Scotty

Maybe we should both phone Barcelona ! That Nessi and Messi tie in a few years ago could have been massive for his career.

Have to admit, there is something about Red/Blue stripes and an eagle on the chest that makes me smile 🙂 First thought for any of the parents on my son's football team when I wear my ICT top is that it's a Crystal Palace one and more than once a conversation has started with "... you dont see many Crystal Palace fans ..." before clocking the badge properly and realising they still haven't seen one Congrats to @Eagle4Caley on a job well done. You even have your own Josh Meekings now too 🙂

Yup - September 22nd 2001. I had been in Canada when 9/11 happened and flew back (nervously) 10 days later. Coyle scored an 18-minute Hat-Trick, and we were 5-0- down at HT. Pretty strong team on our side, but one of those days i guess. https://stats.caleythistleonline.com/matchdetails.php?id=777

Oh, I remember that place ... the Sh***berry Excelsior Stadium! Prior to permanent emigration, I flew back into Glasgow one time, got a lift to the ground, cases and all, from InterTheNet, then endured a first half that saw us ship a record number of goals, fell asleep for most of the second half and got up the road on the supporters bus .... those were the days

Would love for them to stay if a contract can be agreed but will wish them well if they decide their future lies elsewhere. All four contributed well to our survival, were important parts of our team in a season full of turmoil, and that's all we can ask for. Fingers crossed for next season. As KoB says, happy we are in a position to say we can field a team next year - got a full team plus 4 subs signed up 🙂

He will forever be able to say that he lost his job due to administration, but after a 2-6-2 record in 2024/25 (12 pts) and some horrible football, I think he would have been long gone had the administrator not saved his bacon and sacked him. To be fair, he did only lose two games in 24/25, but his style saw us turn potential wins into 6 draws in 10 games. His replacement put up a 14-4-8 W-D-L record over the rest of the season, still losing games, sometimes when we shouldn't, but those draws turned into wins and that was a huge factor in staying up. I wanted to like DF at ICT, and some of his banter was - and still is - entertaining to listen to, and I even appreciate him taking a pay cut before administration, but if he had been left to continue the season, even for another month then I think we would have been relegated or at least in the playoffs again. Kell's record in his first 10 games was 6-1-3 (19 pts) ... which was 7 points more than Dunc's first 10 games ... and we missed the playoffs by 7 points! If he did not get punted on the first day of administration, the conversation we are having now might have been very different.

Don't go dancing in the streets of Raith now !!!

Yup - good luck to Keith. Hope he does well (except against us of course).

