davie

Come on people. Everyone, from moderators to first time posters are entitled to their views on this (or any other) forum without being labelled or lambasted. It's why the forums exist. It neither makes posters a "negative" or a "happy clapper" and too many people are beginning to use these labels as a means for short cutting rational argument. If that happens, the forum will degenerate into a mess and eventually die as more and more people get sick to death of it and that would be unfortunate. Don is right (and doesn't deserve the vitriol above)- if you feel strongly about something stand up and do something about it , you should be facilitated and protected by match stewards to do so and should not be intimidated or abused. If you feel these songs are beyond the pale, say so. Don also has the force of personality that enables him to do this, but not all do. Those are the people that use other vehicles to make their disapproval known. Both are entirely valid. However (and it's a big however) no one has asked CJT or the football club to take action. This is the same for other voiciferous factions that want CJT to to call a meeting to discuss the future of the manager - no one has asked. There are posts above that put points across that simply smack of personalising the argument and that will do nothing except alienate people and split our already apparently fractious support. In terms of treating mental health issues with disrespect, please be aware that the club has signed up to the "see me" initiative to combat stigma. it would be a great thing if wider society in Scotland did likewise. There remains an inherent lack of understanding about mental illness not helped by media, comedy and television variously misjudging, misreporting and trivialising it. There are with all due respect, no more than a handful of people on this site that could accurately describe a diagnosis of any of the types of schizophrenia and that's a great part of the problem. There is a great temptation that if people don't understand something they marginalise, trivialise and alienate them. That then makes them fair game to (at the very least) sing songs targetting them because of their difference. Society has always been so, and social pressure is the only way of altering this - it's been successful in ridding us of the gypsy chants. With regard to the Police, I'm not surprised that they don't act when the legislation that they are armed with do deal with offensive behaviour at football matches is so flawed. If sectarianism can't be successfully prosecuted even when it's flagrant, what hope for finding songs about mental illness offensive?

Morning Dougal. As far as I know, contaminated land Regs weren't as strict as nowadays 20 years ago when TCS was being built so there could be anything under there. The landfill was capped and drained but there are still liable to be issues around methane release (if we get a plastic pitch, don't light a match around it) and the odd bit of asbestos or gallium arsenide from batteries leaching through. The players will mutate soon enough. Billy Mckay missed that chance against St Mirren because the ball bobbled off an old bedspring sticking out of the ground. Seriously, nae danger it's sealed. As far as I know, there are no regulations from SPFL that would debar a proper FIFA standard 4G or hybrid pitch, and they provide a consistent surface largely unaffected by weather and short growing seasons and would provide a valuable income stream. If, as someone says above, Tommy is interested it can't be all bad.

Izzy, I'm sorry if you accidentally misread what I was saying,but a couple of points. I have made it clear that I would have found this offensive and acted (as I have previously done). You must also realise that the police will only act if there has been a complaint in this respect. It seems there was none. The teams that you think we bear no comparison to are football teams who have fans as well, of all types who can be offensive as well.. I have a long background as a professional in mental health, and find your (erroneous) implication that I would minimise the effects by "making excuses" a bit - to quote you - offensive.

Police probably didn't step in because no one complained that they found it offensive at the time. I would have found it so, but would have taken the IHE line and robustly asked them to desist. There is a long history of this type of chant, from Man City fans mocking Munich, Man Utd fans mocking Hillsborough to songs about Tommy Burn's cancer and Norrie MacAthie of Dunfermline's death. They are calculated to provoke and prompt a reaction from opposing fans, and there's nothing personal with regards to Mr Brittain's wife in this. Depression is a serious illness, but these laddies don't see that. It ain't funny, it didn't provoke a reaction and your fellow fans abhor it. So just stop it.

The players have not, as far as I can see been poor. There are one or two that are running on empty, showing the cumulative effects of a massive fixture schedule, and tired people make mistakes. I thought that things changed for us on Tuesday when Watkins came on and played beyond Mckay. It gave him an outlet for the flicks and knock ons that he makes every game. I'm less concerned right now about width, as getting deep crosses in really needs the type of striker that we don't have to convert them. If Doran is fit, i'd like to see him start as he is consistently our most creative player, and his stats back this up. I think that James Vincent is finding it more difficult than he perhaps though it would be to recover from his injury and get back to the form he showed early in the season. His pace and aggression make him difficult to ignore though.

It won;t happen yet, not until every excuse has been exhausted. edit- which is a failure of the pally nature of all local relationships between media, sponsors and anyone else who needs to stay in regular contact with the club. I guess its up to the SPFL Chairman of the Year and others with a financial stake/take from the club to shun people they don't see eye to eye with, couldnt blame them for it really, you cant critisise them from within. Clacher, that's an inaccurate and quite odd response to Gordie's question. In answer to you both, there has been no request (to date) from the membership of CJT for any such meeting. If one was requested, it would be considered at the following Board meeting and voted upon. The outcome would depend on that vote. As regards the response, I'm not aware that our relationship with the club has in any way failed because it has become "pally" The Club and CJT are on friendly terms, but there are no questions or legitimate criticisms that CJT could not raise. As a shareholder, we would expect no less.

Brill is actually well on the way to rivalling or bettering the amount of clean sheets in a season at 20 (a record currently held by Ryan at 23) This doesn't tally with the current hand-wringing about him. He makes the occasional mistake and as a goalkeeper is in the full glare of publicity - nowhere to hide and all that. For the manager to drop him at this stage in the season and with that kind of record would be odd in the extreme. If you looked at his averages for kick completions etc., I'd be surprised if he was worse than anyone else in the league, apart from Forster. I certainly couldn't see Hughes behaving towards him in the same way that Adams has towards his goalkeepers this year and thank goodness for it. In terms of Hughes, I still feel that Wednesday night had width in the side and it was a game that we could have taken something from and that against a side that has a massively better playing budget than ours and a commensurately massive level of debt attached to it. So does Aberdeen. So does Motherwell (although their debt figures are better) Celtic are ahead of everyone else. So where does that leave us? As high in the table as we are likely to ever logically be. Football is good at defying logic though, but a small and increasingly knackered squad is less likely to challenge it. As well as the physical demands, the mental strain of two or three games a week for weeks on end catches up. I know that people expect high standards, but they are bound to vary. It wasn't the "rubbish" that others have posted. There's a case for bringing Christie, Polwarth et al in but not yet at least en masse, not until our season is over. We are 5 points behind United with a game in hand. Our next games are against St Mirren (with Motherwell in the middle) and County, theirs are against Aberdeen and Celtic. Which would you rather have? After the split everyone will take points off each other. Season over? Don't think so, and with all due respect it's a bit short sighted to contend that it is. There's much concern about the current passing from the back game that we seem to be adopting. Getting the ball up the park as soon as possible appears in post after post, despite the fact that Butcher was lambasted for that approach in his early reign - keep the ball on the deck was the cry at that time. Of course it's early in Hughes's reign but their are signs that he wants an already passing team to do it even more. Can that be bad? With a fresh team and more options, especially up front we might see a different beast next year. Some of the criticism and language directed at Hughes recently has been saddening. Ok the guy doesn't have a PHD in english, but did he have to? The remarks scattered around on here about his command of english are a poor reflection. He is a far more insightful and perceptive individual than his predecessor who is wedded to the ideas of the club, not his own personal power base. He is far more open and frank and engages on a far more equal basis. If he deals with the players in the same manner, I am more than happy that they will buy into his philosophy and take the club forward. That has to be better than the constant carping, sniping and infighting that is the alternative.

Manfer, that's out of order. At the second goal, Brill had to deal with about three back passes in succession, the last of which had half of United breathing down Meekings neck. He underhit it, end of. A mistake, but anyone could have done that. The first goal was a result of a pass across midfield, not defence, from Draper and Robertson skinned Raven. Brill actually had a few decent saves last night. In the first half, we had width from Watkins and Shinnie, but that decreased as Marley tired. He had a decent game up to that point. Vincent did some really good break up and linking work - exactly what he's there for - and provided an out for Raven and Marley. What no one seems to have mentioned was that we really should have levelled this game with Mckay's diving header and if we hadn't come bearing gifts at the back we would have won that game. There was nothing between the sides for most of it, so I look forward to us getting back on it on Saturday.

We've been over this ground so many times I sometimes think a furrow has been ploughed. I know that many people think that football is too expensive, but it's relative cost is much the same as twenty years ago. You earn more, you pay more and in Caley Thistle's case that's less than all other SPFL clubs (for a matchday inclusive cost) according to this year's BBC survey. If ticketing is discounted, does it result in an upsurge of attendance? Not really. In Inverness' case, the majority of support come from a relatively affluent area, although there are areas of deprivation so if cost were the factor you would expect that to be reflected elsewhere in the leisure sector and it's not happening. So cost, despite what people might feel, isn't the issue for the majority. The matchday experience is continually being surveyed as being value for money, despite the obvious limitations of the stadium. Sure it's out of the centre of town but no more of a walk than to Parkhead or Tannadice or Tynecastle from the centres of Glasgow, Dundee or Edinburgh - although there the similarity ends. Hospitality at Caley Thistle frequently earns good reviews and marketing is becoming more and more effective - look at the stats for website hits etc. The Club knows it is an entertainment business and lives or dies by the product it markets, so I don't think that's the issue. It will always be cold, windy and sometimes wet at TCS, we live in Scotland after all so the only way to address that and make the football better to watch is to move to summer football, move the stadium or install an artificial surface that compensates for the battered pitch at this time of the year. But I don't get the impression that this is the issue, and in any case could the Club fund a move of stadium (which would cost millions) on the back of attracting a couple of thousand more fans every month? I meet a lot of football fans, especially Caley Thistle ones. I meet a lot of non-football supporting locals as well and in all of the conversations that I've had - and there have been thousands - I've only ever met three merger refuseniks. Three. I keep looking for objective evidence that these Caley Thistle resenting thousands are out there but they simply aren't. Inverness doesn't hate Caley Thistle, it simply doesn't engage and that is the issue. The Club is not enmeshed in the community in ways that are true even of our neighbours over the water and that's simply down to the amount of time we've been on the planet. Putting down roots takes time. Caley Thistle does a vast amount of community work that is aimed especially at younger people and that is starting to make a diference, but it won't in the short term and that's what people are concerned with in this thread. What will make a difference is taking a personal stake in making things better. Make it your responsibility - not the guy in the next seat, or the ones in the main/ north stand - to take just one person along with you for a home game. If they think it's garbage, at least you've tried. But not all will. Some will come back regularly or irregularly and that's where the issue lies and that's where you can make a difference.

