Oddquine

If either of the players had killed somebody by their actions....would ICT still have signed them after they got out, do you think? You have to shake your head at the justification for the signing presented by the chairman of Swindon Town....he has the chance to give something back, to show the tragedies of drink-driving. How is he giving something back OR is showing the tragedies of drink driving by playing first team football? He is just showing that there are no tragedies for the perpetrator just tragedies for the victims. Perpetrators can come out of jail and continue where they left off......victims don't have that luxury.

Rehabilitation doesn't have to mean playing football in the public eye earning first team wages, though. He can earn a living in football by taking coaching certificates during his rehabilitation and doing youth coaching or something less upfront, though probably less profitable. Anyway, football may be the only job he knows....but it is not the only job he can do, is it? What would he have done if he had crashed and only injured himself badly enough to not be able to play football, but not badly enough to throw him on the mercy of the welfare state for the rest of his life, as he did to the father of the children he killed? He's not yet 30........he has time to try many different careers yet. People who have done nothing wrong and have been in the same jobs for 30, 40 and even more years are being obliged to change horses in midstream....what makes it that he is incapable of doing that? In his place, I'd be keeping low profile, in the certain knowledge that, for as long as I am playing and in the face of the family affected, they are going to get no closure....and no amount of money would be worth that to someone with a vestige of a conscience. Edited to add..but would someone with a vestige of a conscience, still sitting in prison, have a football agent chasing around trying to get him a place back in football?

Point at any post where I gave an opinion about Tade at all, pretty please....so the bit I didn't understand was the Huissean/Oddquine reference...or do you think Oddquine is, given your spelling problems, an alternative way to spell the nick of whoever did express doubts re Tade, along with Huisdean. BTW, I expressed doubts about your level of omniscience.

Don't quite understand this. Care to explain what you mean?

Last Tuesday's Courier says that Butcher is preparing for for a series of pre-season friendlies in Scotland for after June 29th. It also says that it is unlikely any games will be played at Tulloch Caledonian Stadium due to planned work to the pitch and another trip to England has been ruled out. ( so sorry folks who were hoping for a road trip) The Friday Courier gives the Clach game dates. I'm not seeing anything in the Northern Scot re anything arranged for ICT in Moray/Nairn with Elgin or Highland League teams yet....or in the Caithness papers with Wick..but I suppose it is on the early side....I have my fingers crossed for games in those areas.

Of course it does - nothing to do with him feeling that he has been constantly played out of position, often made a scapegoat, dropped and started again on a regular basis and not played to his strengths. And you know this how? Because he/she is omniscient?

According to bauhaus, Chubbs has been released, and no, I don't understand it either. If bauhaus has info right, and he may very well have, of the nine who were signed to the under 19s from the u-17s in the first year back in the SPL, it looks like only Laing, Whyte and Polworth are still here for next season..I suppose playing in the under-20s. I saw Chubbs a couple of times at least at Wick, and thought he was a cracking wee player (but bear in mind I know sod all about all the modern methods of playing the game). I take along Dundee supporters to ICT/Wick Academy games (and pay them in as recompense for getting me there and back home) so when I ask "what the hell are they doing reacting like that?" and "aren't they meant to be closing that player down..so why aren't they?" they can explain modern tactics/thinking etc (not that I really understand it yet, and probably never will). I do sometimes wonder (being of an era when if you were good enough you were also big enough, as well as old enough) if the likes of Jinky Johnstone or Willie Henderson would ever get a game in this modern set-up which seems predicated as much on height and body strength as on the ability to actually play the game superbly. Just read the remarks on here about the lack of height of Mackay causing problems......and as someone of 5ft 1inch, the man seems to me a veritable giant.Young Ryan Christie looks a very good prospect for the future...but as he is kinda height challenged atm, in Scottish football terms, if he doesn't bulk up and acquire some height in the next few years, will he be kept on however good he is technically? It appears that currently, the average height of Scotsmen is an inch shorter than that of Englishmen.....and I do wonder if the English average is the one taken as the UK norm. As an aside, and just because the research amused me a lot......it appears that Scotsmen are second only to the French re the length of their todgers..(just a shame that Scotsmen also tend to suffer from brewers droop a lot.)

