Kingsmills

For all sorts of reasons I'd much rather still be in the SPL. For those of us of a certain age who spent decades watching teams of milkmen, posties and cival servants giving their all in the Highland League with only occasional forays into the early rounds of the Scottish cup or the odd friendly againt Old Firm XIs to leven the fare seeing the top players in the land playing in Inverness seemed like a fantacy even after 5 full seasons.I, for one, never thought I would see the like in my liftime. I can't wait for these times to come again. In the meantime, it is a consolation to start a fresh league season with some actual prospect of actually winning the competition.

With respect to Wyness101 all they money we've made in the SPL has been spent over the last 5 years and a bit more on top. Running an SPL team doesn't come cheap !

With regard to Yngwie's post, I'm surprised a board meeting should be discussing these issues tomorrow night. It was crystal clear by November, at the latest, that a plan B was required and it would be a worry if the details of that plan B finalised weeks, if not months, ago. I would have thought and hoped that by now all that needed to be done was for that contingency plan to be put into operation.

As far as expenses are concerned, we presently have a irector of Football who, according to the accounts, receives amoluments of ?50,000 and a Chief Executive who is likely to be on a higher salary than that. That Director of Football, although no doubt having the interests of the club at heart, so fit to allow a naive manager, to start the SPl season without a single experienced striker on the books. Most of us could see at the outset that that had the clear potential to land the club precisely where we've ended up. The Chief Executive has no prior experience in football. Surely one obvious saving is to combine the role by getting in a Chief Executive with a football background therby dispensing with the ned for a D.O.F.

Having had 24 hours now to reflect on yesterday's news the more serious I believe the consequences could be for the club. Conventinal wisdom is that relegation costs a club in the region of one and a half million pound in the first season alone. I'm begining to wonder whether the consequences for ICT could be even more serious than that. Our financial position would no have been all that rosey even if we had escaped the drop. Last year we posted our first loss since joining the SPL and it was a fairly substantial one although far from unmanagable on our SPL turnover. Since then we started the season with the highest wage bill in our history by some margin if you strip Marius Niculae's single season with us out of the equation. Since then we've added Byrne, Foran, Gatheussi, Kerr, Mihadjuks, Morais and Odhiambo with only Cowie, Mcallister and Wilson coming off the wage bill. Further, we have effectively been paying the salary of two sets of managerial teams since January. Quite an extrordinary combination of expenses which would not have been budgeted for at the start of the season. On the income side our income from SPL prize money will, by virtue of finishing last, be about ?300,000 less than we've been used to by typically occupying an average of eighth position since joining the top league. That's compounded by the fact that crowds are down by about 400 or so on previous SPL seasons and I'd be astonished if commercial income was not also considerably reduced in the present economic climate. There's been no sustained cup run or even live TV match largely as a result of our nemisis Falkirk dumping us out of both cup competitions. There might yet be a liability running weell into six figures should Niculae be successful in his court case against the club.That would have put us in a bad enough position from a financial point of view even if we had stayed in the SPL so goodness knows how we will cope down a division. I know that there is the parachute payment of ?250,000 but that will hardly cover the additional wage bill we've been carrying since January. In the past it might have been possible to approach the bank but these days they are hardly lending to anyone far less impoverished first division sides who don't even have any land or buildings to offer as security against any such loan. There's always the possibility of major shareholders dipping their hands in their pockets but given that the construction industry has suffered more than most in the recession would they be willing, or indeed able, to ? I have to say, taking all of the above into account, I'm greatly concerned particularly, as commonly seems to be the case, our SPL exile lasts more than a single season.

I doubt that the club will use the terracing. It's not as though we would need the additional capacity. I also doubt that the away stand will be in use for the majority of matches as most of the smaller away supports will be accomodated in the south side of the main stand at lower cost.

It might only work for one season given his age but I'm sure Barry could still do a job at first division level. With a bit (lot) of luck one season might be all that's required.

It's not the fault of Falkirk that we were the worst team in the SPL over the course of the season. Best of luck to the Bairns on Saturday.

I don't know what the story is regarding Butcher and Esson but I would be very disappointed to think that he might have let any personal bitterness which may have developed between the two stand in the way of fielding our most reliable 'keeper.

