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Nothing better than a good awayday sorry!

By the amount of kids I'm seeing in town wearing ICT tops I think a change could be upon us , if the team can keep performing and the club can come up with initiatives like the under 12 going free one then there's hope .

I listened to the coverage of The Rangers first ever visit to Pittodrie on Sportsound on Saturday afternoon and was struck by two things. Firstly; I could clearly hear vile sectarian singing almost from start to finish including 'The Billy Boys' with it's most offensive lyric. By all accounts the away section was awash with the body fluid of Irish Catholics and the Pontiff was being frequently sexually abused. Such conduct, apart from being grossly offensive, is in breach of UEFA rules, in breach of the SFA's rules, against the rules of the SPFL and contrary to the criminal law. The old club inhabiting Ibrox came to be regularly sanctioned by UEFA for such conduct during European fixtures with the supine SFA and then SPL never taking any significant action. Our supporters have been warned off relatively harmless and non malicious banter with our local rivals in the form of 'The Wheels On Your House' yet this disgraceful conduct on the part of a five year old club who's predecessors brought shame and financial pain to the whole of Scottish football not just for their bigotry but financial impropriety which may yet be established to be criminal seems to be turned a blind eye to. Secondly; I note that the BBC have yet again been excluded from Ibrox presumably on the basis of yet another paranoid petulant huff. The BBC have a contract with the SPFL which provides valuable income to all clubs which, I suspect, stipulates the right to broadcast from all stadia and to pre and post match interviews with players and management. The Rangers are putting the organisation at risk of being in breach of that contract with the potential, if not for damages for breach of the current contract, for any future contract to be negotiated on reduced terms. Rangers caused their own demise and, in the process, caused great harm to the reputation and finances of Scottish football by their conduct in their previous incarnation. Surely The Rangers can't be permitted special treatment to be allowed to do the same again. Scottish football is potentially a great product and could and should enjoy a much higher and more positive profile furth of these shores but until the game is administered and regulated for the benefit of all rather than two large Glasgow clubs, one of which is in it's first season in the top tier, they will always drag us down. The latest manifestation of this bias is the scheduling and venues for the two League Cup Semi finals obliging Aberdeen fans to engage in a 300+ mile round trip for a lunch time kick off whereas Celtic and The Rangers get to play in their own back yard kicking off two hours later no doubt affording two hours additional drinking time to fuel the vitriol on both sides. Time now for the other clubs to put aside petulant threats of boycotts and get together to put an end to the Weegie tail wagging the Scottish football dog.

They had a chance at the time when the other erse cheek caused the referee strike. If all the clubs had showed some cojones and resigned from the league and formed their own, the ugly sisters would have to play each other every week. That would have put the cat among the pigeons

This may have been the case in previous years however, you will be pleased to know that no travel is subsidised from funds raised by CJT which would otherwise go to help the football club or other community projects. A separate sub committee has been created and has been very successful in obtaining better deals for the buses. They have also got sponsorship specifically for the buses from individuals and companies who see the benefit in supporting the team home and away and want to help in allowing people who may otherwise not be able to follow their team get to away matches.

in the words of Delia....

Aye there were about 100 behind the goal and another 10-20 on the side terraces

They are the scurge of Scottish football, videos online smashing up Parkhead toilets, ripping up seats at Pittodrie, throwing seats, coins & cups of pi$$. Utter scum, would like to say its just a minority but its seems like reasonable numbers going by footage and its behaviour that both that club and its fans are proud off. They moved up through the lower leagues singing and spouting their bile and hatred with deplorable behaviour and these teams were lucky that they were in those leagues a short time - now they are back and we have to deal with them. Sadly the SFA and Police Scotland seem to turn a blind eye, the media brush over the behaviour and its ignored into being accepted as the norm. On here there were heated words when some very minor issues arose at Pittodrie with some fans where it was made clear by the majority that our clubs name does not want to be tarnished yet at a club with 40k+ season ticket holders there never seems to be a voice speaking out - the board say little and the fans groups spout the same old lines - its like a cancer and a disease that cannot be cured and even moves through generations. Not sure what the solution is until we (Scottish football) gets a governing body with a spine that will hit The Rangers (and any other significant offenders) where it hurts with real fines based on % of income - not a few thousand and a soft telling off but £100k's, closed door games and banning or expulsion from competitions. Publically when pressed all the bodies condem and say they fight to clean up Sottish football but until actions are there to back this up then nobody believes it.

