Charles Bannerman

According to the tables, in the 15 seasons since the 12 team league came in, the average points score for the bottom team is 27.6. St Johnstone (2002) have the lowest total of 21 and ICT (2009) the highest of 37. The corresponding figures for second bottom are 35.6, 32 (Dundee Utd 2003) and 41 (Simmurn 2013). This means that no team scoring 42 or more has ever been in what has more recently become the playoff place, so maybe that's the enigmatic significance of this number. If teams continued to score points at the rate they have been doing so far, the final table would read - Celtic 87, Aberdeen 78, Hearts 67, St J 59, Ross County 52, ICT 51, Dundee 47, Motherwell 47, Partick 46, Hamilton 42, Killie 36, Dundee United 18. United, who have been scoring points at just half the rate of the next worst team, are therefore currently on track to be the 12 team top league's poorest team ever. Certainly the statistics stack up very poorly indeed for United and there is a real Everest there in front of them if they are to stay up. On the other hand, in the spring of 2010 I did a similar appraisal of ICT's chances of catching Dundee and getting back to the SPL and got that completely wrong. However it's easier for a tem that's not doing too badly to move up a notch than one which is struggling and the added factor in 2010 was Dundee completely bottling it. It's not just Sneckboy that sometimes has time on his hands.......

I make it 58 points - or at least that's the figure at the start of the season which progressively drops down to whatever it ends up as, depending on how the season has been going. We have to remember that this is a purely theoretical consideration which, in the case of the 58 point value, would in practice never happen but whatever number it is at any time becomes more and more likely as it progressively diminishes until you reach the final value. How do we get 58? It is theoretically possible, albeit inconceivable, that all 12 teams would win half and lose half of their 38 games. This means that they all end the season on 57 points, with goal difference determining the bottom two. Hence one more point - ie 58 - on the part of one team would be enough to guarantee safety... and also the title. However even that remote 58 point possibility only survives until the second drawn game of the season, after which the theoretical target drops in a way which is determined by results, including draws. So at any point in the season there is a particular total which guarantees freedom from relegation, although it is very difficult indeed to work out.

I met Jim Calder in the gym this morning where he still works out regularly, although can't at the moment run since he's hurt his knee. (I'm not sure this actually upset him too much!) I told him about this thread and we discussed penalties. I reminded him that he saved two in a successful shootout in a Cup replay at home to Stranraer in January 1997 after Paul Cherry missed his and he reminded me that there was a period in his ICT career when, including misses, two thirds of the penalties taken against him were unsuccessful. I think those of us old enough to remember that era look back nostalgically on a wonderful pioneering age for ICT when nobody (execpt, apparently, Dougie McGilvray!) knew how things were actually going to progress. That first decade from D3 to the SPL - and in particular years 2-5 under Pele from D3 to D1 and the quarter finals of the Cup - was an intriguing era of rapid progress where new territory was being discovered again and again by a club which was leaving its Highland League origins and making progress through the national hierarchy. Jim Calder, and many others, played vital roles in that pioneering epic.

I bet you're glad you did now!

I can also see the sense in this arrangement from a team point of view. Given that there is another game on Saturday, it seems better to me to get players and management home by 10pm on the Wednesday night rather than at 2 o'clock on the Thursday morning.

Yes, the departure of Ee Durty Weekurs (not necessarily said in jest - Wick had two men sent off!) does complete a very different North - South non league picture compared with maybe 30 years ago when the North teams had a huge advantage. On the other hand, one (or rather a combination of two) of these North teams has gone on to win the Cup and another has also reached the final so what we're talking about here is what's left. I do wonder, though, where the balance with respect to this shift lies between the two possible factors - weakening in the North and strengthening in the South.

Electorates do from time to time tend to make big mistakes which they later deeply regret. Look no further than Holyrood and "The Fiftyhowevermanyofthemarestillleft".

Is this George Galloway in disguise or a member of the latest generation of Moon Landing Deniers? Or just somebody on the wind up?

This reminds me of the true story of the teacher who was marking test papers where, in response to the question "In which state is Sulphur Dioxide at a temperature of minus 25C?", one pupil answered "Texas".

My only concern here might be that this "usual routine" was apparently not picked up by the stewards long before now. As Caley D says, unattended bags have been a big no-no for a very long time - by that I mean at least the early 1970s when the Irish "troubles" were becoming a problem. I just hope there aren't too many JodieC95s around because that is just the kind of lax attitude that terrorists are looking for.

Santa is not responsible for your nocturnal habits Hawkeye!

I've given that one a "like"!

Damn! My lack of tecky savvy means that I can't post a pic of Kenny, but we all know want he looks like anyway!

Kenny Cameron and Harpo Marx?

I can't see Twitter scratching the surface in accommodating some of the posts Scotty or myself sometimes put up! And then there's Oddquine!!!!! Rock on CTO!

Given Heathmount prices, you are dead right there IBM! However on that particular subject, I think times have been changing.

