davie

Callieanne, Hayes has been replaced by Connor Pepper, a youngster with potential and ability. In other words, exactly what Hayes was when he arrived here. Like for like. Tade was unproven at SPL level (some would say he still is) and replaced by Oswell. Again similar in terms of potential and hopefully with a bit more in the way of loyalty. On the other topic, it is your absolute right to stay away and not buy the "product" if you feel it's not for you. Where and what you spend your money on is your business. The only disagreement that I would have is that it is too early in the season (for me) to make a judgement and I think there are already signs that things might improve this year. I'm sorry that you feel castigated for expressing your opinion, and although I can't agree with IHE and Gringo Jnr's response I hope that you continue to look on and be persuaded to return. I for one in the Caley Jags Together camp would be happy to welcome you back.

What's the red card for? I certainly recognise that there are tirades from both sides of this argument, and there have been several posts that advocate attacking football even if it means going out of the league. Like you, I've never seen us being cavalier in the SPL but with all due respect that's not what I said, we have been playing the ball on the deck more (both sides did) and there was team spirit on show on saturday. I have a far more open mind than you might credit me for, and believe me I've been listening. I'll refrain from the yellow things.

With all due respect Dad, that's not what's happening here. A contrary opinion isn't necessarily a tirade. What is happening is that some people are clouding the issues by using fairly ridiculous hyperbole and personalisation and people respond to that rather than the content of the argument. I think that the way things are going points to a fairly fundamental split emerging in the fans and what they want. Are we to be a lower league highland sourced club, or are we a cosmopolitan one? Are we prepared to live with the consequences of another relegation because we play cavalier football? Are we prepared as a support to take a share of the responsibility if it doesn't pan out? Or do we want a club that challenge in the SPL with the rules that come with it? Your choice, but I just hope that the club survives the choices that seem to be currently being made.

CallieAnne, I respect your opinion but have to disagree with some of the points that you make. I really didn't see any long ball game on saturday, or any great lack of ability. There was no lack of spirit either, so all in all I reckon that's an improvement on last year and is precisely what the fans were asking for. there was a willingness to go after both games this season, and Nick Ross would have won this game if not for an incredible save from Bell. The only real dampner was OTJ losing the heid, but I'm not going to cast stones on that one. What I can't understand is despite all that, despite your complimentary tickets, despite the free hospitality and despite more attempts at involving the fans (have a look on you tube) it's still not good enough. Not everything will be right yet but people are working damned hard to make it so rather than dismissing the club after one home game. Please tell us what will make ICT good enough - seriously.

Forza, the kids that you regularly see in the "west stand" bit get en bloc complimentaries to be there, it's a school per game, but nothing on saturday because the terms no started yet. We need more of them though.

IHE, I really don't want to rise to this but what the f*ck are you on about. If you have an agenda that wants Butcher out, just have the cojones to say so. Otherwise comment on games that you are at and leave your sniping over the border for someone else.

I looked at the OP last night, then thought no I'll not respond. Looked at it again and still thought the same this morning but I can't sit around here and not reply to what represents the downside of the "keyboard warrior" mentality that hides behind a user name with no accountability and then takes whatever prompted this post out on named individuals in Caley Jags Together. I, like Don, could list a myriad of achievements of the Supporter's Trust AND the Supporter's Club (not least joining together to raise the profile in a year where we really need as many supporters as we can get) I could also list a number of fundraising and fan involvement plans that are happening in the near future. Don also highlights the hours of unpaid and skilled work that the board do and for what? To be denigrated in a five minute post that took less than five seconds of brainpower to compose. Any more and you would have thought the better of it. I know that Kenny Cameron and Terry Butcher read these forums, and they must absolutely despair. As I have said elsewhere, they have responded to everything that the fans asked for last year ( better style of football, more community involvement and the right response to the RFC debacle) and still they get some fans complaining about the poor value of season tickets that they never bought, football that they can't be arsed watching and events that they can't be bothered supporting. It's a bit like watching the neds sniggering behind the bikeshed watching the motivated ones doing something. Rant over. Tell you what OP - I'm on the board of Caley Jags Together. My name's Davie Balfour and if you PM me, I'll give you my phone number so that we can talk this one through instead of sniping on the internet. Deal? dited for spelling (again)

answered your own question there.

Good to see the rancour and pessimism return after one game. One game in which we had the best of the first half, Killie shaded the second half and even when we were down to 10 men we could have won it. We passed the ball on the deck for the majority of the game, something that the people on these boards have shouted long and hard for. I did't see us battering the long ball up to McKay as has been alleged. If we are to play a passing game, we have to make the passes stick better and I think it might be reasonable to expect that this will happen as the team plays more than it's first SPL home game together. I, like some others can be rustrated with Sutherland, but he was direct and forceful today and to expect more might be asking too much. I respect some aspects of TB persisting with him in the position he is in, after the lambasting he took last season for chopping and changing things. As a highland lad, what reaction would there be to his being dropped after all that we have heard about the highland spirit being lacking in the side. BTW, did anyone else notice the entire defence high fiving and supporting each other when they defended well today? As spirit, that'll do for me. OTJ deserved to go. No ifs, no buts. You could see a man who's history of injury flashed before his eyes after a naughty wee tackle where the boy left his foot in. No excuse though, and I think he'll know that tonight, but does it really merit hanging him out to dry? Cammie Bell had at least three game saving stops that I saw, the one from Nick Ross topping the lot. Ross was in utter disbelief that he could have stopped that one. It's the start of the season, the quality of football is better than last year, the potential is far greater and we have a couple of points from games that we may well have lost back then. What will the reaction be if we lose to Hearts next week? I think what I found the most depressing today was the total lack of crowd and the pretty muted support. This is a club that has put a lot of effort into involving fans more, getting kids involved and making it's self more accessible for a public that by and large appears not to care less. It's a club that acted honourably in the close season at the behest of the fans and got less season tickets sold for it's troubles. What do we do about that? That's the subject that we really need to address.

To be honest, St. Mirren were always going to come right back at us after we had got our second and we defended quite easily up to the point of the goal. After making a great stop from Parkin, Ryan made a bit of a hash of the cross for the goal, and that's the only reason they scored. C'est la vie.

proud of my oldfartiness.

Er no.

Naevity? really? Aberdeen have the third biggest budget in the SPL, Hibs have the sixth. We have the tenth. Fact. If we there therefore finish above or near them we are doing well. Fact. We have signed untried but potentially useful players this year, who will hopefully fill the same untried, potentially useful and distinctly unhighland shoes as Rooney, Hayes, Rankin and those others that we mind sae fondly. Naeve?Not really. The boys right.

Tell you what, we are going to do no badly at all this year. Both teams played good footie on the deck and after 45 I'd have taken a draw. Noticed that Shane S had about a 100% rate of getting his head to the ball that Esson launched at him, but does that qualify you as a winger? don't know. Some of our new sassenach recruits are going to have to learn what tackles are acceptable in the SPL, but Meekings could show them- he had a couple of crackers when he came on. it was also nice to see Imrie being subject to an attempted decapitation from his own goalie! We did no bad you know. Bring on the Killie.

Ross, you really would have been better saying nothing at all.

I tend to agree with Alex here, and I'll see if we are right at 4.45 on saturday. Celtic won't walk this league, they haven't been able to reinforce their gang of one status enough since the untimely demise of their sister. Funnily enough, they might be the side that suffers most. After drawing with Dinamo Moscow, I'm inclined to think that Dundee United will prosper this year, as might Aberdeen. Motherwell have shown nothing to suggest that they are any great shakes, Dundee and our near neighbours are unknown quantities (but Dundee are really weak) so that leaves us to battle it out with St Mirren, Killie, Hibs 'n Hearts and Perth Saints. Given the relative states of the clubs, we can get results against most. St Mirren look particularly weakened this year, as do Killie and Hearts juniors may or may not cope. So I think that this might be one of the most open SPL's in years, with the accent on beating those around us instead of not losing, and our traditional ability to win way from home might be more important than ever. Improve on the home form, get the crowds back in and our world could be a little bit rosier next May.

Love the references to the barca stripes. Anyone seen their strips this year? Home one's got a single sort of sprayed on stripe down the middle and the away one is utterly horrific. They are nike though so they have that lovely swooshy thing going on, so just thank goodness we haven't followed that road. On the quality of errea, this seasons look no bad and the fact that the sponsor logos are dye sublimated should stop them falling off. I originally thought it looked like a beach towel but now I'll probably get one on saturday. You really have to see that barca away strip though......

Maybe he was just having a spring clean or something then. Have you seen that shop????? He was probably just buried alive under a heap of t shirts!

This really is an affirmation of faith in the supporters and in scottish football by the Board and particularly by the Chairman. I have no doubt that we will all be asked to dig deep this season to support the club, but I for one will do so on the back of this decision.

mannie in the market is still there - at least he was on saturday!

mercy, they are a touchy bunch eh? Still, any sh*tstorm on P&B is better than none, even one with an allegedly dodgier mileage than Arthur Daley attached to it!

Here! these mileages are my fault, not Don's and I checked them all off the AA route planner and a nice wee app called bikely.Right enough, it might identify a different route to the one that anyone else might, but hey. This one http://distancecalculator.globefeed.com told me it was anywhere between 94 and 102 miles to Dundee! RAC tells me it's 137.79 miles. D'you reckon Kenny knows the difference? I know it's neither, because that's whar ehm frae as heilan dee would say.

Disagreeing here boys. There's six weeks until the start of the season and there is no way that Pariah FC will be ready by then. I reckon suspended from all competition for a year while league reorganisation and funding rationalisation takes place. Where they go depends upon what further skeletons rattle their way out of the cupboard - and there is the potential for some feckin huuuuuge ones, never mind what Charlie Greens or Strathclyde Polis's next move might be. £124 219 412.37 in debt, of which 94 426 217.22 is due to the nice tax man? There are questions in there that are going to take a lot longer than 6 weeks to answer. Oh aye and the SFA have still got to give a new, approved punishment? Take a year out please chaps, and get your sh*t together.

If anyone listened to today's radio scotland phone in, it would have divested them of any last shred of sympathy for this odious "institution". There is so much unsubstantiated rubbish being peddled as fact by the west coast media (because if there was no rangers, what would they write about?), their arrogant fans and Mr. Green that the reality seems to be buried under a great steaming pile of bull s*ite. The SPL will be in a position to vote within the next two weeks about admitting the newco. There can now be no further sitting on the fence on the grounds that its all hypothetical, now is the time to act. It is therefore incumbent upon every SPL chairman to indicate which they will vote in order that supporters (the people who pay the wages) can have their opinion heard and lobbied to these self same chairmen before the vote is cast. Tell the club what you believe should happen. There is not a single shred of evidence that Sky will pull or devalue the broadcast contract if Rangers (called this for simplicity) are demoted to D3. Sky have said nothing, at least publically.There is a lot of doom laden opinion but NO evidence. No Rangers means a north derby, an edinburgh derby and probably a dundee derby. Each of these games, in addition to being attractive to broadcast will attract greater crowds because there is a chance that the outcome of the games might have some relevance to the outcome of the league. Greater compeditiveness means that standards will rise, or do we pass up this opportunity to watch a hate filled festival of bigotry and bile four times a year? Look at what congregates at the Portland Club every year in July to march through our City and tell me that you'll miss it. Or do nothing for "financial stability" We may well miss the crowds that Rangers brought to TCS, but are we not on their list of clubs to boycott after our chairman had the temerity to criticise them for bypassing SFA/ FIFA accepted standards to overturn even the meagerest of punishments that have befallen them so far? Kenny Cameron has a chance, a single chance to come out on the side of decency in this. If he does and things do get financially tight, or we struggle because of it I will remember his decision, do what I can to help and back him to the hilt. I will, however, find it difficult to forgive if we vote to admit the newco with or without further sanctions. I suspect that others will find it equally unpalatable and stay away. From these boards (and others) this is not an isolated opinion. we could lose support in droves and find ourselves equally if not more financially straitened than if we as a club had done the right thing. In reality, there is little to consider here. Rangers have behaved abominably, cheated and swindled and still refuse to contemplate that they stand or fall by the same rules as the rest of us. They are not too big to die, we don't need them and Mr. Cameron, you need to tell them that we don't want them.

Agree with the OP 100%