Scotty

Dont think Tullochs did too badly out of the PR of constructing 2 stands in 45 days either .... and their website shows it as one of several projects in their leisure portfolio http://www.tulloch-construction.com/project-leisure-ictfc.php I have met and chatted with DS on numerous occasions both formally and informally and the bottom-line for me is that he seems to be an ordinary guy (albeit somewhat more prosperous than most of us) who does not have an ulterior motive as far as ICT are concerned (although there are some who continue to question his motives even after all this time). He has used his business skills and expertise to put us on the right track and for the second time has removed himself from running the club in the hope that someone else can take us to the next level. I hear good things about Alan Savage too and clearly DS thinks that he is the man that can take us to that next level. Caleyboy - you make some good points and I wanted to pick up on one of them. You mentioned 'financial injection' ... literally a matter of days after AS was named as chairman, we heard of him using his business contacts to further the club's progress and there has now been a 'rumour' floating around for a few weeks about a wealthy ex-pat .... could this be the next step ? I guess we will have to wait and see. Each and every director we have, or have had has made a contribution to our success, especially our chairmen - whether that be DS as mentioned above, the much maligned Dougie McGillivary who some have accused of getting us into the financial mess in the first place but also had the unenviable task of overseeing a period where we had to build an access road as well as a stadium, or whether it was the quiet effectiveness of Ken Mackie who rallied support for our SPL bid, kept the head when Plastic Thistle officials were shouting and bawling, and ultimately applied pressure in the right places as he played a huge role in getting us into the SPL. Alan Savage has some big shoes to fill, but by all accounts he is up to the task ... interesting times ahead I think.

they do say literacy rates are falling :015:

I think we have a number of candidates for our next club captain .... if/when Golly no longer has that role and assuming that Dods moves on. Barry Wilson (if still playing) - the older statesman of the team and arguably most experienced player we have. Ross Tokely - approaching 400 appearances for the club and epitomises loyalty and determination. Grant Munro - already mentioned as a 'future' captain. Stuart McCaffrey - if dods were t go and Caff gets back in he has all the necessary qualities. Ian Black - yes, even Blackie might be a candidate - maybe the responsibility would help calm him down a bit.

To put it quite simply .... Tullochs and/or David Sutherland have ensured that ICT continues to exist. Without intervention from them at a time when ICTs debts were out of control, I firmly believe ICT would no longer be around, or if we were, we would most certainly not be in the SPL. 1. He organised the restructuring of the 2m debt into a trust, effectively taking the club out of debt. Like Charles, I am not sure how he did it, but he did. 2. His profile with our creditors (the bank mainly) was high enough that he kept them at bay while restructuring the club. 3. He put a structure in place that ensures we try to balance the budget every year - a boring point but VERY important 4. He/Tullochs purchased hundreds of thousands worth of shares putting money directly into the club 5. He/Tullochs were instrumental in the project that saw our additional two stands built in record time, and at some cost not only to the club but also to Tullochs. Willie Fisher (staunch ICT fan) also deserves huge credit as the project manager :004: 6. Charles said "I would also not be surprised if I were told that Tulloch are possibly picking up quite a few odds and ends of costs relating to administration and staffing." .... I dont know if it is Tullochs or DS personally, but in the past, I was told he often picked up tabs for things we hear very little about ... whether it be office furniture, staffing, or various bits and pieces ... not to mention a few fan get togethers on various Scottish Cup trips (even if he does still owe IHE a double voddie). As Charles says, the difference between Gretna and ICT is a big one. Its like the old adage about financial aid to the third world .... give a man a fish and he will eat well for a day, teach him how to fish and he will eat well forever. In our case, we have had a fair bit of cash put our way but nowhere like the bucketloads that were thrown at Livi or Gretna. Instead, we have been taught - using David's expertise and business acumen - how to better manage the money we do have and make it work for us so that we can thrive for years to come.

Thought it was laid down in the rules that clubs are supposed to allocate something like a 5% minimum to away fans ??? For Ibrox that would be about 2600 seats. something amiss with the allocations methinks.

