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It was out of our hands at the time of the interview. Results on the Saturday went in our favour putting it back in our hands again.

Harper has a few offers for next season and none of them is from us. I'd imagine Ridgers may have options also but he's at a different stage of his career and seems settled in the area. Fingers crossed. If we do go down I'd love to see us go the route of using our younger guys and giving them the opportunity to grow and develop as a squad. Not all will make it and some will move on but it's our best chance at putting together the nucleus of a squad that might stay together for a few seasons.

I'm not so sure it's just to do with having a squad full of local born players or not. The guys from that cup winning squad were mostly committed to the club/area and many of the non indigenous players still live locally so there's an obvious affinity. Two of them are at the club now. Fans also felt far more connected as they had greater opportunity to meet and spend time with them.

Quite so. Just grateful we got Mark Ridgers and Cammy Harper as regular first team starters - 2 local lads with an obvious passion for their home-town team. I quite often ask myself, how can I be loyal to a team made up of players who have absolutely no connection to the town they're supposed to represent? Mind you, they seem to manage in Dingwall!

The 'help the club continue in its current form' is the most worrying part of that letter.

This is the wording of the Chairman’s letter to sponsors, with contact details removed: I am writing to you today, firstly to thank you for your backing of our football club, and secondly to appeal to you to kindly continue that support. As I am sure you are aware, we have recently and very disappointingly, had planning refused by Highland Council for the installation of a 4 acre battery energy storage farm on the site of the former Fairways Golf Course, the reason given was due to loss of green space in a private green space area of 200 acres. This is despite the fact that one of our many important and impactful Caley Thistle community projects involves the complete resurrection of a significantly larger green space adjacent to Inverness Royal Academy, which is a ten acre site that will be used as a community hub for the city and beyond, promoting physical and mental health wellbeing for thousands of people both young and old in the Highlands. Our quest to seek planning permission for the battery farm has now been escalated to Scottish Government level and it is our strong expectation that the Highland Council’s decision will be overturned on appeal but this will take a number of months. What this means is that we face significant pressure on our cash flow. To that end, I am writing to all our sponsors to ask if you would be able to help us through this situation by renewing your advertising with us slightly earlier than normal. If you are able to renew by return, it would be hugely appreciated by everyone at ICTFC and will not only help the club continue in our current form, but it will also allow us to continue the great work we do in the city and beyond, especially as we enter our 30th anniversary. If you can help us, we would be able to thank you for that support by offering a 15% discount on last season’s price for an early renewal. If you can help, please contact our Commercial Director Keith Haggart, either on his email address of ——- or by mobile ——-. Finally, as ever, on behalf of myself, the Board of Directors and Executive team, it is a privilege to serve our football club and we thank you for being a part of the club which has represented the city so well in the last 30 years.

Fully expect more of the same next year. Holistically if you consider the options - we are skint and will struggle to finance a team of permanent signings or the chance to go to money bags English clubs who will still pay for their youngsters to get some game time and pick up the costs - essentially free for us but we play them. I doubt anyone at the club is excited at the prospect of not having any experienced signings of younger players we with quality we can retain to develop and try sell. The strategy is clearly making the best with minimal outlay or long term commitments possible.

As we head to the end of the season, if only we had an alternate income stream to use the facilities during the summer. If only someone had thought of a concert venue for some 'has-been' artists appealing to boomers.........

Everyone is saving their excitement to get past this next game fully aware of the stats this is a stick on goalless draw, knowing final game of the season it'll finally all click and we open the doors to 'total football' putting 6 past Morton.............all to be undermined by calls of it being a 'dead rubber' and Morton players had already mentally packed for their all-inclusives to Turkey

SHHHHHHHHH Keep the noise down!

His mistrust/dislike in Roddy is beyond baffling. We’ve seen some of Roddy’s goals and his ability to drive forward and add urgency to a game. - Brookes could be a huge addition as well with pace to help up front. Is anderson better than Roddy, is lawal a better fit for our midfield? there was also a spare place on the bench free for Saturday and even with the likes of Ujar and Samuels fit they weren’t included in squad. no idea what’s going on - it all seems rather haphazard

A lot of criticism has been merited but not to the venemous degree of some. I think some peeps think are living on past glories and the expectation that we are a top league outfit. Dunc has always had a tendency to speak before he thinks and is crap at post match interviews. I suspect that he has also been taken back by the abuse directed at him. I suspect that he also realises that he has been used as a fall guy and promised to him about the future are up in the air. He is not an experienced manager and tried to install a play from the back system in a team with no settled formation or understanding of each other. BUT what was the evidence on Friday. He has been too concentrated on defence and has been amiss in how he has played individuals - McKay, Doran, Devine and Lawal being examples. He also did not recognise the importance and impact of contracted players. His dislike of Roddy McGregor is surprising. We had eight loanees on the park at the end of the end of the Raif game. They may end up saving our season and I would gladly keep at least 4 of them.

That is a major concern and probably came about due to the confidence about monies from the Battery Farm. And another reason for taking on Ferguson who would have attracted better players with better wages and prospects. I am afraid that this season was all about survival and that was apparent when we jettisoned some worthies to save on the wage bill.

I don't think that it was because we had a bad 10 minutes. That was simply to be expected. It was a defensive lapse at fault and a rare lapse at that. I am in no doubt that if we had another decent forward to partner Samuel that we would have been in the play offs. I think that Lawal has a lot of potential but not yet playing in a central midfield role. I would take the risk of playing him up front and letting Billy play in a number 10 role. I think his pace will frighten other teams and Samuel has an out card which he hasn't had all season.

That was a sore one to take but I can’t find it in me to attribute any blame to the players for Friday night’s result, that’s just fekkin football and the best team doesn’t necessarily win. They did more than enough to get the 3 points and were just denied by some bad luck and superb goalkeeping. I can even overlook the shoddy 10 minutes after the break, it happens, their efforts in the other 80 minutes should have given us the 3 points - unlucky lads, you gave it a ruddy good go. That leaves us now with 2 cup finals to go, we really can’t afford any other slip ups. Our vastly superior goal difference counts for sod all if Queens win their final 2 games, we needed to be 2 points clear to allow us the luxury of a draw in either match. So many variables though - for us, perhaps Dunfermline and Morton might not be so pumped up now, given they’re both out of playoff contention at either end of the table. As for QP, no telling what kind of fight Arbroath will put up against them, and more importantly, will Airdrie take their foot off the gas and rest some key players for the playoffs? What I saw on Friday night gives me the confidence we have enough in our locker to do it, but we most certainly need to do it ourselves!

Please at least make sure Gardiner goes in first ! Certainly not in the recycle bin just common trash .

New bins arrived this week from Highland Council. I'm going to struggle to fit Ferguson, Gardiner and the 23/24 season in the new grey rubbish bin.