Scotty

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Sorry to disappoint you !! but as I said in my post, I dont blame everything on the club - the current economic climate has a lot to do with it - but conversely, the club dont get off the hook either as I dont really see what they are doing to entice fans to the stadium or to participate in other ways. Lets get the economic factors out of the way first ..... I think many would agree that the price of petrol, the dwindling amount of disposable income that people have, and just the general malaise that accompanies an economic downturn is definitely a big factor. We have a lot of fans who do not live in Inverness and many people are not prepared (or cannot justify) spending a fair bit of cash on petrol/food etc to travel long distances to watch the team. We have heard Mantis say it, we have heard others say it and I am sure there are others who feel the same even if they live in Inverness. Accompanying those economic fears are also fears over the performance level they will witness when they arrive and that is valid too. Lets look at fans going to the game (be they Inverness based or if they have travelled to get here). It costs ?25 for an adult for most games for the main stand and what are you guaranteed for that. In previous years you could be guaranteed a somewhat friendly atmosphere, the club actually talked to and not at its fans, you could release some of your humdrum day-to-day life frustrations by urging your team on to victory and in most cases you could do this without the threat of a banning order or heavy handed stewards. Because we were in the lower leagues we put up with sub-standard facilities such as the car park, the club shop, the serveries etc and concentrated more on watching what was for many years a very good product on the park itself. That was all that mattered. Pele, Robbo, Charlie, and in spells even Craig Brewster put out a team that made some of the other stuff bearable. Fast forward to today, we are in the SPL so the club hands are tied somewhat in terms of certain rules they have to follow. I understand that they do have to be more strict about stewarding (but not to the point of oppression), they do have to be circumspect about some of the things they say on their website (as they can be held responsible), and they do have to be a lot more business-like in most areas (as the revenue streams depend on it). However, it seems to me that the SPL is a double edged sword. It is great to be in the top league in the country but our 'style' has suffered because of it. The 'entertainment' on the park is no longer as entertaining and people can have their own theories as to whether this is because of the manager's tactics, or because its a dogfight from day one and you do what you have to do to stay up knowing that the best most teams can ever hope to achieve is 3rd place. I havent done this but I am sure if we looked back over these boards to certain posting dates, that the grumbling about other things is directly relative to who we were playing and what the final score was. When we have victories over the OF or play well there is far less negativity than when we lose at home to the likes of Hamilton (no disrespect intended). I have stood and applauded the team off the park on numerous occasions when we have lost but given 100%. I came to be entertained, and a hard working team that tries its best will always entertain me and have my respect regardless of a win or loss. However, when the team takes to the park and doesnt perform, or the tactics are wrong (long ball against tallest back line in the SPL for example) then I fail to be entertained. When the entertainment level drops, people get grumpy and look around at what else is not right and you get the list of things we have seen on here, or people have talked about in pubs over a pint for years ... the stewarding, the car park, the shop, the serveries, etc. fixing these things will NOT fix the lack of entertainment on the park, but the fact that we are still talking about these inadequacies 10 or more years after they first surfaced is symptomatic of the problem in my opinion, and that problem is that the club have little regard for and are doing little or nothing to improve the matchday experience for fans. I agree with those who say the shop staff are excellent. They ARE and I am sure they would be just as excellent in a permanent location and who knows, they might even feel more like a part of the staff if they werent bolted onto the outside of the stadium and actually worked inside it !!! Lets also not forget that we DID have an internal club shop at the stadium for a number of years so the move to what was supposed to be a temporary portacabin was actually a step backwards. As for the car park, I still cant believe we havent figured that out since we moved to this stadium. I understand the lack of a tarred surface (its to do with keeping the rates down), but it baffles me as to why we have not got some proper idea of traffic flow in place. I regularly park near BMO field for TFC games and even with 20,000+ of a crowd, I am out of the car park and onto the highway within 15 minutes of the game ending, and thats in a downtown location with its already heavy non-football traffic. I could also cite numerous examples of ideas (or promises even) that were sold to the fans over the years that were going to make it a nicer atmosphere. 10 or more years ago there were going to be TVs in the servery area so that fans could see HT scores from other games and also what was going on if the queues were too long and the game restarted before they got back to their seat. A number of times over the years the idea of a matchday pub has been floated as has a proper social club in the town centre that was neither Caley or Thistle. All in all, there has been very little return on any ideas sold to us. Whilst I am writing this short novel, I may as well also add on my own personal bugbears which is the lack of consideration for those fans who may like to participate but cannot make it to the stadium on a matchday, and the lack of communication between club and fans. I would like to order things via the club shop online but the ridiculous p&p charges for overseas fans make it a non starter. I would like to buy a season ticket for audio/video coverage via the net, but ICT are one of 4 SPL teams who have no package available. 2 of that 4 are in the process of creating one if what I hear is true, so ICT will be 1 of 2 soon unless Hamilton also start one. As for communication, I think this is where the club fall down badly. Communication has virtually evaporated in recent years. We went from having a monthly Q&A from the boardroom to the current state where things are on the BBC or on here days before the club issue any statement. We have also seen examples of where directives are issued with no consultation with the fans. I understand that the club are forced to do certain things but as with a lot of things in life, the bitter pill can be easier to swallow if it is presented in the right fashion. So all in all, yes, I do have a down on the club right now and I hope this rant is taken in the right context as the club can easily fix that 'down'. I am still and always will be a fervent ICT supporter, I get up very early on a Saturday morning to try and establish a connection to audio for the game, I am an ambassador for the club over here and despite any misgivings I may have, I miss no opportunity to talk the club up to others who may not know of the club or its history. However, that does not mean that I have to be content with what I see as half arsed attempts at PR or development, or that I should just accept that we do not treat customers the way they should be treated. I want the club to improve on and off the park, I want the club to be a success, I want us all to come on here and praise both the team and the backroom staff to the hilt and I will do that if I think the club are making an effort .... its up to the club to show they are making that effort. To finish on at least one positive note, I will say one thing on the communication front .... We have been asked by the Supporter's Trust if we have any copies of the old Boardroom Banter articles available (which we do) and I hope to send some examples of these to both the trust and Mike Smith at some point this week. Hopefully, this might be a sign that the club would be willing to work with both the trust and this website to try and rectify the communication issue. As one of two people involved in setting this up initially, I can definitely say that it was one thing that got almost universal praise when the club did it before and if they would like to co-operate with us in reinstating it then we would be delighted to do so so that we can turn all these frowns upside down

