Scotty

Still 4 away from sponsoring 1 player .... can we reach that this weekend?

Yes, we get folk walking up and down the main aisles with popcorn, sweets, AND alcohol. Used to be a problem with over consumption but at current stadium prices I think most people now self-regulate! To be fair though, at TFC there are so many concession stands near to most sections that its not a problem to go get it yourself although at half-time the most popular ones do get pretty long queues but they move quick. Same for beers - at last count, 20+ different ones on tap around the Stadium and the lineups for those are not usually too bad ... they stop serving around the 65-minute mark though. Not sure how well this would translate to ICT given the lower crowds and lack of multiple serveries. Perhaps an initiative for popcorn, chocolate bars, crisps or other easy stuff might be an option? Its all about convenience. Where TFC do actually do well is in their app. I can (theoretically) order food to my seat (hot food and/or beers) during the game, buy 50-50 tickets, even from home and take advantage of offers or enter competitions etc. I did try to order to my seat one-time when I had my son with me but the delivery time was apparently 40 minutes, and this was part way through the second half ... so a few glitches to work out there methinks!

You are right - a winning team is absolutely the best motivation to get bums on seats. I look at what happens over here at TFC and it's kind of similar to things tried before at ICT so no bright ideas here .... There is a specific pre-match routine involving kids from youth teams around the Toronto area bringing out the huge pitch flags, then at half-time we have gone through the gamut of kids playing mini-games, adults trying to win stuff (from various sponsors) with trivia questions, or by kicking the ball half the length of pitch and having to score a goal or something similar to the car boot stuff. Not even had any cheerleaders at TFC so ICT are ahead of them there. The only thing we perhaps have not tried @ICT is where some of the concession providers at TFC (typically the Pizza guys) send a slice to every seat in a specific "random" row of the stadium. When I say random, I really mean in one of the expensive rows and not down with the proletariat where I stand ... not had a free slice in the supporters' section in 18 years! Can't see a burnt sausage roll from the servery downstairs being much of a draw to be honest ... lets stick to the original plan and start winning some football games.

Great Article published on the Courier website yesterday about our current sponsored player Matthew Strachan that pretty much epitomises why we have always tried to sponsor up and coming youngsters over the years: Inverness CourierFormer Millburn Academy pupil proud to break into Caley T...He has started both League Cup group games so far.

Kay - Thank You for sharing Dave with us and for joining the Caley Thistle family all those years ago when travelling down from Ardgay. We are all your friends and family now, and we are here to support you as well as ICT in your time of need. I hope you enjoy the game today; you will no doubt feel a lot of support from those around you at the tunnel, but I know it will be both emotional and hard as you sat there with Dave for all those years. Like all the others we have sadly lost over the years, his physical body may be gone but he lives on in us all as we recall pleasant memories, anecdotes and have little chuckles when thinking of all the little silly stuff ... (and there is a lot of silly stuff from our group ... so much that it took both you and 'Mary Doll' to keep us all in line!)

Buying tickets from the club or logging into your account there would not involve us on the site here. As you were able to post this, I assume you had no issue logging in here? or that you resolved it. Only thing different about logins than before is that you need to login using email address and password instead of username and password. I posted about that months ago in preparation for the change.

Yeah, was hoping for a tie against West Ham also. One of my friends over here is a dyed-in-the-wool Hammer, although he was with me to celebrate and support the club in the Scottish Cup Final ... That would have been some sesh for us both if we ended up meeting in Europa League!

YouTube links are so much easier to work with. Hope this is just a re-org and not a decision based on getting more revenue from Facebook or Twitter.

plays merry hell with our new media embed block at the top of the forum as well :(

Likely cleaning things up. All videos are now marked private and showing only 15 available. If they are simply re-arranging then the videos should resolve themselves once the channel is opened up. If they are making a fundamental change and choosing which to re-upload then previous links may be broken. This is what I found on Twitter

updated list of sponsors as of today. If you don't see your name there please let me know. Really hoping we can match last year with two players sponsored.

