Scotty

CaleyD's tweets can also be seen on our Live Commentary page: http://caleythistleonline.com/live-commentary

Excellent point, advertising could make this site a tidy sum certainly a lot more than any donation i personally could make and you base this assumption on what exactly ? I dont think we actually complained about running costs? You started this thread not us. We have simply answered your actual question which was why we didnt leave all threads open to guests. The fact that one of the reasons we choose to display the site the way we do is to do with the cost of bandwidth is immaterial. We are not out with the begging bowl to users, we do not ram our 'sponsor member' option down people's throats and we do not routinely moan that the site is expensive to run ... it may be mentioned from time to time in response to a question as to why we may or may not be able to do something, but its not a constant whine. Advertising is an option but its a little difficult for me to get round local businesses in Inverness to try and source it and the simple fact is that online advertising budgets for most smaller companies are not huge. We chose to use Google ads because we can have some adverts that - as mentioned before - cover a decent portion of our operating costs, and we can keep them less obtrusive than advertising on other sites. Dont get me wrong, if some big company came along and offered us cash to sponsor the site we would definitely consider it ...we are not totally philanthropic ! I kind of take a little umbrage to the "Profits could be re-invested in improving the site or donations made directly to ICT" comment ..... We constantly improve this site .... read the post further up the page where I have described some of our evolution .... the site now compared to 15, 10, 5 or even 2 years ago is far different and IMHO far better than it was before because we invest in the site. We have moved from free hosting to shared hosting and now to VPS hosting, we have evolved from a guestbook to a rudimentary forum, to free forum software to a commercial grade forum, we have moved from static pages to basic content systems to a full content management system, we have moved from one person running and writing everything to having a team of individuals running, moderating, and writing articles (and I have to say that the quality of preview/report articles has increased vastly this season from when I might throw something together). We also respond to 'bug' reports from our members faster than most commercial sites I am a member of. As for donations .... the Internutters sponsorship started as a CTO sponsorship. I personally sponsored Grant Munro for a few years before turning it over to the group effort that Guzz now runs, and we underwrite it, vowing to make up any shortfall when we are in between one sponsorship goal and the next one. Even now whilst perhaps not making a monetary donation to ICT both myself and CaleyD have and continue to donate resources and time to help the club with various projects. For example, the bandwidth we are all talking about at the moment hosts the videos of all the matches that are shown on the club website and we process all the footage for the club so it can be streamed online. Thats just one thing, there are plenty of others.

I think so if you mean "major" competitions (ie - league, Scottish Cup, League Cup, Challenge Cup etc.) but they may have faced ICT before in some of the lesser things (Inverness Cup, North of Scotland Cup and all that lot). Not 100% sure though. We've faced you in the North of Scotland cup final, but it was a youth team that Caley put out that day, so we could probably discount that. This will be the first meeting between the two clubs in a national competition. This is indeed the first meeting between the sides in a senior competitive fixture (league or cup). This also completes the 'full set' for Caley Thistle as Elgin were the only team in Scottish league football that we have never faced in any competition.

If technology is the problem, and I agree it is at least partially to blame, then surely some aspect of it can also be part of the solution ? That would be a whole other debate and technology was only one part of my suggestion ... obviously, if it were ever considered it would have to be looked at, discussed and considered by people who hopefully have a clue ! Agreed We could always approach FIFA/UEFA and volunteer to be guinea pigs if they subsidise it !! Lots of rumblings about it during and after the World Cup so something in this vein will eventually happen and the trickle down effect will mean it does affect us. I can see UEFA mandating it for Champions League at some point in the distant future and then maybe some of the big leagues taking it in and eventually it would become another part of the licensing criteria in the same way as stadiums are graded .... For individual leagues they would need to decide in the same way as there are stadium and infrastructure criteria ..... Referees are at every game .. can their eyesight always be relied upon? I am not suggesting its use as a substitute, merely that it might be something to consider as an aid where it is available or possible. No, but just like stadium or infrastructure criteria, the simple fact is that the higher the league, the more it will be mandated. Perhaps not fair, but just the way it is. I resemble that remark ... well except he kid part ! I agree that it has done nothing to improve football, but technology does not have to make it sterile. I would not advocate an American (NFL) style of replay that stops the game for minutes on end, rather something that enhances the referees instant decision making ability. I dont know the answer, just feel that there may be something we can find to help the refs deal with the Reids and Lennons of this world. Agreed Think Bill Leckie said it best ... the only thing that this strike will achieve is to send a message to certain clubs via their wallets .... a re-arranged fixture in midweek will take in far less money. Other than that it will not change anything. I tend to agree but unfortunately its never gonna happen.

