Scotty

Scotty : Montrose @ 2.00 CDN Girl : Queens Park @ 2.30 SOS : ICT @ 2.75

THE MATCHDAY THREAD Discuss ICT & other games in this thread as they happen Partick Thistle -V- Inverness CT PREVIEW 22nd March 2018 @ 7:05PM, Firhill Stadium, 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 VIDEO [UK Only] SPFL YouTube Channel ICT Official YouTube Channel TEAM LINEUPS TO FOLLOW Tweets by @ICTFC Tweets by @ICTFC

You need to go to the Blog entry and choose entry actions then edit. Once there you can edit various bits and pieces of the individual entry, but what you are looking for is the entry called 'Feature Photo'. Drag an image there or upload one and it will be used as the article image. I recommend using 1200x300 to keep it reasonably sized and consistent on front page but rectangular of any size should be ok (within reason).

That was me. the block was set to show only 5. I have now set it to display all and ordered it by last post date so the 'freshest' blogs are at the top.

10 boxes is typically the default import number on the blogging software (eg Wordpress). Its not set by us. Its basically importing what is set inside your website feed in the same way as we import twitter and facebook feeds to the sidebars on various pages. Laurie's shows 25, presumably because Blogspot has a different default or he has set it higher.

outlook.com (formerly hotmail). if you have this you can register your Windows 10 serial as part of your account and use it to re-acivate your machine. I had an old HP that had MB issues and the power supply died too so rather than fix it I acquired a new box (also HP) and dropped in the C drive from the old machine. It saw there was new hardware but that the disk was the same and after a few attempts it allowed me to re-validate it without going through the dreaded support call. Not sure if it was because I "purchased" Windows 10 on that account when they were offering it for free but it was pretty straightforward. see here : https://www.windowscentral.com/how-link-your-windows-10-product-key-microsoft-account

there should be a button to add a "feature photo" . its basically the article image. I also used a standard size from my blog so its cropped to 1200x300 to get a decent pic but not too high/ . go into edit the article and you should see it.

You can also register your Windows serials to your Outlook account now and when having to reinstall anything you can retrieve the numbers and perform a clean install if you have to.

I am going to post this in here and in the Academy thread just so we are clear. It is acceptable to post that you believe the board is doing a good job or a bad job, that is your opinion and you are entitled to it. It is acceptable to reference things that are in the public domain such as the resignation of individuals, the fact that our recently resigned CEO is a relative of our chairman and the proprietor of a company now providing service to the club, or the state of our accounts, but without proof or anything to substantiate things it is NOT acceptable to post blanket statements such as the directors are lining their pockets. Our finances are precarious but that is nothing new over the last 25 years. As noted by another poster this comes very close to defamation unless you have evidence to back that up. Please post opinion or fact but dont step over the line by posting opinion as fact .....

I am going to post this in here and in the AGM thread just so we are clear. It is acceptable to post that you believe the board is doing a good job or a bad job, that is your opinion and you are entitled to it. It is acceptable to reference things that are in the public domain such as the resignation of individuals, the fact that our recently resigned CEO is a relative of our chairman and the proprietor of a company now providing service to the club, or the state of our accounts, but without proof or anything to substantiate things it is NOT acceptable to post blanket statements such as the directors are lining their pockets. As noted by another poster this comes very close to defamation unless you have evidence to back that up. Please post opinion or fact but dont step over the line by posting opinion AS fact .....

no problem I would also recommend buying a n external HD or signing up for one of the cloud services like OneDrive / Dropbox (or both). Depending on how much storage you need the free options may be enough. Provided you save your documents to these media the death of a PC will no longer phase you !! I do this with all our family photos and documents ... I have them backed up to 2 different hard drives as well as subscribe to OneDrive which gives me 1TB storage and yearly access to Office 365 for 5 PCs. I also have a 128Gb flash drive that serves me when I need an even smaller form factor.

