CaleyD

I think Imrie actually saved Hateley from the red card as it looked like he indicated to the Ref that the challenge wasn't as bad as it might have appeared.

You'd better watch....taking the moral high ground in such icy conditions could have catastrophic results!!!

Not only a great result, but a confident performance....not up there with "best evers" but for the most part we seemed to be in control of the game. For the first time in a long time I got more confident as the game went on.

Was talking to someone about this the other day. I knew that C*unty had 5 or 6 less than us, but I thought Dundee were only a couple less. I think our squad is second only in size to Plastic Whistle who have 30+ players....we have about 26.

Don't Jinx it :angry:

Nobody is trying to argue that Dunfermline gained any advantage from the (giving the benefit of the doubt) errors made....so the score really doesn't come in to the argument, IMO. 4 tournament rules were broken by Dunfermline and the punishment reflects that.....in fact, they are lucky not to have got a fine over and above the expulsion.

I wouldn't be overly upset to see many of those players still turning out for us now!!!

1-0 Wyness at home on 23rd March 2003

Nothing against Dumbfarmlife, but I think this is the right decision. The playing of ineligible players seems to have been a common theme the last few years and the resulting press brings the game in this country into disrepute and it needs to be stamped out. The fines that were being handed out prior to this were doing little to temper the issue....What's a ?10,000 or ?15,000 fine compared to many times that for progressing to the next round, and the money that takes in?...so the only option if clubs aren't getting their act together is expulsion. The only thing I would add is that there's perhaps an argument that referees should be attending games with more information on illegible players in order to prevent it in the first place....but ignorance is no defence on the clubs part as they, more than anyone, should be aware of who is and who is not eligible and if they have any doubts they can consult the lists sent out or make a phone call.

Liam scored for Scottish U16's against Malta yesterday in a 2-0 victory. :030:

Official Statement from the club....apologies for delay in posting, I've been out at meetings all day. As I understand it, beyond that we kick in to a situation whereby if the game does not go ahead Monday it will be rescheduled for Tuesday, then Wednesday etc. until such time as it is played....obviously making allowance for league fixtures.

Official site says details will be publicised in due course.....and I've not been told that I'm due to work on Tuesday night. So I'm as much in the dark as anyone.

I don't think it's possible to "become" wealthy by owning a club because you need to be fairly wealthy to afford to buy one in the first place. Looking at it from the point of "How many people have made money from being Club Owners?", there's likely to be a few more than we think...although it will generally have happened indirectly. I couldn't name specific people or clubs but some feasible scenarios would be.... People who have bought failing clubs for a quid and sold them on further down the line, Then you have those who've removed stadium/land ownership from the club and have companies who are earning by way of rent and development. Owners who are/have also been employees drawing a salary could, over time, have had back more than they ever invested. Crooks who have used clubs for things like Money Laundering "Goodwill" where investors have been afforded opportunities in other business ventures through apparent generosity. Owners who have other business interests which provide paid services to clubs. Most football clubs are fairly incestuous institutions in so far as, at any one time, there's only likely to be dealings between small groups of people/businesses when it comes to their day to day operation. This means that most of the money going out (aside from player wages and utilities bills etc) will be going to people who have put money in, or are connected to those who put money in. Whilst most owners/major shareholders will always play the "My shares will never be worth more than I paid for them" card, they will, in many cases, be making some kind of earning elsewhere. Nothing wrong with that, IMO, so long as the club is benefiting as much as everyone else who's taking/getting a slice of the action.

I think Bear Grylls might have something to say about that!!!

First spanking is free....after that you pay like everyone else ......ok, edit your post and make mine look really out of place!!! :P

I'm just presenting the facts that I have and asking the question as to why certain things happened the way they did and if it was really the "great act" it has always been portrayed as. What it all amounts to is open for discussion and debate, but I would caution against people making any allegations they can't support.

I have the Land Registry entries which show how much is/was being paid in rent and my Financial Services background allows me to come up with a fair calculation on what the cost of the debt would have been.....so yeah, I'm confident that I have sufficient to back up my claim.

Doesn't make any difference to what's being discussed.....I was just saying that "IF" things had panned out as they did and we still owned the debt then there's a good chance we could have cleared our feet totally as opposed to partially. The cost of the debt was replaced by the cost of the rent....so in terms of what money we would have had to spend on the squad, it really made no difference to our achievements on the playing side, IMO.

