Scotty

Yup. I believe the first strip should always be some variation on the RED/BLUE vertical stripes design, either with equally wide red/blue stripes, or by rotating the colours slightly so for a two year period it is BLUE/RED vertical stripes with a slight predominance of blue and the next two years is RED/BLUE vertical stripes with red having more dominance. In the same way, we can then have blue shorts for one design and red shorts for the other, and the same for the socks. That way we basically have two signature kits which change every two years. Where we cant get a bit more artistic is with the away kit. My personal preference might be to have a "retro" kit every so often such as a plain blue one or one with red and black stripes and intermingled we have "other" designs such as the black one we have now, or a white one etc etc etc.

To be fair, the Director of Football's job is not to go scouting for players. His job is to act as liaison between team management (manager/coaches) and club management (directors) and represent the team management at Board level. In addition to his liaison role, he is also responsible for contract negotiations, be that renewal of existing contracts that the manager has agreed to, or taking details of new targets the manager has identified, to the board, and persuading them to part with the cash to make the signing a reality. It is a little more complicated than most of us realise and I am sure there are probably other things at SFA/SPL/UEFA levels that require us to have one. His emolument has been mentioned a few times recently, but to his credit, he never took one until we reached the SPL, and even for our first couple of years there. I would imagine that he now needs to take one as the DoF job is far bigger than it used to be, and he is obligated to attend all sorts of meetings which will impact on his "day job" and possibly reduce his income from that quite substantially. Graeme Bennett may not be everyone's cup of tea, but he is not the problem.

A board decision indeed. Our posters may be wrong, but even to the most untrained of eyes it is evident that there is/was an issue between Messrs Sutherland and Savage in terms of how they wanted the club to be run. This is a crying shame as I believe both have/had the best interests of the club at heart, they just came at it in different ways. Sutherland is the steadying influence that makes sure we dont get in over our heads financially, and Savage had ideas that might take us to the next level but those ideas may have involved financial risk. It is a shame that they couldnt have met somewhere in the middle and given us what all ICT fans want .... a team that is developing and progressing whilst remaining financially solvent. As Mr Sutherland still holds the greatest influence in terms of shareholding and board representations, he came out on top in that skirmish, and as Robbo is an employee of Orion, then it doesnt take a rocket scientist to figure out how Robbo might be viewed as an "enemy" in the camp by some. I have no idea about Robbo's opinion as - to his credit - I don't think he has ever been drawn into that argument publicly. In a perfect world, we wouldnt need to have this discussion as Brewster would be doing everything we expect, but should the board decide that a change is required, then I would hope that the powers that be would be able to put aside personal issues and make a decision based on business and footballing reasons. Unfortunately, its not a perfect world and politics would quite likely come into play. If I were Robbo, I would bide my time and let things develop. It is clear that he is viewed favourably by a large number of supporters. It is also clear from his weekly appearances on "open all mics" that he is very passionate about ICT. Heck, he was even described as the loudest man in the stadium last week when playing Hearts, and his bias was towards us not the team where he was a legend !!!! I am not normally a fan of looking back but Robbo is one man who I feel might be worth a second chance. I didnt have the same animosity towards him as I did to Paterson or Brewster when they left, but that might be down to the fact that he didnt make a "loyalty" statement immediately before leaving. Also, I think most would admit that he seemed to be making a decent job of it at Hearts before being dumped which is in contrast to our current manager's stint at DUFC before he got dumped. On a personal note, I view Robbo as someone with a "bubbly" public persona that makes you smile in the same way that Ally Mccoist does ... a "cheeky chappy" if you will. I think he would bring plenty back to the club in addition to management skills such as PR, contacts, and very importantly, the concept of "team" !!! If played correctly, his PR could actually put more bums on seats, and maybe we would once again start punching above our weight instead of below it because I think he would have the players smiling again and the team working for and respecting the manager.

Not 100% sure of this but I believe that there are certain positions that must be in existence and filled by qualified personnel as part of the club's UEFA licensing

I noted the comment about Duff being due a pay rise if he makes 10 starting appearances for the first team .... think thats the standard youth/development contract .... considering he has now made 9 starts, that may be part of the reason ???

I would rather have Barry for the first or last hour/half-hour than not have him at all .... He may have been off the pace yesterday, but then again he was making his first league start of the season and most players would be a little rusty !!!

I will defer to those at the game as to whether the goal was "lucky" ... maybe lucky was the wrong choice of words ... what I meant was that on the radio it seemed to come from almost nothing, there was no big build up, no critical defensive error that left him clean through ... it was a shot from distance that was struck sweetly and went in.