The setanta payments are based on league position not the number of televised games. Its on here somewhere else but basically each team gets 4% of the revenue (total 48%) and the remaining 52% is dependent on league position ... 12th place gets 0.5%, and it then increases by 0.5% for each position up to 3rd (who get 5.5%), 2nd place then gets 11% and 1st place 13% For 08/09, the 4% guaranteed to each club is about ?450,000 and each 0.5% increment is about ?56K

How would we get to our cars? Valet Parking .... :thumb04:

too cryptic for me

Its all well and good throwing out stats Wanderer - I should know, I do it often enough !!! However, in this thread I have read several comments from fans of various backgrounds and who live in various places and the stories are pretty well consistent 1. The economic climate is a big factor. Thats a no brainer. We have all heard credit crunch, the 'R' word (recession), and all sorts of other forecasts of doom and gloom. Football tends to come from most people's "disposable income" so when that is being disposed of before you get it ... there is a lot less to go around. 2. The club are doing nothing to entice fans. Whether it be personal issues with certain staff, the quality of the product on display (long ball hoof), or just the countless PR blunders we see each year, the club are - and have been - alienating themselves from the normal fans for quite some time. The permanent club shop is not a solution to all of this, but the lack of one is most definitely one of the outward symptoms of the contempt from some, and apathy from others, aimed towards fans. I hope to be in Inverness for a visit soon, and right now I dont know if I can be bothered even looking at what game is on !!! That may not say much to you, and it is unlikely to have the club quaking in its boots but it is very telling to me personally.

yup, substitutions were somewhat baffling today .... especially Zadi/Imrie one [commentators believed he might have been limping but if so, why Zadi and not someone else]. Glad to see Vigurs come on and he got a few positive mentions from Leckie in the commentary box

Final Score 1-1 ... feels like 2 points dropped. Sponsors MOM - Jamie Duff

Zadi on for Imrie ???

I believe it was

Yup - we sound pretty ropey at the back but Leckie has mentioned more than once about how well we are using the width of the pitch and how we are playing it on the deck. How not to start the second half 1-1 Nish

You trying this page - http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/scotland/t...dio/6354443.stm its working fine in Canada (for once) PS - we are playing decently enough but sounding scarily shaky at the back - Rankin should have scored at least twice and Nish too. Hibs had a decent penalty claim denied as well.

