IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER

SIMPLES

Statistically ?

Who the feck is that Mantis dude ?

I meant the mix. Shure we were successful last year but I still did not feel that we got the best out of the combination. Good point as Draper is more of an enforcer with Tansey as the creator.

And Storey. Possibly Lopez but think that two weeks will be enuff fer his ruffled beard to recover.

Can they play together ? They both appears to favour - and play better - in the holding midfielder role. I thought that Tansey was immense there yesterday (Motherwell) but Draper appears to be the "alpha male". I also thought that the midfield diamond worked well yesterday. I have been racking my brain to think of the best way of accommodating them both but I am struggling.

Who the feck subsidise me ? What if I pay for my travel costs and somebody sponsors the extras ?

Tansey missed one yesterday

Have we ever got beat by Well when we have been in the South Stand ?

Report coming up later after I have trawled home through the feckin incessant rain. That Well crowd was the whiniest I have ever come across. They should be bemoaning their final touch and shooting rather than shouting fer every 50/50 and blasting the officials. Bottom line is that the officials got all the calls right - although the assault on Dani's beard looked slightly OTT. When will we get everybody fit when we play them before they are recovered. Storey looked to have pulled the same hamstring again. It looked like a shocking challenge on Christie and I note that the Stalinist cameras did not play it. No doubt erased by Kruschev.

Looked better from behind the goal especially after a Highland feckin march to get there !

Was Calum on the bench ?

And the bench ?

"Caley Thistle striker Miles Storey and defender Gary Warren face late fitness tests. Suspension means right-back David Raven joins eight players who continue to miss out through injury for John Hughes' side. Goalkeeper Dean Brill, midfielders Ross Draper, Jordan Roberts, Tobi Sho-Silva and Aaron Doran, plus forwards Andrea Mbuyi-Mutombo, Dani Lopez and Richie Foran are all still on the road to recovery." From BBC Sport Scotland - WTF Brill Raven - Warren - Draper - Doran Roberts - Foran - Silva Mutombu - Lopez - Storey

Not many going and nobody playing. Looks like an afternoon in Jack Daniels with Jeff Stelling ?

Do you mean Mutumgo and No Silva ?

Fon Williams named in Wales squad to play Netherlands

Before I make a team selection it would be better to know who is feckin available. Can we get a full bench ? Can we risk starting Warren ? Is Raven suspended ? so to start with - who is going ? Please tell me that they are NOT going to trail us to the South Stand ? I am staying with the shopping summing in my life - in feckin Hamilton so who is getting the train from Central ? I fancy a pint in the Jack Daniels this time - not been there for years - well then on to the Supporters club pre match - and one by the Airbles stop on the way home. Will the Dosser be there ? Not had a square go fear a long time either !!

I travel to the away games more accessible by train - Killie, Partick, Motherwell,Hamilton and Hearts. Parkhead has totally lost the novelty for me. I try to get to Dungwall once a year. Add any accessible cup games. Sneck is the most expensive !! Depends on how thirsty I am and what company I keep. With advanced rail fares I would estimate an average £80 per game. Mostly by train these days. In excess of £1000 anyway - unless you want to count Bucharest !! Tickets are good value in Scotland. Can I suggest that you add to question 2 to sen Overthebridge - or what costs do you avoid or profit from ?

I think that I may have detected the problem. The players must be petrified that sitting on the bench could literally freeze their erases off. I asked my mole to check it out this morning and he said that it was " minus 11"

Jesus you are so astute for an old moose. Beware Alram - devote herself to ICT and in over half a century (at least) you could be posting like that too

'Twas our France bound Johnny Campbell who had the Glentoran flag on a sojourn from ore the sea. Wish somebody had a Linfield flag to put beside it !!

What about penalties conceded ?

Just watched the goals on Sky. The first looked a penalty and yet another clumsy, needless and mistimed challenge BUT it looked like Meekings was going in to block so can't understand why it was a red card. In regard to ours they were both handbag tackles. the first looked far more of a foul than the second. Methinks a ref who thought damn that was a foul and covered up by giving the second.

