Scotty

mmmm - very funny, and some of them have even learned to draw - what next, counting ? might be able to get their crowds correct and realise the size of their debt ....... The freaky thing is that Irish Lass said the same thing about Ian Black as CaleyD did a few minutes ago about crossing the road ... so either CaleyD is Irish Lass in disguise or he is dating a County Fan :010:

Good job we have Captain I. H. Ender and the HMS Sneck then :001:

he would probably be trotted out as the new manager of Ottawa or Montreal next week (if they actually existed :015:)

It makes it a more realistic possibility that former Celtic player Charlie Christie - who has fond memories of coming to Toronto to play in a youth tournament many years ago - might manage to have a word with fellow Scotsman and former Celtic player Mo Johnston to organise a glamour friendly for Toronto FC against the might of SPL big boys Inverness Caledonian Thistle :015: ... i can dream :015:

LOL - looks like they will be my diddy team :015: :015:

give us a clue ... whats the thread title and on what board ? the link only goes to the main index and I aint reading through all that p*sh

It appears that the former darling of both Celtic and Rangers fans is set to be the new head-coach of Toronto FC !!! Mo Johnston to be Toronto head-coach

unlikely to be on audio or video anywhere but hopefully, the official site will be providing frequent updates. Although not minute-by-minute in the way that the BBC site is on SPL matchdays, Fiona has been trying to do a 'running commentary' for most games.

rumour has it that the contract extension will be announced at this weeks press conference . great news.

He knocked back the Wolves move !!!!

Hibs unravel the red tape surrounding zemmama

Graham Roberts sacked for gross misconduct ...

Good signing if they can get him ?

:015: - saw the goal, was just taking my seat when Dargo scored .... also got a great view of Hartson scoring the equaliser as he did it at the north end :008:

if they put winners on the site, it will most likely now appear on the official site rather than here. We are happy to publish the winners' names if the club send them to us. would suggest you email fiona.mcwilliams AT caleythistleonline.com to suggest it to her. she may not know that Charlie used to do it.

I am sure this story makes Craig Brewster .... vewy vewy pwoud :015:

Quick everyone ... DUCK before LG sees this comment !! :hiding03:

