CaleyD

McGuire sounds like he's doing more harm than good right now, we'd be as well taking on another forward/midfielder and going 3 at the back me thinks.

Something cropped up at home which meant I was unable to go. Had hoped I would make the second half, but unfortunately not.

Looks like Duncan got a straight red for Violent Conduct and not a second yellow!!!

I really hope that Brewster makes some attack minded changes and just goes for it in the last 15/20 minutes. We've got feck all to lose and with the team being so fired up I think it's time to cut them loose and let them really go at Aberdeen. Would be such a shame to spoil this by sitting back and trying to hold on to the draw.

I had a number 2 this morning which was pretty solid, if I had known that was the answer to our problems I would have bagged it up and left it at reception for Brewster.

I woke up in a pretty good mood this morning, made myself a coffee then flicked on the PC only to be reminded of the fact we had a game today. As ICT have a habit of scoring whilst I'm at the loo I've decided that a couple of pints in the Innes before the match is probably for the best in terms of pre-match preparations. That should mean at least 1 trip to the gents during the first half. Unfortunately I don't think 1 goal will be enough to win this game so anyone who wants to buy me a pint to increase the toilet trips is more than welcome to do so :001:

2 years later and Brewster is once again looking to rip the spine out of ICT...only this time he's doing it from the inside :029:

You know me, why use 5 words when 500 will do :016: P.S. We need to organise a game of cards or something, not spoken to you guys for agesssssss.

If money was no object then I would agree with you entirely, but I guess it comes down to practicality and cost. When using electrical equipment then unless it's in a totally shielded environment then theirs always a risk of noise to/from the equipment itself, a short length of usb cable either end isn't going to add much to that, but a 40 meter span across any distance certainly is. The best you can do is eliminate as much of that as is possible/practical/affordable. When it comes to cable I disagree that it's only as good as it's weakest link, certainly in terms of interference where the weakest link is the length. If the equipment being used is only USB 1.1 then it makes no sense to spend the extra on a USB 2.0 system, especially as many of the USB to Fibre Optic devices for USB 2.0 will not operate with USB 1.1 Equipment.

I agree with that to an extent, but if you choose to have "clear the air" talks then you have to be prepared to take anything and everything that is thrown at you and move on from there in order to fix it, not punish people for speaking out in whatever way they feel necessary. Had Black been the only player spitting the dummy of late then perhaps you could pin it all on his short fuse, but we've got guys who normally wouldn't say boo to a goose going off the deep end....in short, there's only so much people can take and should be expected to take. What defies belief for me is that we're not seeing any positive action to rectify the matter and those in a position to take that action seem to spend the time shifting the blame around ar standing with their hands in the air proclaiming that they don't know what's wrong. To be honest, I'm sick fed up of the finger pointing and beyond giving a toss about who is to blame. As far as I am concerned the whole situation is out of hand and has been for a while now and when that happens then the buck stops with the man at the very top, it is his job to get it all sorted out and if that means casualties in the playing and/or managerial staff then so be it, so long as it is for the right reasons and it brings us back on track.

First one to sit down is a ***** :015:

Is Brewster a bad manager? I couldn't answer that question because I don't think he is being allowed a free hand to manage the team. If I am right in that regard then that makes him weak and/or shows that he places his salary above his reputation which is being torn to shreds at the moment. Either way, it's not in the best interests of the club, but sacking Brewster or seeing him resign will not help as the same people who employed him will simply employ another yes man. Alan Savage already has Robbo on the books....the only question in my mind is who will crack first? Will the club look to make him the scapegoat to save face on their part or will Brewster get in first and resign?

With all the rumour going around that some players may be dropped for disagreeing with Brewster I thought we should perhaps have a wee punt at what reason excuses may be used in the post match interview...... "Top 6 was out of reach and relegation isn't a threat so it was time to give the younger lads a game" (EH's...Em's...Ahh's...stutters and pauses have been removed to ease reading)

