davie

It's complete rubbish. TB was angry after the game, but only because of the amount of chances that we scorned. He wasn't even rising to the bait about Bobby Madden. Contrast that with Kenny Sheils interview, which was off the planet. Make no mistake, we thumped kilmarnock tonight - we had over 20 shots at goal,they had one on target. When you see the replay of Sissoko's foul on McKay, it was as blatant a penalty as you will ever see. The tactics, which as far as I could see were to play our usual passing game, worked. There was no need for a plan B, because we passed through them at ease. They then scored at at a time where reacting was out of the question anyway. As far as subs go, Sutherland was simply replacing tired legs, so it was immaterial as to when or where he came on. He simply had a job to do in his area of the pitch. Devine for A Shinnie was ok for me - devine plays a good passing game from what I have seen and I think that 70 minutes or so is all we can expect from Shinnie after his injury at Killie in the cup. We missed Foran tonight, he might have converted one or two in his area at the far post, but we should have been out of sight at half time. Loss of form? No. Loss of confidence? No. Just an inability to put the game to bed when we should have. Unless we forget, we are still second in the SPL (our highest placing ever) and we have reached the semi of a national competition. That's something to celebrate.

OP - nothing to see here. Just move along.

what? With all due respect mate, I suggest you find out what tradition is and means.

Caley Jags Together would be delighted to hear from either of you. The web site is here: http://www.ictsupporterstrust.co.uk/ and get in touch at [email protected]. We look forward to speaking to you

Joe, I stand by my points and any reaction I might have had to the incident, but we are going to have to agree to disagree about this. That's life.

Ok I'll leave CJT out of this, and address it purely as a caley thistle fan. This is a purely personal reply to the points raised above. This is the second time that kick off has been held up in a game involving us which is televised and is therefore contracted to begin at a certain time. The SFL will be unhappy about this, and can sanction the club. The club is responsible for the conduct of its fans home and away and are in an awkward position with this, and I believe that we were warned after the County game. Yes, local police will deal with it if they can identify anyone at the time but so will Focus, their specialist football unit. This will result in increased surviellance on all ICT fans, increased bag searches (this happened after the County game and people complained - few made the connection) a more controlling approach to us at away grounds and less leeway for standing etc. There are unintended consequences here, but consequences none the less. Because CCTV records crowds at all SPL venues, someone is going to be identified and prosecuted. They will belong to the same group of lads who bring colour and passion to our support (they did again yesterday) and one of them will end up with a criminal record over this. It does involve a group of people - you can't lob a smoke canister over a crowd of people with no one around you seeing it and your mates not knowing you had the thing, and those around you are associated and implicated in what you do. These are the same lads that sing and chant and they will be targetted by association, and that would be a great shame. Can you honestly say hand on heart that they will not sing anything about gypsy travellers at the next game and put themselves at risk with a police force that is already watching them? Even with the intervention of others to clarify what is and isn't acceptable to sing /chant, we know one thing - it is clearly an offence to throw pyrotechnics at a football match. No grey area here. So I'm not concerned by causing guilt by association with a group of our fans, they have effectively done that themselves. I'm not convinced that the police will seperate out the issues, they will simply look to apply whatever legislation when enforcing the law. They will have done that with any others arrested at the game, and I don't want to see them have to do it to more.

We just got sucked into this. the state of the pitch didn't help.

To those who were responsible for this, you should hear loud and clear that today you did our fans and our club great harm. Just because you got away with it at Dingwall, and were warned against a repeat does not mean that you got away with it this time. Easter road is brimming with CCTV cameras and you were caught on film. It's just a question of whether or not anyone from either club or the police can identify you. I suspect that they can, and if we can help to identify you, we will. It is utterly unacceptable for any ICT fan to throw things on to the field of play. As Caley Jags Together, we are committed to representing fans views, fans perceptions and fans rights. We are about to meet with the Police about chanting at derby games and you, whoever you are, have just made our job ten times harder. Please, we never want to see this again.

This, and the posts like it are pretty unforgivable and do no credit to the people posting them. It's the easiest thing in the world to miss a penalty, never mind when 16 000 people are screaming at you. Those who are posting this stuff have no idea what pressure is about. Ballooning it, hitting the post, getting too smart - either way it's a miss and the result is the same. Similarly, those who wanted Reguero subbed for the pens - if we had done that, the lad would have been perfectly justified in getting the first plane back to spain and saying stuff you. Can't believe the attitude. I can believe the expectation, the demands etc. but not that attitude. As for the game, Foran should have walked, so should Ngoo. He was brutal. we were sucked into playing Hearts game of pumping up long balls and it suits us even less than it suits them but we so nearly made it. Dust ourselves down, st. mirren on wednesday.