LG - was checking messages etc when having breakfast - up at 5:30am most mornings as I have to leave for work at 7am :010: :007: As i briefly mentioned above - I would have liked them to perhaps have mentioned a few salient points in the article regarding this site, but at least what they did mention was - for the most part - correct MY COMMENTS ON THE ARTICLE I have been running an ICT site since July 1994 so thats 12 years, and I moved to Toronto on 15th May 2003 so thats a little over 3 years. I would also have liked them to perhaps have used the expression "existing site at caleythistleonline.com, which will still continue to operate as an authorised but unofficial fan site" instead of saying "previous" Totally true. The club were often unhappy about some of the content on the boards, and although they only rarely actually asked for specific postings to be removed, this was because we had already removed some of the worst comments. True. It was inevitable that the 'split' would happen, it was only a question of when. I think the club were actually quite surprised when I readily agreed to it, and equally surprised that myself and CaleyD offered assistance to them 'without strings'. We put the cherry on top of the cake by giving them a temporary site and temporary club shop while the PTV site was being developed and are happy to continue working with them if they need assistance in the future. At the end of the day we are all ICT fans and if we can help the club we will. The only disappointment we have over the new official site is that the club chose to go with PTV. We could have designed a very similar site that the club could have run from the stadium and which would have allowed them to keep all revenues instead of sharing them with a 'partner'. However, the tie-up with PTV will give them access to some commercial features we could not have hoped to match. The new site will have SMS messaging and various commercial advertising as well as hopefully, somewhere down the line getting access to live audio and video of games (via subscription). I personally look forward to paying for some of these new features when they become available. I dont know what their internal communication is like, but the club's external communication has been going downhill for years. I am delighted that the Chief Exec has seen this as a very important area that needs to be addressed (and - to be fair to him - he did say this to me in a few phonecalls as well). I would have liked to see them mention in here that it was myself and CaleyD who designed, produced and hosted the temporary official site for the club (as well as the shop) in the full knowledge that it was only going to be used for a few months until PTV site was ready. This makes it sound as if they did it themselves. would it have been so difficult to say. The CaleyThistleOnline.com site still operates as a 'fan site at www.......' ? With an attitude like that she will succeed. I come across many people who think they know it all about how much work or effort it takes to run a site, but if Fiona remembers that she is 'always learning' then she will always succeed. I also hope that she is not too stubborn to consider asking for advice privately from myself or CaleyD if she thinks we can help answer a particular question for her. As fans of the club we will be happy to help as we have already indicated. MY COMMENTS ON LG's POST To be fair - it should be !! - The club are FINALLY going in the right direction as far as online presence/content is concerned. I am under no illusion that what I provided them with over the years was far from perfect but then again, I wasnt working on it full time, nor was I getting paid for it so they definitely got value for (no) money :015: :015: :015: They do have a link to this site in their menu and I would hope that (sometime in the future) they might consider adding links in the odd (big) story to direct users to 'talk about it in the message boards'. Yup. The ONLY time that communication was excellent was when Kenny Cameron, Ken Thomson, Debbie Ross and Les Kidger were liaising with me and the driving force behind that was Kenny who introduced features like the Boardroom Banter series of articles. Kenny was also responsible for getting the ball rolling with a club shop and trying to see if he could get the site developed a little more commercially. The other good thing about Kenny's contribution was that in all my dealings with him his primary concerm seemed to be to get good and accurate information across to the fans in a timely fashion which is what we all wanted. At the end of the day, a few people didnt view the site like that. Some seemed scared of 'new technology', some felt I was trying to 'gain power', some were critical that fans 'just wanted to moan' but only a few realised that this new technology was a medium where the club could get their point across to a 'media outlet' that is intrinsically biased in the club's favour ... unlike the press !!! Although the last two years have been a nightmare trying to get information out of the club for their own official site (as quite a few know), I am happy to see that Mike Smith has given Fiona the task of working on the new site full time and Fiona seems to be getting content up very regularly at the moment. Thats the aim. I have been very open to the idea of a separate official site for at least the last two years. many fans told me that the message boards on the official site were too restrictive/censored and the club on the other hand used to wince at some of the comments fearing it might get them in trouble, or that some of the fan 'opinions' were too critical. This was a very uncomfortable position for me in running the site as it was a delicate balancing act and to be honest, I am happy that we now have what amounts to an authorised 'fan site' that will work in tandem with the club's own official site. It means that the fans can have their say and that these opinions do not need to be sanitised or censored (so long as they are within acceptable limits as per our TOS and Site Guidelines) and the club can distance themselves from any comments as its not on an official site. We will be happy to promote the club's initiatives in making the official site a success - such as promoting their commercial services or directing fans there for services that we will not be providing ... we would hope that once they realise that both sites can work in tandem that they will show some reciprocity. We have also offered the club our assistance should it be required - advice, help, information regarding web design etc ... sorry this has been a bit of a marathon posting, but after 12 years doing this site in various incarnations, I wanted to add my tuppence worth on a subject I think I know a fair bit about !!!

was this the advert that Feb 8th was starring in ?

seems fair enough, although the impression is that the fan site no longer exists ..... would have liked to see them mention that it was running independently

would definitely be interested in reading that article

I am sure the official site will move up the google rankings quickly - the fact that its even in there after only 3 days isnt too bad and because it will be linked to by this site, the BBC the SPL site and countless others, it will soon be in the top couple of spots when users search for ICT related pages !!! You will probably notice that sportnetwork site 14 is still there too - we left there in April :004: The official site will not have a forum (the administration of which was one of the most contentious things on the old sportnetwork 'official' site from both the club and the fans viewpoint). As agreed with the club, they will link to this site for interactive features like forums, chatrooms etc. Similarly, we will not attempt to tread on the club's toes by trying to add things like live audio, video or some of the commercial content they will be providing (text messaging etc) and will set links for these type of things to go to the club site. We have also agreed not to publish official match reports in full until 24 hours after the final whistle but can feature fan reports (if you send them !!). Hopefully, with this type of co-operation in place between the club site and this independent site we can enjoy a close partnership with the club where the fans can have the best of both worlds.

