Tree

Adrian Durham said on the radio the other evening that being a fan means you follow your team through thick and thin because of the emotional connection.

After today's embarrasing home crowd, does this mean that we simply lack 'real' fans?

Home fans out in numbers today......not!

Cant get the time off work for it, gutted as i love visiting all the old style grounds around the country.

I seem to have arranged meetings in Aberdeen and Brechin for that day

I see that Tuffey has managed to find his level since he left us

Whilst Pepper is a live wire with bags of energy, I am not sure that I would look to start him against Celtic. There will be a lot of responsibility on formational side of things and I'm not sure that he has the experience just yet to go a full 70 minutes without having some form of lapse.

It will be interesting to see why Celtic have available. They played 3-5-2 intially against County on what is a very tight park (it has actually been made smaller this year at Adams request). Mulgrew was very much the play maker (at left centre half!) though I also thought their defense as a whole was poor (County sat too deep for much of the half to exploit this).

Suspect Commons will never play as badly again (though he got 7 in the sundays and of course scored the equaliser).

And also misses Webster's kick out at Billy!

Need some help. Was it a penalty because Ryan did not allow Hearts to score?

Absolute clown of a ref!

I really do feel (note I am using the "I" word again) that the events of last season have really had a marked negative effect on the support in general. The "fun" has gone out of supporting ICT for many. The "togetherness", the "family feel" and the "enjoyment" has gone but realistically so have the winning days of the SFL, the cup runs, being the favourites. The realisation that we are a SPL survivors in every sense of the word appears to have escaped the psyche of many. Even the ground "rules" of the SPL are clearly having a negative effect and the "joy" of huddling together in make shift stands and hedges whils standing, singing, moving around without the fear of being singled out by stewards are a thing of the past - sad but fact.

The solutions are far from easy or achievable. WE would all have to applaud the efforts of many to try and make life off the pitch better and I can understand their frustrations when peeple complain about their "treatment" as it feels "personal" to them and makes them feel that their efforts are worthless. But that is consumer satisfaction feedback and it should be a case of taking every gripe on its merit and learning lessons.

Valid points, however the feeling of "togetherness" comes also from the actions of fans and not just from the actions of the club. Irrespective of being on the positive or negative side of view regarding the current team, the amount of unconstructive critisism of players and other fans plays to the sense of there being a divide.

Neither does some of the attempted justification and reasons for stopping supporting the team reflect the arguement that the club can do any more. The club listened to the fans and unlike Aberdeen fans many of our own have turned their back on the club (and do we really think that any greater level of entertainment is being offered by the Dons?)

Whilst I do not always agree with some of the tactical views posted by you and others (nor would I expect you to agree with mine - albeit I am alway right ), I fully endorse the right of any supporter to offer a constructive opinion on tacticss, selection, etc and indeed value this in terms of a forum such as this.

Whilst the effects of playing lower league football will not quite have hit Black yet, it stands to reason that as each week goes it becomes harder to step up to international football. It begs the question then as to why you would pick a player now who may be unlikely to be picked later in the campaign (note Houston saying in the press conference that they were light on midfield players for the game - surely it would make sense to have a look at a player such as Rankin?

Of course, the arguement all falls down when you look at Scotland squads and see a number of players who are not exactly consistent choices for their south of the border teams

the main thing that ticked me off in the main stand was the booing owain off the pitch, i even heard one guy shout, ''theres f*cking kids watching'' i know not everyone in the main stander is like that but i just thought shut the feck up you self righteous tw*t. it just felt horendously middle class to me, not my scene at all, probably shouldve moved over to the south wing with the section e lads that sat there for the second half.

its safe to say i wont be spending much time in the main stand for the rest of the season.

I understand what you are trying to say, however where is the qualdron of support from the North stand (extending the concept that the main stand is simply for the 'middle class').

For years we have heard about the need for a singing section and the seating policy is the cause behind the lack of atmosphere. If it is indeed the case that the true fans sit in the north stand where is the atmoshphere now that seating has been changed by the club to suit the wishes of the fans?

I agree that some of the things heard in the main stand are ridiculous, however much of what comes from the north stand on many occasions is not much better.

Perhaps the problem is that we are all pointing the finger at others for not being supportive, instead of everyone actually being supportive towards the team?

With crowds of 3000, what exactly do people expect in terms of players?

Aberdeen, yet to score a goal this season, had 14,000 at a game against a "diddy team".

I'm afraid I am a bit fed of of people coming on and trying to justify the reason for not supporting "their" team. The only ones who have a justifiable reason are the ones who genuinely cannot afford a ticket or cannot attend games (though I would point out that I know three Celtic Season ticket holders who are lucky to manage to get to two or three games a season due to where they live and work).

Out of all the examples of potential additional costs which my business may incur, I have to say that this is not siting near the top. Of course, the additional costs which independence may bring may actually be offset by lower taxation (though neither side has yet provided any robust figures to provide certainty regarding the fiscal position for an independent country).

