Oddquine

Likely not...but we didn't win and the 18 year old who lost it for us was a Marsella pick, endorsed by Terry,,,and not one of the homegrown youth players. I feel for Roberts because I think that losing a match as a result of his failure is going to do bugger all for his confidence going forward....but I do wonder why he was picked to take the penalty in the first place......I really do!

Thought after the 10th foul since been booked Ngoo should walk. Not sure how many fouls someone has to make before it becomes persistent fouling.. Anyone else's heart sink when referee went for pocket after mckay brought down webster only to find out was for the sub. Sorry to be a downer on are team selection policy but think its absolutely disgraceful roberts gets on ahead of nick ross.. As well as the penalty miss roberts also overstretched to header a ball that was falling perfectly for andy shinnie at the back post in final minute of extra time much to shinnies disgust and mine. Anyway still are greatest season and it was only the diddy cup anyway.. This is absolutely spot on. Why do we persist with him when Nick Ross is evidently a better player? I would also argue that Roberts is not better than Sutherland or Pepper so why waste our time playing a guy who is off back to Arsenal in a few months. I admit I did not see the 4-0 win against Dundee United where apparently he was impressive but I have seen little to convince me he is anything special and he certainly does not have the work ethic to fit into this team. Hopefully we continue our good league form with a win on Wednesday and progress to the last 8 of the Scottish cup on Saturday. Disappointing to lose to what as a poorer than usual Hearts side especially with them down to 10 men and us having such a great season. Edit: Not sure how to fix the quoting function but oh well Because Marsella found Roberts and Marsella didn't find Ross...or Sutherland? And Terry thinks so little of the opinions of our own youth coaches that he ignores their opinions?

I used to get pelters for being a happy clapper as bad, if not worse, than Luke Mackay and CaleyD (sorry for taking your names in vain, people) and now I'm getting pelters for being negative. If the kids never get a chance to play, even at the only level for which they are automatically eligible and the level for which they were signed, how can they be judged? We can't judge how they can play in a competitive match if they never get to play in one and are continually being shunted aside so we can take in loan players, play under 20's we pull in from other clubs or give fringe over age first team players match practice. I am not saying that the youth system and coaches are crap. I am commenting on the fact that the ICT management appears to think they are. I am asking, given that appears to be the case, why we continue to pay out silly money on a youth system at all? Are we just playing at it because that is part of what it takes to be in the SPL. I don't expect a steady stream of talent to be coming out of the Highlands....but I do expect that the few who are identified by the coaches get a fair chance to show how good bad or indifferent they are..and currently, they don't.

So the under 20 team consisted of 4 (as far as I can see) over 20 first team signed players, plus Laing who, as far as I can ascertain, is signed to the first team, (going by the Courier blurb when he signed) earning appropriate wages and Cooper who has been benched and has played for the first team, even if ICT may not yet have upped his wages. Devine and Roberts are imports from England,..so of the players in the under 20 team....only Skinner, Watson and Ferguson are homegrown ICT youth players...and the only ones, (apart from Devine who has been here ten minutes) with no first team experience. Heck that bloke with the funny name we don't appear to have signed got more games for the under-20s than most of our own youth players. So excuse me if I am being logical here....but was the whole idea of the under 20 set up not to give a cross between allowing up to four over 20 (first team ) players (not an obligatory four over 20s) to get match practice after injury etc and the eligible players in the youth system to get accustomed to playing against older, more experienced players, given the lack of a proper reserve league and nothing but the under-20s at a level above the under-17s? If what ICT is producing is a reserve team-lite...what do the other seven of the signed under 20s do..twiddle their thumbs every week, because there is nowhere for them to get a competitive game? If we are so hard up for cash....why bother with an expensive youth system at all, when we can do as we have been doing over the last couple or so seasons, taking kids from other clubs, not playing those we have been raising from the age of nine or ten and just punting them at the end of the season? Why are we paying out for what appears to be crap coaches raising players the ICT management appears to think are crap?

Only since 1999,. before that Scotland got what a Westminster Government decided it was getting.

You also spelt problim wrong As somene born, brought up and schooled in the days when Scottish education was just about the best in the world ( which it hasn't been for decades due to UK government interference) I would kinda appreciate a link to the post where Alex MacLeod spelt problem wrong. It is blatantly obvious where you have spelled it wrong,.....because....believe me.....problim ain' t accepted English uage.

