen. The character of our support is different as well, younger fans behaving a bit more like football fans than boiled sweet rattling old Highland moaners (although we have plenty of those). I didn't mean to make a monster post but I get a bit frustrated when people constantly slate our crowds and you get huge negativity about it. the fact is we get decent crowds considering where we come from, where we play and our catchment area.

Where do people get their numbers from seriously? Our average attendance is well below 4000, in fact it's below 3500! Apart from the Celtic, Abereen and hearts games, we never have more than 3500! And those are the clubs that bring big away supports! The county games have a higher attendance but even these games are bringing less people through the gates! If you look on the club website fixture list, it gives you the attendances for each game and no where do I see a huge rise from last year! And even if they are slightly up, if you look at 2007 the attendances are well over 4000 which we hardly see for a game against Motherwell, dun utd etc. Also, there is far more than 50000 people in Inverness now and I'd bet a lot of supporters are from outside the town! So I don't think we can base low numbers on the population of the city! We need to stop looking for reasons as to why the attendances are going down and just accept that football is to expensive and there's not enough interest anymore! The tv issue really gets to me now! This is also a reason as to why less people attend football but it's not an excuse for our club as we only get around 5 league games a season! But live screening of games really has ruinied football especially when tv company's can basically determine when a game will be played instead of when it's going to suit the people that want to go and watch it! In reality, we should be getting around 4000-4500 a week but I can't see it happening anytime soon!

In my view, CJT and Ross County have acted prematurely by supporting any and all sanctions (as they seem to in the joint statement that prompted this thread) and a great deal of the criticism levelled in this forum is little more than dressed up prejudice regarding young people. Sentiments that have gone without comment, except from Renegade, such as “at least they are at the head of the queue when collecting Darwin awards” are as humourless as they are tasteless. For those of you unaware, the sentiment expressed is that at least these people will kill themselves sooner than most. Nutty and discredited indeed. Scottish football supporters are already subject to surveillance from several sources and there is legitimate concern that they are being treated in a potentially criminalising way that non-football attending citizens are not. Clubs use CCTV to monitor crowds from a control room at every ground and have the necessary mugshots of persons banned to hand. The operators are in radio contact with stewards and police if their intervention is necessary. FoCUS, the national football intelligence unit, can be regularly seen filming fans. It is funded by Scottish Government to obtain the type of intelligence that the SFA appear to be saying will cost a further £4 million to refine and implement. To what end? Looking for smoke bombs? The people being subject to this are customers, not potential law-breakers. It is a palpable waste of money when the means to control crowds are already in place and it will do nothing to address the oft observed reluctance of stewards and police to intervene, especially when large travelling crowds are in attendance and “pyro” becomes more likely to be used. What will happen is that someone, more readily identifiable from a smaller support, will be chosen as an example. That puts ours and County’s fans at greater risk of prosecution than, say, those supporting a Glasgow team (who actually have a history of using flares) and that’s not justice. What is clear is that the use of these things is something that some younger supporters (customers like all of us) see as either a minor issue at football, or as something that they actually want. Contrary to what has been said, there is a place for these people in football. Why? For years, the media has lauded the “atmosphere” at (for instance) Bundesliga grounds as laudable, desirable and something to be aspired to and that appears to be what these kids have bought into. Nothing more. BT Sport, for instance, have published their 10 best “tifo’s” (fan displays). So have the Guardian. The Daily Record thought CSKA Sofia fans “astonishing” and awarded them a “gold star” for their star wars display whilst deploring anything similar in Scotland. The use of “pyro” is integral to these displays, so it gets copied and the media reinforce that by their double standards in reporting the issue. So kids keep doing it. It’s nothing more sinister, irresponsible or “stupid” than that. I’d better make it clear now that I personally don’t want to see “pyro” at our games. I don’t want to watch clouds of smoke, I want to watch the game. I certainly don’t want to watch younger fans get themselves into conflict and criminalise themselves. Above all I don’t want people to get hurt. What needs to happen is behavioural change by peer pressure from fans organisations to stop our fans from using smoke bombs. This will only be done by engaging, not ostracising them. If people don’t change, there’s a law in place for the authorities to use and it must not be broken. Let’s just not get carried away.

Alas Gringo, I have lost my golden beat the bookie touch this season - our combined forecasts should have been a giant pointer to our fellow punters for an easy away win steal

It's not really being pedantic. As things stand, the SPFL (League) don't really have a firm set of rules for dealing with issues such as this and for league matches it falls outwith the responsibilities of the SFA. For Scottish Cup matches it's very different as it alls entirely to the SFA to deal with any such issues and they do have a firm set of rules in place for it. To what lengths they will go in terms of issuing sanctions is anyone's guess.....however, IMO, with them looking to bring sanctions against Celtic for events at the Stranraer game, then the SFA will feel (rightly or wrongly) that they also have to take action against others....even though the issues elsewhere are a fraction of what they are among that set of supporters.

You are very possibly right. Apart from the admission cost, fans, many of them wearing eyewateringly expensive replica strips, drive in numbers into the home car park where they are prepared to pay £3 rather than walk a few hundred yards and often buy a programme on the way into the ground. Before they get to the turnstiles, they will encounter collectors for charities, many of which obviously believe that a stance outside a football ground is a significant money maker. Once inside, many fans will also patronise the expensive catering outlet and/or the bar. In other words, there seem to be so many peripherals which are not necessary in order actually just to see the football but which still have money spent on them. As a result, you have to wonder why complaints about the single absolute necessity - ticket cost - are so frequent and why admission prices seem to be such a big deterrent. The one that really surprises me is the charity collection. Obviously it is well worth the charities' trouble to go to football matches despite the fact that the charity contribution is the only one of several possible outlays which yields nothing tangible (this side of Heaven!) and which might be expected to be most vulnerable if there is a general resentment about how much the attached football experience is costing.

So happy clappers views are worth less then

I felt that the statement had more to do with cjt than it did with the actual issue. It was a self promotion and attention seeking statement. More of a look at us than anything else. Wanting our own fans banned and trying to shop them is pathetic. If they aren't happy with it then let the police deal with it. No need whatsoever to attention seek over it. I suppose we will hear the usual rubbish about making sure the club aren't fined or docked points etc. The league hasn't fined anyone over this and there is no indication they will or will ever dock points over this. A very poor justification.

He didn't try his best at all, he looked liked he couldn't be bothered and bereft of any drive. He may very well have been gifted but the only thing of note (bar a consolation goal against Celtic) was the spitting incident in a reserve game. Spitting on a teenager no-matter what the circumstances was awful and brought some coverage we could've done without. No doubt we'll see him on some of the 'Worst Ever Player' threads in years to come.

Except it's not the league who have cited the club, it's the SFA as they deal with these matters when it's the Scottish Cup.

Indeed - a larger and more loyal fan base despite the tens of thousands who have been pouring into Dougal's blue phonebox (Tardis?) on Telford Street for the last 20 odd years. And irrespective of how monstrous or otherwise you meant to make your post, I think it's a very good one and bang on the money in very many respects.

Just change league for sfa then and the point is exactly the same. Cjt aren't protecting the club from some mythical points deduction or expulsion from the cup. They are self promoting and attention seeking and actively working against the fans they pretend to represent. It is the job of the police to go after people with smoke bombs if they so choose.

I suppose in some ways, taking pyrotechnics illegally into football grounds is simply regarded by those who do it as some kind of rite of passage.... or a step along the career pathway towards an appearance on The Jeremy Kyle Show.