For Elgin/Kelty it seems more like getting the raw youngsters a game for experience (the ones listed for yesterday were all 17 and likely straight out of the youth squad). For us, I would like to think we could get players closer to first team level, the likes of Alfie Bavidge for example, or Alfie Stewart may only be 19 but there is a heck of a lot more development between the ages of 17 and 19 and we saw them thrive when with us. Hopefully the likes of Aberdeen also see that, and now that we are starting to behave more like a responsible football club, perhaps other clubs can start to trust us again to do right by their players! The tie-up with Sheffield was often touted but was something and nothing. Can't remember who it was but one of the directors knew someone down there and that was the link. It's like saying we can get Man Utd players because of Pele Paterson or because Alan Savage - a self-proclaimed Man Utd fan - got a phone call from Alex Ferguson at the start of the admin process. Its possible but not really an arrangement! Kells, I am sure has contacts in the game, and if indeed the aforementioned Pele is keeping an eye out for players for us through his contacts (as I have heard) then we may not need an official agreement with anyone, just a cordial and respectful relationship. Players talk and if, over time, these players say Inverness is a great place to come for development and enjoyment of work, then this is a big factor. You can be sure players bad-mouthed us to the hilt over the last few years and now we have to rebuild that reputation too.

Just got it on Paypal.

Most people have no issue, but I do see you, and a couple of other people on the admin side showing failed for some reason. It does not tell me why, could be security, could be PayPal settings, I don't know. Easiest way is to do it directly through Paypal I think. Go to PayPal on your phone or computer and go to the "send and request" page: https://www.paypal.com/myaccount/transfer/homepage Put the email address in as either sponsorship or webadmin @ caleythistleonline.com and it will send a direct payment to the account. Please quote your CTO username in comments somewhere so I know who it is and what it is for. I will manually update one of the pending invoices here as paid.

That's the one - There was never any stock in certain sizes so I could not even get one when available. Would love for AS to have it re-issued even if it has the normal badge and not sold as a 30th anniversary top. Given how few we had, most fans never got the opportunity to buy any 30 year merchandise.

Updated all payments received. There were a couple of users who show pending because the Paypal transfer did not complete, I have re-sent the invoice and email to them. If your name is not shown paid, and you tried to subscribe then check your email!

Site/Display issues or just Technophobia? Let me know some more details and I can check. I don't have Android so cant test thoroughly on that platform. Likely your settings. The theme background can be set to Auto, Day or Night. For Auto it defaults to your system in the same way that the Sat Nav in your car might go dark at night and light at day. For Night or Day it will stay locked on the Dark (night) or Light (Day) setting. Go to the bottom of the page and you will see these icons

Just to add ... the club have increased the perks associated with the sponsorship this year and these will be passed on to our group where applicable. Player Sponsorship 2526.pdf

Pledged/Paid List Scotty Tree Gringo Mrs Gringo The CaleyOne Weeman The Mantis The Mantis The Mantis TM4TJ TMFTJ TMFTJ Snorbens_Caleyman Snorbens_Caleyman Snorbens_Caleyman IBM IBM IBM Wazzow Mossie Mossie Mossie Wanderer Jagster ICTPaisley ICT29 The_Sponge The_Sponge The_Sponge TheCaleyOne Optimist Optimist CaleyHedgehog CaleyHedgehog CaleyHedgehog Roarer Roarer LG Caley100 Caley100 Stu160284 Stu160284 Hiro Jagster The Fly Robert Robert Robert IBM IBM IBM Optimist Arbeem Arbeem Arbeem Arbeem Arbeem Old Caley Girl CaleyHedgehog Scotty

