dead_ball_specialist

1. Hibs 2. Celtic 3. Aberdeen 4. Hearts 5. ICT 6. Kilmarnock 7. Rangers (Smith sacked before Christmas) 8. Dundee Utd 9. Motherwell 10. St Mirren 11. Falkirk 12. Gretna Always a bit dangerous to count your chickens. Remember the league table on the back of our match programme in our first season? Didn't turn out that way did it. :024:

I'd rather we brought back Bobby Mann.

Gretna? :rolleyes02:

What about Liam Fox? His performance agaisnt Plastic Thistle at home was one of the worst ever.

Jim Calder :allhail:

You must be joking! Marco deBarros was one of the very best HL players of recent decades, and for the little time he actually spent on the park for us, he had some flashes of brilliance. I remember one time at Victoria Park he came on as a sub and did a textbook double dragback (a bit like Gabriel Amato for Rangers agaisnt Parma) taking 2 defenders out of the game and unleashed a stunning 25 yard piledriver that was tipped over the bar. If that had gone in it would be up there with the best ICT goals ever. The problem with Debarros was that he thought he was archie. He was always trying to take on defenders or pull off a fancy trick when a simple pass would do. It worked in the HL, but it was a luxury in the second division. Vetle Anderson probably doesn't deserve all the stick he gets considering the fact that he was well past his best when he signed for us - he might have been a decent player at his peak. And he did have a couple of good games - away against Motherwell in the Coca Cola cup (when we lost on Penalties) he was one of the best players on the pitch, and at home against Dundee Utd in the Scottish cup he got a standing ovation when he came off. He had the same issues as Debarros - he tried to show boat all the time. You shouldn't really be trying to pull off Cruyf turns on the edge of your own 18 yard box! We've been quite lucky. Sergi apart, our managers have been pretty shrewd. I'm sure some of the players listed on this thread could quite easily walk into the Ross County first team squad! If I had to pick one, I'd say Grassa Bennet was the worst player we ever had. He was slower than an old wifie in front of you at the check outs at Tesco. His defending was comical, he had a habit of pretending to fall over into the path of attackers when they skinned him - what can I say, he was perhaps the only defender in history to turn the game on its head and use the dying swan dive to cheat against attackers! With that creativity alone, perhaps he redeemed himself.

I thought you meant he was on Gordon Ramsay's show.

5-1 Liverpool. Milan are over-rated and needed a dodgey referee to get past an off-form Celtic side.

How can you possibly say that Wyness has been gash??? When he started getting a game he was terrific, some of his moments of skill were right up there with Michael Mols at his peak. I'd pick him ahead of jigsaw Bayne any day.

It's a tradition in theatrical circles to say 'break a leg' to performers before they go out on stage, it basically means good luck. Perhaps there has been a terrible misunderstanding? :tumble:

The singing section was brilliant today, even Charlie turned around and gave them a thumbs up towards the end. The stewards as usual were totally out of order. They're supposed to be our servants not our masters. The club should stop hiring these psychologically questionable agency goons and give the jobs, at least in the home end, to sensible ICT supporters.

And who would have thought that Zander Sutherland would come on and end up marking Tom McManus out of the game? He had him in his pocket. :clapping03: Well done to Charlie for giving the youngsters a chance. Thats the second time this season Sutherland and McAllister have turned the game for us against the Pars. Rory had an amazing 25 yard pile driver just pass the post before he scored, and even though his goal was deflected I reckon it was going in anyway. Up until their introduction we were p1sh. Jigsaw Bayne performed like a Lada Riva, Dargo looked like he was going through the motions. Paatelinen kept trying to do the same trick every time he got the ball and got tackled every time. The only penetration we got was from Richie Hart, but his final touch was lacking. Blackie looked back to his best pulling the strings in the middle, the seasons ending at the wrong time for him. The best player on the park was Dunfermlines left wing back - if we're looking at nicking some of their players he should be top of the list.

In my experience the vast majority of Celtic fans that come up to Inverness are good craic. They probably are the most enthusiastic fans in Scottish football. How many other clubs have international fans conventions every year? Or have gigs set up alongside away games? (like Charlie and the Boys) I've never heard of any trouble with Celtic fans in Inverness - aye, you see them driving around waving their scarves out their windows tooting their horns and singing their Irish tunes but it's all good in the hood. Yeah, you do get plenty of @rseholes in the ground who get caught up in the crowd psychology - usually its stuff like refusing to sit down, I only remember seeing vandalism once. One of their fans waving one of the letters from the back of the stand (the ones to help you find the right section) that he must have torn off the wall - I don't think its ever been replaced (check out the gap). He's probably got it stuck on his living room wall as a souvenir. Totally agree with that, Aberdeen fans are truly the scum of the earth.