Glory hunters!Pure and simple...We're no more immune to that than any other club in the country!Loads of new posters on this forum in the build-up - never to be heard of again.Literally thousands of 'fans' who attended that day who had never been to the TCS before.Literally thousands of fans who attended that day who have never been back to (or indeed, ever been to) the TCS since. We don't have 15,000 fans - we've 4,000. And if that doesn't increase after last season, then it simply never will. Glory hunters!Pure and simple...We're no more immune to that than any other club in the country!Loads of new posters on this forum in the build-up - never to be heard of again.Literally thousands of 'fans' who attended that day who had never been to the TCS before.Literally thousands of fans who attended that day who have never been back to (or indeed, ever been to) the TCS since. We don't have 15,000 fans - we've 4,000. And if that doesn't increase after last season, then it simply never will. Inverness potentially has a much bigger fanbase in my opinion, but it will take time. Too many folks in Inverness and area are Rangers/Celtic/Aberdeen fans, the club needs to get ICT into the mindset of kids in the schools now more than ever while we have had some success, forget bigger attendances for the next few seasons and look at the bigger picture and look to get these kids growing up as Caley fans, then who knows, maybe you then have a club with an average attendance of 6-7000 in 10-15 years time. It may never happen but that's where I see potential in the club, more so probably than any other club in the country. I agree with Sneckboy about the size of core support and the unlikelihood of it increasing significantly. We could do all the marketing and outreach in the world, and even move the stadium to a more central location, and I don't think there's any chance that the average attendance would ever reach figures of 6-7000. It's not just down to 'glory hunters' though, imho: there is a range of reasons why our support is static, some particular to Inverness, some reflecting wider trends in Scottish football. For a start, the make-up of Inverness's population has surely been in a greater state of flux, for all of the club's life and long before that, than almost any other Scottish population centre of similar size. We often hear about it having one of the fastest growing populations in the UK, but many of those who arrive will already have a long-established support for a different football team, or, if they haven't already developed an interest in football, are unlikely to suddenly do so to the extent that many of them will become regular attendees at TCS. Moreover, what is mentioned far less frequently is the number of people who leave the area. Traditionally, Inverness has been a place that young people go away from in order to study, and the club's lifetime has coincided with vastly increased number of school leavers across the UK going to university. I could name maybe 30 people from the central belt who I see at away games or go to away games with regularly, who are all examples of this trend. A couple of them, like RiG and Top Six Next Year, do continue to buy season tickets and attend TCS regularly, but it's a huge commitment for them, and it's not realistic to expect most people in that situation to have the time or money to do this. FWIW, I think that the numbers of teenagers and younger children at our home games makes up a pretty healthy proportion of our modest crowds - a bigger proportion, I'd argue, that in the crowds of many other Scottish teams, based on what I've seen at their grounds - but how many of these regular supporters will we keep when they finish school? The UHI might make a small difference, but people will still want to spread their wings. I think the 'Old Firm factor' is actually overstated, certainly among people born in the 90s and beyond, although I think it has limited our potential audience among those who were old enough to have chosen their 'big team' by the time the club was formed. There were plenty of people I was at school with who I saw regularly at Kingsmills in the 80s, but who also went to Celtic Park, or Ibrox, or (in my case and a few others') Pittodrie a few times a season, and who didn't make the jump when the merger occurred, simply because their allegiance to their 'big club' was too strong, rather than out of any deeply-held opposition to the merger. Celtic, and certainly Rangers are far less exotic or glamorous than they once appeared, and although there will be kids running around in their strips in Inverness, I'm convinced that this doesn't affect us significantly more than any other Scottish team of comparable size, whether in Perth, Ayrshire, Fife or Lanarkshire. The far bigger threat or distraction comes from the blanket coverage of the English Premier League and Champions League, which is encouraging a lot of young potential supporters to see Scottish football as devalued and even embarrassing. In the school I work in in Glasgow, where probably 99% of those who follow football would once upon a time have described themselves as Celtic supporters, and remain privileged enough to be able to afford season tickets if they want them, increasingly large numbers describe themselves and Man City, or Chelsea, or Barcelona or Real Madrid supporters, and disparage all Scottish football. I've heard more than one pupil describe how they were offered a Celtic season ticket for their birthday by their parents, and turned it down. Why should we expect kids in Inverness to be any different? That, of course, is probably a fairly significant factor in explaining why clubs across Scotland like ICT, and St Johnstone, and Motherwell, have not seen significant crowd increases in highly successful recent periods in their histories: the genuine interest in Scottish football that actually brings people through the gates just isn't there (expect for those 'one-off' occasions, like the Scottish Cup Final), although the overall stagnation in support in Scotland is sometimes disguised by recent bounces in crowd size experienced by 'sleeping giant' clubs like Hearts and Aberdeen. I do think that location is a slightly aggravating factor for us, and ticket prices are definitely too high throughout Scotland, but ticket offers and price reductions in the past haven't succeeded in significantly increasing support in the past, as Motherwell under John Boyle found out to their cost, so we are probably stuck with them, as the club has to budget around them. Finally, changes in working patterns have probably had a bigger impact on attendances than many people acknowledge. Far more people now work regularly at weekends than did during the heyday of Scottish football, and so they simply aren't able to make many matches. For my first 10 years of supporting ICT, I worked two weekends out of three; it felt like a real privilege to be able to attend games. I suspect that this is an area in which Inverness sees a slightly bigger disadvantage; as the primary shopping and service centre for about half of Scotland's land mass, it employs vast numbers in the retail and service sectors, and obviously the busiest time for such businesses is at the weekends, so I suspect that a larger proportion of people working in Inverness regularly work weekends than in the hometowns of most other Scottish clubs. This is all conjecture, though - I don't have any figures. Put all this together, and I just can't see us, or any other team of similar size, ever stepping up to another level in terms of the support we command. I suspect the club believes this too, and cuts its cloth accordingly. That's not to say that the marketing couldn't be a lot better and more imaginative - even adding 500 to the gates regularly would make a big difference, and that's not completely unrealistic - but it probably does explain the reluctance to offer Yogi a significantly enhanced contract (back on topic...) and a significantly increased playing budget. I don't think the chairman or the board members always get it right by any means, but I do have some sympathy with their dilemma here. I don't have anything to add - but this must be my biggest post ever. Yes it is I like you too SP - helping me elongate my record.