Totally agree. And it seems we may be at it again in thinking of reducing the Premiership to 10 teams to try and make things easier for the twins in being able to meet European schedules. The idea being that 36 games is easier than the current 38 perhaps? or are they looking to drop it even lower? to perhaps around 30? Reality is that football should be about all of the teams in the league not just the big two if you actually want anyone else to be remotely successful at home or abroad. 3 leagues of 16 teams plus the pyramid below it is and always has been my personal favourite. With an added 4-6 teams in the Premiership, you don't get that instant 'fighting relegation' mentality that most teams have to adopt, and perhaps you increase revenue and performance because of that, and maybe even have the ability to develop youth. If we take the current league tables and apply it ignoring promotion/relegation for a second, you get something like this. 4 teams into the Prem that would not be out of place or have been there before, a decent championship, and of course a new name for the league below as no reconstruction is ever good without some new names thrown around. Premiership: Celtic, Rangers, Aberdeen, Dundee Utd, Hibs, Hearts, St Mirren, Motherwell, Kilmarnock, County, Dundee, St Johnstone + Falkirk, Livi, Ayr, Partick Championship: Raith, Morton, Dunfermline, Queens Park, Airdrieonians, Hamilton, + Arbroath, Cove, QOS, Stenny, Alloa, Kelty, ICT, Montrose, Annan, Dumbarton National League: Peterhead, East Fife, Edinburgh, Elgin, Spartans, Stirling A, Clyde, Stranraer, Forfar, Bonnyrig, + Brora, Brechin, Banks O Dee from HL and East Kilbride, Caledonian Braves & Tranent from lowland league. (no B' teams allowed into main structure). Below that the pyramid continues to operate with a pathway to the main leagues for new and ambitious teams. Payment structure for league position must be fairer than the current system where teams finishing 1st and 2nd in Premiership take the lions share of all the sponsorship revenue. If the big two did want to reduce the number of games played, then why not play everyone just twice, once home and once away - that's 30 games and because you are not playing each other potentially 6 or 7 times a season between league and cups there is less opportunity for things to become stale. There is still the Scottish Cup and League Cup for everyone, and maybe for those teams not playing in Europe there could perhaps be an extra competition to make sure there are a few more games to make up for lost league games so they can generate some revenue. Perhaps a playoff system similar to MLS or based on Mexican Clausura or Apertura ... or, maybe just an expanded promotion and relegation playoff. I am sure better heads than mine could work it out. Regardless of the format, there has to be a way to give top end teams fewer domestic games (if that's their wish) while figuring out a way for other teams to be able to try and make ends meet with more games that will interest fans and generate some revenue. You are right - wages are insane. @Charles Bannerman has been blowing that particular trumpet on here for years and he is not wrong. I remember the days where £5000 a week was seen as a really high wage for a footballer (rather than a normal person). Thats around £250K per year and now some players are picking that up a week! Maybe not in most teams (or workplaces) around Scotland, but the wage structure globally impacts every league in the world. I don't believe Salary caps are the answer although there is one aspect of this in MLS that might have a nugget of an idea that could be applied. But I say with almost 100% certainty guarantee the 'haves' would not vote for it as it involves giving more money to the 'have nots'. In MLS there is a salary cap - google it if you need it explained or look here: https://www.mlssoccer.com/about/roster-rules-and-regulations - but the short-ish summary is that teams have just a little less than USD$6m per year to use on salary. They can have up to 3 DPs (Designated Players) and each one of those DPs is charged to the cap at a little less than $750K regardless of their actual wage. Its all very complicated and there are various ways to 'adjust' things so you can have multiple high paid players and still remain under the cap. Thats why each team tends to have what they call a "capologist" scrutinising every potential signing. Miami of course have Messi on $20m a year (not to mention Busquets, Suarez and Alba) and Toronto have Insigne on $15m per year (as well as Bernardeschi on $6m) but that's what rich clubs can do. Only $750K of that wage is counted against the cap, the rest is ignored in terms of calculating the cap hit. However, what it does create in many teams is a disparity or imbalance between the abilities and wages in the squad. MLSPA (Players association) publishes the player salary table twice per year : https://mlsplayers.org/resources/salary-guide and it makes eye watering reading. For TFC in 2024 we had 3 (DP) players above $1m then another 8 above $500K [3 of whom are not worth that], another 4 between $250K and $500K [all but one who we got rid of at the end of last season] and after that everyone else is below USD$250K with 7 players making the league minimum of USD$71.4K which in Toronto or most big North American cities is not a living wage. For Miami it is the same, Messi and Busquets make almost $30m between them, then surprisingly Suarez and Alba make just $1.5m with another two players over $1m. Yet they have 13 players getting less than $100K per year which is 2 DAYS of Messi's salary. (and that's before endorsements and apple TV royalties). The nugget that COULD be taken from the salary cap in MLS is one idea - which seems to have been omitted from recent documents so perhaps dropped as they adjusted the rules ahead of this season - is for teams who had 3 DPs to have to pay a 'tax' to the league for the privilege. Basically, teams were previously allowed 2DPs but when LA, NY, and Miami were squad building they pressured the league into allowing 3 DPs. Some teams like those mentioned as well as Toronto took advantage of this because they had the money. However, other teams are not quite so rich and stuck with two. Due to this MLS devised a plan whereby any team signing a 3rd DP must pay an additional fee to the league that was then re-distributed to teams who did not have a 3rd DP. That money was then added to their cap to allow them to sign better mid-level players under the cap. LA, NY, Miami and Toronto got nothing from this fund, but teams like Colorado or Salt Lake City got a share of this pot over and above other money from the league. Like I said though - can't see the wealthier clubs in Scotland agreeing to something like that if we agreed a similar payment that allowed them to go above the wage cap for a certain number of players, or for overall salary in the squad. They will no doubt argue that the Financial Fair Play rules already oversee this but that does nothing to help out the less wealthy teams, quite the opposite in fact.