That is absolutely my take on it as well. The good thing here is that not only is there a surplus of £254K for the year to 31st May which effectively covers the kind of underlying deficit Kingsmills refers to, there is also the Christie transfer which didn't happen until well after the end of the financial year so won't be in these figures. Statements issued by the club today in addition refer to increased season ticket sales for the current season so these are further modest safeguards for the future..... and not a green light to open the cash floodgates. I'm not sure, once the SFA got their cut and remembering that ticket process were quite low, if the cup final would have yielded all that much and I have heard it said that for the year they won the Cup, St Johnstone returned a profit very similar to ICT's here. In terms of expenditure on players, it really does have to be understood that for years the Board have successfully navigated a very narrow channel in between the twin potential disasters of financial trouble through overspending and footballing trouble through having too weak a squad. There really is very little wriggle room although at least some was made for the big gamble back in 2009-10 which led to the return to the SPL.

What the video does clearly show is gross encroachment with the first penalty. Indeed if the rules were observed absolutely to the letter, there was encroachment even before Tansey began his run for the first penalty because two Motherwell players have feet over the 18 yard line right from the start. Technically the referee should have pulled them up for that before the kick was taken - which on the other hand might then have headed off later encroachment and the first, saved penalty might have stood! Talking about Motherwell's "partisan element", Tam Cowan was griping from the very start on Off The Ball about the retake, his argument being that other referees ignore encroachment, so this one should have too. Presmably he would also argue that since Lord Lucan got off with murder, everyone else should as well. I also wonder what the next rule will be that he wants to ignore when its application is against his interests. On the other hand it might all have been a top-of-programme wind up to get a reaction.......

I might find it difficult to argue that the Dundee penalty wasn't one but, with Devine and Meekings apparently in between Greg Stewart and goal, I'm not so convinced it was a clear scoring opportunity and hence a red card, even if it was a penalty.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096647/

Inverness potentially has a much bigger fanbase in my opinion, but it will take time. First of all, on the glory hunters issue, I think Sneckboy is bang on the money there. In the community around most football clubs there is a sort of outer circle who class themselves as "fans", even if that simply involves looking for the result in the Sunday papers and having a brief smile of satisfaction if it's a win. At the other end of the spectrum there are your diehards who attend every home game and also as many aways as they can. At any point on that spectrum, there is a threshold of importance and significance which needs to be reached before people placed there will attend a particular game. For the diehards, that threshold is placed virtually at zero - they will be there whatever. Others less keen will come out maybe for the visit of Celtic, Aberdeen or County and further down the line it becomes something like a Scottish Cup final, especially one where ICT are favourites to win so there is a reasonable chance of that ultimate shot of self gratification. At some point on that spectrum it gets to the stage where you can reasonably use the term "glory hunter" As for the size of the fan base, I have for some time believed that the underlying trend since 1994 has been slowly upward, but there have also been shorter term declines as various "new" developments such as playing in a new stadium, in Division 2, Division 1, the SPL etc cease to be novelties. I do have to say that over the last couple of years, attendance figures have somewhat challenged that belief but on the other hand there has been no recent novelty. (The Scottish Cup doesn't fit the kind of thing I mean.) Then there's the Old Firm factor where I do believe that, slowly as time goes by and with the alternative of ICT, Inverness is beginning to reduce its simplistic obsession with Rangers and Celtic and starting to replace it with a degree of football maturity through support for the local club.

Renegade is as entitled to an opinion as anyone else and I also think he expressed it rather well, because somebody shouting "Hughes must go" after tonight's result was well in there alongside Death and Taxes. (Life's accepted certainties.) Maybe it's just that Shaun has Irish relatives who set the trend for him by equally vacuously calling for the departure of Ronny Deila last Thursday night. What Shaun seems to be doing is creating a specious cause and effect relationship, where the link is merely conjectural. Football - especially where a club has historically performed above the kind of level predicted by its budget - is a very up and down game and it does strike me that SOME fans (mainly the ones who seem to know how to run the boardroom better than the directors and the dressing room better than the manager) are really expecting too much. It's not long since a six game unbeaten run, culminating in victories against the league leaders and the local rivals, was being shouted from the rooftops. Time for a reality check and a more supportive and positive approach which might actually help to make things better.

agreed...that post one of the worst I've read yet! Ach go easy on the lad. I hear he's a bit disappointed at getting turned down as Tony Blair's spin doctor for when the Chilcot Report comes out Seriously though, Renegade and DEANO are bang on there. A psychoanalyst would have a great time with a post like that. I don't suppose we've got any of them on here......?

Paterson / United I remembered but I had clean forgotten about Butcher / Barnsley. Good call. I well remember Pele turning down United since I was fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time (in the tunnel post match) and was fed the line just in time to break the story on Sportsound. Apparently when Eddie Thompson, Steven Thompson's late father who was chairman at the time, heard it he was not a happy bunny at all and seemed to think that Pele turning him down was my fault! That may have been the autumn of 2002 - some weeks before Pele eventually went to Aberdeen.

Just looked up D D's profile.............. doesn't give his age but I think he is catching up with us Scarlet. Well I can confirm that Doofer himself will be 27 or 28 so that maybe presents a ballpark.