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I'm making just my second contribution here in a year of self-imposed purdah because I feel strongly enough about this to want to back up Scotty's effort to put the record straight about David Sutherland. Sutherland's, and hence Tulloch's involvement with the club began right at the start of 2000 and their contributions have AT LEAST amounted to the following:- * When the club's debt hit around 2.3M late in 1999 DS, as Tulloch Chairman, arranged for the company to spirit that debt away; otherwise Administration or worse would have been inevitable. That happened in conjunction with the stadium and lease transferring by a complex route to Tulloch. These have recently been largely gifted back to the club to the its great additional benefit. Coincidentally the book value of that gift is also quoted as 2.3M so that huge debt has gone at the expense only of Tulloch retaining much of the car park. * In order to ensure working capital to enable progress to the SPL in 2004, Tulloch/Sutherland also initially put in 0.5M, and other supplements made them the owners of these 729,500 shares which were more recently donated back to the ICT Trust. Tulloch has therefore voluntarily relinquished its former position as largest shareholder. * In order to ensure an escape from an unsustainable lease at Pittodrie in 2004/05, Tulloch/Sutherland ensured that funding was put in place for the North and South stands and built these themselves, within the required very tight 7 week timescale. These stands are also part of that gift back to the club. Surely even the hungriest of supporters could not expect a totally free lunch from this, so there was indeed a rent involved. * There also were various other day to day assistances such as the free secondment of Tulloch staff to work at the club which constitute a further benefit. * In recent years the club's need for its expenditure vastly to exceed its earnings has been largely sustained by loans and donations from wealthy individuals with its best interests at heart - including David Sutherland. It is estimated that Tulloch's investment, instigated and implemented by David Sutherland has, over the years, come to approaching 6 million, before you include his recent personal donations. It's all very well for Inverness fans to point to Roy MacGregor as a major benefactor of Ross County but it always seems to be forgotten that ICT has also benefited in a major way from handouts from interested parties, principally Tulloch. Without these the club would at best have been playing part time football for years with never a sniff of the SPL, Europe or the Scottish Cup... or at worst gone into liquidation at some point during 2000 or 2001. The biggest irony of all, however, is that on the one hand there seems to be this expectation within football that wealthy individuals will bankroll the game's economics of the madhouse... but on the other, the far too frequent vilification of these individuals for their contributions is likely to act as a major disincentive to others to follow suit. Talking about kicking a gift horse in the mouth..... Over and out.

Yup. Too many armchair fans in Inverness.

Totally agree with last few posts. I doubt the club would be in business last 2 seasons if not for DFS and DC.

This would be the same guy who literally gave away 700,000 shares via the Trust and put them under the direct control of the current group running the club? The same guy who has been pumping money into the club since the early 2000s to keep us afloat, and who has also (quietly) continued to do the same over the last couple of years despite having no direct involvement with the club or any position or representation on the board? A man who also saw a fairly simple agreement to hand over ownership of the two stands back to the club morph into a tome that Tolstoy would have been proud of which achieved the same result but ultimately cost us more, and a man who so clearly wants control that he now only has a personal shareholding of just over 50,000 shares (50,250 to be exact) instead of the 750,250 he could have retained. David Sutherland may be many things Johndo, and at times you can certainly question or wonder about motives, I know I have over the years, especially when there seemed to be that childish spat with AS but without his cash, his interest, and his stewardship we would not have a club to be talking about. That is a fact regardless of your personal opinion of him. The current board are not being held back by him, they are being kept afloat ! With all due respect to the current board, they seem to talk a good game, but you just need to read comments about hospitality, about season tickets, about budgets, read the chairman's own statements and promises on ICTFC.com, or talk to the multitude of people who have left, are leaving, or have "retired" to see that much of it is hot air and soundbites ! The excuse trotted out every time is to throw Kenny Cameron or others under the bus and blame the previous board. Lest we forget, this is a previous board our current chairman was part of ! KC was ultimately responsible for some of the premiership contracts we were weighed down by and for not sacking RF sooner, but as much as we have had to deal with that, it cannot keep being the excuse. The last set of accounts were so worrying that they have a warning about insolvency in them for the first time in 25 years. Part of that is relegation and lower revenue, but not all of it. If you think the last two years have been filled with good decisions then you are sticking your head as far in the sand as you have often accused others of doing. Take a peek behind the facade !

There is a reason for that. They have lots of room for corporate activity especially during week. Unlike us!

have a great day ocg

DFS ,what we dealing in sofas now?? ?

I think it's a throwback to when free u12 tickets were only available in the family section in the North Stand, then they extended it to the whole North Stand as the family section had essentially stopped being that anyway.

A rare but very welcome intervention. Were it not for the timely intervention of David Sutherland the seminal event of 1999 would not have been our famous victory at Parkhead but our administration or, quite possibly, liquidation. Before he came in we were carrying a debt more than twice our annual turnover and the bank had run out of patience. He laid the foundations for a decade and a half spent mainly in the black and mainly in the top flight. He did make mistakes but who doesn't. We have much to be thankful to him for.

Morton @ 3.20 ta... Thanks for another great season Gringo, love this comp! Our combined efforts really show how easily a bookies makes their profit ?

Ayr v Alloa - draw @ 3.50 please Big thank you again from me for all the hard work you put into this, it's much less painful getting this wrong compared to a coupon although it still annoys me lol. Good to have an eye on another result each weekend.

That's a terrific bit of news. Ridgers has done really well this season and having someone reliable between the posts helps to build confidence through the team. Let's hope this news helps encourage others to renew and extend contracts too.

We really need to wait until we find out which division we will be in next season before deciding what we need and, more to the point, what we can afford.

Falkirk @ 3.00 No worries Gruingo, thanks for all your hard work throughout the year and with the the NPL too Cheers !!

Interesting to note that the Adult North Stand goes up by £13 outwith the EB Offer, whereas the Main Stand goes up by £16 outwith it... And the Senior goes up by £13 for main stand, but £9 up for the North. Would've thought they'd be consistent in price increases...

The clown who thought it'd be a good idea to appoint Foran and keep him all season is completely to blame for our club been in dire straits! Tho tbf a lot of u guys on here were insanely calling for yogis head and euphoric when an untried manager got the job moral of the story careful what u wish for eh

THIS POST WAS SPONSORED BY TULLOCHS - and the content rhymes with the sponsor. Yet another fairy tale from Charlie Grimm.