Scotty

Fortunately, Hibernian are a forward looking club who employ a team of reporters to provide Hibs Interactive with coverage that is specifically tailored to the Hibees faithful and therefore DO NOT block the BBC from broadcasting their games so we should get the game.

this is going a bit off topic, but to answer briefly, Yes I do miss Inverness, friends & family, being able to watch ICT in person etc, but there are other things about it that I dont miss. Canada (or my little part of it) IS an excellent place to stay but I could list all sorts of grumbles that lessen the experience ... we pay a lot of tax (or seem to), house prices are ridiculous, Traffic in Toronto is horrendous, It is hot and humid in summer and cold enough to do the brass monkey stuff for long spells in Winter ... not to mention the foot of snow I had to shovel off my driveway (and "sidewalk") on Sunday. Living back in sneck ... not sure. You never know what is going to happen and it will always be a possibility but right now, its a remote one. We both have good jobs on good money and a good lifestyle and I think it would be hugely difficult to match that in Inverness .....

On the pitch, they struggled quite badly to be honest but with flashes of nice play that showed the skill is there. The MLS system (draft), and the restrictions on how many of each designation of player you can have make it very difficult for a first year team to succeed but hopefully next season will be better. There were enough glimpses to suggest it could be. On the playing front, they suffered a huge list of injuries over the season and I think we missed Ronnie O'Brien the most as he is a midfielder who can put his foot on the ball and dictate play. Without him, there was a lot less control in the middle of the park and he was gone for most of the season. TFC also lost first choice keeper Greg Sutton to a concussion that he got while with the Canadian team and he sat out virtually all of the second half of the season because of complications. There were however a few high points ..... first round draft pick Maurice Edu got better and better as the season wore on and won the MLS "Rookie of the Year", Jim Brennan and Carl Robinson were solid the whole season and for me, the best discovery was just how good a defender Mo had picked up in the form of Marvell Wynne. Would not be surprised to see Edu and Wynne plying their trade in the Premiership or in Europe somewhere in the next year or two ... Aston Villa were supposedly looking at Edu. Collin Samuel did OK ... some fans dont like him as he looks lazy, but in the last 4 or 5 games of the season he was definitely up for it and played quite well. No summary would ever be valid without mentioning Danny Dichio. A bit part player at a "small" club in England but a huge hero for TFC fans. He scored TFC's first ever goal, and its last of this season (in the 91st minute to grab an equaliser). The fans chant his name in the 24th minute of each game as a tribute to the time the first ever goal was scored and basically love him to bits. Danny is a strange one though. He is not a great striker in the traditional sense, but more of a bustling target man that MLS defences dont really know how to handle. He always gives 100% and is just as likely to floor an opponent as put the ball in the net. Unfortunately, he too missed a big part of the season because of injury - a long year for him after playing in England, then coming to Toronto and not having any summer break. The player himself - we are told - loves it in Toronto, and has expressed a desire to become a "permanent resident" if the club give him a coaching role at the end of his playing career .... think that offer is quite likely given his relationship with the fans. As for the fans .... 20,000+ tickets sold for every single game, a very diverse crowd in terms of age/sex/ethnicity/nationality and its huge fun. Season ticket renewals have recently been done and the word is that there was a 99% renewal rate. I was hoping to buy an extra seat but could not get one in the whole of the supporters section ..... A few people on various message boards outside of MLS slag off fans of MLS because its a "mickey mouse" league. While that may be true to an extent, it is certainly improving, and young talent is definitely coming through to supplement the old fogeys who still come here to retire with a fat pay cheque like Mr Beckham. The fans however are as knowledgeable as you will see in any other league, and in some cases moreso. While TFC may not have been that great on the pitch, the fans have been lauded by MLS as amazing and what they hope to encourage in all stadiums. The fervour, knowledge and noise displayed by TFC fans may also help teams in places like Vancouver, Calgary and Montreal be looked upon favourably if they want to join the league. I thoroughly enjoyed my first full season as part of the "U-Sector" and looking forward to next season with anticipation .......

It's Colder (than) Toronto

If we were to take anyone on loan from TFC, for me it would have to be Marvell Wynne !!! solid solid defender but probably unavailable as he will be training with the US National team for most of the winter I believe.

Using same discs in each computer ? Using same software (program & version) on each PC Using same settings (disc at once / track at once etc and finalising discs at end)? If the answer to all is yes, then perhaps your laptop CD drive has a problem and is feckin up ! I had a strange problem with my laptop CD player when I moved over here !! I had a laptop with a normal CD drive so had bought an external USB CD writer (with power supply) ... every single disc I tried to record in the UK worked, but in Canada they all failed .... turns out CD writer wasnt getting enough juice from the power system over here !

think its just a loan deal as CS is a 'protected' player in TFC's squad .... but MLS season doesnt begin again till April.

sounds like he already has enough problems

yup - shows you what I know eh :015:

Agreed, you don't see intervews with Smith in the Record saying how close Brown is to the squad anymore (granted Smith is isn't in charge anymore :029:) point being though ... he is only one injury or bad performance by the normal keeper away from getting a starting spot ... if he starts a few games, and plays like he can, he will get called up ... and all the while he is hopefully building himself a nice wee nest egg as well. Good luck to him, he served us well, I just hope he has a bad game on the 16th if he plays.

If Proctor is playing well, then perhaps not .....