I havent blogged seriously for a couple of years. I just add the odd article. its mostly galleries and stats after each game and these are pages rather than posts so not on any feed. I take about 1000 photos each game and whittle it down to between 50 and 100 for the site ... This year I figured to add a few blog posts. The blog needs to have an atom or RSS feed. If you are using wordpress its just <wordpress-URL>/feed. You go to Blogs then create one (should have permissions), then when looking at your blog you go to manage and add the feed in the settings. it should import it automatically. Mine imported just the title so I had to go in and add the preamble. not sure if thats a wordpress thing or because I had the feed settings in wordpress set to summary. IF the blog feed is added here then as a workaround you should be able to follow it here and it will appear when a new post is added

After a good road win in Philadelphia in week 1 and no game in week two it was back to business this week with the home opener against New England Revolution. The Revs have stuttered out of the gate this season drawing 1-1 in Dallas on week 1 and then losing to Columbus last week in their own home opener but its early days. This fixture has gone the way of the home team for the last six games and you have to go back to 2015 to find an away win so hopes were high. The rumoured return of Jozy Altidore to the squad and the imminent arrival of Alejandro Pozuelo also helped buoy the mood and clear the gloom that was the Concacaf Champions League exit at the first hurdle. Expectations took a bit of a hit in the 9th minute when referee Ted Unkel awarded a spot kick to the visitors when Mavinga felled Bunbury in the box. From the stands it looked soft, as Mavinga appeared to get a lot of the ball, but on replay you can really only argue the call if you are a diehard TFC fan !! The Revs new designated player, Carles Gil made no mistake from the spot with a textbook penalty. 4 minutes later, youngster Ayo Akinola took a pass from Chapman about 35 yards out then worked his way into the box past 4 defenders before calmly slotting home a great goal. There will be a lot of talk about other goals in this game, but this was a thing of beauty ! Although he had made 4 substitute appearances last season, this was his first MLS start, his first MLS goal and also the first goal scored in MLS for TFC by a player born in the 2000s !!! Its well worth looking at the highlights below to watch his goal. TFC got a well deserved equaliser at the best possible time, just before the break, and if Akinola’s goal was a thing of beauty, Hamilton’s go-ahead goal was a lesson in simplicity. Chapman crossed from the edge of the box to a waiting Hamilton who was ready to pounce inside the six yard box with a simple tap-in. It may have been simple but it was definitely controversial as Chapman was yards offside when he received the ball that he went on to cross to Hamilton. The assistant had his flag up but the put it down and the TFC faithful were ready for VAR to cancel it out after seeing the replay on the big screen. However referee Unkel did not call it back, and the explanation appears to be that it took a touch off Delamea on the way through (which you can see on the highlights) thus playing Chapman onside. If it had happened to TFC we would be screaming bloody murder so its plain that Revs fans will not be happy. Early in the second half we had a classic howler of a goal that drew the Revs level. An innocent ball that should have been dealt with by any of the defenders before it reached Bono who should also have been able to deal with it with his eyes closed evaded everyone and ended up in the net for what Carles Gil will probably see as one of his easiest goals ! In the words of a friend … ‘That was SO TFC !!!” Everything up to now was just the pre-show however and in the 68th minute, Jozy Altidore’s number went up on the subs board and the BMO field crowd turned up the volume a few notches to welcome him back. Jozy has scored an awful lot of big and important goals for TFC over the years and the script was set for him to do it again … His energy in his opening moments on the pitch saw TFC get a free-kick right on the edge of the box after Akinola was tripped and with the fans wondering who would take these kicks now that Seba has gone, TFC instead tried a little trickery with a short diagonal ball to Osorio on the edge of the six yard box who almost caught the Revs napping. It didnt take long for Jozy to make his mark though … a nice run from Morrow down the left wing in the 80th minute saw him cross the ball into the centre where it was met by a rampaging Jozy running into the box and he slotted home easily for the game winner. BMO field erupted ! TFC held on for the final 10 minutes, plus 4 more minutes of added time to gain 3 important points. TFC only won back-to-back games in MLS once last season so the improvement is already showing and with Pozuelo to come in along with more – as yet unnamed – TAM and GAM and maybe even DTAM signings perhaps we can look forward to a fruitful season. 5 Points to ponder Ted Unkel : Its so easy to slaughter referees’ performances, and we have done so on many occasions over the years. In the stands before the game, the moniker “Uncle Ted” was mentioned and met with headshakes and trepidation. He has a reputation with TFC of inconsistency and bad decisions but in this game, while he may have had the odd quirk, he got three major decisions correct. The penalty for the Revs was correct. Mavinga came in from the side and behind and although he did get some of the ball it was a penalty any way you slice it. The Hamilton goal was also correct. The touch from the Revs player put Chapman onside and the goal was legit. It would have been easy to chalk it off and TFC fans would have moaned but not gone apoplectic over it, but this was a tough call he got right. Finally, the foul on Akinola on the edge of the box where he tumbled far inside the box was indeed a foul and not a penalty. He had a split second to make that determination and got it right. So – with some degree of amazement – I have to say to ‘Uncle Ted’ …. good game !!! Jozy Altidore : Great to see him back and although not fully fit he is looking better than he has for a while and clearly he is hungry for goals. If Jozy fires on all cylinders this season and steers clear of injury we might be smiling as much as he was at the end. Ayo Akinola : One (MLS) goal does not a career make, but the way he created and finished this is encouraging. He’s clearly a talented youngster with an eye for goal and we look forward to seeing more from him. Jordan Hamilton : He’s been around as a fringe or cover player for a while now and really needs to take his chance this year or move on. There’s been speculation for years about why he doesnt get a run in the first team but if he can keep scoring goals that will certainly help. Nice to see a local boy do good Nick DeLeon : I have a feeling that TFC fans will be putting him in the same category as the likes of Beitashour, Hasler and Morrow in terms of value for money players. He’s a workhorse and if he can stay free of injury then what a great pickup from the re-entry draft. Here’s the highlights and here is the gallery from the game :: https://viewfromthesouthstands.com/gallery/2019-gallery/collections/72157690457060573/ View the full article

