Scotty

They make hygiene products ...... their brands might not have reached Dundee yet :023: :023: :tic01:

Not sure how to take this one .... as an ICT fan I am quite happy as I think he has flattered to deceive on many occasions in the SPL and his signing for DUFC was based on only a handful of decent outings at his previous club. Dont think we were ever linked with him but its interesting to note that he is now heading over the pond for a reputed wage of around £1000 a week which should have been within reach of most SPL clubs. As a Toronto season ticket holder I am worried but also intrigued. The style of play here is different and if he actually tries he could be a big hit (in the same way that a journeyman pro like Danny Dichio is currently the cult figure at TFC !!!). He does have skill and talent when he wants to show it but I fear he will only show it in flashes and be a lazy bar-steward the rest of the time and that wont cut it at TFC. Not sure whether Mo has signed him to play up front or on the wing .... the first choice pairing of Dichio and Jeff Cunningham are starting to score goals and the main reserve striker Andrea Lombardo is a Canadian U20 who is already a bit of a favourite so I think he may be used on the wing where Andy Welsh is a bit lightweight ..... I guess we will see ........ however, if he doesnt play well, Mo is more than likely to trade him away to another team for draft picks or another player he might want such as Dwayne De Rosario !!!

:015: :015: - feckin spellchecker !!!!

Well, it wont be Collin Samuel !!! Samuel signs for Toronto

According to the cops when I took the bullets to the station, many of those returning from the war or involved in the civil defense movement after it (both of which were categories that my grandfather fell into), either kept or acquired rifles, revolvers and even heavier equipment (machine guns were also apparently common !!!) .... according to the cops, this was frequently used to for 'leisure' shooting (deer / grouse or even target shooting) as opposed to crime and in 'modern times' weapons from this era were routinely handed in every week !!

Before I left for Canada, one of the things I did was to rip down our old (dilapidated) garage and leave it as decking. The garage had been built by my grandfather and he had always said there would be a "surprise" for anyone who tore it down. We got a surprise alright .... two full (and at that time, unopened) boxes of rifle ammunition which were from the 50s (civil defense) and still, believe it or not, in pristine condition due to the sealed vacuum container that gave that satisfying whoosh when opened. The other surprise was that when we took them to the cop shop beside the college, the desk officer said, "thanks, we get this sort of stuff all the time." Seems that with the amount of building and renovation work going on in town,many people had been finding things like guns and ammunition that now elderly (or deceased) relatives had hidden away after the war or during civil defense days in the 50s.

I did point it out on another thread but probably a good idea to mention it on here as well .....

2 qualify from each group = 12 4 of the 6 4rd place teams also qualify = 4 12+4 = 16 ... knockout from there.

Because the people who compiled the stats for PTV (the providers of the ICT website) arent football fans and cant tell one Ian Black from another ... in other words, they fecked up (just like the Canadian TV station that said Hastings was a midfielder)

no need to start getting quite so abusive - :32:

Which part of the question DID YOU WATCH THE MATCH did you not understand ??? If you had watched it you would have realised what samuelbarros posted is exactly what happened .... and what the Canadian fans posted on the other site that I reproduced in one of my postings. In other words .... the TV station got it wrong !!! Most TV stations over here barely knew the game existed 12 months ago and are not exactly experts in the game let alone the players !!!

I believe Mr McAllister handles the press releases these days.

Lesser known yes, but not necessarily lesser talented. There are some quality individuals in some of the teams but because they arent playing with a fashionable international side or alongside the Raul's, Beckhams or Ronaldo's of this world (although some of them will be playing alongside Beckham in a couple of weeks) they dont get noticed as easily. Overall, I would say my estimation is that a team like Scotland would probably do very well in this competition but equally, they could also quite easily go out to the likes of USA (Fifa rank=16), Mexico (26) or even Canada (who jumped up 38 places in the FIFA rankings this month to 56 while Scotland dropped 9 to 23rd).

CaleyD .... what is failed to be shown in those stats is that Glasgow (and Edinburgh) have a far wider range of house styles and conditions .... eg depressed areas that bring the average down. If you were to compare like for like in terms of both neighbourhood as well as style of house etc I am confident that Inverness would not be more expensive. HGTV over here has a lot of property programs from the UK and I recently watched one where a Glasgowcouple were looking to move to a bigger flat. One of the houses they looked at was a former council house in Paisley that had been done up. I would say that the house was comparable to similar areas in Inverness like Dalneigh ..... the house was listed at about 160k ..... which is higher than the average former council house price in Dalneigh of around 110-130k.