I agree...even though I think that they are as boring most of the time as an ICT game where a large chunk of the team are there physically but not mentally. So you are agreeing with me that women are not equal to men except in areas where physical abilities are irrelevant? I gave up the concept of women's lib when we achieved equality under the law.....it seemed pointless after that. Everything else, like female boxing. football etc is just women trying to emulate men (or trying to place them in an inferior position vis a vis women's "rights" to be protected from themselves), and I rather always liked the idea that we are nothing like men...but are different to (and much better than) them.

Well, bully for you...but we have only your word for your 100% certainty. All the rest of we ignorant and outside the loop individuals have only the media reports on which to base our responses. I have been informed, and I am 100% certain that it is correct that Messi has expressed an interest in joining ICT at the sweetie level of income we can provide! Sheesh! But given that we have absolutely no idea what 100% of the income Tokely was receiving was, even if you do.....how do we know that 50% of his previous wage is not still silly money, given the ludicrous levels of football wages even for the most average of players? Not saying it is, btw...but why would we take your word for it?

He only wants an offer equal to what he is getting now which is considerably less than some others! As to who said he is being offered less money - well I think that is glaringly obvious. You appear to have information not available to those of us who simply read the media reports and come to conclusions based on them. Care to share?

Read in a local paper a few days ago that he has said "At my age, I'm not wanting to be on the bench, or a squad player." and "If I'm not going to be a regular, it won't be for me next year." Given his age, that seems to be a bit dictatorial. Is any player 100% guaranteed not being on the bench or a squad player? I always thought that was what football was all about....a team game, where the egos of players are subsumed to the good of the team. Seems to me if he is prepared to fight for his place as he said he was, why would he need guarantees of a regular game. Wouldn't his own performances give him the opportunity to play if he makes sure he can't justifiably be ignored? If it's about money, or if he has been told he is going to be kept not to play at all but to mentor the younger players as the only ICT real old-stager left , then that's one thing, so if he can get more money elsewhere then good luck to him......and I can see why he wouldn't want to be last choice in an absolute emergency for a game....but if it is just because he will be a squad player and not an automatic first team shoo-in then you kinda have to query his attitude. Nobody is entitled to a place in the starting line-up.or even on the bench. If he was wanting to go elsewhere I,m sure he would be gone by now. Let me ask you a question, Assuming you are good at your job and have been employed by your boss for over 15 years and come your salary review he asked you to take less money, what would you say? I'd do what I thought would benefit me......and if that meant taking less money rather than being jobless with nothing else on the horizon, I'd take it. I have bills to pay, after all. Been in the jobless with bills to pay situation and much better to be able to eat and pay bills....or at least be in a position to come to some accommodation with creditors. That's not to say I'd grab it with both hands on first offer....but I'd most likely grab it if nothing else was turning up and it was still on the table. I'd much rather be employed than unemployed. A drop in wages might make for some problems...but not nearly as many as no income bar the dole will produce with commitments to meet.

Devil's advocating here, but.... Why do we have women's football at all, bar the incessant screaming of the equality and we can do all that men can do brigade insisting we are entitled to be upsides with them in everything....and some entrepeneur thinking they can make money out of yet another pointless sporting activity? In the mid 1960's there was a woman's football team locally to me.....I think the sister played in it for a while, though where they found their opponents i can't remember...but sure as hell it wasn't from the even the local male mostly half-cut pub teams........but it was more a fun, keeping fit thing, not remotely a professional money-making activity thing and it was, frankly, so monumentally boring as to be unwatchable if you didn't personally know anybody playing (and even then, there was a lot more cringe factor than enthusiasm... honestly!) And I have to say that the elevating it to a professional money-making activity as it is today hasn't made it any more exciting (imo)..unless you are intrigued by the jiggling busts and longish toned female legs. Equality to me means competing with men on equal terms....not making concessions to us for the fact that we are not equal and expecting and accepting a lower standard so we can compete on unequal terms.....on much the same lines as positive discrimination does.

