CaleyD

bollocks doesnt stop 7500+ turn out on a sunday old firm game,get a grip :015: I think what your really trying to say is that you disagree and the fact that 7500 turn out for Sundy fixtures against the Old Firm would suggest that this isn't that big a problem for people? To which I would respond........ The OF don't make for the best example at TCS, but if you look to their own grounds for Sunday Fixtures you will often see huge empty areas in the respective stadiums.

Hart (if he starts getting regular games) would be my choice.

Trying to recall some of the info that came out when he put in the offer to Elgin, and from memory he disappeared and refused to meet the club in person at the mention of "background checks". Part of his proposal for Elgin suggested that clubs from all around would flock to use the state of the art training facility...He mentioned teams from the SPL to the Highland League....apart from the geography involved....where did he expect HL teams to get the funds to hire such facilities!!! Aside from the fact that the guy doesn't have so much as a toe in the realms of reality, I don't think his current businesses are conducive with the operation of a community club. Like it or not, the church is still very powerful in and around Inverness and I think any involvement with this guy, regardless of anything else, would put a serious dent in our customer base. Backward thinking perhaps, but reality all the same.

This is one of those subjects that the club will never win on. When they choose to play the cards close to their chest, then some of the fans get upset because they aren't getting any information, and when they go public then the other half get upset because they aren't keeping things under wraps. At no time have I seen anything which said Rankin had a fixed price on his head. Back last year when Rankin wasn't getting a game and Brewster came back he was (according to reports) told the same thing as many of the players...if you want to play, then you have to earn your position. This didn't seem to please Rankin, whether that be because he thought he was frozen out for other reasons or he believed he was good enough to be guaranteed a start we are unlikely to find out. A statement from the club at the time said something along the lines of...we would be willing to listen to offers for Rankin come the transfer window...nowhere did it say we would sell him, and lets be honest, most clubs would be willing to listen to offers for any player in any window provided the price was right. Since then, and rather coincidentally, Rankin has played his way back in to the team. For that reason alone the club will have a higher valuation on Rankin than they might have had if he had still been sidelined. It's a catch 22, if he had been still on the sidelines we would unlikely be getting offers, and now that he's playing regular and playing well, we aren't going to accept nonsense offers. I think the club are right to be handling this they way they are.....far too often you get players playing the "personal reasons" card in the hope that clubs will somehow become easier to deal with and it is about time we drew the line or players will continue to try and p!ss all over the contracts they have with us. If Rankin is so desperate to get away then perhaps he should consider topping up the offer from one of the other clubs out of his own pocket as I don't see how we should be the ones to lose out because of what amounts to no more than a lifestyle decision on his part.

Welcome to the forums and don't worry about your opening post, there's posters who have hundreds/thousands of posts that miss things every day (me included). It served the purpose of reminding us that we needed to update that part of the site, so not wasted :022: Dive in and get involved, most people will be only too happy to answer your questions and we'll soon have you back up to speed.

Malky is back.

You have to give the guy some credit for trying :015:

Newspaper match reports are notoriously bad and you also have to keep in mind that many are written with the readership in mind. You see it week in week out with the tabloids when reporting on our matches...they "slant" them towards the largest audience. We (ICT) tend to be on the down side of that more often than not, unless it's a big win of some sort and then you might see full credit given. Even the tabloid reports following our 3-2 victory over Celtic were tainted with the "ICT were fortunate" lines. That's just one aspect...the other aspect is, as you say, poor journalism. Even the commentators on the radio most weeks struggle to remember what our players names are. I've often read reports in most papers, be they tabloid, P&J or the Inverness Courier/Highland News and wondered if the journalist was at the same game. The P&J is far from the worst....although when it comes to reporting on the Aberdeen v ICT games then it can be truly comical. It's a topic of conversation that comes up on a fairly regular basis, I like too have the odd little rant when they show the highlights on TV and they are totally biased. Ironically enough, the worst highlights this season came following our first league game away at Hibs where we pretty much owned them for most of the game. From the highlights you would have thought it was the other way round and I don't think they showed a single on of our shots on goal. It doesn't seem to bother most of the players who are happy to fly under the radar and get on with business....and to be honest, that's how it should be as "Ego's" have never done to well or lasted to long at ICT.

Survival First always has to be the #1 priority for ANY club in the top flight, I don't have a problem with that as it's dangerous to take your eye off the game. Hearts and Hibs are teams that have probably got to the stage where they expect to be top 6 every year....look what's happening to them just now. Even Kilmarnock, who are probably more comparable to ourselves, and who have done well in recent years, are struggling. Top 6 should be the target we are looking for as a club now, but that does not mean that we should become complacent about survival.

He's in the past.....Non ICT board for this nonsense IMO :001:

This topic has been moved to NON - ICT. [iurl]http://www.caleythistleonline.com/community/index.php?topic=5890.0[/iurl]

Very interesting!!! I've heard stories that Park was actually the antagoniser behind the situation that led to Rankin falling out of favour with both Christie and Brewster. A fact that only came to light following his (Parks) departure.

Since when did "a few" = 1 ???

Discipline was out the window throughout the team to day.

The most painful thing listening to this match is that it doesn't sound like we even turned up for much of it.