Why do I get the mental picture of a young lad pushing a bike up a steep hill with 'Hovis' music playing in the background .......... :015: :015:

I cant access youtube at work but thats a strange lineup (and only has 10 players BTW), but did you actually watch the game ? Once again, let me assure you that he did NOT, let me repeat that did NOT, play in midfield. This is a comment made by one of the supporters on the supporters site .... "Fantastic game all around. I liked how Stalteri and Jazic were getting forward a lot and the pairing of Hainault and Hastings was alright. I was just glad that it wasn't the Sportsnet lineup that they introduced the show with with DeGuz as CB and Hutch as LB."

Geography IS a factor in the minds of (many) prospective players and their agents as is the perception that Inverness is a small town in the middle of nowhere. In my mind, there are only a couple of things we can do to minimise that perception .... 1. Pay higher wages - not sure we should go down that route .... we should pay what we can, but not offer silly money. 2. Put together a positive package (a brochure even) for prospective players that highlights the good things about the area and plays down some of the myths about transport links. If someone says "but its so far away", the response should be "its only 90 minutes from London and you can get there and back for 100 quid" or similar. If someone bemoans the lack of good restaurants or pubs then show them a copy of Gordon Ramsey's program from Abstract or get Charlie to cook them a meal !!! If someone moans at living costs show them what 150 grand buys in Inverness compared to Glasgow/Edinburgh etc etc etc. In other words, play up our positives instead of agreeing with the often incorrect negatives. some positives ....... - less than 3 hours by road/rail from most other cities in Scotland. - Scheduled flights to Gatwick, Heathrow, Luton, Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Manchester, Nottingham, Dublin, Leeds, Edinburgh, Liverpool and Southampton. - beautiful scenery very close by - clean air, clean water - decent restaurants, bars and facilities (maybe not the same amount of choice as bigger cities but you can find good ones) - reasonably priced housing (in comparison to some areas) - less of a "goldfish bowl" than other cities

I am sure the club have got plenty of tops on back order and Errea will send one or two in advance for the press launch. The sponsorship deal wasnt just organised yesterday so there is/was plenty time to make sure the orders were placed on time and get here soon. One of the (other) things that always seems to hold up things is that many Italian companies have a summer break where the whole company shuts down for several weeks - I believe Errea are one of them. prediction. ICT to receive about 6 tops very soon - 3 home, 3 away for press launch ICT to receive the commemorative tops for those who paid for names on them towards middle/end of July along with the team shirts for the season. ICT to receive merchandise to actually sell .... about 3 weeks into the season.

The Canadian association's website is down, so I cant get the official team lines but I can assure you that RH was not playing in midfield. The side has been pretty settled throughout the competition with a back 4 of Jazic, Hastings, Hainault and Stalteri that started every game. Lineup for Costa Rica (4-5-1) G 22 Pat Onstad D 3 Ante Jazic D 11 Richard Hastings D 5 Andre Hainault D 7 Paul Stalteri M 16 Martin Nash M 14 Dwayne De Rosario M 6 Julian de Guzman M 13 Atiba Hutchinson M 15 Patrice Bernier F 9 Rob Friend Lineup for Guadeloupe (4-5-1) G 1 Greg Sutton D 3 Ante Jazic D 11 Richard Hastings D 5 Andre Hainault D 7 Paul Stalteri M 16 Martin Nash M 14 Dwayne De Rosario M 6 Julian de Guzman M 13 Atiba Hutchinson M 15 Patrice Bernier F 10 Ali Gerba Lineup for Haiti (4-5-1) G 22 Pat Onstad D 3 Ante Jazic D 11 Richard Hastings D 5 Andre Hainault D 7 Paul Stalteri M 20 Chris Pozniak M 14 Dwayne De Rosario M 6 Julian de Guzman M 13 Atiba Hutchinson M 18 Issey Nakajima-Farran F 9 Rob Friend Lineup for Guatemala (Q-F) (4-5-1) G 22 Pat Onstad D 3 Ante Jazic D 11 Richard Hastings D 5 Andre Hainault D 7 Paul Stalteri M 16 Martin Nash M 14 Dwayne De Rosario M 6 Julian de Guzman M 13 Atiba Hutchinson M 15 Patrice Bernier F 10 Ali Gerba Lineup for USA (S-F) (4-5-1) G 22 Pat Onstad D 3 Ante Jazic D 11 Richard Hastings D 5 Andre Hainault D 7 Paul Stalteri M 16 Martin Nash M 14 Dwayne De Rosario M 6 Julian de Guzman M 13 Atiba Hutchinson M 15 Patrice Bernier F 10 Ali Gerba Interesting to note these positive comments about RH on the main Canadian fan site (Voyageurs) after the disgrace of the USA game. "A game-breaking wrong call like that can either crush a team or make them stronger, and it looked to me from the players' reactions that this one is going to make them stronger. They were angry, but not broken. They looked full of confidence and pride. Hastings was rallying the troops like a real leader - just for that (and his steadily improving play game-in and game-out at centre back) I'd have him on the World Cup qualifying squad if I was picking the team." "Full props to Richard Hastings - he actually showed he could be a legitimate centre-back option out there today." "Have to say a collective "we were wrong" to players like Onstad and Hastings, who nobody here, or with very few exceptions in Hastings' case, had in the mix. We were mostly wrong, these guys were so solid."

