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Scotty

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Posts posted by Scotty

    Gardyne

    in Rumour Mill

    Posted

    Ok, as much as I have also heard the same rumour, and it may be confirmed as fact in the near future ... because there is no official word or source I have moved this to the rumour mill for now. 

     

     

    • Like 1

    Drummin' up support for the team

    in Caley Thistle

    Posted

    If we take the concept rather than any of the individuals - past or present - out of the discussion then the best place for a noisy section is right behind the goals. Look at a lot of clubs and with only a few exceptions, the loudest and most raucous sections are right there. Not only does it fire up our players, but it can also be distracting to the opposition when defending their own goal.  Looks good on TV too when we score at our own end and there is a load of celebrating fans. 

     

    I can only go back to my Toronto experience for this kind of thing and we have had - from day 1 - a 'supporters section'. This started off as two sections of one of the stands, but is now an entire stand at the south end of BMO Field. Expanding it did involve moving people but they had the option to stay or to be relocated. Most stayed as it is the cheapest stand in the stadium, and in that entire section fans are encouraged to stand, wave flags, make noise etc. I've had my season ticket in here since 2007 and its brilliant.  (Pre-Covid) It was always full, people trying to sneak in and join the fun, and although somewhat self-policing there are also rules with consequences. Some of the supporters groups have fallen foul of those rules and people were kicked out, even arrested and/or banned, but on the whole the different supporters groups work with the club to stick within the rules. It took work, but the drums came in as did controlled smoke (as opposed to early attempts by fans to use road flares!) ... Nowadays, the players are even involved and after a victory you will often see them come down to the South end, pull the drum out of the crowd and one of the players will lead the 'viking chant' (another Motherwell reference I guess) while banging the drum. Even in a stadium with close to 30K fans, the players always say how important it is to them to have that South end being raucous and loud .... the rest of the stadium is not silent but sitting (and by extension sweetie rustling) tends to tone down the atmosphere in those sections.  I've had a few ICT supporting friends at TFC over the years and they all commented on the atmosphere! 

    As for using bad language to justify not putting a supporters section behind the goal or away from a family section (in the past), I always thought that was wrong. Its a football game, not church, so you expect to hear some colourful language. I have been taking my son to TFC since he was about a year old ... I try to minimise my bad language when he is with me (or when I see other kids around) but unless someone is getting really foul mouthed on a constant basis then I am not going to get upset .... he hears the same thing on the school playground. 

     

    Fans Focus Group

    in Caley Thistle

    Posted

    2 hours ago, Kingsmills said:

    Which should be treated with caution given that the last such rumour was without foundation.

    Whatever legitimate criticism can be levelled at the club for poor communication, they cannot and should not be expected to spend time commenting on every baseless rumour.

     

    I agree they should not need to comment on any baseless rumours .... but once those rumours reach a critical mass and are coming from multiple directions, then it needs to be addressed. Our club - like almost any football club - is a sieve when it comes to keeping info and gossip quiet or secret. Too many people who want to share their "knowledge" whether it is true or not.

    We are not exactly renowned for our communication skills and the original question earlier in this thread about minutes from more than 2 months ago is indicative of that. Either commit to communication, or do not ... I've been through that a few times over the decades where various combinations of the club, ourselves and at times, the media all collaborated to have regular bi-directional communication channels with supporters which started well and then tailed off, always on the club side .... and this feels very much like deja-vu. 

     

     

    Where is it going wrong?

    in Caley Thistle

    Posted

    1 hour ago, FrontRow said:

    Looks fairly clear as to what the problem was. No matter how good an individual is the team is what wins the game. 

    If there is a problem with an individual then its as simple as it has always been. no-one is (or ever has been) bigger than the team and they have to go unless management can resolve the issue internally. We don't need to know the details, even if we want to, especially if they are salacious, but they need to handle it and communicate that, even if its a simple one line sentence saying its been dealt with internally, or that someone has had a contract terminated by mutual consent etc. 

