Kingsmills

Partick have announced that they will not be joining Hearts in raising legal action.

I fear that the action will fail. The position is different to France in that, in France, the decision was imposed on the clubs whereas here it was something that was decided democratically by a vote in which all member clubs had a say. Yes, there was something distinctly dodgy about one of the votes cast but I fear that that alone will not be enough for a court or tribunal to overturn the decision. However we may still benefit in that the cost of action may cripple Hearts, send them into administration and with it the ensuing points deduction making the next Championship campaign a much more level playing field.

No surprise. Hearts will shout very loudly but are very unlikely to go to court. In many ways. I welcome the clarity and at least we can now plan for a season in the Championship probably curtailed to 27 games. We are in a perilous financial situation but so is every other club in the division. There is no reason why we can't compete and gain promotion on the pitch rather than through the boardroom or courtroom.

For the people critical of extending the manager's contract, just who do they think we could attract in the current circumstances would be better and as experienced? This element of stability is very welcome in such uncertain times.

Sadly, there is a great deal of truth in that too. At least from the perception of it by many.

Yes it is a decent statement on behalf of Partick but, like many others including our own, not without a substantial element of self interest. That said, the 14 10 10 10 proposal benefits many and substantially Prejudices nobody so any club proposing to vote against it really ought to be issuing a statement justifying that stance.

Right at the moment, if we are recruiting at all it is surely encouraging.

For what it's worth, I doubt if Hearts would end up taking legal action and, even if they did, I doubt if they would succeed.If Hearts were convinced that they had a case they would almost certainly have initiated action by now with a view to putting a great deal of extra pressure on the clubs to agree to reconstruction. The real question is not whether the threat is a real one but whether the SPFL a sufficient number of member clubs perceive it to be real.

That is objectively impossible to argue with. Sadly, I bet that some chairmen Graham Tatters included will conjure up some spurious reason or vote against for no reason at all.

I too disagree. If we were in the Premiership we would have a fighting chance of edging out the likes of Hamilton, St Mirren and County at the bottom especially if we were able to use the million pounds extra from being in the top tier to recruit well over the Summer which would not be as difficult as normal given the extraordinary number of players who will be out of contract. Playing in the Championship without fans will be hugely challenging from a financial point of view. Being in the Premiership would at least give us a fighting chance and would give fans an opportunity to participate by buying a virtual season ticket to view online which may only be financially viable for top tier clubs.

Absolutely agree. The Scottish game has long needed radical change but the panic induced by the current crisis is not the environment in which to discuss impliment any change which could affect the game for years, if not decades to come. We need to have a commission, with a majority of sporting, media and commercial experts from outside the usual Scottish football bubble with a view to looking at things more thoroughly and more objectively to report by this time next year.

Grant Street looks better than Cappielow!

A very good point. I am struggling to think of a single player produced my Elgin during their two decades or so in the Scottish Leauue. There must be some but, right now, I can't think of any whereas the Scottish Premiership and various leagues in England from their top division down have been peppered with players produced or improved by their time at the Longman. Take a long look in the mirror and wind your neck in Graham Tatters. If you have nothing positive to contribute to the debate then much better to contribute nothing in much the same way as your club has contributed nothing to Scottish football this millennium. A pathetic state of affairs. When Elgin were in the Highland League they reached the quarter finals of the Scottish Cup. Since admission to the Scottish League I'm not entirely sure that they have even reached that far in the Challenge Cup. In fact their biggest achievement since has probably been coming within two minutes of holding us to a draw in the Scottish Cup, a prospect that had their fans almost wetting themselves with excitement until that balloon was punctured not once but twice in the dying minutes.

I agree that the Elgin chairman should be concentrating on addressing the serial underachievement of his own club rather than stubbornly standing in the way of progress for the league system as a whole. A club serving a community with the population of Elgin should be somewhere between the bottom of the Championship and the top of League One. Instead, they have been forever stuck in the lowest tier and generally towards the bottom of that tier at that. They really need to get their own house in order before trying to pull down the houses of others.