Club Statement: Inverness Caledonian Thistle FC can confirm that Danny MacDonald, Academy Director, has tendered his resignation. His departure has taken immediate effect. For the interim period, Charlie Christie - Head of Youth Development will be in charge of the Academy. Club Chairman Graham Rae paid tribute to the contribution made by Mr MacDonald as a player, coach, Chief Operating Officer and most recently Academy Director. He said: “We are sorry that Danny has tendered his resignation. It is with regret that the board has accepted it. We thank him sincerely for his hard work, commitment and good cheer while working for the Club. We wish Danny and his family the very best for the future.”

Ok, I added it and pulled in your RSS feed. the articles now appear and I made you the owner of it so you can customise it, add any header pictures or go in and edit the feed to add teasers or anything else you want to do. if you do nothing it should just pull in your articles and show them as 'new' in the site feed.

I think it would need to be setup by you in case you wanted to add any articles on top of the feed. Let me see if I can add your feed and then turn it over to you.

Those of you who follow me on Twitter will know I'm a bit geeky about the financial side of Scottish football. That's partly because it is a simple way of judging who is over- and under-achieving, as well as being a pretty good indicator of which clubs are well-run and which aren't. Moreover I increasingly worry that it is only a matter of time until another Scottish football club ends up in an administration event. Very few are self-sustaining. As I previously blogged it feels like most Championship clubs are getting by on donations and goodwill. Meanwhile the clubs at the lower end of the top flight are rather dependent themselves on a combination of overachieving (higher league positions and cup runs) and selling players. In fact, even Celtic and Rangers, despite having budgets that dwarf the rest, face their own challenges. For comparison though, only three Scottish clubs - Celtic, Rangers and Aberdeen - have turnovers higher than the bottom end of the English Championship. Celtic's turnover is lower than that of all 12 Premier League clubs who have published figures for last season. Rangers' wage bill would put them in the bottom half of the Championship, and Aberdeen's is lower than all Championship clubs. That's what Scottish football is up against. So let's look at all the info we have on Scotland's top clubs... (This is the point where I should really shout out to Kieran Maguire, whose analysis of football club accounts is invaluable reading when it comes to this) ABERDEEN TURNOVER: £15.4m (2016/17 - £15.3m) LOSSES: £800k (2016/17 - profit of £500k) Did Aberdeen really spend £1.3m on new players last season? Apparently so. Hopefully they'll be better value than Paul Bernard and Robbie Winters were. Despite posting a loss for 2017/18 the Dons seem to be in a perfectly decent position due to a turnover that is the third highest in Scotland. The question is how to increase income further - cup runs this season may help - and also how much prudence will be required in the coming years as the club (subject to about the gazillionth appeal by opponents) build a new stadium at Kingsford with the aim of moving there as soon as 2021. CELTIC TURNOVER: £101.6m (2016/17 - £90.6m) PROFIT: £17.3m (2016/17 - £6.9m) Celtic's status as an enormous fish in a small pond domestically, but as a relative tiddler in the continental ocean (oof, you've pushed that metaphor far enough - Ed) presents them with unique challenges. For a start, making the Champions League is worth a huge amount of money; missing out leaves a large hole in their finances...as seen in their interim results from the first 6 months of this season where turnover dropped by £20m compared to the same period of the previous year. This gap in the past has been easily filled by selling a player (see: Fraser Forster, Virgil Van Dijk, Moussa Dembele). The quandary is whether to save money for those years where they miss out on the Champions' League, or to invest it to increase their chances of getting through qualifying. From a domestic point of view however there is no comparison. Their turnover is roughly equal to the