Charles Bannerman

Oh well... with a name like Brendan that presumably ticks the box for being "Celtic Minded"!

Not when, just as the last time this happened in around 2007, people were seriously claiming fifth place whilst in the bottom six.

In other words conveniently ignoring the fact that Caley Thistle only had bottom six counterparts to play in the last five games while two of the teams placed "below" them had the more successful top six clubs to contend with.

I'm not raising any issues, merely pointing out an error of fact in that sellouts at the Caledonian Stadium have never been other than very rare. Otherwise, I'll simply take the quoted observation as coming from the same stable as the notion that so called "sweetie rustlers" are not true football fans.

Apologies, the "any" came from Givemeacccc. But in general terms, there were a few OF games early on which attracted capacity crowds and that's more or less been it. Difficulty getting a home ticket for an ICT home game has historically been extremely rare so it's not really valid to raise this as an attendance issue.

You said "ANY league or cup game" as opposed to specific visits of the Old Firm in the very earliest years of SPL membership.

Can't say I can remember them ever having been here in the first place! Methinks you are relying somewhat on 20-20 retrospective vision through decidedly rose coloured spectacles!

Along similar lines - John Rankin.... Don Cowie.... Stuart Golabek..... Andrew Barrowman...... to name but a few. Pot, kettle, black?

Many will also remember the harbingers of doom who believed that there was no life possible beyond David Bingham. Football clubs are resilient things and, hydra like, tend to produce fresh heads in abundance if any are cut off.

Definite green dot material!

Unfortunately football is simply yet another collateral casualty of the fact that, almost five centuries on, Scotland still hasn't managed to come to terms with the Reformation.

Sneckboy....these figures look pretty bang on to me but I haven't gone through them in enough detail to establish whether the rounding convention you use enables you to promote 3750 to 4 sig figs to 3800 to 2sf. If you've been going with 3751 then if you adopt what I would argue is a better convention using 3750, then you might be able to tweak Saturday's target crowd down just a bit! On the other hand, I'm maybe not convinced that using 2sf (3800, 3600 etc) actually achieves anything since all it does is says that differences of less than 50-100 are insignificant. Using 4sf, a 2015-16 average of, say, 3756 is a marginal increase while 3748 is a marginal decrease. To return them as 3800 or 3700 tends to convert that to no change or a more significant drop. I note with satisfaction that "post Armageddon" in 2012, the average actually went up, albeit slightly! What I note with less satisfaction is that, ironically, since Top 6 finishes and cup semis and finals became a feature from 2013, average attendances have taken a sudden downward hike of around 400 and have stabilised at a new lower level of around 3600. We also can't legislate for more localised effects like how many silly kick off times in the various seasons have been inflicted by broadcasters, creating tweaks of various magnitudes to the averages.

Yes, I know you were. But never mind - these happy days may well return sooner rather than later.

I'm just trying to imagine a similar thread contributed to by Eden Court patrons outraged at the behaviour of the usherettes (or shall I appease the Serially Offended by calling them "front of house staff"?) Or "Offensive Behaviour In Theatres" legislation.

I'm with your main thrust but can't quite grasp the need to make the class distinction. If a law applies to everyone, then I don't see how the "working classes" (stupid term anyway since almost everyone apart from those living on benefits works) are specifically discriminated against. My main issue with this law is that it discriminates against football. Meanwhile the likes of the Orange Order - whose raison d'etre is aggressive anti-Catholicism - strut the streets with their umbrellas and bowler hats and with total impunity. On the other hand, if this legislation is merely a means of getting the Old Firm to behave themselves, then maybe it's got something to commend it. And if the claim is that this is discrimination against the OF - well let's just look on that as a a quid pro quo for the preferential treatment they get elsewhere!

Boards in general tend to be reluctant to reveal player budgets. The operating costs are in the accounts but there's no indication of what % of this is player budget. However the bottom line is - you can't spend money you don't have and there's a limit to what you earn from crowds of around 3000. I would also suggest that for a long time now what has been achieved relative to budget has been remarkable. What I would really like to see are long term "cost per point" figures for all the clubs.

And what about that Israeli guy - Goldstein? Finkelstein? Had about 3 different ways of spelling his name?

So there's obviously no chance at all of ICT affording a bike each for them?

And surely a man of yours recognises a touch of irony?

And your point is, caller?

So it has to be a case of playing Merry Hell in Maryhill this afternoon?

Ok, so in relation to this thread..... .... what would you prefer, for instance, in a situation like this? Information created by a club, or information gleaned and processed by professional journalists seeking the facts?

I'm rather more with wynthank on this one. Every year since about 2000 (in some respects since 1993) I've looked around me and wondered how on earth ICT has done what it has with the resources it has had. That applies particularly to Premiership survival. I also sometimes worry about expectations which fail to be tempered by financial realism.

Presumably East Fife's local rivals therefore play in Ethyl, Propyl and Butyl?

https://www.thecourier.co.uk/news/local/fife/106984/prince-philip-returns-to-support-methil-exhibition/ Once famously referred to as "a dump" by a certain straight talking Hellenic gentleman.