Scotty

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.

Which Hotel Jnr ? Hope its not the one we are staying in when we come over ... you will need to meet and exceed our very high expectations of service if it is ..... :015: but seriously - well done, and good luck, will hopefully see you for a pint or two in a couple of weeks :003:

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

Most likely players, officials or those in hospitality and there probably werent any stewards there when they arrived. Car parking has been an issue for years, and I think I would take Blackieforce's approach or give LG's firm a shout to get a taxi to/from the front door :003:

Marshall on for Boruc at HT - Boruc injured his back saving Rankin's effort

Barry reported as 'sick' overnight

Lineups (see pics attached) [attachment deleted by admin]

OK - its launched, and maybe I should be bitter after 12 years of providing the club with a website (both officially and unofficially) ... but you know what, I am not bitter, I am relieved. The site is being run by the club from the stadium and there is at least 1 member of staff who will be spending considerable time keeping it updated so that should be good. There will be commercial opportunities available and I am told that it is planned to offer both live audio and live video but that will not be until some time in the future. We will continue to supply the club with their club shop for the next month or so at which time they should be ready to launch their own one on the site. It should also not take too long for online ticketing to become available. I would say - bear with them - they will get there as far as the website is concerned. Anyone who has produced a website will know you do a s***load of work in the background and users dont realise just how much time or effort it takes. It may lack polish right now but I am sure that Fiona and the PTV team will sort that out.

Only Celtic, Rangers, Hearts and maybe Aberdeen would be steps-up. moving to any other team in the SPL is a sideways step. Some of the other teams have the POTENTIAL to be bigger (again), in a timescale that ICT probably couldnt match, but no-one can argue that ICT havent got potential either - just look at what we have managed to do in the last12 years. ALSO - Lets not forget that these 'bigger' teams also have the POTENTIAL to go in the other direction like Raith Rovers or Partick have done .....

what impasse ? ..... Rival club bids for player, bid is laughable, bid denied (repeat a number of times). player eventually asks for transfer but is in contract till end of season. transfer denied. player assures club he will see out his contract. end of story.

They paid the 200k for Brewster in installments too !!! - nothing to do with 'nae money' - more an astute move by the grocer to keep the bulk of the 200k in his own bank earning interest before paying the other club at (or after) the last moment.

not a celebrity, just a small football manager. for some reason, when reading this subject, I cant help thinking of the Dennis Waterman sketches on Little Britain :015:

ok - this has gone far enough. The methadone comments are just not on. please refrain from the abuse.

curry

Basil Fawlty

At the end of the day - I dont give a flying **** what Brew does at Tannadice so long as he (and his chairman) stops trying to lure our players in an unprofessional manner. If he does it professionally and through the right channels, making offers that meet ICT's valuations then fair enough but no more bleating to the press please - it smacks of rattles and prams. And the same goes for ICT - we dont come out of this smelling like roses either and comparisons have been made of the way we obtained Rankin. The situations are fairly different, but there are enough similarities that we cant get all snooty about the grocer and his general assistant. As for his team .... He did inherit a bunch of overpaid prima donnas who were not performing to anything like their potential and it will take time to resolve that. On paper, the DUFC team should not have finished anywhere near the bottom, but as has often been said, football is played on grass, not on paper. Given his nature, I am sure he probably told all his players they werent performing and some responded well while others did not. Those who responded positively are still there whilst others were slapped on the transfer list or told to train with the youngsters - thats up to him. It will be a real test of his managerial skills to see if he can rebuild a side that desparately needs it as opposed to the 'slight tinkering' he had to do at ICT. One thing Caley Thistle have - wee team or not - is a great team spirit. Our last two managers may not have lasted very long, but it was their choice to leave and go to clubs where they had a long association. We have never taken the Eddie Thomson approach which seems to be to sack the manager at least once a season, preferring to allow managers to do their job, build their squads, set their tactics and get on with it without the intense pressure of a chairman who seems to be just waiting to issue a 'vote of confidence'. We had bad results under Paterson, Robbo, and Brew but no-one ever reached for the panic button. Similarly, the teams that Robbo, Brew and Christie have all put out on the park were never their own per say .... our stability has seen players like Tokely spend 10 years at the club, Hastings has also spent 10 years with us albeit with a break, as has Barry Wilson - these guys and others always featured in the team regardless of who the manager was. As for the managers themselves - Brew was adequate, nothing more. As fans of ICT we probably gave him higher status when he was our manager, but thats only natural. We are probably doing the same with Charlie Christie - maybe even moreso given his long association with the club (in the same way DUFC fans will give Brew more leeway). Charlie would be the first to admit he is at the very start of the learning process and will make mistakes - some postings on here have pointed out what fans think to be the odd mistake but most of us have confidence that he will go on to be as long serving and as succesfull a manager for us as Steve Paterson was. DUFC fans seem to like to call us a wee club .... but its a matter of perspective .... what is a big club ? 3rd and 2nd division sides probably see both as a big club. 1st division sides probably see DUFC as a biggger club as they have been in the SPL longer ... but many of them are modelling themselves on the ICT model - we are debt free, made a profit last season, and try to live within our means. Its unlikely we will ever be a huge team like Celtic or Rangers but we are a **** of a lot bigger than we were only 12 years ago. We also have a fair bit of 'history' for a team that hasnt yet reached its teenage years. Where I think DUFC fans are getting confused is in their POTENTIAL and PAST HISTORY. Dundee Utd were a big team - part of the 'new firm' with Aberdeen, and the 3rd (or 4th ?) best club in Scotland year on year. They competed in Europe, and i do mean competed, not just 'took part' like so many Scottish teams these days. But those days are gone. Dundee United are now no better than ICT, finishing below us the last couple of seasons, in debt, and with a far smaller support than they used to have (although still bigger than our growing support). They are not in as bad a mess (financially or otherwise) as some other teams who used to be big .. like Partick, Dundee, or even Raith Rovers but right now they cant claim to be bigger than anyone else in the SPL. Part of the reason for the lack of financial mess is not the reasonable-ness of the wage scale which in some cases - if figures are to be believed - is ridiculous for an under achieving mid table side but is because of the benevolence of your chairman where finances are concerned. Where I will concede the point is that DUFC DO have the POTENTIAL to be bigger than ICT a lot quicker if they start improving. There is a fanbase out there that may come back, there is a bigger stadium, there are higher wages that will potentially attract 'better' players (careful of the debts though) so they could get back to where they were in the past a lot more quickly. however, ICT has made slow and steady progess year-on-year and we hope to be around in the SPL for years to come.

Wizard of Oz

shame I will miss you on my forthcoming trip IHE - was looking forward to you buying me a large voddie and coke :004: :blah01:

Riley

Miss World :004:

no worries

Please dont post all in capital letters 1MORESEASONBLACK ... its considered to be 'shouting' in Internet speak and hard to read :004:

Livi out :015: :015: :015: dundee got one back at the death (Swankie 90)..... but go out 2-1