Tend to agree with that..... but there is more than enough blame to be spread around in this complete cluster**** Dougie McDonald actually got the decision right so I am not sure what the hell he was thinking in lying to Lennon. I see no issue with the referee conferring with his assistant ... thats why we call them assistants now and not just linesmen !!! The problem is that for some reason he chose to lie about the discussion and that reduces his credibility to zero. I would even go as far as to say it brings the game into disrepute as both managers deserve the right to have controversial decisions explained to them and referees have, for too long, denied them that right. Saying nothing - or maybe telling the truth - would have been a better course of action in this instance. Lennon and Reid are also bang out of order. It is nothing short of bullying and their actions put pressure on every single official now and in the future. Lennon seems to have been having a right go at refs from the start of the season and for the Chairman to comment on it at the Club's AGM is also ridiculous. I would say that they too are guilty of bringing the game into disrepute. The associations - be it referees or SFA - also have a part to play. The refs association should have dealt with McDonald and should not have allowed Craven to be hung out to dry. for Craven to make allegations of bullying and harassment from within his own organisation is troublesome in the extreme. The SFA/SPL are also guilty of inaction in that they could have warned, fined or otherwise dealt with officials of their own member clubs who were crossing the line and taking the abuse to another level. All in all its a 'perfect storm' of ineptitude, lack of integrity, and bully bhoy tactics that has led us here. So how to get out of it ??? Refs have to be more open. I even experienced it in my amateur days, where refs would hide behind their 'it will all be in my report' statement, and as they were still empowered to include stuff after the game, even a polite request for information could sometimes elicit an after match booking for a player or official !!! That is wrong. Refs should be allowed to explain decisions to managers after a game, and managers should be allowed to ask about them. If it is done civilly then there is no issue and there should be no threat of disciplinary action unless it is warranted. Referee reports cannot be deemed to be 'gospel' anymore. The game could be live on TV and the sky could be blue and the weather sunny and thousands of people might have been able to testify to that, but if the ref said in his report that it was snowing, the SFA would take that as fact over everything else. Again, I have seen it in amateur football where we had to give the referees report a 100% weighting over any other evidence to the contrary. That is wrong. It is what it is and if the refs report is wrong, and provably so, it should be disregarded. The SFA/SFL/SPL have to come up with a code of conduct for club officials ... and quickly. I do not think officials should be gagged but by the same token they should not be allowed to go off on one like Reid/Lennon. There is a happy medium somewhere where officials should be able to say there were decisions they didnt agree with but that they would be discussed through the proper channels .... with the proper channels perhaps being an independent group made up of refs, officials, players, ex-players so all views could be covered .... It would not change anything for any individual match, but perhaps by actually discussing it rather than shouting from opposite poles there might be some common ground and common sense to be found and lessons learned for future matches. and finally ... maybe it is time to look at modern day technology ??? I dont want to see the game stopped for long periods any more than anyone else but perhaps there is something less intrusive to the game that could be employed? Would a '5th' official dedicated to watching the game on a monitor and the ability to instantly rewind and view controversial decisions be a compromise? I can do it on my own TV in half a second so there would not be much if any delay and if refs have earpieces it would be easy enough for the 5th man to say 'inside the box', 'outside the box', 'gimme a sec, looks like a penalty', 'so and so elbowed this one off the ball' etc etc etc. As all incidents would be recorded, decisions could later be shown to be correct ! PS - the malaise is not confined just to Scotland. MLS refs are bad too ... and in Toronto there is a huge screen at one end of the ground showing every piece of the action live .... the refs are instructed NOT to look at it after blowing the whistle. I guess they are not allowed to change their decisions based on seeing what actually happened either ... just got to go with their own decisions !