Thats not what he said ... :016: legitimate shouts for a penalty ... soft ... in otherwords, soft claims that could have gone either way but many refs would have been pressured into awarding them instead of making their own minds up

As far as I know, they still print them in the paper on a Friday ? We have had good relations with the Courier over the years and have no problem with them continuing to do this even though we are now an unofficial fan-site. We also have no problem if they want to include them as 'fan-mail' on the online edition - in fact, I enjoyed seeing what comments they picked each week when they did put them online. If anyone from the Courier wants to contact myself and/or Don to discuss this or clarify anything, please feel free to do so.

:015: :015: :clapping04: :clapping04: At the end of the day, ICT may be hugely important to us - and rightly so - but Grampian TV, Scotsport, Setanta, and most of the media will never give us the column inches or broadcast minutes we feel we deserve as they are geared up to get the most viewers or sell the most papers and ICT just doesnt do it for them (any more). Grampian TV is a local station based in Aberdeen that covers 3 cities (maybe 4 or even 5 if you include Perth and Elgin :017:). Of the 3 cities with SPL teams, Inverness is by far the smallest and therefore of least interest to the TV execs. It gets even worse when you apply this to the Glasgow or Edinburgh based media, and worse still when you apply it to the national or indeed international media. I might be taking it to extremes, but even the Sunday edition of the Toronto Star which normally has a paragraph about how Celtic and Rangers got on the day before (and about 6 paragraphs in total about the English premiership - 'soccer' gets about 1/4 of a page if we are lucky) failed to mention either team this weekend. We do get huge media coverage when we pull off a big shock - witness all the coverage in Feb 2000 - but as a decent mid table side in the SPL, the beating of a struggling Rangers team doesnt have the same 'shock factor' or hold the same interest no matter how important that WE know the result is. It is - in a way - a back-handed compliment to the progress and reputation of ICT as an SPL side. I would exclude a few people/publications from the media bashing .... The Courier has (almost) always given us great coverage, and the P&J has improved a lot in recent seasons. Even the HN which once behaved very badly towards ICT is half decent now (albeit with a bad article that was more about Rangers than ICT last week). There are also decent articles most weeks from at least one of the broadsheets. I also cannot fault either Charles Bannerman, or Richard Gordon. With Charles it is understandable - being local and all - but RG, as we have said on here before seems to treat us with a fair bit of respect and journalistic integrity which is refreshing given that he's a Dons fan.

he was only on 5 bookings before the Rangers game and got booked in that one to earn his suspension .... I thought he was suspended for this weekend, but based on the previous posts I guess he is eligible for this game but not the St Mirren one ??

I posted this on P&B earlier today ------------------------------------------- United have some good INDIVIDUAL players, but no matter who is in charge there seems to be something in the air/water at Tannadice that ensures they cannot play as a TEAM. Given time, Brewster may reshape the side, reduce the wage bill and even find some players who have some heart and will work hard for the club and each other, but the Chairman has a reputation as an impatient man whose past record of intolerance goes before him. I can see Brewster back at East End Park before the year is out with big Jim moving upstairs again or taking on a mentoring role. --------------------------------------------

I would guess at 2 .... David Bagan and Jose Quitongo (although he has now been released).

I meant 750k in total to get rid of CB and get a new man in place and give him a few pennies to work with ...... and if you include the 200k it cost to get him from ICT (which maybe you shouldn't as it was last season) you would not be a kick in the erse of 1 million. How much HAS ET thrown away in buying and sacking managers over the last few years I wonder

How many Dumbarton players do you think Darren Dods could name ?