True. But David Sutherland, controlling the largest shareholding, still has his hand on the club's tiller even if he is less involved day to day. He chose Savage. He chose to reappoint Brewster, apparently. He has a say in every major decision, so you'd have to add him to your list. It is with hindsight that we realise that the appointment of Savage may have been the start of the rapid disintegration, which is why I say that not everything that has happened is the result of some warped conspiracy. We all make mistakes, and often we do not realise the impact of those mistakes until the chit hits the fan. David Sutherlands article in the papers signalled to me that he was letting us, the fans, know that he is aware that things aren't right and that he is still watching over things, but as you say, he is not involved in the day to day running and that is where, IMO, things are being grossly mishandled. He may have a large shareholding but that shareholding only counts for anything at an AGM/EGM.....for the rest of the year the decisions are made by the BoD and staff who are placed in positions of authority and given the powers to operate in certain areas. It's not always what has been done that causes the problems, but the way it gets done. Yes, their is strong suggestion that he had a hand in the reappointment of Brewster, but had he been the Chairman then I don't think we would have had the circus we did and I don't think that we would have had near the hullabaloo we did if the club had been upfront with us about the whole deal instead of trying to lead us a merry dance. I never included Sutherland in that final list for those very reasons and also because I believe he is taking steps towards changing things. Only time will tell if I am right in that regard, and we'll just have to wait and see.

You should have seen the unabridged version :015:

As it's probably for his ghost hunting equipment then I would assume that he wants to use the fibre optics to reduce the risk of external interference as opposed to the speed issue. No idea where you would source this locally, especially off the shelf. I'd suggest looking to buy it from the US as you can normally save yourself quite a bit on stuff like this.

A few people seem to be assuming that it was the agent who was looking to alter the agreed contract...has nobody stopped to think that perhaps the contract the club sent to the agent at the 11th hour was not what was agreed and he simply adjusted it accordingly? That would certainly be a scenario which would allow the club to spin the story the way they have, and for me, it is a scenario that would certainly fit better with the run of events as they are being reported. It's certainly strange that if the agent had tried to squeeze more from the deal that Wyness was not aware of it before speaking to the press and giving the statement he did...either the club or his agent would surely have brought him up to speed at some point over the weekend. Too many half truths from the club for me to believe that blame lies anywhere other than at their feet.