other 11 Premiership clubs put together. DUNDEE TURNOVER: £4.6m (2016/17 - £3.9m) LOSSES: £425k (2016/17 - £350k) Dundee are in their sixth season since being taken over by FPS, their American backers led by John Nelms and Tim Keyes. The first five years have resulted in combined losses of £2.3m...despite about £1.3m from selling Kane Hemmings, Greg Stewart and Jack Hendry. Their wage bill is more than 70% of turnover, which is far from ideal. This season is likely to follow that trend following the sacking of Neil McCann and a plethora of new signings for successor Jim McIntyre. Obviously there would be a huge problem if FPS stepped away, though there are no signs of them doing so even if the club are relegated this season. The bigger concern is if the stalled plans for a new stadium come to nothing, because that seems to be the key to the business plan going forward. HAMILTON ACCIES TURNOVER: unreported RETAINED EARNINGS: £502k (2016/17 - £968k) Accies don't report turnover, which only tells us that it is less than £6.5m. In reality it will be much smaller than that, the lowest in the top flight by a pretty significant margin. This was a dreadful year financially for Hamilton because of the Vishing scam in 2017 which cost the club £700,000. Even though they sold Greg Docherty and Mikey Devlin they have now ended up with £450,000 of bank debt that they didn't have before. Things should be better this year though with them still in the top flight and having sold Lewis Ferguson. HEARTS TURNOVER: £12.1m (2016/17 - £11.3m) PROFIT: £1.8m (2016/17 - £2.3m) Interpreting Hearts' situation is tricky given they got £2m donated towards the new stand and another £1m donated towards player costs. The previous year's profits came after £2.5m of donations. And they got another £3.25m of donations in the first quarter of 2018/19! Now the new stand is completed it'll be interesting to see where turnover is at going forward. Still, it's a far cry from the Romanov days... HIBERNIAN TURNOVER: £9.5m (2016/17 - £7.6m) PROFIT: £214k (2016/17 - losses of £263k) On returning to the top flight, Hibs posted the fifth highest turnover in Scotland and finished an excellent fourth in the league. It's interesting to note they spent £500,000 in transfer fees for players during 2017/18. . Given the club's wages/turnover ratio is a solid 56%, things have come a long way since seven figure losses during the 2013/14 relegation season and the subsequent campaign. The sale of John McGinn will make this year's filings look quite decent. KILMARNOCK TURNOVER: £5.1m (2016/17 - £5.1m) LOSSES: £180k (2016/17 - profit of £960k) Killie's increased success on the pitch came at an increased cost as the wage bill went up by nearly £1m; some of that may be to do with the dismissal of Lee McCulloch. (Of note, this increase came after several years of costcutting. Wages and income are still lower than five years ago) It's curious that turnover was static despite finishing three places higher in the league. The increased optimism - and crowds - at Rugby Park this season should make this season's figures more impressive. MOTHERWELL TURNOVER: £6.8m (2016/17 - £4.2m) PROFIT: £1.7m (2016/17 - losses of £181k) Two cup finals, you say? Decent fees for Ben Heneghan and Louis Moult, you say? It all added up to a bumper year for Motherwell. Staff costs were the sixth highest, but a wage/turnover ratio of 57% is sustainable enough. That said, this campaign's turnover is bound to dip because of a lack of cup income - Motherwell's gate receipts had more than doubled last year - though the sale of Cedric Kipre will cover some of that. And luckily the £1.7m of ongoing interest-free loans show no signs of being called in. PARTICK THISTLE TURNOVER: £4.5m (2016/17 - £4.1m) PROFIT: £343k (2016/17 - £97k) Thistle had broken even for years, and last year managed a nice wee profit on the back of larger gates - they played Celtic and Rangers twice at home despite finishing bottom six. Relegation is an expensive business though and they were quick to wield the axe and cut costs - so much so that the outcome is that they are now in danger of dropping to League One, which would be catastrophic. But if they stay up they should be in reasonable nick going forward though this year's results are likely to be impacted