OK... I've just come back to this thread after several days and I see that it has had further activity. Initially, please note that in my original post I deliberately placed the term "Trust" in inverted commas to acknowledge the fact that there are varying viewpoints on the nature of this arrangement. However I would have to emphasise that, in almost a decade now since the "arrangement" was made, I have never really been aware of its precise nature being an issue among ICT fans. For instance it's not exactly the kind of thing that groups of scandalised people sit around discussing over their post match dram in the Social Club week in week out, nor is it the talk of the terraces Saturday after Saturday. Yes, a certain view of the arrangement does exist, but apart from one or two people on here it really seems to be a viewpoint which, despite having being stated very forcefully by those who subscribe to it and having had a decade to gain currency, has spectacularly failed to do so. I think the take of most fans (and this is my take as well) would tend to be:- * In 1999-2000 Caley Thistle's financial situation had become dire in the extreme. That threat to the future of ICT was removed by a transaction involving the Stadium. * In 2004-05 the extreme need to return from playing SPL football in Aberdeen to a 6000+ seat capacity stadium in Inverness was met and financed in a very short timescale. And it would appear that, in the view of the vast majority, these vital ends are what matter while very few people seem to feel "disadvantaged" or "cheated" or "done" or whatever by the means of achieving them. I always like it when people start throwing around statements like "most fans" and "in the view of the vast majority" when they have absolutely no evidence to quantify the claims. In 99-00 we were told by David Sutherland that the club was facing a financial crisis because our level of debt had become unsustainable....a view not shared by everyone at the time. His solution was to magic the debt away, and the stadium along with it, into a Charitable Trust. Newspaper articles, statements from Club Officials/Shareholders back this up, as does information still available for viewing on the Official Website. Again, the solution was not something everyone believed was right and I recall mass walk outs by Board Members and much stamping of feet when Dougie McGillvray dared challenge it. At that time we were told the nature of this Charitable Trust was such that once it had cleared it's feet of the debt it would then serve to assist/fund/help sport in Inverness. Their was even talk of David Sutherland/Tulloch transferring their shareholding in ICT to the Trust. I remember questions at the time surrounding how the Charitable Trust could pay the debt without any source of income and we were told that due to the tax breaks available to such an organisation they could effectively charge us a manageable rent which would cost us less than it had been to service the debt. and the Charitable Trust could make interest payments and clear some of the capital owed......we were, in effect, going to be working the system, but at the end of it we would have this Charitable "Sports" Trust which would serve the wider sporting needs of the area. We were also told that by removing the debt then we would be able to encourage new investment. At the time I certainly had the impression that their were people waiting in the wings to invest....this never ever transpired It is my belief that it was the ...having a Trust serving wider sporting needs and giving something back... part which won people over and stopped too many questions being asked at the time. As things are now, the Stadium is not owned by a Charitable Trust...it's a dormant company doing NOTHING. In effect their is nothing that is ever going to "give back"....whats more, ICTFC sunk another ?250,000 into this black hole when we built the new stands and have NOTHING to show for it in terms of assets. My issue is not that we (ICTFC) no longer own the Stadium....it's the fact that it is not in the hands of the company it should be in or doing what it should be doing. It is in the hands of a private individual who can basically do as he likes with it whilst charging us a sizeable rent. We might have got rid of the debt, but we're still paying for it. We would have been as well keeping the debt & the Stadium....it might have taken us longer than desired to clear our feet, but we would still have had something to show for it at the end of the day....or if it had gone to the Charitable Trust, at least Inverness would have been benefiting from the transaction. If you take our rent over 10 years and add in the ?250k we paid towards the New Stands and apply that to the debt we had back then....we'd have made a fairly sizeable hole in what was owed and we'd have an asset worth well in excess of that debt and not likely to have had any trouble with the bank......in fact, I would wager that with the slightly better years (financially) we had in the SPL then we may well have actually been able to clear our feet, either directly or by being able to encourage investment in a company that actually had some assets to invest in.

The Charitable Trust DO NOT own the stadium or the leasehold for the land, these are held by companies wholly owned by David Sutherland.....confirmed by searches done at the Land Registry. These documents also detail the amount of rent being paid...and I can assure you it is far from being way below what I would consider commercial rates. The Charitable Trust was set up, but it has never traded a single penny and is, according to companies house, a dormant company. Explain why ICTFC have no shareholding in the company that owns the new stands when they invested in the region of ?250,000 in the project? Explain why minutes of Highland Council Meetings (these are public records) detail that the loan they gave was in the name of Inverness Caledonian Thistle Properties Ltd and not the Charitable Trust...which you claim owns the the Stadium? Or you could do as others do and simply ignore these points each time they are raised, wait for the things to settle a little and then start peddling the company line somewhere further down the line.

If we got Renegade in as Manager and Caleykid1994 in to take care of the business side of the club then suddenly things wouldn't seems so bad right now!!! Seriously though, I think Butcher deserves a little more respect than to have people speculating about his replacement when he's still in the job and his departure is nothing more than a rumour.

The pitch is the same length it has always been. The line you see, and are mistaking for the old byline, is where the pitch was dug up at either end to put in the USH.

Yeah...on the basis of how safe it is for people to travel to the stadium. ICT don't become responsible for making decisions on road/travel safety conditions for the whole of Inverness on matchdays!!!

As I understand it, it's not actually compulsory for the club to request/have a police attendance at matches.