As we are talking about the Royal Mail, all that I would say is that under the current public system things are not exactly rosy. As a company, we now do not rely upon the Royal Mail for important deliveries (other than Special Mail) as we are finding that too many letters and packages are going missing.

In any event for most businesses, the volume of mail in reducing and this is the root cause behind all the issues with reducing incomes and out dated methods of sorting, etc putting pressure on the ability to balance the books. In reality, irrespective of independence, the Royal Main will have to change to reflect the changing pattern of work. I somehow don't see independence impacting on this fact in any real way.

This thread is verging on the ridiculous.

Are you suggesting that we should park this thread?

could we not bring on a midfield player to try and stiffle st mirren instead of a young boy getting his first taste of spl in the heat of the battle.

just a thought but as i was not at game should probably not comment. sorry

Polworth already has SPL experience (albeit about 2 minutes)

The concept of punishing the new company is in many way a balance against the favourable treatment which the new club is receiving in being allowed to re-enter the SFL without a) having been a club for the prescribed number of years and b) having applied and been considered as part of an open process (i.e. no Highland League club for example could have applied for a vacant position).

In this case, the Newco has been admitted on a non-standard basis and to avoid there being a potential benefit to a club in setting aside debts including most importantly (to the SFA, etc) football debts.

There are a few other points of detail around the above, however I view this point as being relatively straight forward (although Jim Traynor appears to have an issue with the concept of Newco have actually receiving preferential treatment in their application to the SFL).

I have some tendancy towards agreeing with the inconsistency regarding the historical record of the club not being viewed as having transferred also. Setting aside emotion, the Newco have bought the assets of the club including the name and by inference the goodwill which prevails with this. On this basis, it can be reasonably considered that the history is also transferred with the goodwill.

Again, there are some technical arguements which counter this view, however on balance it is probably correct to view the Newco Club as retaining the traditions and history of the old Club through the transfer of the intangible element of the assets.

However we will set the above aside for the shear entertainment value in accusing Newco fans of having no history

Just when you think things will settle down, we know have the innocent ones objecting to the appointment of Harper MacLeod for the EBT investigation as the are clearly celticfootballclub minded

The article has been somewhat lacking in detail in terms of what the alleged suspicious behaviour was.

The woman walking her dog who saw the behaviour got quite a shock I understand! As the site is read by children.................

do we have any " fringe " players in our small squad?

There are a couple of player with dodgy haircuts

We need a very serious cash injection so we need change at the top! The whole club needs a boost to encourage people to support their local team not dwellers or 3rd divi newboys!

So we are not to be dependant on the old firm, we can't be dependant it seems on the fans, so the answer is for some unknown investor to come in and solve our problems?

Fan power, apart from when it comes to dipping hands into pockets?

Bought mine from Diggers (Barbers) many moons ago, very good book on the history of Caley

Artistic license in describing digger as a barber perhaps?

Man who sold the pools may have been more accurate??

I do have to say that I can agree with McCoist re the complete and utter incompetence of the SFA hierarchy.....and I'd include the SPL and SFL hierarchies in that as well. Maybe about time there was a Scottish Football Fan Facebook page entitled......KIck out all the Arseholes running Scottish Football now, and elect people who actually have the ability to consider that Scottish Football is not best served by Arselicking sectarianism for money.

Perhaps we'll not agree too much with the man who has managed to ignore the fact that he was warned by people such as Walter Smith not to get involved with Whyte and then claimed he knew nothing.

The same man who demanded that an independant panel should be named, presumably to allow the low life to make threats against them and their families.

And the same person who within the last 10 days has in essence said that cheats should be allowed to keep their trophies.

I would agree that wholesale change is needed both in structure and in the people who are running it. Perhaps giving fans, who for example Jonny Hayes said last week "showed their passion" by trying to start a fight with opposition fans for no reason other than their following a different team, cart blanch to have a say may not necessarily lead to the outcome the more reasonably minded are looking for.

Caley refusnik now Rangers supporter,

Hang on a minute... let's get this straight.

Back in 1994 poor old Buenos Hadji, due to scruples regarding the loss of his Highland League team, "declines" to associate himself with a new club which then progressed to the SPL in a decade. Instead he decides to become a lifelong supporter of another club which now finds itself in the Third Division, from which the club he declined to back moved on as champions all of 15 years ago.

Talk about a magnet for lost causes!

I really hope he doesn't bet on the horses!! :lol:

I suppose he has swapped "On a Life Support Machine" for a club that is just about on a Life Support Machine!

Seems reasonable that SPL need money from TV to pay £2m to SFL.

Someone needs to point out to Sevco's Manager that they have never won any trophies so they will not lose anything. Old Rangers (of whom he is no longer employed by) may lose a few though if found guilty of cheating

Taking the wee man in his new strip

We have just seen our two top scorers move to teams who offered more money and cannot afford to replace these players is surely more accurate.

Now that we have even less money then how do you expect this to get better?