further by the need to dismiss manager Alan Archibald. RANGERS TURNOVER: £32.7m (2016/17 - £29.2m) LOSSES: £14.3m (2016/17 - £6.7m) *Opens can of worms* Rangers, on the face of it, remain a financial basketcase. An optimist would say that now the whole Takeover Panel thing is out of the way and there appears to be a settled management team things should finally improve. And the interim results for the first 6 months of 2018/19 showed a healthy profit. The flipside is that said profit was almightily dependent on European qualification, and at the same time last year they claimed they had broken even up to that point...and finished the year £14m in the red. Add in the estimate in the 2017/18 accounts that they would need a £4.6m cash injection just to get through the year and yet another loan from financial house Close Brothers last week and it seems that things are not rosy yet. But as much as many fans of other clubs are hoping for it, there are no signs of an administration event in the near future. ROSS COUNTY TURNOVER: accounts not filed yet (2016/17 - £3.8m) PROFIT: accounts not filed yet (2016/17 -debt of £1.4m forgiven) County's situation is unique amongst the clubs on this list, given they have the unconditional support of Global Energy mogul Roy MacGregor, one of Scotland's wealthiest men. With his ongoing input, County don't really need to worry about money. ST JOHNSTONE TURNOVER: not reported (2016/17 - £4.9m) LOSSES: £258k (2016/17 - profit of £49k) St. Johnstone noted in their annual accounts that their losses pretty much reflected the consequence of missing the top six for the first time in years; These were the poorest financial results since Steve Brown became chairman in 2011, but this can probably be forgiven it was a season of transition for Tommy Wright's side. And, you know, they're not too bad, really - there's still £2m in the bank! The Perth Saints are the model example of what a well-run small club in Scotland can accomplish. DUNDEE UNITED TURNOVER: £3.2m (2016/17 - £3.5m) LOSSES: £219k (2016/17 - £1m) Thank goodness for the new American owners. United sold their training ground for £1m and made £1.4m from the sell-on clauses of Andy Robertson and Stuart Armstrong and still ran at a loss. That's after losses of £2.5m over the previous two seasons. United would be in a proper help-ma-boab situation had Mark Ogren not completed his takeover. FALKIRK TURNOVER: £2.7m (2016/17 - not reported) PROFIT: £140k (2016/17 - losses of £300k) Falkirk arrested a run of loss-making seasons partly by closing their youth academy, having reasoned that they couldn't pay for it unless they made £400k of transfer income annually. One suspects the dismissal of Paul Hartley and the fine for tapping up Ray McKinnon will badly affect the balance sheet for 2018/19 INVERNESS CT TURNOVER: £2m (2016/17 - £3.6m) LOSSES: £810k (2016/17 - £400k) Relegation hit Caley Thistle like a sledgehammer. Turnover nearly halved and despite dramatic costcutting and loans from directors totally around £400k they still made a high six-figure loss. Whilst there has been further pennypinching since then and the run to the Scottish Cup semi-finals will be a welcome boost, that's still a heck of a hole to fill. ST MIRREN TURNOVER £2.8m (2016/17: £2.4m) PROFIT £77k (2016/17: £15k) How much does promotion cost? Well, St. Mirren only made a profit because they sold Stevie Mallan and Lewis Morgan for £700k. As for the other 2017/18 Championship clubs, Dunfermline made a very small profit but admit to being dependent on £300k of annual donations. Queen of the South made a £200k loss despite having a tiny squad and relying on local businessmen to pay the wages of Stephen Dobbie. Livingston haven't filed their accounts for last season yet, but the previous ones contained a going concern as liabilities were worth £700k more than their assets. Promotion will certainly have helped things though. Dumbarton's accounts were hard to read but it seems like they made a significant loss (correct me if I'm wrong). There wasn't much info to note on Morton's accounts, and Brechin City don't seem to publish any. Lawrie Spence has ranted and spouted his ill-informed opinions on Narey's Toepoker since September 2007. He has a life outside this blog. Honestly. View the full article