Don Cowie : 1-0 :thumb04: :018: ;) :015: :D :P :021:

Dundee @ 1.50

AFAIK registrations are submitted each year so he would have submitted it for 2008/09 (unless of course the official site has it wrong). Its not uncommon for teams to have recently retired players still listed as players for emergencies ... wasnt there one team last year where their reserve goalkeeping coach ended up on the bench ..... lets face it, Brew could still do a decent job up front for us if he is keeping up his fitness (which I presume he will be given his reputation for that). His dodgy shoulder means we probably wouldnt see him unless things were so dire he had to pull on a shirt, but no harm in having him registered .... its not like there is a quota and he is keeping someone else out.

Yes. Yes to which part ? When I looked at Gordon's photos in the gallery, I did notice he had put on a few pounds ... the question is, could he lose them, could Brew get him fitter, and could he still do it !!!

I actually believe they are looking. In fact, given the amount of trialists we have had in the last few months, and from all over the place, I think Brewster is ALWAYS looking ..... the biggest problem is that there is not exactly a over abundance of (available) commanding centre halves who have the same presence as the likes of Dods or Mann and we shouldnt just sign someone for the sake of signing someone. However, perhaps we should be stepping up the search if we havent done so already. Bobby seemed to impress a few people in Barry's testimonial .... might it be worth going for him ? or were the plaudits he received because he only played a short time and people were overcome with rose tinted nostalgia ?

According to one of the West Brom sites (he played for them for something like 20 minutes against Bournemouth in 89), he is no longer the coach/manager of local 3rd division team Sogne. He left complaining the players were not professional enough. He?s since joined as a player for 3rd division side Jerv. Stian Boe .... That was in January 2004

I would turn that on its head Bob !!! Dark Knight and other films such as Hellboy II (to pick another from the "graphic novel" genre) that I also enjoyed are staying a lot truer to their roots than (in the case of Batman) the previous films in the series. If you want to pick on any of the Batman films it would have to be those with Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer et all as these basically just tried to update the 60s version with no relevance to the current mood of the genre found in the publications. I am not sure when "comics" became "graphic novels" but if you happen to be in a bookstore and pick one up you will find they are fairly dark and the film represents this. Batman "comics" from the 60s may have had a more innocent feel to them when you look at them now, and the first Batman film with Adam West and Burt Ward as well as the TV series (where every episode had to have at least one scene where they "climbed up" a wall and a celebrity would make a cameo appearance by popping their head out the window) reflected that. Dont get me wrong - I have no doubt they are pandering to the lowest common denominator, throwing in some product placement where they can, spending wads of cash on special effects, CGI and props, and also using projected viewer demographics to decide how or where to film certain scenes but at the end of the day this is not Shakespeare or some RADA artistic masterclass, it is an adaptation of a "graphic novel" and a bloody good one at that when viewed in that context. When I went to see this film, I knew what I was going to see and I thoroughly enjoyed it, and you know what, my main reason for that was not flash bang wallop effects but the menacing presence of Heath Ledger who I thought put in an excellent performance. The same "know your expectations" feel was true when I went to see Hellboy, The Simpsons etc and I had a different mindset when I went to other more serious films like Fahrenheit911, Sicko, Apocalypto, City of God, Last King of Scotland etc In the case of each film I mention (with the possible exception of simpsons), my expectations were met because I knew roughly what to expect. If you havent looked at the website before, try RottenTomatoes.com which is regarded as one of, if not THE best movie ratings site out there .... Dark Knight gets 94% ..... Your pal Mel's film Apocalypto (which I enjoyed) only got 65% and most of his others dont fare too well either http://www.rottentomatoes.com/celebrity/mel_gibson/

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A solid enough performance from Hastings as Canada drew 1-1 with Jamaica in a game they were expected to win. The Jamaican goal came from a corner and if anyone was to blame it was the keeper. RH had one dodgy moment in the first half when he completely missed a clearance and took a fresh air swipe but other than that he wasnt really tested.

Game has just started ... confirmed that Richard is in his normal position (for Canada) of central defence.

Dont forget, Canada also plays Jamaica tonight in a World Cup qualifier ...... Richard Hastings is likely to play Kickoff at 7:30pm Toronto time [12:30am in UK time] not sure if its on any TV channels you can get over there, or if the following link is blocked outside canada but it is live here on Sportsnet TV and will be be streamed on sportsnet.ca

Question asked :thumb04: and answered in the same post

send a pm to username ladyf and she will be able to tell you.