Scotty

THE MATCHDAY THREAD Discuss ICT & other games in this thread as they happen Inverness CT -V- Dundee Utd PREVIEW 20th April 2019 @ 3pm, Caledonian Stadium Follow us on Twitter Follow us on Facebook Go to the Chatroom Media Coverage AUDIO COVERAGE BBC Sportsound BBC Sportsound [UK Only] LIVE TEXT (ONLINE) Sporting Life BBC VIDEO SPFL YouTube Channel ICT Official YouTube Channel TEAM LINEUPS TO FOLLOW Tweets by @ICTFC Tweets by @ICTFC

Scotty : Falkirk @ 2.05 CDN Girl : Montrose @ 2.15 SOS : Stranraer @ 2.20

Scotty HT: 0-0 FT: 2-1 1st ICT: White 1st Opp: Safranko Crowd: 2134 CDN Girl HT: 1-0 FT: 2-0 1st ICT: Polworth 1st Opp: McMullen Crowd: 2222 SOS HT: 1-1 FT: 2-2 1st ICT: Doran 1st Opp: Clark Crowd: 2314

Ryan is scheduled to go for surgery today to address the horrible facial injuries suffered in the other semi-final. On behalf of CTO (and myself) I just want to wish him all the best for a speedy recovery and to hope that Charlie and the rest of his family are not too stressed out. Its never easy to see relatives in medical distress, especially your children !

We are happy to have sponsored him since before he was a first team regular. When we sponsored him it was a toss-up between him or Ryan Christie as both youngsters were not sponsored at the time. Here's hoping that he goes on to get the same plaudits as Ryan but not the same injury (ouch).

Over the years we have sponsored someone or something every year either through the site coffers, our users, or both. We sponsored Grant Munro through his entire ICT career and have now done the same thing with Liam Polworth who will leave for Motherwell at the end of the season. We have also sponsored various 'lesser' items like goalie gloves or Ross Tokely's boots etc ! Over the years we have taken pride in picking a young up and coming local players who might not otherwise get sponsored at that stage of their career and it paid off for us with our sponsorship of both Grant and Liam. My open question to the site users now is whether we continue to sponsor a player now that Liam is leaving, and if so, who that should be. I have to be transparent here and say my initial thoughts were to say an absolute no to sponsorship for next season. I do not take kindly - in business as a service provider, or on a personal level - to being ignored, slandered, bad-mouthed and lied to, all of which have taken place in the last year by senior club employees. Given there have been some positive changes in personnel at the stadium, and I have had a few months to let the initial annoyances, frustration and financial impacts subside, I am prepared to continue running our scheme on here if enough users want to continue. If the scheme is to continue then I would be up for sponsoring someone like : Daniel Mackay, Roddy MacGregor, Cammy Mackay, Daniel Hoban ... etc basically one of the younger up and coming guys. Current sponsors have priority over renewing so although someone suggested switching to Ridgers, he is fully sponsored and if his current sponsors renew it would not be an option. Emma will no doubt send us a list of players in the coming weeks with details of who/what is available.

We received a note from the club for the player sponsors' night on Tuesday 30th April, 6pm - 9pm. If anyone who is part of our player sponsorship group wants to go you can read more details about it in sponsors area here: I need to know by next week so I can let Emma know. If no-one in the sponsor group wants to claim the free dinner by say next Thursday, then we can open this up to other site members who are not in the group. If you are not in the player sponsor group and would like to go, please mention it in here. We will make a decision Friday (or tell the club no-one wants to go if we get no takers). As with previous years, the gift of a signed top from our sponsored player (Polly) will be drawn at a later date and will include all player sponsors in the draw from both far and near. It will not form part of this sponsors night like it does with local sponsors.

can we keep this thread to Polly please. Want to talk about Doran or anyone else, please start a new one in the correct section (depending on rumour/fact/wishlist)

good luck to the player we have sponsored on this site since he was just a squad player making up the numbers :).