If we assume that Brewster is a reasonably intelligent man, surely even he could look at the recent history of the club and realise that the job was a 'poisoned chalice'. I can understand why he took it - United legend and all that - but the club have been seriously underperforming (and over-expecting) for a long time, not just under McCall. Even though Brewster may one day be a great manager, asking him to turn round the fortunes of a declining team like DUFC is way above his level at the moment. Agree with that, the question has to be how long you are prepared to let it go. ET is not renowned for his patience. They were sort of discussing this on the radio at the weekend and the question that seemed to be raised was whether ET could actually afford to sack him. If you figure it cost ET 200k to get him from ICT and he has a decent contract that would cost a fair bit of money to buy out, then it will cost even more money to get a new guy in and give him some form of budget to work with ..... you could be talking upwards of 750k or even a million. If the grocer does 'do it again', I would NOT be surprised to see CB back at East End Park before the year is out but I just hope that Mixu has the sense to take the Hibs job if offered and not the other job that might appeal to him ......

Peter Paul's Pics

Guess its the public persona VS private persona Gazza is another one who actually did a fair bit of work for charity and such like but all we ever think of are the antics that got him in the papers which always enjoyed showing him as a wife beating, flute playing drunkard .... Ferguson is always portrayed as an idiotic wee ned on things like Only an excuse or Off the Ball and I guess thats what shapes most people's opinions. If he is putting something back into the community by way of coaching and/or charity work then fair play to him. I dont think that will suddenly make me think that he is a great player or a wonderful person, but it maybe drops the ned factor a wee bit.

Click on either the fan report or the official report on the frontpage and you will get the link to the audio interviews after the game - I cant access it here at work as the filetype is not allowed.

There is the possibility that Saturday's result might make a few extra bodies go to the game, but the abysmal home record is just as likely to see just as many stay away. We need a few decent home results, and some good performances to change the casual visitors perception that they might actually see a decent game (and a good ICT result) at the TCS. I remember back to Div2 & Div1 days where we nicknamed the TCS the 'fortress' as we seldom lost there (but we were correspondingly bad away from home) ... Our SPL record seems to have turned that stat on its head and even the radio commentators seem to mention the disparity every week ...

People can throw a 'huffy' if they want, its up to them ... what IHE posted was a rumour (or perhaps more accurately a wind-up) and someone moved it to the rumours board. If it turns out to be true, we will move it back - like we did with other rumours :004: At the end of the day, its only a forum and not that important in most people's lives. I certainly have better things to do than chase around after individual posters apologising for the actions of others, especially when those actions are correct. It isnt going to bother me in the slightest if a few posters decide that their future lies elsewhere as you cant please everyone all of the time ... and there are some who you cant please any of the time !! Both before we were made official in 2000 and since then, I used to think we could please everyone and I tried to do just that, only to get shot at from both sides on most occasions. Returning the site to unofficial status has meant that we have been able to relax a lot of the rules - or expectations is perhaps more accurate wording - we had imposed upon us. All we ask is that postings go in the right place and that they are not 'offensive' or contain things like links to illegal downloads of SPL copyrighted material. I dont think its too much to ask.

Charlie also said we 'sold out our allocation' - dont forget, away teams get virtually no seats at ibrox.

What has 'independence' got to do with one of the mods/admins moving a rumour from the main board to the rumours board ? Its not like it got deleted.

click on THIS LINK - the written report is to follow, but we have 3 audio clips from Radio Scotland up there - match report, interview with CC, and interview with PLG

how do we know thats actually what he's gonna do ? it could be truth, bluff, or double-bluff .... Would you reveal your full tactics truthfully to an opponent the day before a game or just give the journos a soundbite and then tell those that matter - ie your team - how its gonna be ? I can see it now .... Pepe Le Pew in the Rangers dressing room before the game ... "bonjour mes amis, Aujourd'hui we play Caley Thistle ... Charlie has given us his 'Tactique de jeu' and this is what we will do ......" at half-time "Oh merde .... " at full-time "Charlie est un bâtard adroit" of course, Barry understands every word :015:

Was it not the Douglas Hotel before dillies ? C'mon Charles - bet you were in there at least once - for journalistic reasons of course - !!!

So Mixu to Hibs, Levein to the Arabs, and Brewster to the dogs ... :015: :015: