CaleyD

The club will never win on this subject. One minute people are crying out for news, and when they release any news they get slated for not keeping it quiet!!! Personal terms were agreed with both Hoolahan and Rankin. In Hoolahan's case it was the terms of his release with Livingston that were delaying further action, and in Rankins case it is his Agents greed that is delaying any further action. Let's not kid ourselves, we still pay the lowest wages in the SPL (not that there is anything wrong in that) so we are only likely to attract players who are permanently out of the picture at an other SPL club and are willing to take a pay cut, a young player not getting a chance at a bigger club and wanting to kick start his career, a promising player in the lower divisions wanting his chance or our own home grown youngsters where we should be channeling far more resources than we are at present. We DO NOT pay the lowest wages in the SPL when bonuses etc are taken in to consideration. Personally I think this is a great system as it gives an added insentive for players to get the finger out on the pitch, and if one player isn't pulling his weight and is dragging the team down and impacting bonuses they will ensure he is motivated. And as great as the idea is off channeling more resource in to youth development, I think we do a pretty decent job for a club our size. 11 "wet behind the ears" youths wouldn't keep us in the SPL which is where the money comes from to fund their training. Also if a player is not confident enough in his own ability to accept such terms then I don't want to see him in an ICT Shirt (not directed at any specific players, just a general comment). To elaborate on the point above, aswell as the club being in a no-win situation with regards releasing news, it is extremely difficult to keep stories on the "QT" these days and even if only small snippets of info get out, it soon all comes together when folk start chatting on the net.

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Real Teams??? - Do you think we were playing against cardboard cut-outs in Italy or something :015:

A bit of a write-up in the Sunday Herald - Clicky Clicky

Scotsman are carrying this story online - Clicky Clicky

I believe Grassa issued a 24 hour deadline yesterday (Saturday) so I'd imagine it will be sorted one way or the other by Monday morning.

Fixture List

I suspect those days disappeared around about the same time as you could take a person on their word. Although I do not agree with the actions of many agents these days I can kind of understand the position they find themselves in. With transfer fee's reducing dramatically in the last few years (especially in Scotland) the Golden Age is over for Agents. They now find themselves having to scramble for every penny they can, even if it is only a few quid off the back of a £70k move which would have been peanuts not that long ago. Whereas an agent could be confident that another "big" move with a nice payday would be around the corner, that is no longer the case.

Yeah But No But Yeah But No But Yeah But........... :015: Regardless of the outcome I am confident that Grassa & Co will have done whatever is best for the club. If that means telling Rankin to GTF with stupid wage demands, or Agents trying to get a slice of the pie or whatever, then so be it. Would like to see Rankin in an ICT shirt, but with us not having lost any players it would not be the end of the world if it fell through.

Sounds to me like the agent expects ICT to pay a signing on fee over and above the transfer fee if C*unty won't pay a percentage of the fee to the player.

We got ours for free, even got 3 months subscription rebate after the screwed us around with installing multi-room. Threatening to cancel doesn't often work as the know we don't have Cable up here so no alternative, but if you create enough noise you should get what you want.

Many will have heard of Seti@Home - a small programme that runs in the background on your computer and process information packets from the many telescopes round the world which are "Searching for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence". I happened upon something along the same lines called Folding@Home - no, it has nothing to do with ironing or yoga - it is a similar system to Seti@Home except you run a small programme to help process Protein Folding information. Many of us use Computers with processors far beyond our normal usage requirements, so it seems a waste to have it sitting there doing nothing when we can all be doing our bit to help scientists etc better understand many of the diseases which will likely have touched on all our lives at some point. Even if your not on the fastest of computers they have a "Screensaver Only" setup which means the programme only processes information when your not using it. I thought it would be a good idea if people were interested that we all band together under a single username and attach ourselves to an existing larger team - if this is what people want to do then I have created the username "CaleyThistleOnline_com" and attached it to Team Number "35947" - just download the programme and enter these details on the configuration screen. Information on the entire project and the programme to download are available at http://folding.stanford.edu/

His chances may have been slim before the Scampi Fries, but he has feck all chance after them :015:

Thanks CB - much appreciated :003:

Fork Me - 12-0 win for the Famous ICT Report on Official Site

Jackson was never really what you would consider a signing, he was given a 6 month trial. Also if memory serves, this was given to him by CC and not Brewster.

Your spot on davieB - Hoojamawhatshisfliphan had already agreed to drop his wage demands to those being offered to the majority of ICT players if a fee/release could be agreed with Livingston. I have a gut feeling we may might still see both Hoolihan and Rankin in ICT shirts for the upcoming season.

Smart move by the club, we only want/need one of the players so it's all a case of which one buckles first. Will C*unty risk losing a deal on Rankin and/or will Livi risk losing the chance of getting a high wage off the books - stay tuned!!!!

A degree is for people who are insecure about their abilities/knowledge - I don't need a piece of paper to tell me I'm a feckin genius :016: Well done sir - thats one more item you'll have at hand when the bog roll runs out :015:

We hadn't been paid the last I heard. As we were still due money and this was preventing the move from Gillingham to Livingston. It is my understanding that an agreement was made between ICT and Livingston regarding the money owed in return for our cooperation in letting the transfer go through. Payment was to have been made to us by Gillingham in 2 instalments, I don't think we received either of them, which in effect meant we were £50,000 down. I can't see ICT writing off what is in effect a players wages (and some) in order to benefit what was, at the time, a rival team.

I see where your coming from Alex and I agree to a certain extent - however, just like we are wanting the best price we can get for our players, you can't blame Livi for wanting the best (or at least something) for Hoolahan. I am not 100% certain what happened with the money we were due for Hislop but I think Livingston may have taken on the debt in return for our co-operation in letting the deal go through - I'm sure if that is the case it will be used as a negotiating chip for Hoolahan if CC really wants him.

Do you want to edit your post to add HM5 before or after I point out you missed it? Ooops - Too Late :015:

Daily Record are carrying the story today about it all being dependent on Livi's stance on wanting a fee Daily Record - Clicky I don't think we can complain about Livingston playing Hardball with regards any fee given the fact we are playing the same game with United.

Dods has already stated he will sign a new contract at ICT and is not interested in a move to Dundee United - the only stumbling block on that was the apparent interest from Hibs, but now that is dead I would be very suprised to see him move (especially to United). United were nowhere near offering what ICT wanted for Black and unless they have near doubled the previous offer then the club will not do a deal. Proctor is the only one I would say United have any realistic chance of signing, however Rossco's situation may have us thinking twice about letting him go. We do still have Caff, but he is not a natural RB (even though he has played there before) so it would depend on how CC views his other options. The fans complain about the club still having a "small team" attitude to some things, but when they stand their ground and refuse to be bullied into accepting offers they get slated for that too. The days of "taking whatever we can get" are past. A single league position can be the equivalent of what is being offered for players and making it in to the top 6 with additional games against the "bigger" teams is worth a **** of a lot more than that - so it is, IMO, worth holding on to them unless the offers are too good to resist.