and all those fans were registered ..... I cannot think of any forum where 'guests' can post. Its a sad fact that almost any forum that has done that is filled up almost immediately with porn and viagra spam messages .... (have a look at our old SportNetwork forum now it is unprotected) its also why - when users are registering - we ask them to click a link in their email to verify the account exists. These are known security issues facing forums and pretty much standard procedure if you want it to be remotely safe. This is not to stifle our own users, it is to protect the site from all the crap that is out there constantly trying to find ways to get into forums all over the place so they can post this stuff. We tend to get about 6-10 attempts PER HOUR from known bots trying to login to the site and luckily, with one exception I think, our security has proved to be up to scratch. One thing about us is that we never spam our users !!! In your profile there is an option to receive mail from the site administrators or not and any time we have sent out bulk mail for one reason or another, we have respected the option chosen in that field by users.

the site IS open to all ... you just have to register. However, leaving the semantics of 'open to all' or 'guest' versus 'member' aside, the simple answer is no, there is no evidence to suggest we would generate more revenue with one model over the other. Other than Google we do not have any paid advertisers and our Google income is pretty much unaffected by raw pageviews. Like every other site - P&B included - we cater to a fairly narrow 'niche' market (in our case, ICT fans, in P&B's case, fans of all teams) and whilst it is appealing to some advertisers, it does not have the same draw for others ..... We are not running CTO as a profit making exercise so this lack of advertising doesnt really bother us too much. If we can make most of our hosting costs back via Google Ads and supplement that with the odd bit of sponsorship or donations here and there we are quite happy. We prefer to use CTO as our own marketing tool to showcase the work we can do for other clients who come to us for web design help or projects.

That doesnt even cover the hosting D !!!

I believe the word you are looking for is classless ! Maybe not the man himself, but certainly the publicist or PR folk promoting it ! [maybe even more classless than gleefully announcing your departure from the club you just agreed a contract with on a 2nd rate TV show]

I am a dozy fecker. Having looked deeper, these are the SFA numpties that are their to make sure the refs do their jobs properly! I think I need someone like that next to me at the PC! No worries !!! I am sure the idea of seeing Terry Christie running up and down the field at Celtic Park wearing his duffle coat gave us all a chuckle

thought as much :)

Wouldnt argue on the marketing side !!! It basically was not marketed at all until the final few weeks .... and with the dream final of Beckham's LA Galaxy and Thierry Henry and the Red Bulls out of the picture, it fell a bit flat ..... colorad-who? and Dull-as? not exactly a big draw ! MLSE (the owners of TFC) decided that this game would form part of next season's season ticket package and thereby be guaranteed 18,000 sold tickets. That left a little over 3100 tickets to actually sell to Colorado, Dallas, and casual fans. they thought season seat holders would suck it up and selling the rest would be a breeze so no marketing was done by them. However, they got it all wrong ... they announced next year's season ticket prices and it came as a real shock to everyone. First there was this ticket (premium game - double the price, and mandatory if you wanted a season ticket next season), then there was an extra couple of league games added to the fixture list (with Vancouver and Portland joining MLS next season), and on top of that the Canadian Championship games (V Montreal and Vancouver) and the opening rounds of the Concacaf Champions league (which they have to actually qualify for by winning the Canadian Championship !!!). All in all, it means my season ticket price has increased by 116% in 5 years !!! There was a fans backlash, talk of boycotts of the final, talks of boycotting of merchandise and concessions stands etc .... MLSE were stunned into action !!! After many hastily arranged meetings with supporters groups, they relented on some of the stuff - made the season opener a free game, dropped the concacaf tickets (which is silly because if we qualify we will all buy anyway), and a couple of other things ... but many at last night's game simply didnt want to be there ! I went hoping for a decent game of football and to be fair there were periods of the game where it was just that ... but equally, for a lot of it, it was crap. Then the ref - the most notorious one in MLS - decided it was once again going to be all about him and that killed it until extra-time. Extra time was a bit more exciting but due to transit issues and people having work the next day it was no shock that the ground started to empty early (if you can class 11PM early). MLS in general (and TFC's owners MLSE) do know how to put on an event, they do know how to promote events and trust me, having spoken with quite a few of the officials at one of the meetings i mentioned above, they DO 'get' football even if their bosses might not ... they just got complacent on this one and paid the price. The most telling thing for me at the meeting I went to was the CEO of MLSE (Maple Leafs Sport & Entertainment), which owns the Toronto Maple Leafs (NHL), Toronto Raptors (NBA), Toronto Marlies (AHL), Air Canada Centre, Leafs TV, Raptors TV and GOL TV as well as TFC turning round to us and apologising to fans for this mess .... He said that the (TFC) organisation has a lot of 'football' guys but until that night he, 'as boss of the whole damn group', didnt realise that football fans in Toronto were any different to fans of their other teams .... Hockey & Basketball fans take price increases and stupid 'buy this to get that' rules on the chin every year without complaint .... football fans, he now realises are somewhat different. Add to that that Toronto is actually a very diverse city with literaly hundreds of nationalities here and the average 'soccer' fan in Toronto is actually quite sophisticated and knowlegeable.