Dundee are likely to start as favourites. They've recently had an ionjection of cash which means they are likely to be better funded than ourselves with the advantage of having several seasons experience of the division and a wiley and vastly experienced manager in Jocky Scott. Dunfermline, Partck and Q.O.S are also likely to provide stiff opposition. It will not be easy !

Brewsrer was a hopelessly inadaquate manager but I for one don't blame him for our demise as he clearly did his best the problem being that his best was far from good enough. He was a poor coach, motivator and utterly clueless tactician. None of that is his fault few of us would have done any better. Blame lies squarely with those who sought fit to reappoint him ahead of much better candidates when his shortcomings were already exoposed by the fact that he was dragging a Dundee United team for which he had a life long affection headlong towards relegation despite having access to financial resourses ICT could only dream about. hat initial error, recognised even at the time by a clear majority of fans, was compounded by the fact that they delayed taking action for weeks, if not months, after it was clear to all concerned that he was leading ICT to precisely the fate Dundee United saved themselves from by dispensing with his services just in time. Had they acted even in December it's highly unlikely we would be in the position we are today.

He may not be the most articulate manager in the league but Falkirk have progressed steadily under his stewardship so he clearly has something about him.

Not easy been a manager and he thought the team he put out would win it, I am not a football manager but was astonished how he played the defence out of position today I too was surprised that he changed what had become the settled defence for the last game.

If he'd shown just a little more composure he might just have levelled in the last minute of injury time. He certainly had a decent opportunity to do so.

The chance to compete for the title rather than, at best scrapping for 6th place.

Positives: Rossco gets to kick seven shades of shyte out of Brewster next year :huh: :angry: :P :lol: I agree with Mantis !

It's not the whole story but two very different contributions from goalkeepers have, in my opinion, gone a long way to contributing to our relegation. Firstly, Ryan Esson's dreadful gaffe against Dundee United at a time when we were otherwise holding on to our lead fairly comfortably, cost us two points and took a bit of the momentum out of the initial " Butcher bounce". Secondly, the Falkirk 'keeper's save from Foran in the first half may well have been the best in the SPL all season. It probably changed the whole complexion of the game as we were dominating at the time and may well have knocked the heart out of Falkirk.

It's not refereeing decisions that are resposible for our relegation.

It was a foul, he was the last man and it was a clear goal scoring opportunity by the letter of the law he had to go. I suspect he was " taking one for the team" and there are occasions when that's the appropriate thing to do, a clear example of that is Proctor's red card last season against Celtic last season during the 3-2 victory. However, on this occasion Tokely, even if he was sacraficing himself, made the wrong call. With the best part of an hour to go and with us only requiring a draw, it would have been better to contiue the match with a full compliment of players even at the expense of going a goal down.

I'm not sure anyone will want to sign any Caley players. They must all be well into their forties by now !

There's no doubt that the seeds of our demise were sewn under Craig Brewster's hopelessly inadaquate management and if Terry Butcher had been appointed a few weeks earlier we would have almost certainly survived. However, the fact is that in recent weeks the team lacked resilience just when it needed it most. Immediately after the victory against St Mirren we looked the least likely of the bottom five to go down. Since then the side have not ben able to hold on to winning positions against a Motherwell side who had very little to play for or against Hamilton. Finally, when the chips were down, we were unable to take a single point from our final two fixtures when any single one of the above would have sufficed. When push came to shove the current bloated squad were unable to show the mettle to take any one of the four opportunities they had when a single extra goal would have secured our SPL status for another season. Frankly, although there has been a considerable improvement under the Terry Butcher, that's not nearly good enough and certainly will not do for next season if we are to have any reasonable prospect of winning a very competitive First Division. I'm not advocating a wholesale clear out but if we a serious about defying recent trends and bouncing straight back up we will, subjest to the obviously constrained budget, have to bring in a number of players with sufficient steel to stand the heat at the business end of the season. The current lot have proved that collectively they don't have the bottle for it when each game is crucial.

More important that their overall stats is the fact that they sem to have the beating of us this season. Then again until last week ICT had ben even more dominant over Kilmarnock and we all know what happened there !

Murdo Urquhart. Best remembered, by me at least, for virtually assaulting Danny McGrain at Parkhead after a rather meaty challenge by the famous Celtic left back right in front of the away dugout on the Thistle legend that was Alastair " Titchie" Black.

Anything by Dire Straits !

Falkirk's ticket sales also going well as I understand.