It's not so much "who", but "what" is to blame IMO. Although certain individuals have certainly played a large part in making an unfortunate situation even worse you have to go all the way back to the appointment of Alan Savage (and to an extent Mike Smith) to see where the problems started. David Sutherland....love him or hate him he did a great job for ICT. It wasn't entirely selfless, of course, but you can't deny that we would not be where we are now had it not been for his help and influence. However, I think much of the clubs success on the park was more down to what he NEVER did as much as what he did do. You never heard of Sutherland sticking his nose into the footballing affairs of the club other than letting the DoF and Management staff know what they had available in terms of finances. We had a team in place and for the most part they did a great job of spending wisely and keeping the team moving forward and a sure footing. Much of the same can be said of Ken Mackie who I believe was also a great Chairman. Everyone knew where they stood when Sutherland was at the helm. Players knew that whatever money could be made available for wages and bonuses was being made available and that they would share the financial rewards that their efforts on the pitch brought to the club. Granted, they may not have been the best paid players in the SPL and we lost one or two players as a result, but you can be sure the players respected that they were getting the best offers/contracts the club could give them. The fans also knew where they stood and they knew that when they were "consulted" that they were actually being listened too. When we won the 1st Div and were facing the prospects of groundsharing at Aberdeen the fans were asked for their opinion and the cards were laid on the table with regards to the risks of the groundshare on the financial front. The fans were told that they would need to do their part to keep the attendances as high as possible and the players knew that anything short of survival in the first season could have ruined the club financially. Everyone bought in to the idea and for the most part everyone did their bit....Sutherland then rewarded the fans and the club by securing an early return to Inverness which not only saved the fans the travel (and associated risks and costs) but saved the club a huge wedge also, part of which was given back to the footballing side of things. Mike Smith came to the club in June 2005 as part of what was to be the beginning of a revamp of the off the pitch operations. For the most part he was not involved much with the footballing side of things during the season 05/06, which we weren't expecting anyway as he had stated himself when appointed.... "My priority will be the business side of things, leaving the football operation to director of football Graeme Bennett and the football management staff." Turn the clocks forward 12 months and Alan Savage replaces David Sutherland as Chairman. Savage remained pretty much in the background for most of the 06/07 season and only really addressed the fans in the press (or via this site) when asked directly. He seemed to make all the right noises and when issues arose he made the odd promise to sort things out. It was hard to really judge the guy or the job he was doing on the little we had seen of him, but towards the end of the season was when I first started to notice that the relationship between the club and the fans had/was taking a big turn for the worse. This was around the time when the Stewards really started to go overboard with the fans and the fans were complaining to the club (mostly via this forum). The Supporters Trust seemed to be in talks with the club at the time, but despite promises that it would not be swept under the carpet and that we would get to the root of the problem and get it sorted it ended with nothing more than the promise of a pointless and half ersed addition of a few seats opposite the Main Stand which didn't even have so much as a roof. This was supposed to be the "solution" and now the real problem could be forgotten as far as the club were concerned. The end of the season came and during the closed season rumours broke that we were interested in bringing in Niculae. It was at this stage I realised that not only was Savage going to differ from Sutherland in the way he treated the fans, but he was also going to be a Chairman who WOULD be sticking his nose in to the footballing side of things. It became fairly obviously from early on in the Niculae "rumours" that this was something which was being pushed heavily by Savage. Also, with a little hindsight it has also become apparent that so much time and effort was being put into the signing of Niculae that the contracts of just about every other player were ignored. I've touched on this on the forum before, and as I said then....if your looking to blow your wage structure out the window, then the first thing you do is get all the players you want to keep on extended contracts before the news of this breaks to the squad because you can be sure that when they find out then they will also be looking for a pay increase come the negotiations for themselves. Anyway, in short, this single act (intentionally or otherwise) destroys the clubs ethos of play as a team get rewarded as a team. Whereas players in the past might have not been altogether "happy" about what they were being paid, they knew they were getting the best deal possible and that all players were, more or less, being treated equally. However, Niculae was touted as the man who was going to bring enough to the team to get us to the top 6 and ensure a successful season and most people seemed content to wait for the outcome. I said at the time that the signing could very well prove to be the making or breaking of Alan Savage as a Chairman. Had we reached (or even come close) to getting that top 6 and/or had a decent cup run then the gamble might have paid off and he could have justified it.....that's not what's happened and it is up to the shareholders and fans to decide whether or not the gamble was worth it!!! We got off to a slow start at the beginning of this season and many of us could see that their was huge pressure on Christie. Where that pressure came from and who caused it is a subject that will always generate debate. We know that Christie had wanted to resign earlier than he did but was persuaded to keep the job on. Again, whether that was because of a genuine desire to keep him as the manager or to buy time for the replacement to be properly groomed we will never know. Whatever way you look at it, something was going on and the way in which Brewster was appointed only adds fuel to the "conspiracy". So CC resigns and the hunt is on for the new manager. We're told by the club that they have nobody in mind and they are looking at all the possibilities. A few names are trotted out as is the norm but Warnock seems like a strong candidate, a fact which is CONFIRMED by Savage himself at the Fans Forum when he said that Warnock HAD applied. Rumour quickly breaks out on the site that Brewster has already been given the nod for the job and had been some time ago. This doesn't stop the club turning it into a circus by doing everything possible to deflect attention away from Brewster and then when the announcement is finally made we're all of a sudden told that Warnock was never in the running and in fact he says he never even applied for the job....was Warnock telling porkies to save face in losing out to Brewster or was Savage telling porkies at the fans forum when he said hehad applied!!! Either way, something was going on and we may never know the real story. Whilst all this is going on we are told that come **** or high water Donald Park would be retained by the club as the Assistant Manager...this is something that never ever made any sense to me as any incoming manager would certainly want to bring his own assistant. The Club may have been desperate to keep the services of Park, but his resignation in December to take up the first job that became available seems to indicate that he wasn't exactly desperate to stay at ICT. Was it family reasons or was it simply the club keeping the Assistant in place until Brewsters buddy could free himself from services elsewhere? Who knows!!! All of the above covers events which don't even involve the players (directly)....we've all seen for ourself the way certain players seem to have been manoeuvred out the door. Again I look at the situation of some of the players with a little hindsight, but I can't help but feel that the Chairman has had more influence in some of the losses than simply agreeing the pay cheques...we've lost players in the past due to the simple fact that we couldn't (wouldn't) match wage demands, but not until the appointment of Savage have we had so many instances where the circumstances have appeared strange...... Dods....He had been offered a 1 year extension but wanted 2 years to allow him to commit the remainder of his career to ICT. Not an unreasonable demand considering how influential he was as a player and Captain, but we let him go without too much of a fuss. Dargo....As consistent a scorer as we've ever had at the club and a real asset....we can't meet his wage demands but we're happy enough to take a punt on Niculae who was unproven for almost 2 years and had a catalogue of problems due to injury? Rankin....He suddenly seems to fall out of favour despite being hugely influential since joining the club. He's told he can go...no wait, maybe not now that he's sold his house....oh but now we've got some interest, lets hold out to see how high the price goes...ok we'll sell him....WTF was all that about? If I was cynical I could say that discussions had already taken place for him to move to Hibs and the St Mirren interest was merely a bonus which drove the price up :023: Caff....One of those marmite players (you either loved him or hated him) but at a time when we were really struggling defensively and lacking in numbers why get rid of one who is capable of doing a job? Wilson....Truly baffling, ok, so you can argue that he's no longer a 90 minute man, but he is without a doubt one of the few players we have who can turn a game, not to mention his ability to slot in anywhere in midfield or even up front. That's only 5 and we have twice as many again who have left with not so many coming in to bulk up the squad with some experience. Were these players offloaded because we genuinely didn't think they were worth keeping (even for a little more money)? Or were they offloaded because they were likely among some of the highest earners at the club and we had to offset the cost of Niculae somewhere to make the books balance? Again, we may never know, but we do know that for each and every one of them theirs been enough smoke to suggest that someone at the club is playing with matches. And it's not just the players or the staff where issues are cropping up, it's happening with contractors too. None so obvious as the Stewards...or the control of the Stewards on match day. Never before have we had the issues we've seen in the last season and a half. Is it coincidence that this coincides with Mike Smith getting involved? And why would the company who has done the stewarding at the club for so many years turn around and tell the club to stick it within 48 hours of the start of this season? I'm sure others can come up with many other issues, big and small, that have happened in the last season or two...and although the club has never been perfect, it just seems that recently problems and issues seem to have become far more prevalent. When David Sutherland resigned as Chairman he told us all that he had left a plan in place which would see the club continue to move forward. I don't for one second think that much of what has happened since he resigned was part of his plan and I think that is part of the reason he chose to speak out in the press recently. Another thing he said when resigning was that he felt that it was healthy to keep things fresh at the top with a 3 year cycle.....I just hope that Alan Savage hasn't allowed our club to go totally to the wall by the time his 3 years is up in June 2009. Savage, Bennett, Smith & Brewster....every one of them has had a hand in the mess we appear to be in right now. Not saying any of them has deliberately plotted to get things where they are now, but every one of them is in a position to put an end to it...if they don't feel they are willing or able then they should step aside and make room for someone who can.