Oh well .... that was an interesting evening !!! Absolutely shattered today though !!! Up until the end of normal time it was a pretty crap game but extra time livened it up. FT 1-1, then in extra time Colorado scored, and then held off Dallas to win the Cup and with it the 2010 MLS Championship. Referee was one Baldomero Toledo who would have John Reid and Neil Lennon reaching for the shotguns ! The game was set to kick-off at 8:30PM (we assume because MLS had predicted a Los Angeles (Beckham) -V- New York (Henry) final and did a late start to please the west coast TV people. I guess they didnt envisage an outcome that had LA and NY crashing and burning in the playoffs and Colorado and Dallas contesting the final. However, due to whatever NFL game was being covered on the same ESPN channel running over, the kickoff was delayed until 9PM. With various delays in starting and a half-time break that was only "approximately" 15 minutes it meant the 90 minutes werent up until close to 11pm. 30 minutes of extra time followed and it seemed to take forever to start. Coupled with this there were a few minutes at the HT of ET and inexplicably about 2 or 3 minutes added at the end by Mr Toledo (probably hoping Dallas would score) and it was near midnight by the time we rolled out of there .... a 75 minute bus/subway/bus journey home meant I got in about 1:30AM and was up at 5:30AM ! Have to say that the Colorado fans we met pre-game in our normal watering hole were a pretty decent bunch and most TFC fans were supporting that side over Dallas. Dallas have a player called Jeff Cunningham who was once at TFC and did precisely nothing while managing to upset the supporters ... we dont like him. Colorado on the other hand have Marvell Wynne in their side. Marvell played at TFC for 3 seasons until Mo Johnston traded him to Colorado. A move that neither he or the fans wanted ... so he got a huge cheer on the night. SPL conection to last night's game (other than me wearing my ICT shirt) .... in the starting lineup for Colorado was one Jamie Smith, formerly of Celtic & Aberdeen and previously a trialist at Toronto !

Colorado 2-1 Dallas :)

FT 1-1. Now in extra time. Crap game. Some of us have work in the morning :/

57 mins. Former TFC striker Conor Casey makes it 1-1

Dallas go 1-0 up !!! :(

Jeff Cunningham !!!!!!!! PS. ICT represented !!! Got my shirt on tonight !!

Sitting here at BMO field in Toronto for the MLS Cup final. Colorado -V- Dallas. Supporting Colorado as everyone hates Dallas !!!!!