To the OP: I'm sorry that you feel that way about there not being a bus running to Motherwell. As has been said elsewhere, there were 6 provisional bookings which would have netted CJT £90 (It's us who run the buses) and a minibus would cost at least three or four times that. If we can't create demand, we can't run it. It's simple maths.

Get that scarf on girl!

Given the amount of ict fans in glasgow on Saturday night, anybody got ideas for a drinking venue in glasgow?

Folks, as things stand we have a lot of bookings that have not translated into payment. We really need you to pay these before next sunday or we risk losing money that we can Ill afford. Come and pay at the stadium or on the website through PayPal, but please do pay. If any of you have friends who are not on cto but are going with us to the final, please ask them if they have paid. Thanks for your support.

I'm struggling with that one today. If it could have gone wrong, it did. The second goal was an illustration of our whole day. Meekings missed the header, Brill panicked and after that there was no way back. United, I hate to say, were ruthless and after going to nine men we were completely lost. What do you do? Blame Hughes? I recall people on here screaming for butcher to go to 442 as a plan b, now that it's done we want back to 4411. Hughes couldn't legislate for poor defending and comedic refereeing any more than butcher could have. What really disappointed was the crowd. Surely we can do better and I hope to goodness we do next week.

Note this. I agree with Dougal.

Think 6 points out of 9 makes this a decent week for us no? Ask me that question again after the next three games. Kingsmills I'm obviously a half full glass kinda girl whilst you're a glass half empty guy ha ha? Top 6 almost confirmed and agreed a big couple of weeks to come. Bring it on! I think we'll be top six net year. Can't see it happening this season, IMHO. I think you may be proved wrong.

Our support is what it is and I applaud anyone that is boosting it such as the OP. He has my thanks. Shifting 700 on restricted (ST holders etc.) days just before the end of the month is not bad going for us at all. Like Ross, I would reckon on a boost over the next few days and then we'll get a clearer picture of where we are. I still think 10K might not be far wide of the mark, but then I clap happy!

All At the moment we are seeking further input to keep costs manageable for any further buses. Additional transport comes at a premium, and we have to find ways of offsetting this, which is what we are currently trying to do. At this moment there is plenty of room on the train.

Supporters trust and you're welcome on it Dave

Bughtmaster, I don't know of any and CJT don't have the infrastructure to do this - we're stretched as it is.

Still wouldn't be big enough for your erse!

No one price only mate.

It' s for private parties only.............

These are direct trains only

“Caley Jags Together, in conjunction with Inverness Caledonian Thistle FC and The Highland Council are delighted to announce that First Scotrail will be providing additional train services for The Scottish League Cup Final on 16th March. Train 1 will have a capacity of 400 seats and will depart Inverness Station at 09:00. It will return from Glasgow Queen Street at 17:52. Because of the generous assistance of The Highland council and the cooperation of First Scotrail, we are able to limit return fares to £30 for adults and £10 for children. These tickets are only available through CJT after 1st March and cannot be purchased anywhere else. They will be for sale in the Sports Bar at Tulloch Caledonian Stadium (cash only) on 9th March before and after the game against Dundee United and at other outlets before that. You can reserve yours on 07951 309 504 or at ictfcfinaltrain2014@gmail.com If train 1 sells out, another will be provided, so get your tickets and get on board as soon as details are announced! We are particularly pleased to offer child tickets at a rate that cannot be matched anywhere else because of the generous assistance of The Highland Council. We, like The Council and First Scotrail recognise the importance of involving young people in sport and this occasion will go a long way towards achieving that aim. Being able to experience a national cup final for as little as £15* makes this a great deal for a family day out. Caledonian Thistle belongs to the city, so let’s make sure that the city belongs to them on cup final day” TOGETHER WE BELIEVE, TOGETHER WE ACHIEVE * Lowest child match ticket/ bus price