Scotty: HT: 0-1 FT: 1-2 1st ICT: White 1st Opp: Kiltie Crowd: 1533 CDN Girl HT: 0-0 FT: 0-0 1st ICT: Chalmers 1st Opp: Tidser Crowd: 1201 SOS HT: 1-1 FT: 1-3 1st ICT: Doran 1st Opp: Oliver Crowd: 1402

THE MATCHDAY THREAD Discuss ICT & other games in this thread as they happen Greenock Morton -V- Inverness CT PREVIEW 16th April 2019 @ 19:45, Cappielow Stadium, Greenock Follow us on Twitter Follow us on Facebook Go to the Chatroom Media Coverage AUDIO COVERAGE BBC Sportsound LIVE Commentary on BBC Sportsound [UK Only] LIVE TEXT (ONLINE) Sporting Life BBC VIDEO SPFL YouTube Channel ICT Official YouTube Channel TEAM LINEUPS Tweets by @ICTFC Tweets by @ICTFC

I would disagree ..... The first half was indeed about keeping Hearts at bay but we did play some nice football too even if we had little or no end product. We were the underdogs and with all due respect to our squad, it showed. If that free-kick from Chalmers had gone in - and it wasnt far away - then it might have been our spirits that got lifted, and the end story could have been different ... but once Ikpeazu scored it was the Jambos who got a lift and the rest as they say is history. Our heads went down after that and we conceded the second and third. I thought Walsh and Rooney were poor but other than that I would give pass marks to the rest. Jake Mulraney had an excellent game for them (unfortunately) and this and the strength of Ikpeazu were the two biggest factors for me.

*** VOTING IN THE POLL ABOVE IS FOR PEOPLE WHO WERE AT THE MATCH ONLY *** If you were at the match, please use the poll above to vote for your top 3 players. As a bit of fun, we have also added an option to rate the referee .... Please make sure you vote for 3 separate players. If you make an error, let us know so we can fix it. PLEASE ONLY VOTE ABOVE IF YOU WERE AT THE GAME Anyone caught trying to cheat the system WILL be banned from voting in ALL site polls...this is your only warning. **NOT at the game ?** As a result of requests received, we have made a slight change to how these threads work for site users who watched the game on TV or listened to the full game live on the radio ....... You too will now be able to cast your votes, but should do it in the thread below, and NOT in the official poll above. Just list the three players of your choosing and award 5,3, or 1 point(s). You can give the ref a mark if you want too ! These votes will NOT be counted in the official total, as we only count votes from those who where actually at the game, but it IS a way for you to participate in the process .... which many people asked for .... a happy medium we hope !!!!!

Walsh seems to be pulling out of challenges up top and Rooney weak at the back but other than that we are doing ok. Ridgers only two saves to make. Some neat passing in midfield but no final product (yet) Mulraney seems to be having a decent game (unfortunately) and Ikpeazu is big and strong. We seem to be bouncing off him anytime we challenge him. .... Described at half-time as a bulldozer. that seems to be about right

Scotty : Airdrie @ 2.00 CDN Girl : Edinburgh City @ 2.30 SOS : Dundee Utd @ 2.00

Scotty HT: 1-1 FT: 1-2 1st ICT: White 1st Opp: Ikpeazu Crowd: 17856 1st Yellow Card: Brad Mckay Time of First Goal: 19 CDN Girl HT: 0-0 FT: 0-1 1st ICT: Doran 1st Opp: Keena Crowd: 18888 1st Yellow Card: Berra Time of First Goal: 55 SOS HT: 1-0 FT: 1-1 1st ICT: Walsh 1st Opp: Mulraney Crowd: 18321 1st Yellow Card: Rooney Time of First Goal: 23

THE MATCHDAY THREAD Discuss ICT & other games in this thread as they happen Heart of Midlothian -V- Inverness Caledonian Thistle Scottish Cup Semi-Final PREVIEW 13th April, 2019 @ 12:15PM, Hampden Park, Glasgow Follow us on Twitter Follow us on Facebook Go to the Chatroom Media Coverage AUDIO COVERAGE BBC Sportsound BBC Sportsound [UK Only] LIVE TEXT (ONLINE) Sporting Life BBC VIDEO LIVE (in UK) : https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/live/football/47791821 SPFL YouTube Channel ICT Official YouTube Channel TEAM LINEUPS Tweets by @ICTFC Tweets by @ICTFC

Heres another deal that just popped up in my feed ..... Inverness to Costa Rica or US Virgin Islands for under £250 !! https://www.secretflying.com/posts/inverness-scotland-to-puerto-rico-or-us-virgin-islands-from-only-247-roundtrip/ This site has now made their premium app free so you can sign up for alerts to/from any airport and for error fares etc .... it has the potential to save you a ton or to let you jump on some last minute deals if you are spontaneous.

