Tree

Today, Proctor had an off day - most, if not all of his passes went to Morton, so his confidence will not be 100%. Surely Nauris (with his ability to score) might be preferred, for the County game. I do rate Proctor but heads must over-rule hearts, sometime, and we MUST win against our neighbours. PLEASE.

In a defensive sense Proctor was sound yesterday. Going forward and passing are not his strong point I would agree.

Butcher must balance the fact that Tokely seems to have lost pace this year (not that he was ever the fastest) and fitness wise is not able to get up and down the line. He does add a bit more in an attacking sense however.

Having seen the tactics which County employed against us I would stick with Proctor. The call is between Bulvitus and Tokely for the Centre Half.

I agree with the OP.

One of the worst performances I've seen by a player in an ICT shirt. Other than a few neat turns he was not interested and jogged about the park.

Baffled how he stayed on the park as long as he did.

Hopefully this was simply a bad day at the office.

Same lack of mental toughness that we saw at the tail end of last season and have seen in a few games this season prevents us closing out of the game when we are 2-0 up :angry:

My uncle (Donnie Ross) worked at the baths for many years ..... I still remember going there with my little card from the High School that got you free entry and had a box marked off each time you went. Once you got there it was over to the right hand side for males, left side for females to change in the cubicles with the swing doors facing the pool and putting all your stuff in the wire baskets ......

after your swim, when you were chucked out on the basis that your hands were all wrinkly and you had therefore been in there long enough, the chicken soup from the machine tasted like the best ever. For some reason, I always seem to remember the walk down the riverside (either along the river or past the house where the guy made targes) and over the Greig St Bridge as always being drizzly after a swim but maybe it was me that was still damp rather than the weather ....

Scotty...do you ever remember a sort of youth club that used to be right opposite the Baths. I can remember going in there a few times in the past. Im sure it was just a little shed thing...but cant really remember much about it.

I certainly remember that there used to be some form of tuck shop in the sheds across from the baths which used to open in the evenings.

Scotty - The hot orange always trumped the Chicken Soup :001:

What a complete and utter all round farce made even worse when I have just heard that the groundsman supposedly advised that the USH should have been switched on on Thurdsay evening or the game would be called off.

Even though the position seems to be that the pitch was playable!

This seems to be the biggets "he said, she said" thread we have had for a long time. :021:

So to sumarise the posts so far

a. The game should have been called off on Friday because the pitch would never be playable by 3pm on Saturday

and

b. The decision should have been left till 1.30pm on the Saturday when the pitch was playable

Dougie Imrie gets the MoM award on R. Scotland for the 2nd week in a row

However he got it for 'effort' and effectively being the best of the worst!!!

To be fair the basque country is probably the size of Scotland (I haven't checked)

It's a bit idealistic but I imagine it would offer tremendous benefits for team spirit (us against them attitude).. and if you are promoting from within the club would always be working at a profit for transfer revenue... it does have advantages.

all I'm saying is would I prefer we concentrated on our youth players instead of trying to import cheap (not so good) players..

I suspect that no club has a policy which intentionally attempts to put poor quality foreign imports ahead of locally sourced players.

The reality is that a large catchment of football playing kids is needed to give any hope to being able to sustain a successful team simply with local players which even if in our case this means the whole of the Highlands (inlcuding the Western and Northern Isles).

The area is not populous enough not do we have unrestricted call on the talent either with County, Aberdeen and the Old Firm also scouting this area.

The reality is that we need to have a solid youth and community structure combined with adding players from outwith the area.

Go to the Rugby at ICT Stadium on Friday evening to see players respect the officials - a lesson to be learned.

Thankfully rugby players do not try and con the officials by feigning injury with blood capsules and the suchlike :P

They are such gentlemen :clapping04:

Shoddy way to treat a volunteer. I wonder if enthusiasm will be as high for snow clearing when next required.

btw Have you seen this amusing youtube video called ICT Boardroom ?

Caley D, I understand and appreciate that you may not wish to answer this and indeed have a perfectly entitled right not to answer this, however were you involved in posting this or any other similar video on Youtube?

This relates to matters I heard yesterday regarding the reasons for your 'dismissal'?

Going on what I've just heard on Radio Scotland Travel, Inverness is in effect almost cut off. As at 4pm the A9 was reported as shut at Daviot and shut southbound at Blair Atholl. It is also blocked at two points in Caithness. The railway, as we have seen above, is closed and the bus service to Aviemore from where you could take the train is presumably also out of action because of the road closure at Daviot. I believe the airport is currently open.

Does Morrisons' stuff also come up by rail? I try to buy as little as possible from Tesco for a number of reasons (although I do welcome their decision to remove the dreaded Tesco Lorries from the A9) and do most of my shopping at Morrisons.

The airport is effectively shut for the day as well.

My girlfriend bought some ready to use screenwash out of tescos and had it sitting on the passenger seat to be uses when I had found out what the problem was, the unopened bottle had started to freeze up that was left overnight sitting on the seat.

This is my first car that has ever had this type of problem.

The ready mixed stuff is really pretty poor and is off little use during the winter when it is far too dilute (it is pretty rubbish in the rest of the year when it justs seems to leave streaks everywhere!).

Regarding an earlier post on travelling on the A9, even when the mix is adequate for low temperatures (mine is currently good for minus 12), the wind chill means that driving on a fast road will more often than not give actual temperatures of lower than the thermometer is showing.

My car has heated nozzles and lines but will still give up the ghost eventually.

Are Season Tickets valid for this game? :eat02:

So why was my mate stuck for hours at Balinluig ?