Read in a local paper a few days ago that he has said "At my age, I'm not wanting to be on the bench, or a squad player." and "If I'm not going to be a regular, it won't be for me next year." Given his age, that seems to be a bit dictatorial. Is any player 100% guaranteed not being on the bench or a squad player? I always thought that was what football was all about....a team game, where the egos of players are subsumed to the good of the team. Seems to me if he is prepared to fight for his place as he said he was, why would he need guarantees of a regular game. Wouldn't his own performances give him the opportunity to play if he makes sure he can't justifiably be ignored? If it's about money, or if he has been told he is going to be kept not to play at all but to mentor the younger players as the only ICT real old-stager left , then that's one thing, so if he can get more money elsewhere then good luck to him......and I can see why he wouldn't want to be last choice in an absolute emergency for a game....but if it is just because he will be a squad player and not an automatic first team shoo-in then you kinda have to query his attitude. Nobody is entitled to a place in the starting line-up.or even on the bench.

You are joking, aren't you? Where did you hear that? I've been out of the loop for the last ten days with no internet access. I'd have thought they were all shoo-ins for the under 20s. If the under 19s next year are those with birthdays on or after 1.1.1994, then Liam Polworth will be 19 is towards the end of next year and Kyle Whyte 19 earlier next year, so I think both could do another year in the under 19s. No idea what their situation is atm, though.

Wasn't aware Niculae hadn't trained or played any competitive football in the time since he was injured, before his trial for ICT....and wasn't aware he got injured in his trial period. I stand corrected........you obviously have a much better memory than I do. (No need to shout, btw!)

The difference would be that he didn't complete the trial period before getting injured, wouldn't it? No idea re the answer to your second question....but should the correct question not have been "Who else have we taken on trial/loan with a history of injuries, who has been injured before the end of the trial period and still been signed?" .......though I couldn't give you an answer to that one either.

Jesus wept. Read my post again and re-think your reply. I did read it......and responded to but on the basis of that first half alone, I'd have offered him a deal. I recall saying I'd sign him there and then to all who were around me who attended that game at Grant Street. What's to rethink?

Don't know about anything else you've quoted but that is not accurate. During that trial, he played the first half against Clach. He produced the single greatest wing display I've ever seen in a Caley shirt (I'm including Robson, Wilson and Hayes in my comparison here). Easy with hindsight, now knowing he's playing for Dundee Utd completely injury free but on the basis of that first half alone, I'd have offered him a deal. I recall saying I'd sign him there and then to all who were around me who attended that game at Grant Street. Where did I say he didn't play in a game..though I did think he had played the whole Clach Game...mea culpa......so he had a trial period which lasted one half of a game and a warm-up. Butcher said it would be unfair to judge a player on one half of football. We will see how they do in our next two games. He didn't manage any other games, and was not prepared to go for a pay as you play deal, which would have allowed us to see if he was going to be able to sustain his fitness....even though that would have probably earned him a proper contract if he had. Maybe he realised himself that he still wasn't 100% fit and needed the time until January to get himself ready to return to the game. If you think We are an absolute joke in a game you didn't attend, what would you have been saying if we had taken Mackay-Steven on and he was paid until January without ever being fit enough to play a competitive game? ICT don't have the money to deliberately employ passengers just in case they come good....it is bad enough having so many with fairly long term injuries earned in competitive matches without taking a chance on someone coming in after a long lay-off having done no training at all. Maybe we made a mistake not offering the training facilities Dundee United offered him when he was at Airdrie......but not inclined to think he'd have been too enthusiastic at the travelling required. Dundee United had the benefit of knowing that, by the stage they gave him a contract he was fit enough to train and play a full game....which was not something ICT could possibly have known without the benefit of the hindsight so many of you are now employing.