You also forgot the comma, which should have been inserted between earlier and it, in.... Going back to what I said earlier it has to look professional so the VOLUNTEER'S must have a good grasp of grammar.)? That's assuming the previous post is referring to the fact that the apostrophe before the S in VOLUNTEER'S should have been after the S.

Drew 1-1 against Celtic today. Celtic's match report only mentions Celtic players, so no idea who scored or the ICT team

But, way I see it is the reasons he gave for staying are exactly the same reasons he COULD have used for turning them down flat and not entertaining them in the first place. Sure, he was entitled to listen to what they had to say...but why do that if he WOULDN'T have gone if the set-up at Barnsley was one he could work within? See, that's what I can't quite understand....the fact that he pondered and came up with the same reason for his decision to stay as he could so easily have done if he decided to refuse to talk at all...and everybody is so chuffed...although, in the end, his decision was not based on what he said in the Club hand-out....because he KNEW that was the situation with ICT BEFORE the talks...so what he said in the Club news thingie wasn't the reason he didn't go, just something produced to appease the fans, imo. And it appears to have worked spectacularly! Loyalty is not staying where you are because all the elements in another offer didn't work for you..loyalty is not applying for/considering seriously/ talking terms other jobs in the first place. You do know how football clubs operate, don't you? It's not a normal job and I for one appreciate having a manager who want's to do the best he can. At the moment he's here and successful, if he wasn't successful where would your loyalties lie? With the manager? The club? Please go and have a lie down, it'll all look a lot better in the morning. Yep......they rely on the greed/ambition of football managers who think the grass is always greener elsewhere. That doesn't mean we have to like it...or that we should be drooling because someone who would have moved on, if the conditions had worked out for him, didn't.....because he couldn't manage to work it! The only difference between a normal job and being a football manager is that , in a normal job, the punter looking to move on, or the head-hunter looking to snag him/her, doesn't usually proclaim it to the press and have his/her employers, underlings etc spending days obsessing/worrying about whether he/she will stay or go. Football is a normal job........for players for other staff and for management, both on the admin and football side. They have contracts, get wages and there are expectations as to performance.....what is not normal with that? The fact that footballers and football managers seem to be under the impression that they are different doesn't mean they are.......just that they think they are......and fans stroke their egos to confirm it for them. Nobody forced any of them to become football managers/players etc.......they just thought they were good at it and could make a lot of money in a short career..and good luck to them with that...but let's stop pretending that the vast majority of them have any loyalty to any employer who can't meet their wage/ambition aspirations..or that any employer has any loyalty to them. When he wasn't what ICT fans thought successful, and he was suffering innumerable "Butcher Out" threads on here, I defended him.....and will do so again if/when appropriate. The fact that I don't much Iike some of the way he does things doesn't mean I don't think he has done well for ICT and I don't for a second think he won't give of his best as long as he is here......but I do find the sycophancy on this thread a shade hard to take because, whatever his reasons for staying..they were not the reasons he gave on the Club blurb......because those reasons were exactly the situation which pertained before Barnsley came knocking at the door.....and didn't stop him checking out the shade of the grass elsewhere. People who support teams don't have to love.....or even like, everybody involved in the set-up. A football team is a whole entity, not a lot of individuals.....and it is more than possible to be hacked off with the performance/attitude etc of individuals within the team from directors/management down, while still supporting the team. If that wasn't the case, this would be a very quiet forum.