It's time for Player Sponsorship for the 2025/2026 season. Last season we resumed our sponsorship of a couple of players after a brief hiatus where we could not, with all good conscience, put money into propping up the previous regime under our former CEO. With the club appearing to be back on a more even keel, showing lots more positivity and engagement, it is clear that they are still and needing more support than ever from fans as we enter the 2025/26 season so we will shortly embark on our sponsorship drive for the 2025/26 season. Last year we decided to sponsor both Ethan Cairns' and Matthew Strachan's home shirts. We went for these players as over the 20+ years we have been sponsoring ICT players we have always tried to pick youngsters who are breaking into the team and maintain that sponsorship throughout their ICT career. We were proud to have been the main shirt sponsor of Grant Munro through his entire ICT career from a youth breaking into the team to his final season with the club, then we moved onto sponsorship of Liam Polworth, as well as other players over the years for boots, gloves or other items including record appearance holder Ross Tokely. We also sponsored Cameron Harper for four years, until the end of the 2022/23 season before moving on to Ethan and Matthew last year. Ethan has moved on for this coming season so we will be looking to sponsor Matty again this year and if we raise enough funds then we will look to see who/what else we can sponsor. Any decision will be put to a vote as we did last year when we chose Ethan and Matthew. I still have some admin tidy up to do from last year's stuff and need to reset the subscription status of all current members after drawing the winners of the two signed tops so until that is done the option to join the members group will show as 'out of stock' but will open it up once ready. The format will be the same as previous years - all monies raised will go to the sponsorship. We will focus on getting enough for player home shirts, which will be randomly given to one of our sponsors at the end of the season, and if we raise enough, we will sponsor other player items up to the level of cash received. (INITIAL) PLAYER TO BE SPONSORED: Matthew Strachan + (hopefully) 1 other. COST Home Shirt - £450 inc vat. Other costs as shown below. The club mentioned all items were same as last year so the table below should be correct. HOW TO TAKE PART Join the "Player Sponsor" group. We will use the money received from these memberships (minus PayPal fees) to purchase player sponsorship(s) from the club. We will set all memberships - regardless of when ordered - to end on June 1st of each year. This allows us time each year to gauge the interest in continuing for the following season. The cost to join this group remains the same as before at £16.00 (this amounts to £15.00 joining fee plus £1 to cover the PayPal fees). You may purchase multiple memberships if you wish, just amend the total in your shopping cart and add a note when placing the order if it is to cover family members who may not officially be site members! To join the group simply go to this page http://caleythistleonline.com/store/ or access the CTO Store from the main menu at the top. All our site membership upgrades are handled securely via PayPal's platform which will accept direct payment from most credit/debit cards so it should be easy enough to upgrade your membership whether you live in Sneck or somewhere thousands of miles from there. Unfortunately, we do not accept cash payments. Once we know how many members have joined the group, we will decide on who/what gets sponsored. The first item will be the selected player's Home Kit ... but the more members who upgrade to "Player Sponsor" membership, the more we can sponsor. At the end of the season, members of our sponsor group will be selected at random to receive any gifts we may receive from the club. For any events that occur during the season (like sponsors nights or meet and greets etc.) we will offer first refusal to members of the sponsor group to attend as our representative. If you are interested, please add your name to this thread or go ahead and join the sponsor group. You will be marked as once we confirm payment received via membership upgrade .... (once we have enabled it)