Starting to read through it ... but first thing that jumps out to me is

Completely agree Thats how it works for me in Toronto. I am in a group that committed to season tickets in 2006, just after we got accepted into MLS but before we had an actual team, a manager, a stadium or even a formally agreed name. My price is still a little lower than people in my same section who have purchased in the last 5-10 years although the gap has narrowed. Getting a discount does work and in ICT's case could perhaps make you feel you belong again. There may be some residual irritation from some supporters at losing shares so language also matters and addressing season ticket holders as 'members' and giving a 'member discount' for continued season ticket renewals might be a way to hit two birds with one stone. I think the loss of revenue could easily be made up with merchandise, program, or food sales ... or from more profits in Bar 94 which seems to be doing well thanks to the ST. As much as administration was a hard slog and SG was almost universally despised within the ICT support, it has galvanised us. We are far closer to being a community again than we have at any point in the last 7 or 8 years, more willing to work together, and the club has got back to basics and seems less arrogant about everything.

I was responding to another thread when I was reminded that I had meant to post a little more about my son's training. As i noted above, he does it three times a week, plus we have him in a dedicated 'striker school' for the next 8 weeks, with one or sometimes two games during the week so he could potentially be playing or training 5-6 days a week in May and June. However, this is at a local (grass roots) club rather than the professional team (TFC). He was with "TFC Juniors" from age 5, which is the starting pathway to the professional academy, but they mothballed that program at the start of COVID and when they re-opened the youth training, the TFC academy now starts at age 14 with nothing below that. They recommend you go to a local grass roots club and the one we are at is affiliated to and has close ties with TFC but is not TFC. They all follow the same national training curriculum, and his club employs professional coaches, but this is where I think ICT actually do better than people give them credit for. The structure, framework and dedication of individuals is there, it just needs a bit more attention and maybe some resources to hopefully take it up a notch. Many teams are shutting down youth systems as a cost cutting measure but I am glad we are not one of them.

Yeah, BMO field is getting temporary stands for the World Cup to take it up from 30K to 45K. They are building a second tier above the supporters' section where i stand right now and also at the other end which is currently open as they need that for the longer field for the Toronto Argonauts (CFL). Hoping to get tickets on the back of being an inaugural season one TFC season ticket holder since 2006 but its FIFA not MLS doing ticketing and right now, they are punting tickets to those who buy Club World Cup tickets which seems to be failing miserably to sell on its own. I just want one or two games at BMO filed if I can afford it to say I have been 🙂 South End of stadium. Tier 2 would be brand new (and temporary). The ball shows my current season seats. https://www.bmofield.com/events/fifa26 https://www.bmofield.com/assets/doc/BMO-Field-Renovations-Renderings-March-3-535d66de4d.pdf My fear is that all the current issues will make people want to go to games in Canada or Mexico instead of USA and it's going to be nigh on impossible to get tickets. Public transit and traffic is a nightmare in this city and only going to get worse so if I dont get tickets I may head out of country for a month, organise to rent out my house, and use that to fund it 🙂 I started off going to see the Lynx @ Centennial Stadium in Etobicoke (near the airport) when I first moved over. Think of it like watching ICT from the Bught Park shinty stands. They were the only option, and they were really really bad as were some of the teams they played. I remember one team in particular because of the name ... the Rochester Raging Rhinos but they were quite good. Neither exist anymore however. Nowadays, if you dont want to go see TFC then you have York United or Hamilton Forge who are both Canadian Premier League teams in the Toronto area as well as a few other lower tier teams kicking around.

Please don't mention the 'T' word. All this 51st state nonsense is pretty raw over here ! Could also seriously derail next year's world cup which is concerning. Travel and future bookings to USA is reportedly down over 70% from Canada, Europe and UK mainly due to deportations and immigration detention horror stories and FIFA are reportedly worried because the major host is in a trade war with the two co-hosts and the rest of the world. Elon and Tangoman could teach our former custodians a thing or two about how to alienate folks and drop your company profits by 71% in less than 100 days, and also how to make a party that was losing in a landslide before DJT spoke up, win the general election held in Canada this week! Crazy times. // Tangoman for nostalgia 🙂 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqm-s6h8l1I

Yup - that one will do it for me. That was incredible. Administrator in that case of course was one Bryan Jackson, who was on the recent podcast talking about, well, Administration!

These are the kind of loans - where the players do well for us and go back to their parent club as better players - that work for everyone. Derek McInnes (and others) will no doubt be more willing to send players to us if that's the result he gets. The Alfies and the others also seemed to work out well, apart from the injury to Bavidge. I also liked that Savage mentioned in a recent comment about the club having paid for operations recently for players. Thats quite a turnaround from when we had a surgeon as an interim chairman and had to crowdfund surgery for Aaron Doran which was wrong on so many levels! All these little things do a lot of positive things to turn around the reputation we gained under the previous "guardians" of the club.

Took a week for my letter to arrive and I sent it back same day so maybe another week for it to get back to BDO. A tinge of sadness at giving up the shares but nothing compared to how I would feel if the club ceased to exist. The document asked for the share certificate and not sure if that would be a stumbling block as I am sure many may no longer have it. I have emigrated and moved house twice since that was issued so it is long gone or I put it in a place so safe that I cant recall where it is !! Yes, it is pretty blunt. I wonder if there are one or more of the larger shareholders pressing pause or taking a longer time to agree? There are close to 600 shareholders but really only a handful who matter in terms of percentage if we are brutally honest. My fear, and i mentioned it here before, if you set yourself a target of 100% then its probably not achievable. There are people on the list who are no longer with us and don't appear to have their name under "estate of ..." as well as a number of companies that are also no longer around as mentioned on the podcast. How do you get over that hurdle if your target is 100%. Is AS saying 100% but happy with 75 or 80 so he can literally make whatever changes he wants due to having the required percentage to change any and all articles of the club? Now that the shares are gone, then all I as an ICT supporter can do is watch from the sidelines and hope that AS continues to walk the walk that he has done for the last 6 months. That he does what he needs to do to get our the club back on its feet, and that when it comes time to seek investors that he does whatever due diligence is required to see if we can have more of a Wrexham situation than a Wrecks 'Em scenario with another Makwana type character. Still a few chapters left in this story methinks.

It is a tremendous achievement but not sure about it being one of the greatest escapes. Its certainly significant for us so we will perhaps view it that way .... Credit absolutely has to go to Kells and the lads though. He has done a sterling job, with a depleted squad and would have finished 2nd had it not been for the 15 point penalty, and the handicap of the efforts of the previous manager to take us down without the need for a points deduction. A quick google search reveals ... -15: Leeds United: Leeds started their 2007-08 League One campaign with -15 points after failing to comply with rules on insolvency but they still finished in the play-off places. -17: Bournemouth: A year on and the Cherries were hit with a similarly huge points deduction for the second consecutive season. This time it was to the tune of 17 because they were still in administration, but, miraculously, Eddie Howe kept them in League Two after taking the job in the middle of the season. -17: Rotherham: The Yorkshire outfit were handed the same punishment as Bournemouth in League Two but they too stayed up, with Mark Robins leading them to 14th. and then there is also Stevenage in 2019/2020 who stayed up due to COVID and other insolvency events with other clubs. Not strictly the same as recovering from points penalties, but similar. https://inews.co.uk/sport/football/stevenage-fc-relegation-escape-english-football-3361957 Important part is to (re-)build a solid foundation of fiscal responsibility and sustainability on the back of this. As Bryan Jackson noted on the podcast recently, we need to manage/modify our aspirations so that we can live within our means. pound in / pound out I think was the phrase used.

Thank you Dumbarton.