A has been continuing his steady downward career path.

Excellent post, Kingsmills. Couldn't agree more. It really is pathetic how various bodies do nothing about the conduct of this odious club and their equally obnoxious followers. As well as the SFA and SPFL, the police take no meaningful action either despite the law being openly flouted. However, it wouldn't surprise me if the BBC's contract did not have the kind of clauses in it which it ought to have. Rather than requiring teams to provide access, interviews etc, it maybe details payments for such access which The Rangers would simply forgo. I can well imagine the SPFL agreeing to such an unsatisfactory contract under pressure from Ibrox. If The Rangers are contractually obliged to provide access to the BBC then the BBC is probably unwilling to take action for breach of contract on the basis that they probably wouldn't then have the contract renewed next time round. The other clubs pussyfoot around the issues because they are worried that meaningful action against the big two would seriously affect revenues. If action is to be taken it will have to be from outside and it would be good to see MSPs do some serious campaigning on this issue. If I am suitably offended when we offer a warm Highland welcome to The Rangers on their first visit here, I just might write to local MSPs to ask them to take up the issue with suitable bodies.

I rather suspect that you would have a different attitude if our average crowd was a couple of thousand more.

Agreed. Dont understand all this obsessing with crowd numbers anyway. I think we should be grateful for each and everyone of the fans that attend matches whether home or away. The press in Scotland seem obsessed with numbers and talking the game down.

I see a fair bit of merit in that but as old caley girl says, you can't beat an awayday which fortunately is a big part of our culture. People who only watch home games get a one-dimensional view and think their team is actually better than it is. Hibs supporters, for instance, as I live amongst a lot of them: they tend to be quite snobbish about the type of football they play and over the years they have criticised our style of play as quite dirty at times. Under one or two of our managers it was hard to argue with that. However, many of the times Hibs have visited TCS, they have been absolutely hopeless. But I still feel that if we knew how many away supporters were at TCS, firstly we could applaud the ones who actually attended, which is what happens to our support, and secondly we would have ammunition when we get criticised by eejits on forums.

Out where my folks stay there is a Saturday morning football club and you definitely see more and more kids with ICT strips on. Great to see!

With under 12s going free for any game in any stand, it certainly is a big carrot to dangle in front of fans for a long return investment and it's up to the support to bring along the kids/ grandkids/ relations/ neighbours FOC. That's a long term investment, certainly nothing wrong with looking after the ageing support too in the interim, after all they seem to be the cash rich ones these days especially with the easing of the private pension rules and you can't really fault what's going on, on the pitch.

Agree on that one finmack! Poor crowd yesterday after a great performance against the champions the previous week, after all the excuses of boring football under John Hughes you can't say that now. Even a few hundred more would be a start.

Bigger crowds to support our team

"Hey Barton, where's your career?........It's behind you!"

During a match most Invernessians sit on their suites in their lounge watching the Old Firm.

I would think that the likelihood of this happening is somewhere in the same ballpark as winning the lottery or the referee not awarding a late penalty to allow one half of the Old Firm through to meet the other half in a cup final. As I said earlier, you couldn't make it up.... this descent of the party that gave us the Welfare State and the NHS after the war into the current laugh a minute collection of comic cuts that we now have. I really do wonder these days what the Labour Party is actually FOR. So probably do they for that matter. Part of their problem is that they have outlived the purpose for which they were formed. In an era of universal benefits, Victorian workhouse living conditions are long gone and trade unionism largely discredited itself in the 60s and 70s. It now seems that some of the Labour Party have woken up to this while the Corbynistas remain dogmatic Socialists for Socialism's sake. Hilarious, though, seeing the Blairite types still singing away at The Red Flag at Party Conferences! The problem first appeared when Corbyn's spiritual and sartorial predecessor Michael Foot and his fellow travellers tried to hold on to Socialist principles which were no longer required and made themselves unelectable. Blair responded by pinching Tory policies and turning the tide in 1997. But since they lost power six years ago, the two fundamental factions have kicked off again like ferrets in a sack. Then you have to add in that they no longer have statesmen like Donald Dewar and John Smith to give them credibility so have had to turn to the likes of Miliband, Corbyn and Kar Krash Kes and all the comic cuts they have brought. That has been compounded in Scotland by two further own goals of people finally seeing through the arrogant complacency which led Labour to take Scotland for granted and Labour's own voluntary creation of a Holyrood soapbox which they have virtually custom built for the main beneficiaries of that complacency, the nationalists. I wonder if the nats have a chorus lurking about somewhere which is the broad political equivalent of the football one about "Can we play you every week?"

