Scotty

and this explains why Mantis is a senior moderator Happy Birthday Old Yin

TFC repeated as Canadian Chapionees today with a 2-1 victory over Vancouver. CONCACAF Champions League now ....... Jaoa Plata the star for TFC

The standard is improving all the time but its not consistent yet ...... but I do like how MLS is trying to ensure growth at both ends of the scale On the youth and home-grown player front ... you must have an academy to build your youth programme, you must have a certain number of "domestic" players in your squad and there are incentives for having young players in your squad ("generation Adidas" players) by not having their wages count against the salary cap. It means, in the long term that MLS will become self-sustaining and a net developer (exporter) of talent for both USA and Canada. On the "international" side, they also seek to allow those players but also to limit the numbers, which is good as the influx of over the hill, former legends on stupid wages is what killed the previous attempt at a serious football league on this side of the pond. Teams can use up a limited number of "international" slots on their squad for anyone who is not Canadian or American but also have up to 3 designated players and these are usually "superstars" from Europe or South America. Only a portion of the wage counts to the salary cap so the club can pay them basically as much as they want .... The first and second DPs are normal spots, but the 3rd DP spot - if actually used by a team - means that team must pay a $250,000 luxury tax to the league which is split amongst teams without any DPs .... kind of balancing the financial books. Looking round the league ... you have Beckham at LA along with Landon Donovan and Juan Pablo Angel; Thierry Henry at New York alongside Rafael Marquez (and likely a new one coming in the next week or two since they traded DeRosario to DC United); Julian DeGuzman at Toronto and now Frings and Koevermans joining him. There are others around the league too like Fredy Montero, Omar Bravo, Eric Hassli, David Ferreira, and a few more ..... I have seen TFC play LA on a few occasions so have had the pleasure of watching Beckham and regardless of what anyone says, the guy DOES still have it. He can ping a ball 50 yards to the feet of the person he is aiming for (just like Bobby Mann ) and his skill is definitely not waning. Same goes for Thierry Henry ... he is a higher class than many teams can put out, but its good to watch and can only develop the league further. Toronto FC are terrible this year. We have a new coach - Aron Winter - who is sticking with plans to make TFC play a 4-3-3 "total football" formation but we dont have the players to achieve it..... YET. At times the team looks good and its a joy to watch, but at other times its bloody painful. Due to the rules of MLS the coach cannot make wholescale changes the way he would like to so the signing of Frings and Koevermans is another chess move as he tries to get his pieces setup ...... once it works (and I am sure it will) it is going to be good to watch .......

This might work for interviews and such like but the rules about match footage mean they can only be displayed on a domain owned by the club. That is why we helped them set it up on ictfc.com and why they would likely continue to put all their videos out on that same site. I know they do want to expand the service but in all honesty, its a case of teaching them to walk before teaching them to run. ICT and technology do not always go well together but its getting there ......

to answer your edits ..... 3. I would imagine this will not be a problem once the season gets up and running. lots of blue arsed flies right now both at the club and at CTO but we will keep it in mind. 4. Yup, another good suggestion. We do have a history section on here and other details but this sounds quite good.

noted. will pass this along and perhaps shoot an email to AndyCAM if he doesnt read it here first That is in the works. The squad/fixtures pages for next season will be getting provided by a well known third party ...... US ! We will be sharing our stats, fixtures and other similar pages with the club and in return we will get better information from them within the profiles etc. Its one instance where we are working together for the greater good! Good idea. will pass it along its been mentioned a few times over the years but not sure how viable it might be given the cost. I know they were inside for a long time but as the staffing levels grew and more office space was needed they kinda got pushed out, first to the window area at reception with the stock held in Charlie's office, then to the front desk and finally out to the cabin. Would love to see it as part of the stadium but just dont know where they could put it that would make sense. Intrigued by this one ... feel free to send me a PM if you just dont want to put it here (for now)

Maguire is under 23 (22), Rooney is not - so its a free is it not 24, and he is 24? but wasnt his contract expired at the end of may so was a free agent and wasnt tied to us? It was 24, but now its 23 .... its all quite complicated .... see page 59 onwards of this FIFA document (if you can be bothered ) regulationsstatusandtransfer2010_e.pdf

sure - no worries ... We'll get Bobby and his Mann boobs as the first one !

A couple of big signings for Toronto yesterday ...... Werder Bremen captain, and former German International, Torsten Frings comes to TFC as a designated player, as does Danny Koevermans who comes from PSV Eindhoven ..... neither can play until July 15th though as the MLS transfer window doesnt open until then. We beat Vancouver last night which was also a bonus .... but we play them again on Saturday in a different competition so hopefully do the double over them.