Thats the effect of those all day breakfasts :002:

I dont see the Police shutting down Tesco Extra or the Retail Park and people travel long distances to these, could it be because they have more financial might?

Or just perhaps it may be that people need food from Tesco to survive whilst football...........? :002:

I expect that IF we manage to offload a few players from the fringes THEN we can look to bring in a couple of new sigings or loan deals. We really still need to reduce the wage bill and strenghten the squad at the same time. Quality vs quantity. I only hope we will be looking closer to home for players that will add quality to the team and that will stay for a few seasons.

I think you are correct in relation to the quantity versus quality balance.

At the moment we have a large pool of in too many cases average players. This needs to be trimmed down to reduce the wage bill and also to allow a bit more quality. The reality is however that we simply do not have the cash to simply buy our way into promotion (we need to be sensible and put this season behind us - even if Dundee were to lose four games between now and the end of the season do we really believe that we will effectively win almost all the remaining games?).

This means making sure that the yound guys like Shinnie are ready for playing at this level next season (whether getting games against the lower half teams over the next four months or going out on loan).

We also have to solve the fact that mentally we are not strong enough as a team.

Examples

- We almost avoided relegation last season before effectively 'bottling it' in the last 3 or 4 games

- Twice against County we have not been up for the game

- We go in with a 2 goal lead in the cup final before capitulating

In addition to the garing need to improve the quality of players in some areas, we must also address this issue of players not being mentally strong enough either.

Its more to do with what the ref can see, can he clearly see his assistants etc, mind you some ref's dont see a lot of things, fog might lift later it did for a whi;e yesterday.

:D ..........yea

Hope it will lift but it's the frost I'm worried about :(

Not sure if we will use the undersoil heating in this division? Anyone know if it was on overnight (a plume of steam from the boiler is a clue)?

Cup final next Sunday and I think it is disgraceful that there are still tickets available. Time the people in the Highlands started getting behind their local teams instead of blindly and moronically following the old firm.

I suspect that the fact that the game is live on BBC Alba has impacted on the crowd significantly.

Christmas is not far away and every club in Scotland has suffered from low crowds in cup competitions (even Celtic only opened the lower tier against Hearts.

Oh, that and the fact that we are god fearing and would never consider going to a football match on a Sunday

the Fluke is my local too...but am financially embarrased till after xmas......plus.....Im bound to win the Kareoke...coz i am an as yet, unearthed singing genius!

:dancing03:

The reality is that we are not in a financial position to be taking new players in, and indeed I would not be surprised to see a number of players moving on in the January window.

The situation is that Roy, Zadi and Eagle are unlikley to feature in games unless there is injuries (I would like to see Roy more involved but none of us would lose any sleep with the other two). We also have cover in Shinnie and Ross with Eric also coming back into contention (for two weeks before his next injury ).

In an ideal world both Shinnie and Ross would be loaned to a 2nd or 3rd division team to get experince of playing in competitive games, and be hardened up to an extent. Shinnie is one for the coming seasons however he needs some experience of playing against seasoned pros.

The wages of the younger players are a fraction of the other three and this may well be the deciding factor (before even considering the ongoing court actions!).

With some of the other players, we would be looking for transfer fees, and some of the teams at the lower levels of the SPL may well make an offer for some of the players. If Foran or Rooney continue to score regularly then they will attract interest.

I just looked on the Online booking for the tickets and i cant find where to get the cup final tickets!

Any help?

According to official site online booking is only available to season ticket holders at www.eticketing.co.uk/ictfc

I am a season ticket holder but it still isnt there.

Have you followed this instruction:

If you are a regular purchaser but this is the first time using our online booking system-register your account by clicking the button marked 'Activate an Existing Account' above. Enter your client reference number (found on your 2008/9 season ticket) and surname, update your personal details and follow the on screen prompts.

I did that and its not there......Feck it, i will buy them on Satuday before the game.

Dornoch - Check the Season Ticket number against the number registered on your online account. On occasions your registered account can be under a different number and does not automatically pick up the fact that you are a season ticket holder.

You may have to add your season ticket to your account (just Name and Number required) once you have logged in to the eticketing site.

We should've played 11 up front in an attacking pentagle formation with Rossco practising shotput in the middle.

Have you been taking tactical lessons from Renegade :024:

Tokely was as slow as ive ever seen him saturday, he didnt care to try and get back.

Tokely was clearly not fit enough to play the full game. After an hour he should have been taken off and replaced with Proctor.

It was clear that he was tightening up and on a number of occasions was trying to stretch the back of his legs. It appeared obvious to everyone sitting near me that this was the case and was physically unable to get back, however for whatever reason he was left to struggle on.

Frankly I'm baffled as to how some are trying to justify what has apparently been said by Butcher.

I agree that there is too much negativity from a number of fans with critisism of every error (the best was from a female fan sitting behind me who critised Esson for "just kicking the ball anywhere!" - at the time he was returning it to the middle of the park so that a free kick could be taken :angry:)

The level of critisism against players has perhaps reached an unreasonable level, however is understandable given the circumstances of our home form over the past few seasons.

This does not excuse or justify the actions of Butcher.

Exactly what does the manager think will happen in future games? Now that he has called the fans behind the goal f****** a******* (allegedly at least) I suppose he will be willing to accept the same sort of abuse back from the fans, possibly leading to a continued deterioration in the relationships.

The alternative is that many fans will stop coming to games. Under the current circumstances I suspect that Ticket renewals for next season are unlikely to be close to the current levels, even if we are promoted (as highly unrealistic as this seems at this moment). This situation is going to create an even greater problems in terms of the budget that is available.

I'm convinced Statler and Waldorf have been sitting behind me for the past few seasons B)