He hasn't scored many goals but he's got himself into loads of goal scoring positions. How many times has he missed by inches or hit the woodwork? He's been quite unlucky in that respect.

I'd prefer Martin Johnstone.

He was an absolute disaster when he was the chairman of Spurs, I'd take David Sutherland ahead of him any day. I never quite got why he was chosen for the British version of the show, he's not exactly Donald Trump is he? Just a big moutherd geezer who runs a mickey mouse computer company.

Mark Viduka took his boots off and threw one of them at the assistant manager or something.

I never rated him at all in the lower divisions but in our first season in the SPL he was immense - he absolutely terrorised opposing defenders with his crazy lung busting runs and unpredictable mis-hit passes. He was pure chaos - unfortunatly sometimes at the wrong end. Had it not been for his injury he'd probably still be holding his own. It was a shame that his waistline seemed to balloon as soon as he lost his place.

Watch out for Chinese whispers, soon there'll be rumours that Charlie Christie beats his dog.

County were awful yesterday, I think they were probably better under Bobby Wilson. Jardine and Cowie were OK. Their best player was a second half sub (didn't catch his name) who came on for the unimpressive Alan Morgan. We shouldn't touch any of the rest of them, especially their defenders, with a barge pole - or their keeper. As for Gretna, go out and put your mortgage on them going down next season. For as bad as County were they still should have won the game - they had so much time and space in the Gretna half in the last half hour but wasted it. A quality attacking team would have put 6 or 7 past them. And they were no better at the other end, all of their goals came from shocking County defending. Relegation might be the best thing that could have happened to County. Now they can start to cut their cloth more sensibly - no more dodgey SPL reject mercenaries. Hopefully they'll give some local youngsters and Highland league talent a chance. And how cool would it be to see a second division title race between County and Peterhead next season? I'll definatly be going up to Victoria Park to support Pele, Bavige, Spider, Mann and co. One more point, I had a laugh when the County fans sung... "They come from down the ferry, they haven't got a telly, they're dirty and they're smelly, the Caley family." ...Sounds like we've been out of their league for so long they've started to get a bit confused.

Look at the millions he spent at Tannadice - and where they ended up. He's a waste of space.

At the County game yesterday I heard a few of their fans saying "Jigsaw Bayne just scored for Caley". Anyone know why they called him that? It's quite puzzling.

I saw a few ICT tops in the Gretna end at Victoria Park yesterday - and probably quite a few more of us were in the County end. Why would you waste a beautiful sunny Saturday travelling to Dundee and back to watch a meaningless end of season game of football when you've got the most exciting game for years (Gretna had to win to go up, County had to win to stay up) just up the road?

From the football purists perspective you'd have to want Dunfermline to stay up since they're the better football team. But from a self-preservationist perspective it'd be better for us if St Mirren stayed up, at least that'd be one team we could be confident of finishing above next season. Since Kenny took charge the Pars have shown a vast improvement, and come next season when he's had more time to put his stamp on the team they could be a decent side.

I remember when I played in the Street league at our annual award ceremony Charlie gave us a speech and he talked about`how he felt the central belt teams motivated themselves when they played against us because we were from the Highlands - they had to 'put us in our place' so to speak. And he went on to say that it worked both ways, the perception that everyone felt like they were above ICT created a kind of 'siege mentality', remniscent of Alex Fergusons Man Utd. ICT have always been under-estimated and that's probably worked to our advantage. When we won the third division by a record margin we started the season as outsiders, even Albion Rovers were given better odds than us. When we knocked Celtic out of the Scottish cup the press reacted as if we were a Highland league team. Was it really that big a shock for an on-form, full time, top first division team to win a one-off match against a struggling Celtic? If anything, Airdrie United knocking Celtic out of the Coca Cola cup the year before was a bigger upset. But the reaction was as if someone like Clach had beaten Celtic. Of course, our case wasn't helped by the manager going through a phase of never ending negative comments about the club and the town, although he's been a bit better recently. There's a stigma attached to this part of the world. We're looked down on by central belters, the same way Scotland is looked down on by England, or North England is looked down on by South England. We're guilty of it too when it comes to County, and probably next year we'll find ourselves looking down our noses at Gretna. I suppose it's a case of respect having to be earned, and the best way to do that will to be to keep on surpassing the miniscule expectations that so many seem to have of us.