Buffy, this campaign has been going on for a while already ..... http://www.standupsitdown.co.uk/

"Change is good Donkey"

You know what, I am not going to have a go at Brewster this week. I think he picked the right team to start. I might have started with Black/Vigurs instead of Black/Duncan but the rest seemed fine to me. Things went a little pear shaped when Black had to go off. That obviously was not in Brew's gameplan and we have seen before that we lose something when Blackie is either not performing or not on the pitch. The goal was somewhat lucky. A good goal, but a lucky one and we were never out of the game completely. We just seemed to lack ideas or cohesion in the final third and that was a big problem. We will never win games if we cant score goals !!

while we are not getting hammered, and are getting forward, we just dont seem to have any ideas once we get into the Hearts half

Yeah, we are still in this. lets hope the HT teamtalk is effective.

chatroom quiet today ...... come join us if you have nothing else to do http://community.caleythistleonline.com/in...utocom=shoutbox

McBain coming on for Black !

radio said he was injured.

team confirmed ... still no Duff though ..... what has the poor boy done wrong !!!

radio just mentioned Barry, Rooney and Barrowman all starting. I am guessing we will start with the same team that finished the game in midweek.

ICT -V- HEARTS Tulloch Caledonian Stadium, Inverness, 3:00pm **NEW** - Discuss it during the game in the CHATROOM Audio Coverage Match Feed (Worldwide) Sportsound/Open All Mics Feed (Worldwide) Livescores SKY SPORTS BBC - ICT Live Text P&J - ICT Live Text SportBox Sporting Life Lineups (click for full size image)

mmm, you mean like Rangers perhaps ?

These used to be the fixturing "golden rules" ....... and for the SPL, they actually seemed to make sense !!! Opening 33 Match Schedule No Club will start with 2 home matches or 2 away matches No Club will finish with 2 home matches or 2 away matches No Club will play more than 2 home matches or 2 away matches in succession The first 11 fixtures should be reversed to provide the next 11 fixtures and reversed again to provide the final 11 fixtures Celtic and Rangers must be perfect opposites (when one is at home the other is away) Hearts and Hibernian must be perfect opposites Dundee (when in the SPL) and Dundee United must be perfect opposites "Derby" fixtures should not be played on the same day Of the 10 non-Old Firm Clubs, 5 should play Celtic twice at home and once away whilst the other 5 should play Rangers twice at home and once away In each set of 11 fixtures a Club should have 5 home matches and 6 away matches or vice versa ? this will ensure that after 33 fixtures each club will have played 16 home matches and 17 away matches or vice versa In any two seasons Club A should play Club B at home on 3 occasions and away on 3 occasions Final 5 Match Schedule Each Club should play 3 home matches and 2 away matches or vice versa Where possible each Club should play a total of 19 home fixtures and 19 away fixtures during the Season Where possible and subject to seeding each Club should play the other 5 Clubs in its section such as to ensure that 2 home matches and 2 away matches have been played against these other 5 Clubs No Club should finish the Season with 2 home matches or 2 away matches

I don't blame Brewster for the Wyness situation - my understanding is that the agent asked for more money at the end and got told where to go. Whether that situation could have been salvaged is anyone's guess. Only those involved know for sure. If thats the story with Rankin, then fair play, I agree with that too although some of the other stories set the scene a little differently. Tough or Naive ? I guess it depends on which story you believe. With Black, I think we all know he needed to be calmed down a bit and for the most part he seems to have done that (and become a better player in the process). Perhaps Brewster's psychology on that front worked too ? Marius situation - nothing to do with Brew - it was all above his level. So these things cant be used as pointers to get rid in my mind .... my biggest bugbear is what I have been going on about for a while now .... CONSISTENCY. We need some and we dont have any. If he can find a way to make us more consistent (and no, that doesnt mean winning every game, it means competing in them all and winning or losing on merit) then I will be far more inclined to move towards the "pro" camp.

There were a few other "characters" present at this hospitality day ...... the date 21/12/02 Big Stew gets in the christmas spirit, Milroy looks unimpressed ... ahhhhhhh ... young love !! The Fly discusses tie choice with Big Stew Calum and Dave are sure that the innocent looking Mantis has just dropped one Donview tests a new beer-holder

from reading the post before yours from Scotty i'd say 215. to be fair - I edited my answer and added that part after the question had been asked

Damn ...... you win