Sounds like some "dirty" football being played by Hibs. "Showing the Studs" seems to be the phrase for the day.

We need to try and get our composure back and start playing our own game or this could prove a painful day.

Oh Horlicks!!!!!!

I am guessing here ... but Sutherland / Tullochs - 29% Catto - 16% Savage - 12% Ross - 5% Un-issued Shares - around 20% (?) Supporters Trust ??% (less than 12% but have a 12% voting right) small shareholders ??% (probably around 10-12 % ? mostly in blocks of 250) As the club have already said its not going to happen, I am mindful to believe them. If you consider that the major shareholders are unlikely to sell - Savage and Sutherland have already said that, and I am sure that the others would have a similar response if asked - an investor wanting a takeover would have to buy all the unissued shares which is not going to happen because DFS or someone else close to him or the club would snap some or all of them up. They would then have to buy virtually all the shares from small investors to get a holding close to the same level that DFS currently has. I cant see Catto selling as he is already involved in the harbour deal is he not (?) and will be well aware of what may happen to land values in this area in the next few years. I dont know Roddy Ross so not sure of how he would think but 5% is not a huge holding in terms of buying enough to take over the club. I am almost certain that the supporters trust would not sell theirs under any circumstances and even if they wanted to they probably wouldnt get approval from their members and there would likely be a lot of red tape involved given the members' club transfer, their own constitution and their voting rights. The majority of small shareholders would also be unlikely to sell, even for a modest profit as we bought these shares to be a part of the club rather than for any long or even short term financial gain .... Unlike other shares I hold or have held, I have always viewed my ICT shares as a "donation" to the club and wouldnt bother selling them unless someone offered me truly stupid money which is not going to happen. If someone wants to come in and buy the unissued shares without strings attached then fair enough, but if, as speculated there could be conditions attached, like a controlling interest etc then no dice. Another important fact in that which I've highlighted above is that Inverness Thistle and Caledonian is not a public company and therefore the Board can pick and choose who they wish to sell the un-issued shares too. In short, under our current setup their is no real threat of a hostile takeover bid. I disagree that the only way for the club to gain is from packing up and moving out. It may well be the most likely outcome (IMO), and one cemented by the comments of Sutherland in the papers this week (and some of his more recent land purchases), but it is just as feasible that the Stadium could remain where it is and benefit from partners/investors undertaking joint ventures with the club. This isn't the first approach the club has had and we had better get used to it because others will be coming thick and fast in the next few years. What the club have to decide is what kind of deal they are looking for and what suits us best....The fact the club do not hold the primary lease may seem like a weak point in our position, but had it not been for that then we could find ourselves under pressure from the bank to sell up and settle debts....look at St Mirren as an example. They were fine until they became solvent and then the bank called in the debt forcing them to sell out to Tesco....they aren't doing too badly out of the deal, but I bet they would rather stay at Love Street, or have been in a position to hold out for a better deal.

All we need do now is get the paperwork signed :029:

If some of the rumours doing the rounds about him being the disrupting influence at ICT are true then this may work in our favour :004:

I wouldn't say ICT didn't have any money to spend, rather that we just don't go throwing it about and wasting it in the same fashion as others have been guilty of. No point in spending just for the sake of it.

I actually find it quite insulting that anyone would approach us with the view of turning us into a "Feeder Club". OK, so we're not a big club by any stretch of the imagination and it is nice to have contacts with larger teams whereby we can do them a service by taking the odd player on loan to help any situation we may be in with regards shortage of personnel in any area, but as for players going the other way...that is something we, as a club, should always have full control over. In terms of the party who supposedly has an interest in the Stadium Development....I again would be very cautious with regards to this, as the one big thing that is going to make our site worth something is the completion of the Harbour Development and it sounds like someone trying to get in and take control while it's cheap. The value of the leasehold held by the Stadium Trust on our behalf will, IMO, go through the roof in the next couple of years....so much so that I think we would be in a very strong position to be looking at wiping out that debt, getting a new Stadium (be it a developed one in current location or moved elsewhere) and ending up with a few quid in the bank. Now is not the time for us to be doing these deals, and I also think we are lucky to have someone like David Sutherland on our side. Don't get me wrong, his motives won't be entirely selfless, but he has always done well by us whilst improving his own situation and I'd rather be in a win-win situation involving him than risk our position with an unknown entity. As the saying goes.....better the devil you know.

Some (ALL) of you may have had trouble posting to the forum between about 10:40pm last night and 3:30am this morning. I could lie and blame it on someone else, but it would appear that it was my screw up. I was going through and doing some maintenance on the site and I accidentally changed something I shouldn't have. Normally I check everything after I ma finished, but I got called away from the computer to deal with some real world stuff and hadn't realised the error until I returned to the PC just now. 4650+ pages on the site and I miss 3 letters on one line and cause a melt down :029: Whilst I am at it, their is to be some scheduled maintenance to parts of the server system at our host at 3am (GMT) tomorrow morning. They reckon it will only impact on sites for a few minutes, but knowing how these things can go then it may take longer. So if your about during the small hours and things aren't quite right....you can't blame me for that too :015:

Now that would be poetic :001: