CaleyD

Because Ross Tokely told him too!!!

I agree with the OP as well....we need to get some stability back into things or we will just continue to lurch from one Manager to another with teams being hauled apart and put back together every season and fans having to wait till "things start coming together". Butcher and Malpas are doing as much as can be expected with what they have to work with and we seem to have found a bit of consistency....why wouldn't people want that to continue in to next season?

You guys want to continue that conversation in private so this thread can get back on topic? Thanks.

OK people, enough of the fishing on usernames. If the officer in question does have an account registered on this site and he doesn't want to reveal himself then it's not up to others to do so and we will intervene to prevent this turning in to some kind of witch hunt.

As I understand it, you also need the companies permission to transfer/sell them so any transaction could easily be blocked. This effectively gives them first refusal on buying back shares and stopping them getting in to the hands of people they may not want to have them. Which if you follow the logical train of thought means that the Board can prevent a hostile takeover.

There's a lot of talk surrounding the amount of talent we have in our youth setup at the moment. However I fear that we will lose the vast majority of them as no clear path from Youth to Full Team at ICT just now. Our U19's are made up of a handful of players and having been heavily cropped last summer I'm not sure there's any desire amongst the powers who be to expand that or open it up to anything more than we see at present.....regardless of the potential which exists among those who would benefit from it, and ultimately bring benefits to the team/club as a whole.

Glad to see the 3 young lads up in court this week have been cleared. This whole think stank from the start and, IMO, they were being made scapegoats and the whole thing looked to have been set up with the intention of making an example of the lads as opposed to any serious attempts at bringing justice. Courier Story Here Thankfully the lads look to have had a decent defence acting for them and they've torn the evidence apart....particularly that of a (then) trainee officer, Ross MacDonald, who couldn't even tell them what it was he found offensive in the alleged songs being sung by those charged!!! Not denying we've ever had these songs sung by some of our fans....we all know it's happened, but we also know it's not a large problem and it would not be accpeted by the majority of fans. I think there's an important lesson to be learned here in regards to "Fly with the Crows, Get shot with the Crows", just glad to see justice done. I hope that the damage done by this case, and it's long drawn out nature, hasn't done permanent damage to the futures of the lads involved at a time when they will be making big life decisions...some of which will have been closed to them whilst all this was going on.

Setting aside any opinions I may have about the state of the "product" and our boards ability to sell it, the club will have their work cut out finding anything that comes close to replacing this level of Sponsorship in the current financial climate.

That's possible....as I said, I hadn't heard anything official.

I heard mention of 23rd March for C*unty fixture and 13th March (Cup Day) for the Morton game....but that's not official as far as I am aware.

I wasn't suggesting anyone do it (please don't)....just making the point that ICT have no land to shift you from. I wonder if they would have the actual owner come shift you though? :tonguecheek:

Now that I know I'm only welcome at the Stadium as a paying punter I have contacted those who had volunteered to assist with things such as the videoing to make them aware of the situation. I have urged these people, if they are still willing/able, to contact the club to offer their assistance and services should the club have a Plan B and are planning to continue what has been started. Perhaps someone a little less outspoken will be able to pick these things up and run with them to ensure the fans do not miss out as a result of the situation.

You could stand in the centre circle and not be on ICT's land

No one seems to have come back to me on this so thought I'd ask again... Has anyone written directly to the club with a detailed question regarding stadium ownership? Caley D you not keen to send an email and see what sort of responce you receive?? Be careful what you ask for.... I'd just like to point out I'm not sticking up for the board here and CD I have genuine sympathy with your position but I think if we are going to get to the bottom of this we need to have a balanced arguement rather than a witch hunt. I asked the question regarding Stadium Ownership via an agreed communication route between club and fans (The Boardroom Banter) back in November/December 2008 Response I remember it clearly because I had planned a follow up question in the next issue but got a "friendly warning" that if I pursued it then it would spell the end of the Boardroom Banter there and then so I removed the follow up question so as not to jeopardise the existence of BB....with hindsight it didn't make much difference to the life of BB. I would love to have a balanced argument....but you can't get that so long as one side remain firmly fixed behind a wall of silence.

Glad the club chose to clarify the extent of my welcome at the club via the press today. I did receive a call last Friday telling me I was welcome as a fan but Darren told me he did not have an answer for me in regard to the other things and I would need to contact them in writing....seems I can save myself the stamp now that a club spokesman has confirmed in the Courier that I am not welcome there to do anything else.

Just post the form back to us the first chance you get.