I agree with the sentiment ... perhaps my question would have been better phrased by saying can we afford a CEO? ..... although I know the counter argument to that is can we afford NOT to have a CEO ! Time will tell. I think Caleyboy hit the nail on the head with his comment ..... if he saves or generates more money than he costs then its a win for all concerned. There is no doubt we all want him to succeed because if he does, we all do. As I said in my earlier post, I personally will judge him based on what he does and not what he did or did not do before. His CV is certainly impressive, but then again, they are supposed to be ! If he can engage with all the stakeholders, from fans, to staff, to sponsors to shareholders and directors and figure out how to get more bums on seats and less cash down the drain (and I am not talking about contracts here) then he will do well. I hope he does. Got to agree with that. Off the park we have - at times - been an unmitigated disaster despite the best efforts of an extremely hard working but small team of employees and volunteers.

TFC are the only unbeaten side in the Eastern Conference but this 2-2 draw felt a bit like a loss. Coming off a high from Pozuelo’s debut last week, this was a more subdued affair and although the reds dominated the first half and had chance after chance, they were not converted into goals. Ousted had a few good saves but there are some days where you just know its not going to click. This was one of those days. The opening goal came in 31 minutes when Altidore got on the end of a Pozuelo cross to head home. The relief in the stands was palpable but it was short lived. Almost on the stroke of half-time, Drew Moor lost the ball high up the field and it was sent long by Katai to CJ Sapong who barrelled down the sideline. The angle from the edge of the box looked impossible but with ‘Bombscare’ Bono showing up this week and making a trek to the edge of the box he was able to chip it over him and into the net from an acute angle. Into the second half and the Fire came more into the game and went ahead in 62 minutes. That man Katai was again involved and he made the run down the flanks before cutting back to Nikolic who had an easy tap-in. 17 minutes later and it was another cross into the box that led to a goal, fortunately for TFC it was a red goal … Jozy turned from scorer to provider and hard down the wing to engineer a cross to an unmarked Osorio at the back post who powered a header into the net. 2-2 and blushes spared. A few notes from this game Aleksander Katai is a bit of a dick ! He had a pop at Bono, Moor, Laryea and Altidore all in the same incident. Lucky to get away with just a yellow Richie Laryea looks good. Made his debut for TFC and put some good work in. Alex Bono needs some serious competition. No idea how good Westberg is as we havent seen him but someone needs to push Bono for the #1 spot as he is going backwards. CJ Sapong took his goal well. Alejandro Pozuelo had a quiet week … just the 1 assist and a hand in starting quite a few moves. Gallery for this game can be found here : https://viewfromthesouthstands.com/gallery/2019-gallery/collections/72157708053013884/ Jozy Altidore Goal Jonathan Osorio Goal Full Match Highlights View the full article

TFC are the only unbeaten side in the Eastern Conference but this 2-2 draw felt a bit like a loss. Coming off a high from Pozuelo’s debut last week, this was a more subdued affair and although the reds dominated the first half and had chance after chance, they were not converted into goals. Ousted had a few good saves but there are some days where you just know its not going to click. This was one of those days. The opening goal came in 31 minutes when Altidore got on the end of a Pozuelo cross to head home. The relief in the stands was palpable but it was short lived. Almost on the stroke of half-time, Drew Moor lost the ball high up the field and it was sent long by Katai to CJ Sapong who barrelled down the sideline. The angle from the edge of the box looked impossible but with ‘Bombscare’ Bono showing up this week and making a trek to the edge of the box he was able to chip it over him and into the net from an acute angle. Into the second half and the Fire came more into the game and went ahead in 62 minutes. That man Katai was again involved and he made the run down the flanks before cutting back to Nikolic who had an easy tap-in. 17 minutes later and it was another cross into the box that led to a goal, fortunately for TFC it was a red goal … Jozy turned from scorer to provider and hard down the wing to engineer a cross to an unmarked Osorio at the back post who powered a header into the net. 2-2 and blushes spared. A few notes from this game Aleksander Katai is a bit of a dick ! He had a pop at Bono, Moor, Laryea and Altidore all in the same incident. Lucky to get away with just a yellow Richie Laryea looks good. Made his debut for TFC and put some good work in. Alex Bono needs some serious competition. No idea how good Westberg is as we havent seen him but someone needs to push Bono for the #1 spot as he is going backwards. CJ Sapong took his goal well. Alejandro Pozuelo had a quiet week … just the 1 assist and a hand in starting quite a few moves. Gallery for this game can be found here : https://viewfromthesouthstands.com/gallery/2019-gallery/collections/72157708053013884/ Jozy Altidore Goal Jonathan Osorio Goal Full Match Highlights View the full article

The Dundee story shows two sides to the man. Sounds like he had good points and bad points in his time there. I will reserve judgement and form an opinion based on what he does, not what he did - or did not do - in past roles. I still question whether we actually need or can afford a CEO at the moment though ......

