CaleyD

None of us really know what Butcher wants to achieve with the squad as, to date, he's pretty much had to work with what he had and fill in the gaps to make the team work. Despite being of the opinion that being in a situation where only a very small number of players are contracted beyond the summer is unwise, it does present Butcher with the chance to put together his own squad for next season without being hindered with offloading players he may not wish to keep. It also means he has the opportunity to crop the size of the main squad back to a more manageable and financially viable size (somewhere around 18?) and offer at least a couple of the younger lads a chance to move into the first team squad....even if it is just for the benefit of full time training to begin with. I think it's fairly certain that we'll all have "favourites" who depart in the summer, either because they get better offers or they simply don't fit with Butchers vision of the squad for next season, and I'm even more certain we'll have any number of threads along the lines of "Why on earth did we let him go" or "He's re-signed him, is he crazy". Taking all the above into consideration it seems fairly inevitable that next seasons squad will look a whole lot different to this seasons...I just hope we can all get our frustrations out of the way in regard to players signed/released over the summer and be in the right mindset to back the team from the get go on the opening day of season 2010/11.

And the personal insults begin. How nice. Here's the thing though, who'll turn out to be right in the end? We shall see. Do you have a whole deck of those victim cards?

Just so you know, Renegade. Rossco was playing as a central midfielder before Pele got his hands on him so not exactly a natural right back.

Better than 3 dropped!!!

I think they are the publishing/printing arm of the Highland News Group.

Looks like I could have someone to pass the "Broken Record" title over too.

Great news and I hope that the club can go on to create a solid platform throughout the whole business that will afford us some stability and allow Butcher to be here for many years to come.

:angry:

If you have any complaint, use the report button.

Come on guys....even Rory McAllister managed more goals for ICT than Barrowman ever did and he is considered (by some) to be one of the most useless strikers we ever had on the books!!! Players come and go, some perform here when they haven't elsewhere and vice versa, but signing Barrowman on the money we did was absolute madness and we're best rid. Would people have preferred we keep him on the books draining what little money we might have in the bank and possibly preventing other signings?

Barrowman was on more than Niculae B)

For the money he was on I'd have expected him to be able to take on the opposition single handed.

Nice of you to include answer 3 so people can take the cop out and not commit to a real opinion B)

Whatever a persons stance/view/opinion, it can't be argued that yet again we have a situation involving ICT which is about as clear as mud and raises more questions every day than it serves to answer. Whilst I can appreciate that the club have to be guarded in what they say when court cases and the like are involved, they could still answer the questions pertaining to why our Major Shareholder was in the press saying we could not afford the player and why our Director of Football was in the press saying we were happy with the deal and acknowledging money was due. What has changed since then to bring about our refusal to pay? Is it simply a case that we think we might have found some loophole to allow us to withhold the money and not honour the contract/agreement?...and if we have, is that moral and the kind of action we want our club associated with? We've gone from DFS saying we can't afford him, Brewster saying he is very much a part of his plans, but we would listen to any offers, to Dinamo claiming a deal was done, to ICT denying a deal was done, to Dinamo publishing documents proving deal was done and provision of bank details by ICT for payment, to ICT saying their was some confusion involving pounds and Euros, to ICT saying everything was now sorted and payment to player was due, to ICT refusing to pay player, to FIFA ruling we need to cough up, to ICT claiming they don't know why FIFA are saying we should pay up, to ICT acknowledging they now know why and communicating intention to appeal to CAS. It's no wonder people's heads are spinning, and that's before we start looking at why the club have not paid the second half of his signing on fee and the court hearing for that due next week. What never ceases to amaze me however, is that we have people, who might be considered perfectly intelligent, that choose to pick and choose at the information to make it fit what they want to be the case. Of course FIFA have been overruled by the CAS in the past, but they've had far more cases upheld and clinging to the hope that because they (CAS) might have overruled a couple of cases in the past then they are going to do so with this one is taking blind faith to the extreme. For me, ICT have long passed the point where they should be given the benefit of the doubt in any dealings they are involved in, and while they could win this one (stranger things have happened) it's of absolutely no surprise that the majority of people who have commented on the subject over the past 18+ months....yes, that's how long this has been hanging over our heads....have serious doubts about the strength of our case.