Seems my first blog on the World Cup was timely ... Earlier this week, FIFA announced the World Cup schedule of games for each venue and in Toronto it will kick off on day two of the competition with the Canadian National Team game at BMO Field. BMO Field is to be renamed Toronto Stadium for the duration of the World Cup due to sponsorship rights / FIFA No idea who Canada will be playing yet, what group it will be, or who makes up that group (fingers crossed for Scotland) but it's the World Cup so it's not going to matter ... If I get tickets, then I am at the game regardless. Double-checked the FIFA site and yes, I am still registered for the World Cup Lottery. Also hoping that my 18 years as a season ticket holder at Toronto FC and BMO Field might count for something but won't hold my breath on that one. It has been previously announced that the City of Toronto would host six matches. We now know that this will kick off on day 2 of the World Cup on June 12, 2026, with the first-ever men’s FIFA World Cup match on Canadian soil and featuring Canada’s Men’s National Team. Toronto is also hosting a second round match on July 2, 2026 but nothing after that unfortunately. Toronto Schedule: June 12, 2026, Group Stage, Canadian Men’s National Team opener June 17, 2026, Group Stage June 20, 2026, Group Stage June 23, 2026, Group Stage June 26, 2026, Group Stage July 2, 2026, Round of 32 Not much hype around the city just yet, not even in football circles. It's talked about, but not with any sense of urgency. I am sure that will change over the course of the remainder of 2025. Toronto is such a diverse city, so any time the World Cup is on elsewhere, we see clips on TV from "Little Italy", Little Portugal", and various other enclaves around the city where certain supporters congregate due to the ethnic makeup of the neighbourhood. Have never encountered a little Scotland, little England or even little Spain, but I am sure they exist somewhere in the City. If not, the Tartan Army and other supporters groups will, I am sure, setup camp somewhere! The City is doing its best to start promoting the event and now has two websites dedicated to it. The main city website section: https://www.toronto.ca/explore-enjoy/festivals-events/fifa-world-cup-26/ and a separate World Cup site: https://torontofwc26.ca/game. Looks like the marketers have really airbrushed the descriptions of some of the neighbourhoods around the downtown and failed to mention the dark side of some of them! More on that later perhaps. I will leave you with a small video to whet the appetite for Toronto.

@tm4tj is right ... there are a few ways to get to the latest post or to your last unread post in a topic. If you are accessing the forum list with the 5 latest topics displayed then you can click in 3 different places. 1 will take you the first post (purple highlight below), the next (teal highlight) will take you to the last post in the thread, and the other (yellow) will take you to the first post after your last visit (ie. your last unread post). Last one only works if you accept cookies. If you rejected them, it wont work. If you are viewing from the forum list itself then two options. Teal = start of last page. Yellow = last post. If you are viewing from the sidebar list of recent topics purple = first post, yellow = last post If you are viewing from your unread posts feed - which is customisable - then you can click in two places to go to first unread post, or you can click on topic title to go to the start of the thread.

Don't want to load Edge or Chrome (or Safari) then navigate to CTO in your browser? Why not add CTO as a Web Application right on your phone screen? Its easy and there is little you need to do as its already been set up. What is a WebApp? In its simplest form (like here) it is basically comparable to a desktop shortcut or bookmark. It is not an installable application, but a link to a web-based application. On the back end of CTO we have it setup so that this link performs a little differently than the standard browser page. It uses more of the screen real-estate and also refreshes more often and pushes out notifications etc rather than just being static. OK. I'm in. How do I set it up? It is easy and more dependent on your browser than your phone (although I have an iPhone so some instructions may be different for Android). Step 1: Navigate to https://caleythistleonline.com on your browser of choice (Edge/Chrome/Safari screenshots provided below). Step 2: Follow the instructions in the screenshots below to add CTO as a Web App Step 3: Create and name the desktop shortcut Step 4: close browser and load CTO from the app/shortcut EDGE CHROME SAFARI In the end, all of them bring you to this screen where you can name the shortcut and stick an APP on your phone screen like this What does it look like?Once on your phone, it looks the same regardless of browser. There are far better navigation options at the bottom of the screen than the standard browser navigation and you can also bring up the full menu by clicking the menu button.

or perhaps not ..... https://ictfc.com/highland-hospice-named-our-official-2025-26-charity-partner/ Was sure I read something in one of the articles in the build up to Aaron's testimonial that this was the new shirt but the article on the club site indicates early August for a new kit. I really hope they keep the black kit for another season and actually order some. That - to me - was an absolute belter and before admin it was said there were more to arrive around Xmas time last year, Never materialised of course. Would love to get my hands on one in my size but it was never available.

Think what we wore in Aaron Doran’s testimonial is this years. There was mention made in one of the articles in the build up.