Not knowing much about football, but understanding a little of finances to the extent that I know that spending money on something which I thought was a good idea at the time, because theoretically it was a sensible buy because the company which produced it was a well-known company, is money wasted if the buy turns out to be faulty and rarely, if ever gets used. Wasn't Gary Mackay-Steven released by Liverpool as a much as a result of an injury plagued season as anything else? Wasn't the reason he was back home for seven months in 2010 without a team because he was still suffering the effects of the hip stress fracture? Didn't he get an Achilles injury in the warm-up for the Forres Game pre-season 2010/2011 when he was on trial? Didn't he say himself that I got an injury and never really recovered from it. when on trial? Wasn't he offered a pay as you play deal, in order to allow him to prove his fitness? Was he not more keen to sign for a part-time Division 2 team on a contract than chance that he would be able to play to get paid for ICT? Hindsight gives 20/20 vision....and, with hindsight, Mackay-Stevens was a chance missed...but how could he have fared between pre-season 2010/2011 season and the January transfer period if we did not have hindsight to tell us? Fit to play? maybe.....earning a wage while not fit to play? Possibly. Given the way some posters on here react to everything, if he had been signed when injured......and then played as little as those who have been signed uninjured and sustained injuries later have.......guess who would be getting given the pelters for wasting the money which could have paid the salary of somebody fit? Tudur-Jones didn't have a much better injury record...but at least he manged to last the trial period and a game or two as a player to show his credentials. One single trial game, however good, is not a basis for a short term contract, far less anything more.

Good.a lesson learned, then! Nope......just a lot of boredom living somewhere where it's so quiet, the only time you know its not Sunday is when the Archers Omnibus doesn't come on the radio.. Have to say, there was a lot more irritation (I don't really do anger unless I am three sheets to the wind..and I try not to post smashed, because then I can't spell. ) after your "brief therapeutic intervention" than before. On the rare occasions I do angry, I just abuse the dog verbally. He now thinks his first name starts with an F and ends in off. I do realise what forums are about...but I kinda thought this forum would be a break from the polarised opinions to the level of complete irrationality on political forums, and the pink and fluffy stuff on Silver Surfer forums. Pink and fluffy this place doesn't do...but pretty polarised it can, though not to the complete irrationality level.......and, as I have only two subjects on which I have a view which is totally and unashamedly one-sided......and football isn't one of them.so on the rare times I post, .I do try to insert an element of even-handedness in posts I perceive as polarised (or verging on it). Tbh....... I kinda like heated debates...just not pointless ones...and I think this is one of those. I drink OVD and coke for preference (but can do voddie and fresh orange if I must)..take a note in case I ever get down the road when ICT are at home, I don't have to be somewhere else early doors and can invade the local meeting pub (if I can find it). I always buy my own round as well! I think Dougal is a glass 1/8th full of nothing he likes kind of person, while I am more of a glass 1/8th full of stuff I like but 7/8th empty otherwise type....so I think a Dougal/Oddquine ganging up at any time is not on the cards. (Does Dougal know he is called after my dog?) Have to say I'm quite gratified that I scare the crap out of anybody....because in my real life even my dog is bigger than me, which is why I do verbal abuse rather than physical in controlling him....and my kids and grandkids do a lot of when I open my mouth!

Maybe, rather than continue to disrupt a forum/thread which is meant to be about ICT at some level,, somebody who can hit the right buttons could move those posts on this thread which have nothing to do with ICT per se, to a more appropriate place......because I get the impression that, because you consider yourself to be a dominant male.....and I only have your word for it that you are a male in the first place, as I haven't checked out your profile (though you do certainly come across an an unreconstructed Scottish male personage)...... I get the feeling that it is going to be a long time before either of us will concede the last word to the other.

What frustration and anger? What I post on here is simply puzzlement as to why some people who proclaim they are ICT supporters appear to be only ICT supporters as long as they are doing well, and promptly, in the event of poor results become ICT carpers. Supporting, imo, is looking for the silver lining beyond the current black cloud..and not reacting as if somebody has poured the contents of the half full/half empty glass they perceive onto the desert sands to be immediately dissipated into oblivion of the club. .Easily seen you don't post on the political forums I do.......because then you'd know what my frustration and anger really was like. Kinda shows you're you are good at applying theory to unknown and unknowable situations from what you read....which is something I have never denied. I just question as to whether you can do more than spout theory on forums. After all, I am not a "professional" " whatever it is you think you are"....but I have often accused others of having various personality disorders just from the tenor of their posts.....and nothing more concrete than that. I have found it an extremely useful method of getting round the "no personal attacks rule", and also handy because insulting politely means not having to go to the bother of bypassing the swearie filter (though Scottish swearie words do well on US based forums).so I spout theory on forums, as you do......but never claim I have any professional competence to do so....though I do admit sounding knowledgeable is inclined to stop people who buy into the idea that someone knows what they are talking about from responding and continuing the discussion/argument. Well done.......the pills thing is something I, too, very occasionally use when insulting others.....though not a lot, in case it is true, in which case I feel like crap, when folk are offended. I note you are also quite accomplished at assuming.....assuming that others don't consider their posts before making them.......assuming others don't know what they mean when they say/write something.....assuming you can read their minds. Way I see it is that as the years go on, universities have added various faculties to their set-ups to accommodate the latest theories produced by people with vested interests (and to attract students and money). and people, failing any ability to do something useful, latch onto the esoteric..which may make the graduates feel important, but mean nothing at all to the vast majority of the population. From the above, I'd not like anyone to think that I don't think that CBT, DBT and all the new versions invented to "update" them don't have their place...I'm sure they help some,..particularly celebriities who think it is a sign of importance and "self-awareness" and will give them excuses for /thinking behaving as they do. Won't necessarily sort them out......but will make them feel better about themselves. I do rather think that the original importance of CBT, way back, has been denigrated due to the vast extension of personality disorders defined by the AMA and accepted by rote by the UK. The very fact that you can say to Kiltarlity By the way DSM 1V is bit old hat- look at ICD10 instead.... rather proves my point.somewhat. Crap increases where there are people who have a vested interest in increasing crap (which is mostly everywhere in the world today if they can get a grant to fund it or otherwise make money out of it and can persuade other "professionals" to believe it).......and there are enough people who don't do logical thinking and who accept the crap because they think that a university degree implies the writer knows what they are talking about. That concept hasn't worked as long as I can remember with politicians as a truism........why would anyone think it should be a given with any other profession who wouldn't have a profession in the first place if they hadn't first produced a theory out of nothing but their own vested interests? I have read plenty books on all aspects of manipulation of people and the way they think, though mostly not through my deliberate choice, but because my reading matter was limited by that available......ranging downwards in common-sense from the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People to the ordure produced by professional entities who see any deviation from what they consider the norm to be a problem from which they can make money.

Do you really know anything about anything..or are you just really good at googling? If you want to discuss narcissistic tendencies....we can always start with your posts on this forum, in which you sneer at everybody you perceive as being less intelligent than yourself...can we not.because the definition seems to describe you very well. Oh dear me - hope you feel better after projecting all that internalised anger. I suspect that I must represent a domineering male figure from your past. My sincere apologies if I released some repressed memories or emotions. Suggest you may read up a little about narcississm and leave the formulating and "teaching" to professionals like maself. Professional what? And what has calling oneself a professional got to do with anything, anyway? The bankers who trashed our economy had qualifications and theories emanating from every orifice....and what did they accomplish in fact, as opposed to in their own minds? Our players are professionals, and they very often don't make any kind of a fist in even accomplishing the professional quality of giving 100% in doing their job and earning their pay....though maybe the modern football game, with its emphasis on tactics has trained all ability to think for themselves and react to unexpected situations out of players today. Many of our politicians are professionals....and they know, as far as I can see, very little about reality. Expert and specialized knowledge in the field in which one is practicing professionally, does not necessarily equate to translating that expert and specialized knowledge/theory into competence and skill......although it does allow the ability to spout theories as facts, and not just an opinion which will only pertain until enough professionals get together and come up with another set of theories which make that opinion obsolete.......or a pharmaceutical company comes up with a drug which will help some personality disorder, once they have defined the symptoms of the disorder in a way which encourages the use of the drug and get it into the medical bibles. You could call me a professional sceptic.

I hope he does well, and I'm sure he will, and comes back ready to do a turn for ICT. next season. The hot-house of the SPL, and the expectations of fans, makes it hard for homegrown youngsters to really break through....but maybe the extra year, now the squad is under-20, will save having to take 19 and 20 year olds up from elsewhere in the next couple of seasons, and we can at least bench our own boys, Fingers will be crossed that he stays injury-free while he is away. Good luck,Gavin.

Do you really know anything about anything..or are you just really good at googling? If you want to discuss narcissistic tendencies....we can always start with your posts on this forum, in which you sneer at everybody you perceive as being less intelligent than yourself...can we not.because the definition seems to describe you very well.