Just where is the Labour Party's saga of incompetence, own goals and self harm going to end? The latest debacle is the already much publicised failure of Kezia Dugdale (or the Holyrood voting computer - judge for yourself) to register a vote after the Council Tax debate. And it gets worse... far, far worse. The upshot is not only the failure of the amendment which everybody but the SNP supported but also the loss of a high profile opportunity to remind the nation that the SNP no longer has an overall majority so is open to defeat. You couldn't make this up.... it maybe dwarfs even the one about Iain Gray in the sandwich shop; on which subject, it's Gray that Kez insists saw her press her voting button so it's got to be the Hollyrood system that's bust. Aye, right. All of this also takes place against a backdrop of the utter chaos of UK Labour and the inability of the party to express any unanimity about opposing a second Scottish referendum. Then there's Kez herself, lagging as she does miles and miles behind every other Scottish leader in popularity polling. I mean the poor woman just doesn't have a clue and holds herself up to ridicule every time she opens her mouth. She's meant to speak with the authority and persuasiveness of a party leader but the only thing she persuades us of is that she's some wee lassie failing to cut it at a school debating competition. It's a strange situation isn't it that neither Labour nor its leader can mount a prominent enough challenge in Scotland to the SNP to prevent opposition being led by the Conservatives, despite everything the Nats have tried to throw at them for years. Labour also has another question to answer. In a very tightly balanced parliament with the SNP in a marginal minority, why on earth did they agree to one of their MSPs, Ken MacKintosh, having his vote neutered by becoming Presiding Officer? (Mind you, I suspect I know the answer - this is the only thing that anybody from Labour is likely to be in charge of for years to come!) But it's daft. MacKintosh, as Presiding Officer, only has a vote in the event of a tie and in that event is usually obliged to vote for the status quo. Hence it was MacKintosh's vote that saved the backsides of the SNP and against the preferences of his own party which protocol dictates he has to ignore and, one suspects, also against his own. In a wee parliament like Holyrood with a very tight balance, it seems daft to me that one of the parties should have one of their MSPs neutralised.

If it was up to me I'd ban the announcing of crowd figures altogether. We're the only country I know of that is obsessed by them. As for away crowds....other than for big derby games, they're practically non existent beyond our shores. Fans abroad don't like giving opponents money. Here....we have clubs and fans organisations more intent on finding ways to line the pockets of other clubs than they do their own. It's all very bizarre.

Pretty certain I didn't mention CJT.....but thank you for the confirmation that you continue to operate contrary to the organisations own rules.

News flash kingsmills wants to talk about Rangers! In other news water is wet . Think its pretty obvious where your allegiances lie with your consistent spouting of about all things sevco,the rangers ,zombies or watever name is flavour of the month. You dont deal in facts you go by watever blogger or faceless twitterati yahoo says, for starters the BBC are not banned from ibrox they have chosen not to cover any games from there in support of bbc journalist who had his press pass removed because of unbalanced reporting.Also you state bigotry nd sectarianism but you fail to mention the sickening chants mocking the Ibrox disaster one of the greatest tragedies in Scottish history( did ur old trannie lose its reception at that point? )or the defacing of the Rangers team bus.Yes the billy boys is a disgrace but chants mocking an 8 year old boy who never returned from a football match offend much more or because its The Rangers or sevco is it ok to mock there dead? Next time you want to listen to Rangers play how about you turn the radio off nd go to the glenalbyn bar where im sure you will enjoy watching the other half of the old firm with your friends nd maybe u will join in with the songs nd chants that frequently get overlooked by the press nd people like you only hearing what u want to here.