I think what Laurence is trying say is that it is a big game when everything is taken into context (i.e. falling crowds, girns about the quality of scottish fitba, the amount of vultures that are circling our players, the state Hearts are in etc.) In fact it's probably the biggest game he's known. Others will feel differently, but it's better than the OF obsessed feeling nothing at all! Personally, I think that the numbers going are about right for our fan base over the past few years and they will make a racket win, lose or go to penalties (please god, anything but that) No doubt thousands more will go to the final if we are fortunate enough to get there, but I'll no be slagging them. If even a few decide that they will keep coming to see the team that will be a result.

Chris did the MFR podcast with us last night and was unbelievably positive (as well as quite funny) He reckons he might be a couple of weeks away from a U20's game and it would be braw if a few of the posters on this thread could go to that game and welcome him back. It's some achievement after all.

Gaz - Old age and treachery will always defeat youth and enthusiasm. Trust me.

The short answer Laurence is that their gates have not increased, as "the" rangers have held onto their fan base even after being demoted to D3. There are reasons for this, bound up in defiance, paranoia and the wider protestant identity of the fans. If the demotion had happened to their neighbours, the result would have been the same (but catholic) The team that has benefitted most from their demise is, strangely, us as evidenced by our league position. If we stay where we are, we unaffected by the proposed reorganisation and we will happily slot into the top 8. Champagne & cigars time. Clubs like County and Dundee United, who are currently on the slide, may not like it so much if they get caught in the middle 8 dogfight. That, as they say, is their problem.

Meekings will still be ahead of Hogg in the pecking order. Cooper no more needs loaned than I need a sex change.

I think Betsy Andreu has it right - this will be all about Lance. He can't confess to doping - and those are the least of the allegations against him. Will he apologise for pressurising others in his team to dope? Will he apologise for dealing in doping products? Will he apologise for ruining people who didn't agree with him? Will he apologise to his ex-physio for inferring she was a prostitute? Think not. If he makes a full confession, the feds will be down on him like a ton of bricks. Nothing would make me want to watch the confession, only the results.

So he's staying then. It's a considerable relief in that I wonder what the performance of those players who had come to ICT on the back of being managed by TB would have been in the second half of the season? How would the likes of OTJ, Raven and the Shinnie's react? Losing TB might have put the club on a real downward spiral that would have been difficult to arrest. The reason for this is that TB, his abilities and his personality are now an intrinsic part of who we are as a club - the highland gentleman, advocate for the city, increasingly part of the business community. You might argue about it, but that's how outsiders see him. Of course his (and his teams) best asset is in attracting talent that would otherwise never think of coming here. Lose TB, and we lose all that and that's a worry. The second half of the season will define where we go from here - a top six finish or a cup final will increase TB's worth and it may be that only something like the lure of a europa league qualifier might be enough to keep him past the summer. Whatever happens (and isn't that part of the attraction of football) I'll enjoy the journey.

It's strange how no one at Dingwall seems overly upset at the state of their ground causing postponements. They managed to absolve themselves on saturday by blaming Brines and will no doubt find something to blame this week. Could it be that Derek Adams is just not concerned about playing fixtures that he thinks his team will lose? At least a postponement gives them time to buy in reinforcements during January. I'm not saying that they would engineer this kind of "convenient" postponement... I'm not so cynical.

Luke, thanks for this. I'll raise the matter at the next board meeting and endeavour to take the matter to the club. I'll update wheen I can.

Dee, I think its actually a sledgehammer that Northern Constabulary have little or no right to wield. In doing this, they have insinuated that there is a problem of racism that exists in the fan base of both sides but in using the expression "traveller" they have apportioned blame to our side of the "banter". It would be utterly impossible to prosecute anyone for using the expression "tink" in that it has been in scots vernacular usage for years, so it's us they are targetting. This law was created to combat the worst excesses of glaswegian bigotry, which prompted hatred and violence. There is no history of that in our derby and there never will be. Up until Celtic fans showed why the police should be involved at times by their behaviour at Dens, there had been 30 arrests at scottish grounds this year - NOT ONE of which was for either an ICT or a County fan. Problem? Don't think so. I don't actually see what complaints could or would have been made to prompt this premature intervention given that the nature, manner and content of the banter between these two sides is well known. Is it just po faced plod getting in there first? Thoughts....

Great stuff. And well done to whoever shouted "Yeeeeees!" half a second before Mackay's winner hit the net! Guilty me 'lud

Mother of God

Straight to VD more like!

Possibly the biggest case of wishful thinking I've ever seen on here

Boozer - Willie Frews at the tap o the hill, just off the coldside roundabout. Or the snug on Main Street. Both great bars.