I keep thinking back to my days in the amateur leagues ..... I ran a team, occasionally played (when they were desperate), and was also on the committee of the Inverness & District AFA. At every meeting we had to deal with disciplinary stuff after the main meeting finished. Most of it was mundane stuff, but on the few occasions that anything came up that included referee abuse - either verbal or in one case physical - it was manadated from above (the SAFA, and by extension, the SFA) that we had to come down on it like a ton of bricks. The referee report was 'gospel' and unquestionable, even if (as happened on one occasion) it could be shown to be at the very least 'inconsistent' with other witnesses (from both sides). If we went soft on any decision involving referees it would be turned over at Park Gardens (at the time), they would impose a harsher penalty, and we (the committee) would get our own warning from the beaks !!! I have been there when full season bans were given out to players or officials for stuff that seemed innocuous by today's standards and I have heard other stuff from down the road (Glasgow area) where people got 'sine die' lifetime bans. It alway seemed to me that punishment in the amateur leagues was far far harsher than in the professional leagues ..... perhaps we do need to crack down on managers and players who either abuse the refs or who by their words maybe incite some of the less intelligent fans to take action like scratching cars, breaking windows or uttering threats ..... However, by the same token, the refs also need to get their own house in order .... they need to be transparent, they need to explain decisions, and they need to engage both fans and officials on an equal basis rather than clamming shut and relying solely on referee reports. They are not infallible, they have a split second to make decisions using eyesight alone, none of the technical wizardry available to pundits or tv companies, and they can get it wrong. If they can admit that, and be open about things perhaps they would get less of a hard time !!! As for Dougie McDonald. Its cut and dried as far as I am concerned, He officiated a game and lied about a decision. It doesnt matter why, it now puts all his past and future decisions under the microscope and makes his position untenable. If the referees association chose to expel him rather than back him up, the other referees would not get such a hard time as it would show they were prepared to get their own house in order rather than close ranks.. - where did that whistleblower site go ? -

We have already expanded the site ........ it gets bigger every year. When we were on Freeserve (independent site) = everything free. 1/2 million page views a year roughly. When we were on Rivals (part of network) = everything free. 1.2 million page views was our record. When we were on SportNetwork (part of network) = everything free. We increased up to about 3-4m page views per year. When we moved to our own ('shared') hosting = we paid for hosting + domain name(s), everything else free. 6m page views in our first year. When we outgrew our free forum software we purchased the commercial IPB package and now pay a yearly maintenance fee for it which allows us to have access to tech support and upgrades. This is on top of our other costs such as domain names and other software or licenses we use on the site. Our 'shared' hosting offered 'unlimited' bandwidth but in reality this was not true - slowness/errors is the usual result of a big site on shared hosting as you have seen more recently. When we outgrew shared hosting (recently) we moved to VPS hosting which is significantly more expensive and has metered bandwidth. If we go over our allowance we are charged a premium for every Mb over it that we use. That is the potted history of our site and it is one of the primary reasons why we choose to allow only registered users to chew up our bandwidth ... as stated above, it is a two minute process to register and there is no cost involved so I do not see it as a barrier to expansion or growth and our site stats bear this up. Current page views on track for between 8 and 9 million this year. Goin back to the 'brand' ..... It is not our role to expand the ICT brand worldwide, and even though I feel we have actually done a significant portion of that role over the years, that responsibility lies with the club. We have never turned down a request for assistance from them and continue to work with them on a number of future plans where we may be able to assist, but until or unless the costs are not coming out of our own pockets, the forum will stay as it is. As the original question has now been answered quite openly and fully, I think this thread may have run its course (for now)......

If only we could get his contract negotiating talents as well !!! Here son, its a standard 15 year YTS contract

Login and set it to 'remember you'. Depending on browser/cookie options you will not have to login again if you visit within 7 days of your last login

It is on another thread but I am on a mobile right now so can't point you to it. No online shop right now but as far as I know that should be rectified in the next week or two.

Sensible question actually. Which deserves a sensible answer. Simple answer is BANDWITH. We pay for the amount of bandwidth we use and now that we have moved to VPS hosting instead of 'shared' we pay 5 times the amount we used to !!!! For that reason, and because we pay this cost out of our own pockets, we restrict the display of full threads to registered and logged in members to save that precious bandwidth. If someone is so interested in seeing what is written they can surely spare a couple of minutes to register? Registration is, always has been, and always will be FREE.