Leaderboard

We lost many good players after the cup win (Ofere, Watkins, Christie, Shinnie), yogis replacements were poor. He tried to play the same style with lesser players. He started the downward spiral, took the huff when the board wouldn't let him speak to Utd then engineered his way out the club, picking fights over anything he could (much like mourinho now). Both parties suffered badly from his actions. A humble man would reflect on this and admit his errors. However yogis still churns the nonsense that if the board gave him money he would have kept us at that level. His replacements he signed make that statement pretty nonsensical.

John Hughes fell into the trap that he thought he was a better manager than he actually was. You can see this trend at Hibs and Falkirk when he managed there and thought he could do no wrong but was proven, in the end, to be not as good as he thought. After we won the cup, we then started the next season without a recognised forward and he failed to sort that issue out. Sure we had injuries but a managers job is to manage when things are both good and bad but Hughes vision was that he needed money, and lots of it to improve things with no Plan B when he obviously knew we could not provide this. Don't any of the Hughes supporters posting think it strange that if he is as good as they and he thinks, that he is no longer managing. Hughes's solution to everything, when things went wrong was that he needed more money.

Thanks Scotty and Kingsmills (and RiG) - clarified nicely. As I said, I wasn't complaining, just curious, so there was no ire directed at anyone. Might just delete this one now. BECAUSE I CAN!!!

I hope this thread doesn’t get deleted. Cleaning up by Buckett.

Is there anyway the club could bring the big man back in some capacity a winner like him will surely inspire our players possibly a crowd funding be required but well worth thoughts on it??

Why the feck has this not been moved to General Nonsense ?

Threads can be deleted by the original poster as well as the moderators. Moderators tend to 'hide' rather than delete threads though. In this case (and the same applies for 95% of recently deleted topics) the original poster deleted it so please direct any ire or questions to the poster. In the words of the next ex-president of the USA ... 'it wasn't me' !! We close threads for one of two reasons - it has become abusive or it has gone too far off topic. For my own part I find it strange that moderators or admin are always accused of deleting or closing threads for no good reason or banning people left right and centre. We do not and I have the site logs - which I just looked at - to back me up on that statement. The vast majority of moderation applied in the last 6 months (thats as far back as I could be bothered looking) was in the category of 'self moderation' where OPs or users deleted their own topics or comments within topics. We actually give people way more latitude than we are given credit for and most forums will lock down many of the permissions we leave in place as standard.

Well that's okay because I didn't mention about the styles of play under Hughes/Butcher. A bizarre comment to make. Hughes was in charge for about four months at Raith Rovers and won four games overseeing glorious moments like forgetting to sign a goalkeeper to play in goals when they had no one available and pissing off the entire dressing room by slagging the players off week in and week out. They were certainly not doomed as you say and were 12 points ahead of bottom placed Saint Mirren who overtook them to send Raith into the play offs. We all know of your all encompassing love for all things Hughes but the fact is you are never objective about anything concerning him as your post above shows yet again. To borrow your own wording, if you can't see the parallels between his tenures at Falkirk, Hibs, ICT and Raith Rovers then I can't help you. I don't disagree that Foran was a disaster, I've said that plenty of times on here before. Had he been sacked in January after the Accies thrashing we might still be in the top tier.

......................time to move on and forget the past by treating Alloa as if we were playing Celtic or Rangers - this is a big game for us needing a united front...and one where we do not underestimate the opposition...like we did against Dunfermline's reserves.

Thanks for posting this. Fascinating to hear about the Butcher years from the inside, the dressing room chats, Draper's first appearance, Steve Marcella and the Christmas party. Makes me very nostalgic about the glory years and the squad we had then. Two good guys.

Yeah the old man was one of the first soldiers from Poland to land in Inverness towards the end of WW2. His camp was in Kiltarlity although there were many other Polish camps in the area. You can still see the remains of the camp but I guess there are very few people alive who know exactly where it is. Dad was groundsman when the likes of Hamish Munro, Alan Pressley, Bobby Noble, Bobby Bolt etc were playing. He was never a footballer as he was fighting in the War from the age of 14 as the Germans invaded Poland. Looking back I can see how conscientious he was given he had no experience at all in maintaining grounds. It was actually a huge responsibility at that time given the wage he would have received, more a labour of love. The same would apply of course to all groundsmen at every club. Anyway, still would be interested to fill in the gaps for both clubs, these men deserve to have their recognition as they played a major part in the history of Caledonian and Thistle.

No doubt RF did his best but he simply had no experience of looking through the other end of the lens. And stepping into a situation like that is a very severe test for anyone in his shoes at any time? Great footballer though and maybe we should now be concentrating on singing his praises for what he achieved in that role. In any event, management was as much to blame for appointing him in the first place and thus for the eventual negative situation that developed. So is it now time to move on guys? The guy is a human being and must be smarting and disappointed over the way his world must have crumbled around him. IMHO.

Raith were doomed before JH joined them I think he only had about 10 games to turn things around, everyone bangs about Raith but it hardly compares to a squad that you have worked with and built. The grave mistake as you put it was appointing Foran who had never managed at ANY level. JH even said after he left that RF was "no coach" and he was proved right in that in spades. If you can't see the difference between the football played under Hughes with the football played under Butcher then I can't help you.

Based on his first couple of seasons - no. Based on his final season with us - possibly. I certainly don't think it was out of the question as some seem to think especially given how he has performed since then.

Pele was a roaring success at Formatine for a season!