I like John Hughes, I always have, even before he was our manager. He seemed like someone you could have a laugh and a joke with and had a wicked sense of humour. However, lets indeed talk about reality deniers and note that it has been well documented that JH did not operate on a shoestring. He had the largest budget of any manager in our history. I would say he used that budget wisely and got results as you have noted, but it was definitely not a shoestring ! However, two things soured his relationship with the club . The first was when private discussions about the next years (reduced) budget were conducted in the media and the second was his reaction to the club's refusal to let him speak to Dundee Utd after Jackie McNamara's departure. This led to irreconcilable differences between club and board. He was not some innocent party here. There was enough blame to go around. In my mind, we got two things wrong at that time, and with the benefit of hindsight I am sure you could ask Kenny Cameron and he would agree now. The first was refusing to let him speak to the Arabs. If our manager - any manager - wants to speak to another club then let them ... and don't let the door hit them on the way out ! If they are not committed to ICT then they can go. The second was appointing Richie. Every single one of us wanted Richie to succeed but Kenny showed too much loyalty in the end by not sacking him earlier, and that hurt us big time. I appreciate what JH did for us when he was here, but lets not erect the statues or canonise him just yet ! As for blowing opportunites to run the club succesfully ... I disagree. We have had several opportunities over the years, starting with Pele, and it could be argued our current manager kick-started our golden era in the 2003/04 season when we first got to the SPL. If you recall he had to fight tooth and nail to get our board moving and for the SPL to let us in, and had he not taken up the offer from Hearts - which I believe was the only team that could have lured him away at the time - then who knows what our history might have been ......