With Charlie as CEO and Savage in the hot seat, I think youth will once again regain and perhaps surpass its former position at ICT and that is a great thing as it will mean we not only develop local talent, but we also might just make a few quid when they go on to bigger things. Savage was prepared to fund/subsidise the youth system even when the previous CEO was still in place so I think that tells you how important it is to him and Charlie is a believer too especially as his own son came through it and look at how successful Ryan has been in recent years. Arguably the single most successful ICT player ever. With them at the helm, I am sure it is in safe hands and will hopefully go on an upward trend to further success. That success rubs off on other youth who want to be the next Ryan Christie, Cammy Harper or Keith Bray. If they see that the youth system gives them a pathway to professional football and they see that the club are once again interested in taking it seriously, then that in itself attracts youngsters and the process slowly builds momentum. Its not instant and thats where I think we all get impatient. It could take 10 years or more to get another decent crop of youngsters ... Sounds like ICT are doing their part with training 3 times per week and qualified coaches so here's hoping it pays off for us. As an aside - My own son is going through the Canadian equivalent at his club, training 3 nights a week, all year round (indoors in winter, outdoors again starting next week) and playing a competitive game on the weekend in either tier 1, 2 or 3. He started at tier 3, which is entry level for those selected for the competitive program, worked his way into the tier 2 team where he is now one of two or three rotating captains, and is knocking on the door of a regular spot in the tier 1 (elite) team for his age group (U12) after coming in to cover injuries and absences over winter. He has reached that level because he wants to do it but also because he has good professional coaches and a structure in place to develop youth. From U14 he hopes to get selected for the elite province wide system called OPDL which sees every club follow the same training processes (Ontario Professional Development League) and then onwards to Canada wide programs. All so he can realise his dream of emulating Ryan Christie in a Scotland shirt one day! Although he wants the #3 shirt. All that inspiration came from meeting Ryan at the stadium, training with the players on an open day and being mascot one time ...

Only bar I know that had Highland Park on optic just for the big man.

Sad to hear of the passing of any player, but one so young is even more tragic. RIP Wayne, condolences to family and close friends.

According to one of the inflation calculators you can find online, £250 back then is equivalent to around £498 now. I shudder when I think how little I was paid back then so it wasn't like it was just falling out of the wallet or back pocket ... I had to make sacrifices to buy them back then. Once I get my letter, I will let them go as its for the good of the club, just like the share purchase back then was too. However, some form of recognition, or commemorative (non-voting) share would be a nice gesture for those who are giving these up. It doesn't give us any money or influence, but I don't think thats what any of us want as we never had that in the first place. However, as you go down the list, those with more shares might think that something like that is a pretty hollow gesture and perhaps it is for those with a significant shareholding who maybe DID want (some) power or influence ... but of the 537 names listed in the document in the other thread a little under 85% of shareholders have 1000 shares or less with 261 having 250, and around 70 having either 500 or 1000 each.

back to the age old cliches though ... Over the years, how often have we heard that "On paper we have a great squad" or even here, the assertion that on paper the stats for SK look good. Regardless of this, the game is played on grass (real or fake) and the paper doesn't matter 🙂. Lets hope for 3 points in the next game and drawing ever closer to relegation playoff safety.

I have no point to push. I work with stats every day of the week and the one thing about stats is that, outside of the extremes, you can usually make them say whatever you want. I have no agenda to push for or against SK. I find his press conferences a breath of fresh air. I like that we seem to be winning more games under him, and have clawed back 15 points but I am also concerned that we have seemingly thrown away opportunities to grab points in winnable games without any real explanation why we blew hot one week and so cold the next. The stats suggest he is doing as good a job as many other managers, but you are right, it will all be for nought if we are relegated. His stats down a division are also not necessarily likely to be super high as we will have lower quality players in that lower division ... just like as we rise the divisions we have higher quality. Steve Paterson's stats over 325 games were all from the lower divisions, never the Premiership. Robbo had a lot of Premiership games but he also had higher level players. You will NEVER have a completely 'apples for apples' comparison for any team that has faced relegations, promotions, embargoes or any other kind of situation. What I personally take from the stats, and you are free to take your own conclusions from them, is that SK has made a good start in several areas but also that it is a small sample size compared to others. Until he reaches say 50 games the stats are open to interpretation. What does seem apparent however is that Richie Foran (46 games) and Duncan Ferguson (58 games) were by far our worst managers based on multiple KPIs.