ictchris

I'm cross posting with P&B at this point, apologies if this doesn't make sense. I think administration is where this is going to be honest. What has been hinted at is that quite a few of the other major shareholders (Dougie MacGilvary and family and Alan Savage) want to take over but don't want to have to pay off the money that Morrison and others have put in and are owed. So if the club went into administration the money owed to him and others could be CVA'd down to a lower ammount. That's very dangerous of course and would definitely put the club's future at risk. But I can't really see any other outcome if the current incumbents don't walk away. Another point about it is that I don't think Morrison, who is a wealthy man by all accounts but not so wealthy that he can cross out £1m a season, can afford to walk away and the only way he'll get his money back is for us to get back into top flight. Hence we've got the Operation Moonshot sensibility - stage concerts to make loads of money! Get involved in a strange battery farm property deal to make £3m! Appoint coach from English Premiership on a huge wage and move traiing to accomodate him! It's moonshot after moonshot and none of them have worked. The only way we can go is to build the club up again, the way it was done before, and that isn't going to be a quick and easy job. It's certainly not a job for Ross Morrison and Scott Gardiner, or any of the current board.

I think Morrison can't see the wood for the trees. He says if the fans don't buy season tickets the club goes bust but then he does things that pretty much every single season ticket holder opposes. It's the way that the current board have treated fans for years - we don't give a f**k about anything you say, think or want, just cough up money again. Eventually that road runs out. He even seems to criticse the fans by effectively saying "oh well no-one cared when we announced we'd shut down the youth academy!". I think I'm right in saying that was never announced, they said "oh we might have to shut down the youth academy depending on what happens". The idea of all these unnamed people in football phoning him up and telilng him what a great idea this is is a complete fantasy as well. The whole tone of the discussion and interview is the usual for Morrison - "we have to do this, we have to, there's no alternative". You get the feeling that in just about every case with the board they decide something and then just cover their ears and fail to look at the problem in a different way.

Interview with Ross Morrison in the Courier

Drake posting on here like Hello, my name is…. mr Renidrag, yes that’ll do.

For all the despair I think the situation is retrievable. I think of the example of Raith Rovers, who went through completely alienating their fan base, for different reasons, a couple of years ago. They have come out of that experience far stronger as a club and have had their best season in decades, with a far more energised and engaged fan base. I’m not saying stopping this will mean we shoot back immediately but if the fans can stop it, if we can get new people involved off the pitch then we can reinvigorate the club from top to bottom. As Old Caley Girl says, the current board all seem to be about the hare-brained schemes and have forgotten about making the stadium a worthwhile place to attend.

I didn't recognise those people as Muirfield Mills.

The post is here The biggeset shareholder is the Trust, not entirely sure who controls it. Variouspeople named as officers of it, including David Stewart, who was MP at the time. Previously David Sutherland was involved, as was Ken Mackie.

In the Battery Farm thread someone, I think it might have been Charles B, posted a grab of the biggest shareholders in the club. The biggest shareholder, by far, is the Tulloch/Sutherland owned ICT Trust.

Another point about all this is that if we end up with lots of fans failing to renew, we could end up losing them forever. Once people lose the habit of attending matches they often don't get it back. Worth noting that the Board of directors includes Graham Bennet and Alex Chisholm, who were assured would help reconnect the club to the local community and local businesses.

We've had quite a few players who didn't move to Inverness over the years. It's not a requirement. Extending this to the whole footballing operation is the issue.

What does this mean for our youth academy? Lots of hints that this was going, is it? What does it mean for the Hub at the IRA that we are apparently part of? Is that offski? I think that this will fall apart and the club will go into administration this close season to be honest.

Some fans making the point on P&B that many more remote clubs train far away from their home base - Queen of the South train in Hamilton, Stranraer train in Glasgow, the Angus clubs mainly train in Edinburgh. Major difference here is the distance - Kelty is more than twice as far away from inverness as any of those clubs and the fact that this is a wholesale relocation of the football side of our club to a rival. Also, and no disrepect to any of those places and clubs, but we haven't had to do this before because Inverness is a bigger city than those places and we have had more success than any of them. We aspire to be in the top flight, we spent 15 years there.

You have to ask about the board members who are signing this off. What are they thinking? Also, the club is owned in the main by David Sutherland. Does he support this?

Geniunely think we could end up going bust this close season tbh. Some other clubs have training based in different places to help with logisitics etc but this seems like we will be moving the club lock and stock somewhere else except for match days.

Just after we got relegated we took Buckie's captain on trial, Kevin Fraser, and wanted to sign him but expected them to just release him for nothing. They didn't and he never signed. We also had Blair Yule on trial that close season, he was highly rated at the time coming out of the Highland League with Cove. Arbroath signed him in League one for a year and then he returned to Cove where he's been every since. I think I'm right that Scott Davidson, centre-forward who previously played for Fort William also trialled with us that summer but we didn't take him and he's continued playing in the Highland League for various clubs. Not sure of other Highland league players we've had on trial since then. Do we even scout the HL?

You have to assume that the club has been working out what our 'backers' can afford to write off and what guarantees they can extend for the forthcoming season before making moves in terms of staying full-time, changing manager, impact on non-playing roles etc. It's also worth noting that full-time football is no guarantee of promotion. Queen of the South have been fulltime since they got relegated and finished seventh this season, behind a lot of part-time teams. Falkirk and Dunfermline have both had extended stays in the third tier as full-time clubs in recent history.