But, way I see it is the reasons he gave for staying are exactly the same reasons he COULD have used for turning them down flat and not entertaining them in the first place. Sure, he was entitled to listen to what they had to say...but why do that if he WOULDN'T have gone if the set-up at Barnsley was one he could work within? See, that's what I can't quite understand....the fact that he pondered and came up with the same reason for his decision to stay as he could so easily have done if he decided to refuse to talk at all...and everybody is so chuffed...although, in the end, his decision was not based on what he said in the Club hand-out....because he KNEW that was the situation with ICT BEFORE the talks...so what he said in the Club news thingie wasn't the reason he didn't go, just something produced to appease the fans, imo. And it appears to have worked spectacularly! Loyalty is not staying where you are because all the elements in another offer didn't work for you..loyalty is not applying for/considering seriously/ talking terms other jobs in the first place. Not Now CATO.PS RE POST 582, CLICK ON THE ICON NEXT TO THE RUBBER, 'BBCODE MODE' IF YOU ARE HAVING PROBLEMS ADDING BOLD TO YOUR CAPITAL LETTERS CATO Not being a Pink Panther fan......I actually had to google that! BTW....cheers for the heads up re the sorting out of posting! Chuffed that all posting options are no longer greyed out for me! Didn't think to look past the fact that I couldn't click on anything...just assumed that windows 7, which is bogging, but not an optional extra on this laptop...and the latest incarnation of Firefox..which is just as bogging....but was the penalty I had to pay for forgetting to unclick all upgrade automatically boxes, had combined nastily to produce something basically unuseable! (I have to use Opera to read my hotmail!)

Only benefit of that set up is that Sevco are threatening to leave Scottish fitba if it goes ahead, (if they can find any other league in the world that wants them!)

But, way I see it is the reasons he gave for staying are exactly the same reasons he COULD have used for turning them down flat and not entertaining them in the first place. Sure, he was entitled to listen to what they had to say...but why do that if he WOULDN'T have gone if the set-up at Barnsley was one he could work within? See, that's what I can't quite understand....the fact that he pondered and came up with the same reason for his decision to stay as he could so easily have done if he decided to refuse to talk at all...and everybody is so chuffed...although, in the end, his decision was not based on what he said in the Club hand-out....because he KNEW that was the situation with ICT BEFORE the talks...so what he said in the Club news thingie wasn't the reason he didn't go, just something produced to appease the fans, imo. And it appears to have worked spectacularly! Loyalty is not staying where you are because all the elements in another offer didn't work for you..loyalty is not applying for/considering seriously/ talking terms other jobs in the first place.

Do have to wonder at all the whooping and clapping on this thread by folk who are chuffed he is staying FOR THE MOMENT...and who have never wondered why he put us, and the Barnsley crowd through this in the first place. Which part of "We have been going extremely well to be second in the SPL, still in the Scottish Cup and with a League Cup semi final to look forward to later this month. "I have also brought people to this club and, on reflection, feel that I should remain with them to try and continue the good work.My focus is now firmly on that." did he NOT know before he decided to talk to Barnsley? Still seems to me that he'd be off if Mo, and maybe Steve Marsella, would have gone with him.

Now having officially left Happy Clapper mode.......(and still not having worked out why my browser doesn't work on here so still no bolding or italics, but maybe some capital letter "shouting") I rather like Terry...he is an ace media PR hack with a decent back-up system..but I have never been 100% convinced of his personal abilities.....which is why I have always been a happy clapper for the team with Terry as the very effective figurehead...he makes ICT sound good....but over this last couple of seasons I have been becoming less enthusiastic, and, I admit it, because he has continually given kids from English clubs preference over our own kids.....before giving our own kids a chance. I wonder if his decision re Barnsley was because his MANAGEMENT team wasn't prepared to shift, not because HE wasn't? Without what he considers the right management team, imo, he is as much real use, as an effective football manager, as a chocolate teapot on a hot stove would be an effective method of producing pourable tea? And I think he knows that. A good football manager with CONFIDENCE IN HIS ABILITIES doesn't NEED an IRREPLACEABLE 2ic,(or scout). A good football manager can FIND a good 2ic (or scout)...if he was a decent manager in his own right in the first place. His management team would be a backup and not an essential. (Alex Ferguson has had at least seven different 2ics at Man U(I think) and the one he took with him, initially and eventually, from Aberdeen only lasted five years at Man U..but he found replacements for him over the years...some worked....some didn't.....that is life...football...and the luxury of having someone else to blame and sack because you fecked up with signings, tactics etc!) Terry and Mo between them, imo, make a bloody good whole, or they have in Scotland, which is the only place they have joined up to date,..and Marsella as scout at ICT is the icing on the cake(even if I, personally,as a Scot first and a football supporter second, don't like his focus on introducing kids who kick our homegrown players, who have been with us, and trained and nurtured by us since they were 9 years old, into touch...and into the Highland League/3rd division or out of football altogether.) Have to say his acceptance of reality speech on the Club News link reads more like something he should have considered BEFORE today, and should have meant him dunting Barnsley from their first approach, because the fact that ICT was polite enough to allow Barnsley to talk..DOESN'T mean Terry was OBLIGED to be polite enough to listen to them. Given Terry knew, for example, that ICT was in the process of signing this Devine laddie, on the recommendation of Marsella and the backing of Terry, and who was really only coming because of Terry...and Terry was the reason just about every other ICT player over the last season or so signed....he decided not only to feck off the ICT committee , the fans, but also the players with this ego fecking massaging! Maybe I'm weird....but if I was offered a job I knew didn't really want because I was happy where I was, I'd just say "NO...BUGGER OFF" immediately. I wouldn't be entering discussions to see what they were offering, in the certain knowledge that it would, if nothing else, produce uncertainty epitomised in threads like this....and I also wouldn't want the people offering the job to be placed in the situation of having to say they had failed.(in this case yet again). That signals, to me, that if a good offer turns up, between now and the end of Terry's contract, he may well go, if he can get Mo to tag along, without considering anything but his own ambitions.