No it was definitely England.

I very much doubt it will be our pitch that causes any problems so wouldn't expect us to announce any inspection.

It's just been on the 5pm News Bulletin that the Fire Service in Inverness have been placed on high alert today. By all accounts there's a strong risk of candle related carnage in the Smithton area. P.S. Happy Birthday LG ;)

All depends on the terms of the lease and how much "hardball" the club would be willing to play to secure a buy-out. As the clubs (current) major shareholder would effectively be negotiating with himself and profiting from the club taking a minimal settlement...then what do you think? Let's make no mistake....DFS holds all the cards and we would be relying very much on his goodwill in any future transactions of this nature. Even if an investor was able to secure the remaining shares and become the largest shareholder, we would still be at the mercy of rent set by DFS and could effectively be driven out if not willing to do things on his terms. This may never happen, he may prove very generous in the future....but the fact remains that we (ICT) have absolutely no guarantees....nor would any investor.

You seem to be of the opinion that ICTFC is in some way connected to these "other" companies other than by way of the DFS connection. ICTFC has no shareholding in the property companies that currently own the stadium. The only external company they have any shareholding in is a defunct property company that was set up when we bought Clach's gaff to help them out of the trouble they were in and which now serves no purpose other than to confuse the whole situation. Anyone investing in ICTFC is investing in little more than the club name, so there is no "pot of gold", nor any chance of a "pot of gold" to follow from them investing. In fact, I am awaiting updated information from the Land Registry as it's very possible that the ownership of the stands and/or leasehold for all or part of the Stadium could have actually changed hands again last December and is no longer owned by the Property Companies I've mentioned in the past.

The issue for me is not the claims they made, but they fact they have done little, if anything, to back up it up in terms of actions since the end of last season. They talked of having plans in place if we were relegated, they shut themselves away over the summer telling us they were working on a plan for this season....and we've still never seen or heard anything of these plans all season. They asked the fans to get behind them and the team and they did just that with Season Ticket sales being the largest we've ever had....so I don't think it's unjust that the fans feel a little aggrieved at the lack of action on the part of our Board. I sometimes think that Inverness doesn't deserve a SPL team because, as a city, we have never done enough to get behind the club....but if we're honest, it's not surprising when you look at how things have been/are being run. Who in their right mind would want to pay to have their name associated with ICT right now? Why would people be going out of their way to help when they get no thanks for it and find themselves cast aside on a whim because they dare to speak their mind? Just as we have no right to be playing at the top level, we have no right to expect the support of the City, it's businesses and it's people when the clubs expectation is that it should be a one way street and are doing little to give anything back. Huisdean, when you look at the way things are done at ICT, the way some people have been treated, the inaction by the club on the important things and the totally wrong actions with other things....I too wonder why some people bother supporting them. Fortunately they do though, and I think you have to realise that just because someone is a fan of the team that doesn't mean they have to be supportive of the way the club is being operated....a boat that I very much find myself occupying.

I gave serious consideration to packing in my consultancy role with Mars when they launched the new packaging.

No, you could buy 28.1% for ?860,211....and even then, only if the Board agree to sell to you.

Yeah.

As has been eluded too, the biggest issue with USH is not the delivering of heat, but the fact that the heat has to be at a temperature which causes root damage. The obvious answer is to install a system which prevents the temperature of the ground dropping that far in the first place and geothermal energy could be one solution. A geothermal installation also has the added advantage that it could help reduce energy bills for not only the USH but the whole stadium at times of the year when frost is not threatening.

I was due to take some clients to Glasgow this afternoon and could find no way between here and there. I was about to set off when the A9 closed at Dalwhinnie...plan B, Fort Bill. Ready to go again and the A82 gets closed...plan C, A96....not worth the risk, even if I made it down, the chances of me making it back were very slim going by advice of the police. Still a bit of time between now and then, but I expect that if weather has cleared up by tomorrow evening then the police will advise that the game is called off.