Sorry, I have to totally disagree with you on this one ...... not the point you are making about innovation, which is valid, but the assumption that it is as easy as it is made out to be or that the club are not listening ..... First and foremost, running a website costs money. There is hosting, domain names, software and all sorts of other costs .... I know what it costs to run this one and thankfully through donations and our adverts we almost tick over. However, unlike a commercial website, neither myself or Don take "a wage" and between us we are on here pretty much most of the time tweaking and sorting things that can and do go wrong. When you get to an official site (any official site) then you are taking it to the next level as the expectations are indeed higher. You need staff, staff need paid, you need people to sell ads to try and recoup the costs, they need paid too. If you want video/audio/commentary etc you are ramping up to yet another level as you not only need to pay for the equipment (and possibly the staff) but you also need to pay for additional storage space to hold the files and then the biggie ... bandwidth costs. The videos we host for the club are - on average - about 75Mb each. If you play it in full, thats 75Mb bandwidth ... multiply that by 38 videos a season and maybe 200 or 300 views (at a conservative estimate) and thats 570,000 Mb, not to mention the bandwidth used to upload them in the first place so maybe 600 or 700 Gb of bandwidth on videos alone. to run all this audio and video you are talking some serious coin and quite likely dedicated or at least VPS servers .... the most basic VPS server on a reliable host runs at about $500 per year but depending on how much memory, bandwidth, storage, and processing power you require you can be talking $100, $200 or even $300 per month I hear what you say about volunteers, and yes, AndyCAM has always been willing to go and do stuff for free as others might be too .... and that is to be encouraged, but no matter how many volunteers you have there will always be some infrastructure or other staffing needed and thats what costs the coin! I wonder what the average crowd is at Birmingham? and how much easier it is to add a couple of media guys into the revenue model that the club generates? not so easy at ICT !!! As to the "Gordys" .... no idea, but I can tell you that the vast majority of my dealings in the recent past have been with Kenny Cameron and he does not fit that profile. I have known KC for many years and he is definitely customer focused, will listen to ideas, and if they sound good or add value to the fan experience without being out of proportion in terms of cost, will definitely consider them. Both myself and Don are working with him and the club to improve the online offerings (as you will have seen on ICTFC.com over the last season where we added the videos and the shop) and there is more to come on that front including regular Twitter posts, a Facebook page and hopefully more additional features on ictfc.com ..... so from that viewpoint, I would like to turn the thread around and say back to you guys .... ok, some think it is not that good right now, and I would agree that many aspects of it could certainly be improved so NAME the 5 things or features you want to see on this site, the official site, or on ictfc.com and we will either do it ourselves (if it is not impractical for some reason) or if better served via the official site we will liaise with the club to see if some can go on on ictfc.co.uk or on ictfc.com ...........

Maguire is under 23 (22), Rooney is not - so its a free

Sad to have lost him, but happy he has gone to a decent side !!!! I especially liked this comment on the signing ..... "After joining Yeovil on loan in 2007 Rooney had temporary stints at both Chesterfield and Bury, but it was on moving north of the border in the summer of 2008 that he really started to register on the radar." TB should save that article to show to prospective signings !!!

Automatically generated message This topic has been closed by a moderator. Reason: closed as requested. not really a headline. more of a personal matter for the player. If you disagree with this action, please report this post, and the moderator team will review it.

Dont think he is hiding a secret illness !!!! He was ill last year and required hospital treatment, that much we know because its in the public domain. Bottom line, for me is that it is a personal matter and I know several people who know what the illness is/was (including the manager) and thats all we really need to know. Not sure if the Courier are going into personal details of the illness, but its not anything worthy of a headline IMHO .....

what a gurny handsome bunch

Thanks Dargo20 ... appreciated

yup Caleyjag - I would agree. The article sounded like JJ (quite rightly) has no sympathy for what the player did and is basically stuck between a rock and a hard place. the Club "management" have decided to keep the player on but it would seem that the Team management (and some players) dont want that. The solution .... seems that JJ will reluctantly hold on to him, but as the article suggests, is unlikely to let him anywhere near the 1st team. I predict JJ will be gone by Xmas as his hand will be forced in the 'team selection' way you suggest. JJ is a principled man and I would like to think he would not give in to that particular 'edict' if it were issued so a resignation or sacking may follow .......

should be a place for comments when submitting on paypal site. no worries though, managed to figure out the payment against your email address.

see here:

guess we wont hear unless something can be worked out .... would be good to have him back

read a few things today ....... biggest one for me was the article quoting Jefferies saying the player was going to get abuse and pretty much deserved it !!! Also talked about his battle to get back into the team and reading between the lines I would say that the player will not take to the pitch again if Jefferies has anything to do with it ..... http://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/scotsol/homepage/news/3660885/Sex-shame-star-faces-fans-hatred.html