Excuse the shouting...my browser isn't letting me doing bolding or italics when posting on here...so capitals are my only option atm. As a previous Butcher erse-licking happy-clapper...who always made excuses...I do logical! Seems to me if he isn't interested......WHY is he talking to other clubs AT ALL? HOW hard is it to say "feck off, I'm not interested" to clubs nosing about? If you do "polite" then that deliberately produces all the speculation from the media and also threads like this..and what good does that do anybody but Terry? It certainly doesn't help ICT being stuck in the same kind of uncertainty by Terry, as we were with Rooney, Hayes, and appear to be now with Andrew Shinnie. The man is, imo, looking for an out while he is flying high......just in case he sinks and burns in the second half of this season and nobody will want him. He is no different to any player who grabs the money while they can....bar the fact that Terry doesn't NEED the money, but would rather "almost" achieve something....as he has here this season...than chance failure.....so the best way of never HAVING to fail is to duck out when you fear it might all go downhill from here. He appears to have no confidence in his ability, his managerial team's ability or his chosen players ability......or he is as money grubbing as any banker!

Did anyone really think if he moved on, he wouldn't be taking the people who have made him what he is? He could find player replacements to do a turn at Barnsley..but would find it much harder to replace Mo...and Steve Marsella, if it comes to that....and without them...what would he have achieved at ICT....maybe as much as he achieved everywhere else without either of them?

Who? Me? Why?

Precisely.... "Tinks" is also a name for travelling folks, so is that word to be treated in the same way? What about farmers? Are teams from the South allowed to poke fun at us for being kilt wearing Highlanders?...even if we are not? If I remember rightly...and not so long ago, a punter in Caithness was prosecuted for calling someone a tink in the street! (No idea if the person "denigrated" was a tink or not,or just offended because someone thought they were, btw!)...so I guess it is.....but in the end, do the plods (is that not also an offensive term nowadays?) not need actual punter complaints to do the officious bit and charge folks, unless they were present and heard the offending words themselves and decided to do "jobsworth"....or club stewards decide to do reporting? Wonder how the Dundee Supporters (and others) get off with calling DU fans Arabs? Maybe because no Arabs give a toss, or maybe the Arabs just don't do PC to the level of complete and utter irrationality we white punters do...and are just happy that the Dundee supporters are not inciting religious/racial hatred against them which may mean they get beaten up by white punters? The problem is not the football chants really, imo......the problem is in the fragile flowers who spend their lives waiting and listening for people to rain, in their opinion, on their sunny parade...just so they can whine/complain...or even better, get others into trouble about it! Nothing wrong with chants meant as banter (and I don't include Rangers/Celtic chants in the banter stakes)...but how many fitba games in Scotland result in pitched battles outside the ground anyway......battles directly influenced by the chanting?

My immediate reaction on reading it was how does he/she define "thinking" as in "the thinking fan's football website". Doesn't thinking presuppose the ability to think outside the small restricted/biased box in which you live most of your life? Have to say to Charles Bannerman, because I have a cannie or two taken, and my keyboard fingers aren't quite under my control.....when you read the likes of that...why would that not engender a smidgeon of anglophobia against the person who wrote it...he/she certainly seems condescending enough to warrant it.