Calling you bloggers out there ....... the forum software we have has had a few updates over the years and the blogging portion of it is no exception. It now has the ability to pull in a feed of articles from your own hosted or self-hosted blog and allow you to bring them to a wider audience. Whether your blog is ICT related or about something else reasonably relevant to our audience, feel free to set one up on here and pull your articles in. I have done it with my 'Across the Pond' blog and gallery about Toronto FC and the example can be seen here : For our users, it may give them some more interesting football articles to read like James Rendall's excellent article that Mannie uploaded this week and for you bloggers out there it allows the posts you make on your own blog to be advertised here with a link right back to your blog that will drive traffic to your site .... a win-win for everyone. We wont put any restrictions on this to begin with but if anyone starts posting anything inappropriate then we do reserve the right to suspend or block that particular blog feed from the site and remove blogging permissions on the account. If anyone wants more info or needs help to set one up, let me know. We would really like to encourage more people to write opinion pieces or import interesting articles from their own blogs .....

TFC edge out the Revs Scotty's ViewFromTheSouthStands at Toronto FC After a good road win in Philadelphia in week 1 and no game in week two it was back to business this week with the home opener against New England Revolution. The Revs have stuttered out of the gate this season drawing 1-1 in Dallas on week 1 and then losing to Columbus last week in their own home opener but its early days. This fixture has gone the way of the home team for the last six games and you have to go back to 2015 to find an away win so hopes were high. The rumoured return of Jozy Altidore to the squad and the imminent arrival of Alejandro Pozuelo also helped buoy the mood and clear the gloom that was the Concacaf Champions League exit at the first hurdle. View the full article

I hope not. The one person who is good at administration within our club is also 'retiring'.

Only if it were a hybrid pitch from someone like SIS or DESSO where fibres are combined with real grass to make it more durable. I fear however that this would be way beyond our budget now or in the future. I would not be in favour of 3G or 4G plastic pitch as there are too many unanswered questions with them especially as it relates to player injuries, impact on existing joint injuries, and also now to cancer clusters because of the rubber used as part of the overall carpet in these pitches.

My short answer would be to take that £300 and put it towards a new laptop ! If you are not doing any serious processing (eg. gaming) then even entry level machines may have enough oomph for you and possibly a better spec. The big issue these days seems to be that in the quest to make laptops lighter and thinner they are permanently affixing many components to the motherboard and removing the ability to replace basic parts like memory, batteries, and even malfunctioning ports so when something goes wrong you are faced with a large bill. Where you used to have flaps on the bottom you could open with a screwdriver to replace some parts, now there are none. My own work laptop is completely sealed without any way to open it. We simply wipe them, send them back to HP and get a replacement. They are not just portable now but disposable !

Scotty : Morton @ 2.10 CDN Girl : Dumbarton @ 2.10 SOS : Queens Park @ 2.15

indeed. think I have pictures of that game ..... If the weather is that bad then good decision. no point delaying the inevitable. Some people may be inconvenienced but leaving it to the last minute when you know its not going ahead inconveniences more !

Was looking for something else on the official site and came across one of the ICT25 blogs buried on there .... Seems Jim Falconer our club secretary is retiring at the end of the season. . I am sure plenty folk may have known this but it hadnt reached this side of the pond or been mentioned on here as far as I know so wanted to start this topic to thank him for all his years with the club .... https://ictfc.com/ict-25-blog-jim-falconer If you want to talk about unsung heroes of our club over the last 25 years then JF is likely one of the biggest ones. I am surprised and saddened that he is retiring as those will be humongous shoes to fill ... but happy and appreciative for all the work he has put into the club in the background for each of those 25 years. Thank You Jim. I think the sign I have on my own desk at works sums things up about my perception of your role ...... Happy Retirement !