5 goals in 0 appearances too !!!! pretty good dontcha think Blackburn and ICT is all that is on Soccerbase. Not sure who PTV (the website provider) pulls their stats in from but they might want to look at that.

That decision has Canadian fans going ape**** .... made even worse because this same ref has a history of making bad decisions against Canada including a shocker when they played Honduras in World Cup qualifying. Hastings squad number is #11 but he wasnt playing as a midfielder, he was left side of central defence although he was getting a little further forward. However, it was interesting to note the commentators mentioning how he had been playing out of position from his favoured left back role and saying he had done well. The coach obviously thought so too as he played every game. Perhaps it also gives CC something to consider for ICT ? Have you actually watched much of the Gold Cup ? There is a fair bit of talent in there let me assure you even with newcomers Guadeloupe who have traditionally had their players picked by France. The MLS may not be the EPL or SPL and the Gold Cup may not be the Euros but its not a mickey mouse competition. Many of the players in a lot of the squads play in Europe and I have witnessed a few of the Americans and Canadians playing in the MLS - its not like comparing Highland League to SPL, more like bottom half of SPL to SFL1

I have no problem with the club making a profit from the fans --- its all just business. If the club can be commercially viable then it is one way of ensuring progress. However, they have to make sure they are not ripping people off. You could argue that all clubs rip people off to a greater or lesser degree and ICT are no different .... new strips every year (or every 2 in our case), those same strips that cost pennies to make being sold for 40 quid a pop, other "cheap" merchandise sold at premium prices, inflated entry fees to actually see a game and an extra fee for parking in what amounts to no more than a field. At the end of the day however, I will continue to do my bit - even from over here - by buying said merchandise and paying my money for other things including centenary club. [note: I would actually buy merchandise over the net if postage wasnt a REAL rip off !!! but I send someone in for it instead and they can post it to me for a quarter of the price that ICT wanted to charge.] As for the stadium bar - this has been mentioned for about the 10th time in 10 years but never seems to happen. If it ever gets off the ground, then so long as it is selling beer at pub prices (or better still at social club prices) then there is no problem ... the club make a profit on it and the punters are paying what they would elsewhere.

Canada went out last night in the semi final stages to USA by a score of 2-1 even though they had a perfectly good goal chalked off in injury time !!!! Richard has played in every game and done pretty well. The commentators last night were actually complimenting him on a difficult Gold Cup where he has had to move from his favoured left back position to play as an out and out centre half. From what I saw on TV he managed the change with no problem.

ARTICLE - P&J

Just like a player (and any of us at work) he wants to get the best possible deal for himself .... as we dont know the contract details then we have no basis for knowing why he is not interested in looking at it at the moment. Are the wages too low ? Are there stipulations in there he doesnt like ? If he signs it will he lose the often suggested possibility of a fallback position in the commercial side of things if it all went pear shaped ? or is it maybe even because he still has a year of his current contract to run and wants to concentrate on trying to sign replacements for Dargo and Dods before even looking at it. these are all scenarios that took about 30 seconds to think up, I am sure there are dozens more. You very rarely sign a contract in business/work without first reading and considering it and in football I would say that it is even more important to take it away, read it, get someone else (agent/lawyer) to have a look at it and take time to decide on it as job security is less assured because of the goldfish bowl you are in. You could be a hero one day and a villain the next and if your contract aint right it could be your family that sees you as a villain. Its a non-story !!!! I have always had faith in CC's ability to manage ICT (since day 1) even though I will question decisions and tactics from time to time and be frustrated after a loss. CC is ICT through and through and I have no doubt that he will sign his new contract as and when he sees fit.