Always best to be honest. Just ask Dominic Cummings and Boris Johnston!

Agreed. I have not worn a football top for about thirty years but will be purchasing this one to try to support the club through this difficult time albeit in a very modest way.

The new kit is a huge improvement on last season's. A little black trim around the collar and cuffs to fully reflect our heritage and it would have been perfect. Red and blue vertical stripes are our clear identity. Can we please never again revert to the bland, The Rangers style, tedious blue top that we seem to adopt from time to time.

Even before the pandemic struck I was concerned by the fact that we were increasingly struggling to make full time football work in it's conventional way on dwindling financial resources. Part time football was and remains an obvious destination but that is far from ideal and would make it all but impossible to get back to the top tier in the short of even medium term. A combination of full time and part time seemed a much better solution but, although we have had part time players in full time squads in the past, Jimmy Calder and Paul Ritchie notably come to mind, that is very difficult to work with the full timers training during the day and, due to work or educational commitments, the part timers only available in the evenings. So, I wonder if we could think a bit differently. Since the beginning of professional football, full time players have tended to train daily for about four hours almost invariably in the morning and very early afternoon. Is there any reason at all why they couldn't put those same hours in in the late afternoon and evening on a daily basis ? That way, they would themselves be able to combine full time football with some other employment or, in the case of the younger full timers, education or apprenticeships to supplement the very modest full time salaries we are now able to offer. Those full time players and coaching staff who were not otherwise engaged would have more time for community work in schools and elsewhere during the day thus bringing the club more closely into the community. The biggest benefit though is that we could then bring in some of the country's best part time players and fully integrate them by being able to train with the full timers for two or three hours two or three times a week. There are thirty or forty part time players in the lower leagues who are more skillful and have more potential than very many of the full time players playing in the Championship or the lower reaches of the Premiership who do not, for very understandable reasons, want to give up good careers or relocate to the Highlands for our very modest full time wages. However, if we could help find them employment in their own line of business or a place at college combined with what would be a very generous part time wage and the opportunity to play with full time colleagues at a higher level that could be a very much more attractive proposition for them. Could this be a way forward not just in the Championship but even if and when we are fortunate enough to return to the top tier or am I barking up the wrong tree entirely?

Even if we got to that stage, that would mean a maximum of about eight or nine hundred fans in our ground. We were haemoraging cash in the Championship with crowds of two and a half thousand and people in hospitality and the stadium bar open, neither of which are likely to be available. In order to even think about being able to field a team, we would need to come up with innovative solutions to plug that gap.

Neil Doncaster not doing his job adequately well. What a ridiculous suggestion!

Had a 'posh seat' in the South Stand with my joy at the final whistle and for the pitch celebrations afterwards slightly tempered by really wishing that we had saved a few quid and were with the main body of ICT fans. Got a great and impressive view of the pre match display though !

Good that there might be some live professional football back in the United Kingdom. However, I don't think it marks any step on the road to Scottish football returning. The EPL is expending a huge amount of money to return with no income from fans. The financial gulf between the EPL and the SPFL, even at our Premiershio level, means that option is not available to us. I honestly can't see how professional football can return in Scotland until August at the earliest and only then if our clubs stop the usual internecine bickering and all pull together.

For all the reasons alluded to above and probably some more that we haven't thought of yet, league reconstruction is very unlikely to happen We should be firmly focusing on what will, in all the circumstances, be an extremely difficult and challenging season in the Championship in very many regards In the unlikely event that agreement can be reached on reconstruction that would be a very welcome bonus and we can recalibrate then. For now, we need to stay firmly focused on merely ensuring that the club survives.

Not strictly ICT related but I was sorry to read of the death of former Clach forward Charlie Kennedy. My late father was a staunch Clach fan as a result of which I probably spent more time in Grant Street than was healthy in the late 60s and early 70s and Charlie was a firm favourite. I am sure that the whole Inverness football community would wish to send condolences to his family and friends.

Maybe slightly harsh on one of our cup final heroes but absolutely agree on Stuart Morrison.