The Mantis

I managed to pick up a hardback of Alex Main's book for £15 at a football shop that used to exist in Edinburgh. Paperback copies are pretty common and the mearlach in Church Street often has one. Melven's were clearing a pile of Rod's book at £3 each back in the day.

http://www.caledonianfc.co.uk/Team Photos/qc7172.html has the names although I don't know who is far right as it's cut off. Q-Cup 71-72. My one is a scan of a print while @IBM's one above appears to be a photo of a print. I got a bundle of prints from Calum Ferguson, a youngish guy I used to see at the games. Haven't seen him in a long time. I also got loads of prints from Billy Urquhart, Gordon Gillespie and Ian Broadfoot. All of those had to be returned afterwards. I also got some digital files from Gringo and Alan Stewart, amongst others. The Nostalgia Page is really dated, and has been live since 2000, because I own the domain, but I don't have the means to edit it anymore. A shame as I have a few Caley/Thistle things I could upload. A big regret is that I wrote it for desktop so the mouseovers don't work on other devices. You need to click to find what the page is about.

The Ticketmaster portal was pan breid most of yesterday but was back working last night.

Rose won the pens according to supporters who were there, meaning that only ourselves and Arbroath are pointless. There’s even an interview with Calum Elliot the manager on FB congratulating him on the win but I can’t get the link to paste in here. Any sources that list the actual penalties taken are a bit confusing- even the official SPFL results page which reports that Annan won. Either way I think we’ll struggle to get our first point on Saturday compared to the fixture last year which was a routine win although 2-1 makes it look closer than it was. Edit- it’s all the fault of the guy from Opta. Everybody else has taken it from that source.

Glad you didn’t mention them then

£248k compared to £745k awarded to winners Yenitit.

No disrespect to our other keepers, of which a few have merited legend status, but for me Ryan was the best ICT goalie ever. This is just another brick in the wall.

My memory of this is as dodgy as anybody else’s but I thought the post early bird prices were there before… is it possible the graphic has changed since the prices first appeared?

Yes, I know, but I don't remember it being regular like the Friday nights in the Champ, and also it seemed to feature Falkirk a lot as they were box office... Anyhoo, I had a fair bit of illness this past year, and I've got a few holidays backed up this autumn as a result. So, unless all this boycott/ST business gets sorted out, and I start popping up for the odd home game, I don't seem to have a free Saturday, apart from the LC section, and maybe a couple of Scottish Cup ties, until Dumbarton away on 26 October...

All Saturdays at 3pm too. No midweek cards.

I hope Robbie will be fine for us, although he never got much game time at Spartans, and everybody here and at Elgin rates Keith. What about Lewis Nicolson?

Or send a drone over…

We would have been an embarrassment in the last 16 anyway. I went to most of the qualifying games including the monsoon a year ago and it was like chalk and cheese compared to this. We probably peaked too early and without a striker or a right back, then losing Tierney too, we don’t have the depth of squad. We rely heavily on McGinn and McTominay and our back 3 are not good enough ball players at this level. Sad too that Ryan looked a bit culpable at the goal although it’s pretty irrelevant. I fear that’s the end of Clarke’s time. In some ways he’s the same as Southgate.

“Half man, half duck” I think I got to know Stevie quite well when he was manager of the club up the road from me, Whitehill. I never let on though. We also had Davie Bingham, one of the nicest guys you could meet. He does a lot for charity.

Really feel for Lewis Hyde especially after seeing the Courier article. Never really rated him but he's a big powerful unit. In Lge 1 he could easily be the new Allardice. Dodds pretty much threw him under a bus at Firhill when he played him at right back against Tiffoney. Mind you that was our annus horribilis with the injury situation.

Went out for a couple of hours this morning when it was about 20%. Now it's been reached, haven't contributed, but is there some use we could put extra funds to if some of us continue to chip in? Or just a wee nest egg for Aaron I suppose?

Not Michael Gardyne by all accounts...

Off topic ( Scotty this forum maybe needs a spoiler alert button) but… just started reading his book “Politics on the Edge” a couple of days ago after waiting about 6 months. Just reached the point where he’s working under Cameron.

Of course, it has DoofersDad’s stamp on it.

Mike’s a long standing supporter of ICT and, I think, Caley before that. You can often see him sitting amongst the ICT support, so maybe there’s a nuance there that you’ve missed. I admit that I haven’t read the piece.

RiG is usually right with these predictions although everybody wants Bonnyrigg away, probably including Bonnyrigg themselves. Although maybe their hardy band of fans will fancy another day out like last year. Bonnyrigg pub guide incoming if it happens.

I realise this sort of thing has to be kept simple to get responses. Online surveys can be tedious. However a bit of detail I could have added to the two figures: There was an offer for ST holders to pay an extra £90 for hospitality on Feb 3 v Queen's Park. I contacted Keith Haggart and expressed an interest on behalf of 3 of us (3X £90 = £270). But in the event the hospitality was cancelled due to lack of interest. He did offer Airdrie in March but we couldn't make that one. I suggested that we potentially had a home tie on Feb 10th (which turned out to be Hibs) but never heard any more about that. EDIT - not sticking the knife in. Following the draw being made, the Hibs game would likely sell out anyway.

Can't quite remember, but this may have come about in the past year, as a couple of their local players (Bobby the Binman being one) retired.

They train at the Oriam (Heriot-Watt Uni) which is about 70 miles.

Only halfway through by bedtime last night. Just listen to it folks.