Kingsmills

Maurice Malpas. 1986 and 1990 World Cup finals.

Another illustration of just how ineffective and amateurish our commercial department is. Just a few weeks until the start of the season and we don't have a sponsor for either the right or the left sock. A disgrace !

I appreciate it's the middle aged curmudgeon in me but I don't get this obsession with squad numbers. What's wrong with the starting IX wearing shirt numbers 1 to 11 or, for that matter, the leagues being the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th Divisions ? On second thought, just ignore me. Grumpy old man mode this morning and have not yet had my caffeine fix.

From Sunshine on Leith to Linwood no more, Lochaber no more, Bathgate no more, Butcher No more.......

I get the feeling that she gave TB every opportunity to convince her that he was the man with the ability and the vision to lead Hibs straight back up and he singularly failed to do so hence she made the reasonable and consiered decision to dispense with him and recruit someone who, in her view is the right person. Some of the criticism of her not having any football or coaching experience, in my view, smacks of sexism. Football club CEOs generally don't have that personal skill set. what the good ones do have is the ability to identify and recruit those who do and she seems to have proved herself adept at that in her previous post at Fir Park.

Jim McColl

Well well. From Tesco cakes to M&S cakes to no cakes at all....

Understand that he rejected an offer from County before signing for Accies.

Yes, there is an interview in today's Scotsman with Hibs new chief executive in which she suggests that it is far from certain that TB will continue as manager next season.

Butcher did well in the end at ICT after a sticky start but facts don't lie. His managerial record in general at a number of different clubs is poor. On that objective basis, he has to be regarded as a poor manager.

Laurence, calling people bigots personal abuse and a clear breach of site rules. Disappointing from one of our more mature contributors, at least in terms of age, any more of it and you will find yourself unable to post on this thread.

Billy can probably earn three times as much with one of the bigger teams in the English third tier as he does with us. He's given us two good years to repay the faith shown in him after one poor one. I would love him to stay but would have no difficulty with his deciding to go an maximise his income in a short career.

Maybe in deference to TBs ICT connections, we should offer to play Hibs at Easter Road so that they have at least one pre season friendly against glamorous top league opposition....

This is worse than his relegation with us. When he took over at ICT we were in last place and that's where we finished in the end. At Hibs he took them from respectable mid table to, in terms of points gained on the pitch, the very worst team in the league in the course of half a season. Remarkable. More remarkable still, three of the biggest five teams in the land in terms of home gates not in the top league. I f this is Armageddon I'm quite enjoying it..

I see the Highland League yesterday issued their fixture list for the entire season. I know there is the complication of the play offs but such efficiency and consideration for fans on a negligible budget puts the SPFL to shame. Not only that, they have a league sponsor.

We didn't get away with it the second half of this.

Hibs score first tie over. Hamilton score first game, well and truly, on.

Not going to Norwich. They've appointed Neil Adams on a three year deal.

Is there anyone at all actually rooting for our former manager and his team ?

I am comfortable with the term Premier League as we've had it for the best part of 40 years and it was coined here in Scotland decades before the English Premiership. The terms Scottish Premiership and Championship, however, are just pathetic, embarrassing and unimaginative copying of what's happening in England in a futile attempt to superficially sex up the product and, as fans, we should treat them with the disdain they deserve.

As a Yogi sceptic, may I wholeheartedly echo that sentiment.

I would certainly be happy to take a punt on Hemmings.

Sorry but adulterating brandy with ice is just plain wrong...

Butcher probably relieved. His record against Falkirk in relegation head to heads is 100% failure.

Losely related to attendances so will post on this thread. I noticed that St Johnstone who have lower home attendances than us from a community smaller than Inverness took twice as many fans to their final as we did to ours. If we had taken a similar proportion of our population we would have had in excess of 20,000 instead of the 7,000 we did take. I realise that part of the reason is that the Scottish Cup is a more prestigious competition and the 3pm Saturday kick off helped as well but similar sized towns and cities such as Perth, Paisley, Motherwell and Kilmarnock tend to galvanise about a third of their population to attend finals both of the League Cup and the the Scottish whereas we took about a tenth of the population of the greater Inverness area. It can't be due to geography as County who are based even further from Glasgow than we are took the highest ratio of all. Why is it that, despite great efforts by the club,we are still failing to engage and enthuse the wider Inverness community even for important well publicised one off occasions and, what if anything can we do to address the problem ? Before certain posters turn this into yet another merger thread I am talking about the community as a whole and not the few dozen continuing refuseniks.