The Reds took on the Red Bulls on Sunday night at BMO Field in the second leg of the MLS Eastern Conference Semi-Final and boy was it a s***show ! TFC fielded their strongest football team but it was clear from the start that the other side had not come to play, they had come to kick lumps out of TFC, and try to grab an ill-deserved lifeline. A strong showing from the match officials was needed, and on paper you would have thought we would get that from Chris Penso, a 9 year veteran referee who previous to becoming a full-time employee of the referees association had worked as both a TSA agent and a state trooper in Ohio (as well as running for mayor at age 21, and managing the family Pizza business – note to self : strike Penso’s Pizza from the list if ever in Dover, Ohio !!!). http://viewfromthesouthstands.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/DSM0721-278x300.jpgHowever it was not to be, and the referee not only failed to grab control of the match from the very first minute, he went on to make some truly baffling decisions that put this performance up there with some of the worst refereeing displays I and many of my fellow fans have ever seen. in any country. ever. In 40+ years of watching soccer in Scotland, England and Canada (I started early!), I have watched a few real wallopers !! refs like ‘old school’ Willie Young who in his latter years rarely ventured much beyond the centre circle, and the disgraced former FIFA ref Dougie McDonald who resigned after being caught falsifying his match report about an incident from a Dundee United -V- Celtic game where he awarded then denied a penalty claim. Then of course there are our old friends in MLS … who hasn’t seen a fair few dodgy decisions from messrs. Toledo, Elfath, Unkel, Geiger, Bazakos and Petrescu ! (one of whom was 4th official in this game and another who was the VAR operator) I cant decide whether this performance was marginally better than the one that saw this site start to gauge refereeing performances on the ‘Gantar Scale’ or not … Perhaps we need to rename it the ‘Penso Performance Indicator’ or ‘PPI’ and set the bar really low …. even lower than before. Everyone knows refs have a hard job. They have to make split second decisions on a fast moving game based on nothing more than eyesight and it is tough. It gets even tougher when everyone except them has access to stadium big screens which they are not allowed [or not supposed] to view, live streams on TV or their cellphone and more. If only referees had access to some form of ‘video assistant referees’ or replays on TV screens on the side of the pitch to review contentious or potentially game-changing decisions …. oh but wait … they do !!! perhaps there were 3 or 4 times in Sunday’s game where this might have been advantageous. 2 called back goals, the ‘hands-on’ approach of Kljestan after Jozy had protected Giovinco from Adams, a sequence of events which ultimately kicked off the ‘tunnel incident’, the upending of Giovinco in the box .. and that’s just the first few items that spring into my head. This lack of control from the official, not to mention TFC’s own indiscipline in falling into NYRB’s trap could come back to bite TFC in the rear end. In 11 years of TFC matches, I have never heard 3/4 of the ground roundly and loudly boo a referee for as long as we did on Sunday. Not even Baldomero Toledo at his ‘finest’, and that was the ref who started the requirement for officials to get a police escort from the pitch ! Sure, you get a few hundred people, or maybe a block of a couple of thousand in the south end being very vociferous in making their displeasure known … but this was thousands, maybe even ten thousand or more (at a conservative estimate), from all corners of the ground letting this official know that his performance was just not up to scratch. How one journalist could tweet out at half-time that he thought the performance was decent beggars belief ….. It was so bad from a fan perspective that if I heard it once on exiting the ground at the end of the match, I heard it a hundred times, and that was the conspiracy theory that “the fix was in to make sure one NY team reaches the final” !!! Not sure I can believe that, but the performance certainly did nothing to squash those theories … a theory that was embellished later and grew wings (so to speak) with even more co-incidental facts … the ref is from Dover Ohio and lives in Akron Ohio, both relatively close to Columbus. His wife, also a referee, works or used to work for the Red Bull company as a project lead for many of Red Bull’s promotional and brand awareness activities. Its all smoke and mirrors and can be twisted to fit into those theories but I dont buy it. Personally I prefer to believe that this ref is either not very good or that he simply has a dislike for Toronto FC … in 12 games with him in the middle we have managed to win only twice and lost 9 with one tied. In those games he issued 24 yellows to TFC (26 to the opposition) with 3 reds for our Reds (Jozy twice plus Doneil Henry) and 2 for our opposition. At half-time there was another incident, this time in the tunnel that led to two red cards, one for Jozy and one for Kljestan (as well as a yellow for Bradley coming of the field remonstrating with Penso). I am a TFC fan so of course I am going to believe Jozy’s account and not the accounts coming out of the opposition camp (aka. Red Bull***t!). TFC are going to appeal the red card, and apparently have witness statements from several security guards as well as police officers and also their own video (not the one shown below) so perhaps we will see more in the coming days … or perhaps not. For now, here is the ‘fight video’ posted to youtube and to quote a question asked in the video of the Red Bulls … “Why are you here? Your locker room is over there” . this is the big question and the league MUST address this. On the ExtraTime Radio Podcast, they discuss the theory that this was a deliberate measure to wind up the TFC players. This theory I tend to agree with … and it almost worked. The game itself ? … oh yes, we lost 0-1 after a deflected long range effort from Royer that came off Bradley Wright Phillips. That was about it ! Quote of the day : Well its actually a quote from a work colleague while I was writing this …. “At least Columbus will be more classy !” … Who’d have ever thought a TFC fan would utter those words about Columbus … and worryingly, who’d have thought that I would agree with them ! The New Jersey Red Bulls definitely go equal top of my personal s*** list now (ahead of Columbus and tied with Montreal) and Sacha ‘Pornstache’ Kljestan just replaced Steven Lennhart on my dartboard ! Fight Club The Osorio ‘goal’ Amazing Bono save Full Highlights Gallery for this game http://viewfromthesouthstands.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/nyrb_051117_060-800x530.jpg And for some light relief …. Who has the better ‘pornstache’ ? Penso, Kljestan or our very own Jon Conway http://viewfromthesouthstands.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/porntache-800x244.jpg View the full article

the other factor that modern football (and fans) don't have in abundance that is needed here would be patience. We all want instant results (and I include myself in that) but to develop a real sustainable club model either requires a root and branch re-organisation of football within the entire country (Iceland style) or for an individual club to start building from the ground up and wait 10+ years to see the fruits of their labours which in the current climate would be financial suicide. Our current board get a lot of criticism and I believe that is entirely merited, but that's a different topic. However, where I do think they are on the right track is the idea/desire/plan to get the club back to being fiscally responsible and sustainable and to try and develop from within. Unfortunately, whilst the idea is good, I dont think we currently have anyone with the capability to put that plan into action efficiently, especially after recent departures (and those to come).