    We are still right up there in the league and an internal problem festering from within can derail that pretty quickly .... We have seen that before, and I have seen that this year with Toronto FC ... [League runners up last year despite playing all games behind closed doors in Florida, to 2nd bottom of the entire two division table this year ... 2 coaches in a season, 3 designated players who hardly saw any game time together, and the highest payroll in the entire league ...  rumours of disfunction in the dressing room after the 1st manager suspended one of the fan favourites and the replacement manager reinstated him after he took over. A season where many of the players just looked like they were going through the motions] ....  I dont want that to happen at ICT so whatever the issue is then get it sorted, one way or another and move on.  

    • Like 1
    • Agree 1

    Scotland

    in General Football

    Posted

    So the 6 seeded teams are : Portugal, Scotland, Italy, Russia, Sweden and Wales . The 6 unseeded teams are : Ukraine, Turkey, Poland, North Macedonia, Austria and Czech Republic . My prediction for the 3 x 4 team groups .... given that these always seem to have some level of political intrigue and regional bias 

    • Portugal / Italy / Turkey / North Macedonia - POR-v-TUR, ITA-v-NMA
    • Scotland / Wales / Austria / Czech Republic - SCO-v-AUS, WAL-v-CZR
    • Russia / Sweden / Ukraine / Poland - RUS-v-UKR, SWE-v-POL

    Any way you slice and dice it, it will be a hard game or two and other teams may feel they want us as the weakest seed in their group! 

    Scotland

    in General Football

    Posted

    1 hour ago, Kingsmills said:

    Being a Scotland fan is not quite the ordeal it used to be.

    Its nice to see us reaching the Euros and now getting into the playoffs ... its not that long ago that our interest in the qualifiers died completely after 2 or 3 matches when we knew we would finish 3rd at best in a group ... Here's hoping we can do well against the Danes and our eventual playoff opponents. 

    My dream -- for Scotland to qualify for the 2026 World Cup in USA/Canada/Mexico and for them to be based in Canada and facing Canada (or anyone for that matter) at BMO Field in Toronto!  [no divided loyalties - Kilt and Scotland top are stored for just such an occasion]

     

     

    • Like 1

    Happy Halloween

    in Caley Thistle

    Posted

    5 hours ago, IBM said:

    I totally agree in the old days we used to make our own costumes and you got nuts and a toffee apple :wink: now it's costumes bought from the shops and you get sweets and money :ohmy: 

    Yup, its a big deal over here .... We had literally no-one last year and a big sign on the door saying 'sorry' due to COVID so this year the kids were out in force ... must have been 200+ came to the door in the space of about 90 minutes before we totally ran out of stuff to give out. But we did keep some back for the little guy who didn't want to go out himself. 

    A few photos from this afternoon before it got dark ... and one of the pumpkin i carved earlier which just had the equivalent of a pound store multi-coloured tea light in it. To me it looked more impressive that a couple of animatronic things we had (ghost and spider) but was the cheapest decoration we had ! 

    front.jpg front2.jpgfront3.jpgside.jpgbackyard.jpgpumpkin.jpg

    • Like 2

    Pop Up Ads

    in Technical Support

    Posted · Edited by Scotty

    Yeah it’s on mobile and desktop. It’s what google call auto-ads and they control placement and timing.

    There are 3 types. The banner (what they call anchor ads), the vignette, and in-page ads. I can only switch them on or off and I did turn the in-page ads off as they were too intrusive. I got an email a couple of days ago noting their optimization test had completed so the timing sounds about right. 

    Let me know if these become too much. I barely notice them to be honest, but we can review if it affects usability. I want to keep the balance between revenue to keep the site ticking over and not pestering folk with too many ads. 

     

    edit - just read the earlier posts in here and note that I turned off the vignettes previously so going to turn these off again. That should then only leave us with the regular page ads and the anchor ads that can be minimised. 

    • Agree 1

    Pop Up Ads

    in Technical Support

    Posted

    You may be referring to the vignette ads ? These are placed by google and appear on about 1 in 10 transition pages at random .... They will either say close in the body of the ad or have an X in the corner to close ... The banner is also the same and should have a minimise button. 

    I get them and click close but f they are becoming intrusive then i can look to optimise. However, this is our only revenue stream and its how we pay for our VPS hosting, software updates and various costs over the course of a year.  

     

    Vignette

    2021-10-30_9-29-59.jpg

     

    Banner at top or bottom

    image.png

     

     

    Pop Up Ads

    in Technical Support

    Posted

    should not be any popup ads ... more info required please. 

    mobile/desktop ? browser ? 

     

    There should be an ad at the top and the bottom and one on the side on most pages. On some pages there may also be an anchored ad on the bottom of screen (can be minimised) and on some pages, google inserts a transition between pages which also has a close button. 

    Fans Focus Group

    in Caley Thistle

    Posted

    8 hours ago, DoofersDad said:

    the Club do not see us as representing the fans and are therefore reluctant to engage. 

    If they will not engage with an official supporters body which holds a major shareholding (percentage wise if not quantity) and deems that body as not representative then who DO they see as representative of the fans? For me, it should start with the Trust and engagement should expand from there. 

    IMHO - the club should be engaging with any fans groups ... be that the creators and listeners of the Wyness Shuffle, the Travel Club, the 'CaleyAway' supporters, CTO, or anyone else who emerges and takes the time to contribute to the club in a positive way either online or in person ... currently, all I have heard of the club interacting with is the hand-picked steering committee and that seems to have died a death also - or at least is not being reported.  

     

    I can only talk to experience with the level of engagement we have had with the club which has varied over 27 years  ..... It was pretty good for about 20 years overall ... but Rae and Crook chose to cut ties with this site over a personal beef/vendetta with CaleyD, and although I have spoken to the current chairman a few times about certain things and put them in contact with some individuals when they were looking at how to get rid of debt or get some ideas for income, they don't engage with us either. We remain open to any engagement with the club now that Rae and Crook are long gone and have continued sponsorship (which was going to be dropped under Rae and Crook) as a show of faith. While we may not have thousands of individual posters, we do have thousands of unique users who lurk on a monthly basis along with healthy page views so regardless of what anyone thinks, the posters on here, do represent a portion of the fans. We absolutely do not represent all fans, or even a majority, and have never claimed to do so, but those who come on here are engaged, just like other groups tend to have people who are engaged and interested in the club. Every group can claim to represent a portion (but not all) of the fans and together, I would argue that all the various groups, pages or organisations represent a lot of the fans and should all be encouraged.  

    Over here (at Toronto FC) we have a multitude of supporters groups within the (approx 30K) season ticket holders and the club interact with any and all that are recognised as an established and active group within the supporters section of the stadium. We have supporters group meetings where leadership of each group meet (together) with the club in an open forum to discuss things we can do for the club together and concerns the club may have about things (behaviour, flares/smoke etc.) and on a yearly basis (pre-COVID) there were events at the stadium where its open to all members of these groups and we got to hear club overview and plans and also got to do a Q&A with a few of the players ... that's what got my little guy fully engaged when he met up with a few of the senior players .. and has since cost me thousands in getting him signed up for TFC juniors coaching .. so that little bit of engagement got them revenue in another stream .... Something ICT could and should do ... and to be fair, something it looks like they are trying if little articles here and there about partnerships and sponsorships are ongoing. 

     

     

     

     

     

    • Like 2
    • Agree 1

    Raith Rovers v Inverness CT - Preview

    in Caley Thistle

    Posted

    4 hours ago, TheMantis said:

    Had a quick look at ‘top 5 vpn’ or whatever and they were all needing me to fork out money for something I would hardly ever need. 

    Problem with googling 'Top 5' of anything like VPN (or hosting) is that the various providers typically setup multiple sites where their product comes out on top ... or at least gets a great review. CNET or other independent sites are a good indicator. For VPN, the ones that work tend to have a cost.

    • Agree 1

    Raith Rovers v Inverness CT - Preview

    in Caley Thistle

    Posted

    I have used VPNUK before for this site when OAM was on each week. Never had any issues with them. Have not had subscription for 2 or 3 years now so not sure of recent performance : VPNUK : VPN Personal IP Specialists : Welcome to VPNUK .

    According to reviews IPVANISH is a good option for Scotland because unlike some services whose UK servers are in England, IP Vanish gives you the option to use servers in Glasgow. I have never tried them but would be interested in knowing details if someone has .... 

    Opera browser also has inbuilt VPN which can use 'European' server. Not sure how effective it would be for streaming though as sometimes this only changes the IP address but the underlying info remains the same. Its not good enough to fool the BBC for example. 

     

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