My understanding of the details we were given (and posted above) is that their will be a listen again (on demand) facility provided on the MFR website.

As I said.....it's all in the "spin".

I don't hold his (Tullochs) investment against him, be it ?5 Million, ?1 Million or ?1,000...what does annoy me is that there's a perception that he's invested more than he has and that he's had/is getting no return. I don't deny anyone the right to make a fair investment for fair return....but let's not try and make it out to be more than it is and let's be upfront in offsetting what's been gained in return. The (now disbanded) Members Club invested somewhere in the region of ?1 Million and the voting right passed down from that over the years (now held by the Supporters Trust) is in the region of 10%. Tulloch have a shareholding somewhere in the region of 750,000 shares (at ?1 per share) and have a voting right of about 30% as a result. So whilst the fans have been expected to take a hit on their holding in order to position the club to receive investment, it's clear that others have never been willing to do the same. A Creditor is some who will be due money for goods or services whereas a Debt tends to refer to cash loans.

It's all in how you read things in the accounts. From the last set of accounts..... We had an operating loss of nearly ?150,000. The club have no debts by way of loans due to anyone but the do show a Creditors (due within 12 months) column amounting to nearly ?400,000. No note of the potential liability for what's being claimed by Niculae has been included in any of that. Cash in bank/hand had dropped to about ?350,000. These are figures taken as at May last year and since then our income has dropped dramatically....whilst our costs do not appear to have been cut proportionately....e.g. We're still carrying a squad which is much the same sizes as we had in the SPL, which will be the clubs biggest cost. Yes, if you ignore the Creditors column then we have no debt, but we also have no assets and very little on which to secure investment....and it will take investment to allow us to get back to the SPL. First and foremost that investment needs to be made in securing players for the future....DFS says himself that it will take a big turnaround to go back up this season, a contradiction to the "we don't know what league we will be in" excuses emanating from the club itself. It's little wonder people take these statements with a pinch of salt. I don't think anyone has suggested the club is in debt, but finances must be very precarious and the time to sort it out is whilst we still have money in the bank to do it, not when the wolf is at the door and people are being forced to make snap decisions trying to save pennies when they should be working on where we can save, or indeed make, pounds. Again it all stinks of the reactionary mindset that runs this club, the "we'll deal with it when it happens" attitude. I would also like to know where the ?5 Million figure comes from....I can piece together about a quarter of that, and that's on the basis that you count Tulloch money as DFS money. I certainly don't count the purchase of the Stadium and the leasehold for the land it sits on as an investment. I also wonder if the reference to a wealthy board is DFS laying down the challenge to our board to put their hands in their pockets. It was pointed out to me the other day that the board are in effect burning their own money (or DFS money) with the way they operate and that's true. What irks me though is that every time they cough up to bail themselves out they are rewarded with shares and take the club further away from the fans and their increased "Power" reduces the chance of any external investment. That can only go on for so long...what happens when there's no shares left to give out? Do we do a Rangers/Celtic and conjure up another share issue and further dilute the voice of the fans/minor shareholders? It's all in the spin and I for one ain't falling for it and although answers have been given, it's not really answers to the questions that are/should be getting asked.

Fantastic night last ight and some pure gold recorded during the interviews....even if Jimmy Calders interview consisted mostly of a 15 minute laughing fit We should have held off on setting the price as the value probably went up another fiver off the back of the quality of the interviews.

Tough one for me to comment on as I am a member of the Supporters Trust Board.....so please appreciate the following is purely comments from me and not in any way a ST statement. The Supporters Trust Board were very busy organising this weekends events and for that reason I did not approach or expect them to divert any time or attention to these other matters. I think it's fair to say that my comments over the last couple of years have, in the most part, been taken with a large pinch of salt by the majority of people until events of the last week or so brought them right out into the public domain and caused people to do a bit of thinking and their own investigating. Even those who believed what I had been saying were of a mind that it didn't really matter what the situation was in the grand scheme of things so gave it little attention. It is therefore a little unfair to expect the Inverness Courier, the Supporters Trust or anyone other than the club (who are the only ones who are placed to give the reasons for the situation) to present comment or statement off the cuff. Indeed it would be wrong for them to do so until they have satisfied themselves with the facts which are available to them and I can assure you all that these people are keen to speak to me so they can look at and listen to what I have and can then draw their own conclusions and decide what, if anything, needs to be done.

It's a self appointing Board of Directors...no mechanism exists for shareholders (apart from one) to appoint anyone. It would take a 75% vote to change that.

That'll have to be an IOU I'm afraid :021: