Charles Bannerman

In the interests of balance, the disparity of resources could perhaps also be pointed out, but I don't think that detracts too much from the point being made.

.... probably including any of the 33 out of 33 that Inverness College seem to have managed to get to fail their Higher Media Studies over the last two years. But for the moment to turn to Chris's OP - what a swingeing and well articulated condemnation of a summer of chaos within a club which just two years previously was displaying the Scottish Cup and playing in Europe. Apart from the extent of the decline, its rate has also been eye watering. The only part of Chris's precis with which I might differ is on players and management. Given the extreme lack of funds, I'm not sure if appointments and recruitment could be expected to be any better. I retain an element of cautious, albeit necessarily limited optimism in this department. We really must also wonder just how close to the wire - electric fence even - finances have got in recent months; and to what extent has paying silly money to poorly motivated mediocrity been responsible? Returning now to public relations and communications , I despair no less - indeed even more now - than I've done for several years. This is something I've been trying to make clear to them for a long time but I've seen neither the capacity nor the will to do anything about it - nor indeed even any concept of the need to win friends and influence people and the attendant role of communication. Quite frankly, a few cheesy, happy clappy tweets (and even these have now disappeared) don't begin to pass muster here. Communication and PR have been dreadful, awful, pathetic, abysmal and God knows how many other adjectives out of the same stable. Worse still, the deficit has been obscured behind a firewall of happy-clappy complacency. Chris rightly highlighted Seasonticketgate, Shearergate and Porngate. These are all toe-curlingly embarrassing foul ups of the highest order but are also simply the continuation of a long established trend. However the most revealing feature of this thread has been the rate at which it has grown even within a couple of hours. It's telling as well as distressing, to see so many Caley Thistle fans who are regular, articulate and respected posters on this forum spontaneously echoing what the OP has rightly said. When you get such unanimity among so many contributors with proven track records for commenting on these things, you see in the starkest of terms the situation the club is in and the deep concerns of its supporters. As for the Draper issue, not only is this another reflection of the relative status of the two Highland clubs, it's also the latest example of Roy MacGregor being in a position to rub Caley Thistle's noses right in it. And having had to endure "Always In Our Shadow", "Pride Of The Highlands" etc, it's difficult to criticise him for this.

Que?

"Scottish football in protectionist self-interest shock!"

Was the Twitter account really closed down solely because of Porngate or was there something else as well?

There are a few things I'd like to see Tich McCooey on trial for Seriously, though, he would make a decent announcer.

As I recollect, the receiving club pays £350 a week if the player plays but £850 if he doesn't?

Funny you should say that! I was on automatic pilot yesterday when I found myself turning on to the A9 at Inshes, having forgotten to take the riverside route to the stadium instead, to avoid what was expected to be a fair DU travelling support. At around 2:15, I hit the back of a queue, still well over half a mile short of the stadium roundabout. I had been fearing the worst but, although it wasn't exactly speed limit stuff, I never actually stopped once until the final set of traffic lights off the roundabout into stadium road. In fact the queue moved at a pretty constant 10mph or thereby, so it only took around 5 minutes to get that last kilometre or so, round the roundabout and into stadium road. The biggest delay there was getting stuck behind cars queueing to get into the away car park, but certainly that single experience does seem to suggest that the roundabout is working a fair bit better these days.

OCG... my recollection from 1994 was that the prospect of a CT "reserve" team in the HL wasn't even an issue and that the HL would have said no even if a request had been made. This did concern me at the start because it would have meant that Inverness's historic links with the HL (eg six of the inaugural seven teams in 1893) would have been completely severed. Clach's decision to go it alone, certainly for me and I believe Inverness as well, therefore solved a problem. On a colts team in the HL now, I'm not sure they would be too keen to extend to 19 or 20 teams for fixtures reasons. On the other hand a multiple intake, perhaps to 24, would allow two divisions of 12, with the added bonus of eliminating the kind of mismatches we see too often, since all the weak teams would be in D2. As long as someone with more money than sense then doesn't start throwing sillybucks at a lower light in D2....

You are attempting to convert my relative into your own absolute!

Caleyboy's post above went up while I was typing my last one and this, although stated somewhat less generously, is entirely consistent with my understanding.

The two proposals - to increase the available share capital from £3.9M to £5M and to remove the rights of pre-emption of existing shareholders - were both, totally predictably, carried unanimously. Shareholders were also told that there is no specific buyer "in the frame" for the newly created equity, but the move is being made now rather that wait several months to the AGM so the club could be in a position to move quickly should such person or persons emerge. It was also confirmed that the shares donated to the Highland Hospice have not yet been bought by anyone - which means that slightly more than one third of the club's available equity is currently up for sale. The formal business of the meeting was followed by a question and answer session. Danny MacDonald was introduced to shareholders as the new Chief Operating Officer, as subsequently announced on the club website this morning. The club also wants to have a Colts team in the Highland League and are taking the necessary steps to try to bring this about.

Whereas the Latin for "last season" is "annus horribilis" (as opposed to "anus horribilis" which means a bad dose of piles.)

scottishhighlands.... your response is completely out of order and extremely ill-considered. Manfer actually provided an extremely sensible and practical answer - especially given the circumstances in which the club's information and PR arrangements have found themselves for some time now.

It will probably last longer, now that the Old Firm are no longer visiting.

Of course it was, and it was hence followed up with what was referred to as "fun devil's advocacy", just to see what people's reactions would be... which have been quite interesting

OK... a "fun thread" which probably articulates fantasies that a lot of football fans have indulged in from time to time. So let me lace it further with a bit of "fun devil's advocacy". At a time when inequality and poverty are high profile issues, how would you justify something which, among other things, would cause a small number of football players who are already paid above their realistic market rate to earn even further above that market rate? Rather than take steps which would increase inequality and doing nothing to address poverty, would the money not be better and more morally invested in bettering the lot of the less fortunate in society?

My first thought here is that the numbers which have been stated in recent posts lack substantiation so you do wonder to what extent they may be products of the rumour mill. But, even in the Premiership, numbers like these - if even remotely accurate - would indicate a club which was paying players way above their market value for the situation the club was in.

That nothing has been done to make the Inverness scenario any better makes the persistent gulf all the more disappointing. I'm not sure whether or not the tale is Apocryphal of a member of the public arriving at the front door of the Caledonian Stadium many years ago and being asked by a club official "What the f*** do you want?" In the case of McKay, the termination of his loan at ICT followed immediately by County flashing the cash and buying him simply rubs Inverness noses in it. The last couple of months have been notable for County very conspicuously doing things which Inverness have failed to accomplish. County have always understood the notion of public perception far better than ICT and are now taking the opportunity to drive home their advantage so they are perceived as the dominant football club in the Highlands across a wide spectrum of criteria.

Of course in these days it was still safe to go to Damascus for your holidays and the subsequent trip there would appear to have been the most interesting since the 1st Century AD.

It's my understanding that, if you don't count the Social Club which was sold to Graeme Bennett's pension fund in around ?2010, the club hasn't had a major asset base since the bricks, pitch and mortar of the stadium were handed over (initially?) to the ICT Charitable Trust in around 2001.

This is about as clear as a puddle full of cow's poo! The main stand is part of the original Caledonian Stadium which, in 2001, passed to the ICT Charitable Trust as part of the process which spirited away £2M+ of debt which had accrued. As for what happened after that, if many people knew in the first place, then most of them will have forgotten. The impression was that a whole string of companies materialised and that Tullochs/David Sutherland and the Bank of Scotland were heavily involved in the process of removing that debt. That, however, still doesn't fully answer that part of the question. As for the North and South stands, Tullochs clearly played a major part in getting them there and Highland Council were deeply involved as well back then in 2005. The fact that Tulloch's offered to donate these stands to the club a little time ago possibly also implies an element of ownership. It's clear that Tullochs had a huge amount to do with the club's transition from impending administration in 1999/2000 to playing SPL football, debt free in a compliant stadium in 2005, but some of the specifics of ownership do seem obscure to say the least.

I would make two observations here. Firstly, comparisons between Roy MacGregor and Brooks Mileson are pretty tenuous, other than them both being football club sugar daddies. Firstly, Mileson was almost certainly propping up Gretna to a far greater extent than Roy is at Ross County. And, although no sugar daddy relationship is indefinitely sustainable, some are less unsustainable than others and I do believe that Roy's personal health and that of his businesses are in much better nick than was the case with Mileson. I never understood why the media made such a sycophantic fuss about Gretna since is was clear from the start that tis was going to go bellyup far sooner than later. And secondly, I'm not sure what is meant by "under funding". If that means that the club has been unable to earn enough to sustain its Premiership status, then this is probably true. On the other hand, if it means that not enough rich people have fulfilled the expectation that they put their hands in their pockets to subsidise a loss making business, as would not happen anywhere else in the business world, then that's a different matter.

Now there's a bit of history!

Jags seem to have a good cup record at Telford Street. Some, probably including IHE , will remember their 3-0 defeat of Caley in 1987 in the Qualifying Cup Final replay at the same venue.