Car Parks are the same all over ... we were over an hour getting out of Hampden's car park when we were in the cup semi final a few seasons back. There are a few problems with our car-park and they are not (all) the club's fault. The drivers have to take a fair bit of responsibility too. Problems: 1. SOME of the stewards dont seem to know what they are doing and may also be a little timid when it comes to stopping motorists from queue jumping or wildly changing 'lanes'. Solution - train them in traffic control, and have enough of them that they can be seen by all motorists. You are more likely to obey a steward who is near your car telling you not to move that one who is 50 yards away telling 5 lines of traffic not to move !! You are also more likely to obey a steward who at least gives the impression that they have a clue !! 2. 1000+ cars can get in, and do so in dribs and drabs over the space of an hour or more but when it comes to getting out, they have to go through a bottleneck that is only 1 car wide which slows up the flow. Add to that the fact that everyone wants out at the same time, and will try to get to the front of the queue even if it means they have to be irresponsible and the fact the the stadium road is also narrow and it gets really frustrating. Solution: other than opening up more exits, which does nothing to solve the stadium road congestion problems, the only thing that can be done is to try and make it apparent to motorists that if they wait their turn they will get out. Surely a senior traffic warden or a senior police officer has access to the sort of plans that are used at other stadiums with far higher crowds than ours and who succesfully empty their car parks in 20-30 minutes ? Again, the motorist has to be educated as well. If you take your car to the game, you need to allow 20-30 minutes to get out and not try to be at the exit in 2-3 minutes - some will be lucky and get out quick, but not everyone can fit through that 1 car wide exit at the same time. There should also be a separate area for players, hospitality guests etc who are not coming straight out after the game as it IS really frustrating when you have to try and reverse and change lanes with hundreds of other cars around you wanting into the same free flow of traffic you are trying to reach. When I was last home and went to the Celtic game (18/12/05) - the crowd was a similar size and it was a no brainer ... we got a lift to the game and walked back to the Innes afterwards - we were in the Innes long before many people who had taken their cars to the game - either because they were still in the carpark, or because stadium road was plugged with traffic -- Get yourself organised, 3 or 4 people or more, book a taxi for before and after the game and avoid the car park blues. I am sure LG will sort out reasonable rates for you :004:

Dont think the Hibees have done anything wrong and it would be wrong to strip them of any points. They were asked to obtain international clearance from the Moroccan FA and the paperwork they got was accepted by both them and the SFA. Turns out that someone at the Moroccan end allegedly gave them forged papers and that the player had actually signed a 5 year deal with a Moroccan side a few months earlier. If anyone is to blame it may be the player who must have known he signed a contract a few months ago and most certainly the agent/broker that organised the deal with Hibs.

Cantbeatus - shall we look at PROGRESS then ??? Even your tangerine tinted specs cant fail to admit the progress that ICT have made to reach the SPL has been immense ... and given that we were only formed in 1994 it would be quite difficult to compare SPL records as we had to work hard to get there by moving up the divisions. Call us a diddy team if you like but with only one blip in 2001/02 we have IMPROVED our league position in 11 of our 12 league seasons. ICT 1994-2006 1994/5 - 3rd Division - 6th place .... our first season in senior football 1995/6 - 3rd Division - 3rd place .... an IMPROVEMENT on the previous season 1996/7 - 3rd Division - 1st place .... an IMPROVEMENT on the previous season 1997/8 - 2nd Division - 5th place .... an IMPROVEMENT on the previous season 1998/9 - 2nd Division - 2nd place .... an IMPROVEMENT on the previous season 1999/0 - 1st Division - 6th place .... an IMPROVEMENT on the previous season 2000/1 - 1st Division - 4th place .... an IMPROVEMENT on the previous season 2001/2 - 1st Division - 6th place .... the ONLY season we didnt do better than the last one 2002/3 - 1st Division - 4th place .... an IMPROVEMENT on the previous season 2003/4 - 1st Division - 1st place .... an IMPROVEMENT on the previous season 2004/5 - SPL - 8th place .... an IMPROVEMENT on the previous season 2005/6 - SPL - 7th place .... an IMPROVEMENT on the previous season