Own fault. You could get rid of the Microshit system and switch to Linux. Or buy a Mac. Been seriously thinking about it for a while...before my problems on here....not the Mac, though...I ain't Croesus...but a change of OS on one computer at least. Working at shifting essential stuff from the somewhat full 500GB desktop hard drive to the laptop 750GB one and keeping the essential stuff in belt and braces mode on my 500GB external drive (but what IS essential when you can't sodding remember why you downloaded it in the first place and if you have ever used it). If the Dee mate's wife, a Linux aficionado) will hold my hand as I empty my hard drive, I may well be persuaded to go the Linux route. I have hated with a passion every "new" improved" version of Windoze since Windows 98..because that was the last time I had control of my own computer. Every upgrade since by Microsoft has given them control of just about everything but re-formatting and deleting them (I think/hope).

A quick word to Scotty and this forum's powers that be.........I can't do anything useful bar read if I am not using IE.......and I fecking hate, loathe and abhor IE (and Microsoft, tbh) with a passion I will not swear about here at the level I could. Running windows 7 on this laptop, everything upgradable upgraded (however much it gars me grue to do what Microsoft decides I must)....but also having problems on my desktop, running XP and using Firefox. and no upgrading. Once upon a time, and not that long ago, my preferred browser worked on the laptop and the desktop with no problems........why don't they now? It has taken me two hours, more or less, to actually get the quote facility working.......and it only works for me in sodding IE! Whine over...back to the thread.... My Dee supporting mate and I were discussing this an hour or so ago..and for the first time in a long time, we actually agreed. (Not certain he would approve of how I am going to put it.....but he ain't a member here and I am.......so sucks to him!) We kinda wondered why the SFA and, to be fair, so many punters, are so fixated on appointing a manager who could best be described as a department store shopper with no limit as to spending, as opposed to a make do and mender. Way I see it is that I could definitely produce an absolutely fantastic house, provided I didn't have to skimp and save....at least one which would be he envy of every visitor who knew the cost of everything and the value of nothing......but, being kinda knacky in the crafty stakes, I could just as easily produce a fantastic house by rejiging what I have, raiding skips.making the best of what is available etc. And maybe I am more of a pessimist than an optimist, but what a Scotland manager has to be able to do is make the best of what is available..because he knows he doesn't have a wallet he can open to replace/add to players...and I'm not convinced that a lot of the big names proposed are capable of working with what they have but are certainly good at working with what they can buy. And I I(and my Dee mate) agree with Ten4 re Billy Stark....best man for the job in the short term, at the very least...and the longer term will depend, as all Scotland jobs do, on results.l Lets get out of the "celebrity" mindset, which has elevated Katie Price to the level of boaking, and stop thinking that because football managers did well when their teams were full of the best from any country in the world, and they could buy and sell to replace those who didn't meet standards that makes them good managers and not just lucky buggers who could afford to buy success.....which may well have come despite their day to day input.

Full time 1-5

Now 1-2

ICT u-20s 2 -0 down at half time. ICT team (off DUFC facebook) Esson, Skinner, Watson, Cooper, Murphy, Laing, Morrison, Polworth, Oswell, Pepper, Sutherland

Bugger with that is that we don't give home-grown youngsters a place on the bench at least, even at u20 or u19 level, as far as I know, if we ever got told the squads..which we don't......the crap internet presence we had, before we got "bigger and better" and landed here, at least acknowledged that we had squads other than the first team one...this new set up doesn't...if you are not in the "squad list" , which appears to mean having warmed the bench at some stage, even if you never actually play you just don't exist as far as ICT is concerned. Are we destined to be a club which brings on the youngsters for the likes of Arsenal and ignores our own kids? Is ICT destined to be a nursery for the English and Irish leagues and not for ourselves. Are we happy about that? If a large proportion of our kids are so abysmal, why are they here at all.....why are we forking out to have a youth system at all? Have to say I've been very gradually been becoming less of a happy clapper, because over the last couple of seasons, I'm getting more inclined to believe that Butcher thinks if you don't play for an English team at any level, you are simply not worth considering. ICT is not just about the 1st team squad winning matches, however much that makes supporters feel justified in supporting, but should have some element of bringing up the future possibilities, .because if we are employing people who appear, according to Butcher, to be producing kids who are not capable of even sitting on the bench........why are we paying their wages at all?