Those who think a win on Saturday will stop the rot are living in cloud cuckoo land. The problems at ICT right now run right from the bottom to the top and single win is not suddenly going to make everything smell of roses or even do anything to kickstart any kind of reversal in what's been going wrong. Yes, I'd love to see us finally get a win over Aberdeen and if the team actually look like they are out there trying then I will support them. However if the look like they have the last few times I have seen them....disinterested and barely going through the motions....then you can be certain I will express my displeasure. I have every sympathy for the players and some of the crap they seem to be going through off the pitch, but that does not excuse them taking it into a game and letting the fans down with half a55ed efforts like they have been of late.

Can someone put all these on to a DVD and send them to Savage, Grassa and Brewster to show them what ICT can do when you instil some passion in the squad instead of manoeuvring to get rid of all the guys who are more popular with the fans than they are.

I knew the PR wheels turned slowly at ICT, but 8 days to spin a story?? :015:

I just like to keep people on their toes.....everyone knows it's coming, they just don't know when or how :004:

If the team were blameless then yeah, I'd agree that we should be supporting them 100% during the game, but lets face the facts....the team have been beyond woeful of late and they aren't even putting in the effort. As I've said before, they (the players) may be aggrieved at things going on in the background, but when they take to the pitch it is us the fans they are performing for and all other baggage should be left in the changing room. As far as I am concerned, they are just as deserving of an ear-bashing from the fans as our excuse for a manager and our board of directors are.

All this fuss for a car sticker and you haven't even bought him the car yet :029:

Dennis would have had more of a chance to prove himself if Brewster hadn't persisted with flogging the dead horse that was the 4-5-1 for so long when it become obvious it wasn't working every week. Who knows whether he might have stuck a few more away if he'd had the opportunity, but the fact is he wasn't given the chance, whilst all the time being held hanging with promises of a contract offer. Regardless of where you stand on the issue of him being offered a new contract or not, the fact is he was offered one, he was given a deadline which he intended to meet, then through no fault of his own the club representative is unable to make the meeting and the deal is withdrawn. That's a breach of trust...pure and simple. I used to be proud of the way our club conducted it's business. They might not have always got it right, but they were always honest and open....recent events seem a far cry from that. The Club is pushing the players too far and it is pushing the fans too far, the result is that they are starting to lose both. This can be seen be the lack of fire in the bellies of the players each week and by how quick the fans are to turn on poor performances. Internal politics and over-inflated egos are killing this club from the inside out.