Live feed of the board meeting here

It's also not as though relegation came as a huge surprise. Not having something prepared is pathetic. It makes me think that we are going to go into administration to be honest.

Are we going to get an all-timer of a seething statement announcing Gardiner's resignation?

The mystery board meeting is absolutely key. We need to have someone in place to build a team for next season now, literally today. Our rivals in League One are already ahead of us - Arborath signed Callum Gallagher, who has an excellent record at that level.

When does the smoke come out the chimney?

So we are 2-1 down after the first leg of the play off. We have only won a handful of games by more than two goals this season. There is a good chance we are going to be relegated into League One. What will the consequences be of this happening? I've heard people say that we will go into administration if we get relegated, I've heard people say that we will go part-time. People even speculate that we might go out of business entirely if this happens. I think at one of the fan Q&A events the chairman said they hadn't been planning for relegation but I'm sure they've also said in other communications that they are planning for this. While we all know the people running the club are generally incompetent I cannot believe that they haven't considered what to do if this happens - we would likely close down our Youth Academy operations, make staff redundant and possibly go part-time, to a degree. Perhaps we could keep a core of full-time players and supplement the rest with part-timers and youth products. As I understand it, companies go into administration if they are insolvent. Given our regular massive losses we probably fit that category but I don't know if it would be in the interest of the people who are writing the cheques to put us into adminstration. Maybe it could be done to reduce costs (ie make everyone redundant) and then start from a new base. I'm not sure our position with regards to creditors - do we owe money to the bank or the taxman? If so, they might put us in admin and sell our assets for payment. Assuming the club continues, how do thing develop on the field? I can't see Duncan Ferguson continuing if we go down - he has said many times he was here to keep us up, he failed and does he really want to compete in the third tier of Scottish football? I don't think so. I can only see us appointing someone from within - Scott Kellacher? Ryan Esson? Charlie Christie? In terms of players, we have, I think, five players under contract. I can see us offering some of the young players coming to the end of their deals one year contracts and trying to build that way. The banter outcome is that we get relegated, win our Scottish Government appeal and get a £3m cash injection mid season.

Game of two halves but we really needed to capitalise on our good play with an equaliser. The first half was just appalling from us, Accies absolutely tan rings round us. Considering we’ve been playing the same formation since Ferguson took over it’s amazing that we all seem so uncomfortable in it. Defensive slips and mix ups, disorganised and wasteful midfield and attackers who essentially aren’t there. Dire. Second half improved, particularly Lawal and Pepple. Lawal is a great link player and Pepple finished his goal well and didn’t put a foot wrong the whole time he was in the pitch. If they don’t both start then I don’t even know what to say. If we *have* to play the 3-5-2 then we should line up as follows for the game at the weekend -----------------Ridgers--------------- ----Carragher------Devine------Boyes------- Kerr-------------------------------Harper-- -------MacGregor--Anderson--Lawal------- ----------Mckay------Pepple------------- Carragher was an improvement when he came on. Devine seemed to get an injury late in teh game so maybe sub him out for Ujdur or Savage. Anderson wasn't great, his distribution and use of the ball were poor but Gilmour is not fit and Longstaff was just lost. Anderson at least pushed forward from midfield a bit, maybe encourage him to do that. I feel a bit sorry for Longstaff, he's not a central midfielder but he's been picked there and doesn't have the positional awareness to play there. Lawal was the only player who linked the midfield and the attack and looked capable of doing anything to make a difference. Samuel worked hard and is an honest player but Pepple came on and every time the ball came to him he used it well. He even fell over the ball and retained possession at one point. His finish was good as well, adding the one he scored against Dunfermline and he knows where the net is. Even with these changes I have zero confidence in this team to get a win, let alone by two goals. I think the game will go as follows - we push forward early but Accies score on the break. We then pass from side to side and do nothing until equalising in the last twenty minutes but can't break down Accies, the game finishes 1-1 and we go down.

Someone once told me that we were trying to sign Paddy Flannery but ended up signing Glancy due to a communication mix up.

They did some things very well resulting in the success but they didn't put in place anything to make it more sustainable or to deal with future setbacks, to make the club resilient. People are multi-faceted, they can be successful in some ways and unsuccessful in others. Another factor that feeds into all the complaints that I see on this thread and elsewhere when discussions on the state of the club are the fact that we don't have a real plan, a leader, a philosophy around the whole club. The only thing is "we need to get back into the top flight because we can't afford to be in this league". No-one is taking a long term view, about what sort of club we want to be off the pitch or what sort of team we want to be on it. I'm currently watching the Partick v Airdrie play-off game and I think about Airdrie. They got promoted last year, finished fourth this year. They have an identity, they have a style of play, a mix of young players released by other clubs or from their own youth team added to some more experienced players - it's reminiscent of the sides we had that got promoted. They aren't perfect and I think Partick will probably win this game but Airdrie have something that we just don't. Airdrie built this under Ian Murray, when he left for a bigger job, they had a plan in place that continued but also developed. What do we have? The signing and managerial strategy is clearly made pretty much day-to-day. We apparently used to have a Director of Football, who I would assume had to plan these things. I would also almost guarantee that Airdrie's wage bill is far lower than ours, their overall budget will be lower too.