Think Canada Bob will probably blow us all out of the water in this thread ............ in both categories

Here's one for you ...... from this side of the pond There are rumours going around the fan sites of MLS that Paul Mariner was about to leave New England Revolution but changed his mind as he may be required to take over from Steve Nicol as manager. The story gaining most ground is that SN may be headed to Toronto as manager and Mo is to be "promoted" to the front office. However, what if he was headed eastwards ... to Glasgow perhaps? I know people scoff at MLS but with the complicated draft system and rules about the number of developmental players, home grown players, youth internationals and senior internationals you are allowed into a squad, its almost as restrictive as trying to pick a national side ..... Nicol has an impressive record with NE ..... He has been manager since 2002 and in that time the team has -- Qualified for the end of season championship playoffs every year. -- Finished 1st or 2nd in their division for 5 of the last 6 seasons. -- Finished as MLS Cup Runners up in 2002, 2005, 2006, 2007 (this is essentially the championship decider - the Superbowl of MLS) -- Won the US Open Cup in 2007 (comparable to Scottish Cup) certainly preferable to Lambert

:rotflmao: :rotflmao: - That has potential :001:

gawd no ..... would rather have Souness than him The article seems to be a "something from nothing" article though ... journalist asks whether he would be interested and he says (diplomatically - to preserve his current job), that he would have to consider it if it were offered as it would be an honour .... I would hope the SFA would aim higher. Fortunately, in the same article, **** Advocaat also ruled himself out !

not much of a gambler really ..... Won just over ?100 on the lottery once, and a fair few tenners here and there .... even won $10 in the Canadian lottery this past week .... but my best ever (or most remembered) wins are both ICT related. First one was putting a bet on an ICT - Raith Rovers game while in hospitality one evening. Would have to look up the score but think it was 4-2 or 5-2 something like that ... I stuck a fiver on at 50-1 ...... 255 back :003: ...... The other has to have been getting a phonecall from Charlie Christie about 3 years ago on my mobile telling me I won the weekly ?1000 prize in the Centenary Club ...

It could, and you cant really fault him for that as he is a coach not a PR guy. However, it is high time that the club did employ a professional PR/media person at the stadium to handle this kind of thing. Right now, PR seems to be done on an ad-hoc basis, with anyone saying what they want, when they want, and the "professional" only stepping in to do any mopping up of problems. It seems that no-one has the benefit of a professionally trained person on site to tell them how a particular statement or comment they wish to issue might look when viewed at the other end - by media and/or fans. Its ridiculous. Not that i think the Malky story is a huge deal, but a properly trained person might also have noticed comments on the BBC and/or Chester's website and been pro-active about organising a response or rebuttal. If the club can get its PR right, even on little things that niggle some people, it can repair so much of the damage that is currently being done by the veil of secrecy that shrouds them and the varying stories containing both information and misinformation that seem to have been circulating over the last year or two. I know Bill McAllister issues some statements on behalf of the club (usually firefighting other PR blunders) and although his are usually structured well and less likely to cause a problem with their content they pose a different problem ... I mean no disrespect to Bill, but unless you are from the Highland News, Courier or one of the national newspapers you dont seem to get the press releases even if you are supposed to. I accept that some people at the club might not want to send information to us right now as they think we are over-critical of absolutely everything, but even when we were the official site and the chief executive was asking him to send stuff to us we didnt get it. I have archived copies of dozens of emails asking why I didnt get this or that press release so it could be released on the club's official site at the same time as it hit the rest of the media. A professionally trained PR person would likely make sure that old media and new media alike as well as related websites (official or otherwise) would get all the releases, on time and with details of any publishing embargoes etc. They may not like what we say all the time in our own editorials or what fans say on the message boards but lets face it, as critical as we might be at times, we are far more likely to be supportive of the club than some of the nationals when they get a whiff of a scandal ....... ICT .... As fans, we want to love you unconditionally, we want to support you, we want to believe everything you say, we want to say you are getting it right all the time on and off the park ....... but the reality is that we just cant do that right now as you are making it very difficult ...... the good news is, you can solve that ....... if you really want to.

nope. I know of at least one other marriage that could be attributed to the people first meeting because of this site, and a fair few relationships too

And there's me thinking it might have stood for S illy C rotchety O ld T echie T rained Y ob only on days with a "Y" in them :004:

Thats done it .... Tommy will be prowling the streets of Ardersier now .... remember, he does know who you are !

Charles - I hear you, and the others that talk of dotting the "I"s and crossing the "T"s ... and I tend to agree with the damned if you do, damned if you dont scenario. The unfortunate thing from a PR perspective seems to be that Malky had already given a quote to the papers confirming his appointment on the same day that quotes from Grassa appeared in the Courier saying nothing had been decided. Having written Pool reports on a weekly basis for years, and at times amateur football blurbs for the Courier, I know that the deadline for Tuesday's courier is (or was) late Sunday night so its quite possible that Graeme's quotes were spot on at the time they were made to the reporter and because Malky spoke to a daily, with a shorter deadline, the conflicting comments appeared on the same day. At the end of the day, its no big deal in my eyes - we knew he was coming, but ICT couldnt confirm anything until the paperwork was done. Perhaps they could have told Malky to issue a "no comment" statement rather than confirming it though if they wanted to hold a press conference on Thursday.

Hopefully at a **** good rate for someone who travelled regularly from Coventry to Inverness and other sporting cauldrons like Recreation Park, Starks Park, Gayfield etc from 1994 until he finally moved into the area just a couple of years ago. mind you - I hear you also get Tommy thrown in and he will come out and yell at you to get off his ***ing pitch :rotflmao:

The source code for each story is timestamped automatically by the server or site software. According to the club, the stories were published at the same time ..........

If things havent changed, the deadline always used to be Sunday night for Tuesday edition.

Congratulations .... another wedding brought to you by CaleyThistleOnline.com :023: