DoofersDad

There's just no pleasing some folk. I would have thought she would have been delighted because said style would have allowed her to watch MOTD as well.

Its an interesting survey to look at. Over the years there has been a lot of talk on here about the price of watching ICT with a number of folk urging a drop in prices to get more punters in and saying that high prices are one of the factors causing poor crowds. But this survey shows that it is cheaper to watch football here than just about anywhere. We are an SPL side and yet it is cheaper to watch football here than at some of the English conference grounds. Having said that, I'm not sure what conclusions we can draw from that. Inverness is a relatively affluent area and one conclusion might be that a majority of the paying customers could afford a significant increase in prices which in turn might allow us to retain better players. The fact is that prices in England are generally significantly higher and the size of the crowds is proprotionately higher as well. Maybe we just have to accept the economic truth that if we want a higher standard of football, we are simply going to have to pay more to see it. In the meantime, the club should make full use of the survey to attract new customers by pressing the fact that a day out at TCS is actually very good value for money.

With or without the horses ? The idea of the cubans boxing whilst wearing the dressage clobber and the dressage team clad only in a pair of boxing shorts whilst bouncing around on their mounts is not without appeal.

Excuse me as an Englishman butting in on your national grief but I do wonder why there is this sudden desparate rush to replace Levein. Just a few games ago he was the new white hope and folk were excited by his appointment. I don't think his approach to international management has changed that much since then. So if Levein jumps or is pushed in the near future what does that achieve? Will Strachan, McLeish or the Moderator of the Church of Scotland turn things round so that Scotland qualify? No, they won't! Even if Scotland were to win their remaining matches that would not necessarily see them qualifying. Scotland can get a maximum of 20 points and Belgium and Croatia only need another 10 points from 6 games to equal that. The SFA now need to look to 2016 and beyond and that is a long way away. Levein's appointment and others before his seem to have gone pear shaped in no time at all. So what the SFA need to do is to take a long hard look at what they were aiming for with recent appointments, analyse why things went wrong, consider what they need to do differently in the future and then identify the qualities they will be looking for in a manager to deliver the future strategy. They'll not be able to do that in a week. In the meantime they should be giving Levein full support and telling him that he will not be dismissed at least until some defined point in the future at the earliest - the point at which it is mathematically impossible for Scotland to qualify, for example. After all, Levein has been working with the SFA, players and coaching staff and has as good a chance of getting some decent results from a reasonable squad as any other manager has. It was, after all, the SFA who appointed Levein just a short while ago and he is still the same guy now as he was then. If they rush to get rid of him and rush to get someone else in without giving proper thought to what is required, they will simply get it wrong again. If the SFA axe him now, it will say far more about the ineptness of the SFA than about Levein.

Are the babies getting a vote as well? I thought it was just the 16 and 17 year olds the vote was being extended to.

So that'll be another insight into to the quality of debate we can expect from the Yes side then? Charles, in your previous post you said "I suppose the next thing will be people painting their faces blue before chapping at doors, kissing babies and dishing out leaflets with photos of Alex Salmond". Is that another insight into the quality of debate we can expect from the No side?

Hark! I think I hear the sound of a fat lady gargling.

Don't worry. Sweden 4 - 0 down away to Germany and have come back to draw!

The fat lady ain't even warmimg up yet. Of course it is disappointing that Scotland lost a match they should have won but if they beat Belgium and Wales beat Croatia then Scotland will only be 2 points off the top. They could be top of the group at the half way point. With a bit of luck and the team gelling better together there is no reason why they couldn't still qualify comfortably. Any side is capable of beating any other in this group and there's still 7 matches to play! With an ex ICT player in the midfield tomorrow instead of the unpleasant Brown, I fully expect a better performance and for Belgium to under-perform under the pressure of being hot favourites. It's far too early to talk about a new manager .... ...another 24 hours should be about right.

Is it actually as simple as that? It might be but do we really know? I think there is a lot of the detail that needs to be discussed and agreed as fact by both sides so that the implications of a "yes" vote can be clearly understood. I know it is agreed SNP policy that in an independent Scotland armed forces would be operated jointly with the remains of the UK. At the moment the UK is a member of NATO but would an independent Scotland automatically have membership and if not, would NATO accept the UK as a member sharing its armed forces with a non NATO member. Would a future Scottish or UK Government have the legal power to decide that they no longer wanted a joint arrangement? And how would any future shared arrangement actually work? Would Scotland and the UK be equal partners and if so, who actually will make the decision when the partners don't agree, Or would Scotland be subservient to its bigger neighbour with the result that those with the power to decide military policy for our armed forces would have absolutely no democratic accountability to the Scottish people? I'm not saying this to argue either for or against independence. All I'm saying is that it is important that the potential constitutional and operational complexities are identified and that the politicians can agree as much as possible on the facts. This is where we also need high quality journalism to explore the issues and come to evidence based conclusions. We might then be able to have informed debates about the pros and cons of the implications. I live in hope, but what I expect we will get is ill informed diatribe based on strongly held prejudices. One thing I am fairly sure about though is that the debate will be able to go ahead without the distraction of how the Scottish football team is going to fare in Brazil in 2014.

It may be that a crowd will be smaller when a match is televised but if what is on show is an exciting match, that should help to encourage folk to attend the matches when ICT are not being televised.

That little taster of a BBC rugby commentary sounded about as exciting as an episode of the Archers.

I would rather there was not a pipe band, but given that the club invited them in it is a touch rude, to say the least, to then play loud music over the tannoy drowning them out.

It's laughable when you compare that to what our lads went into the book for on Friday.

Rangers lose to bottom of the table Stirling :rotflmao:

There is apparently a rule that I was not aware of. Provided you are are within 10 feet of the referee and are wearing a red shirt, you can forcibly push an opposing player out of the way just before the ball reaches you.

Shinnie is saying to the County supporters:- "Now you know why we let them go!"

Feelings before the match are above. Feelings after the match? Can you hear the County sing? :ictscarf:

I enjoyed that! After the early pressure and going 2 - 0 up it could easily have been a rout. Doran should have made it 3 - 0 just before half time. But at 2 - 0 we were saying at half time that an early County goal in the 2nd half and it could get very tight and so it turned out following one of several very strange refereeing decisions. To be fair to County they then played pretty well for 30 minutes before we came back strongly and Doran made amends with a brilliant low volley. No particular stand outs for me. Roberts doesn't look fully fit and was scared of Tokely but he did show touches of real class. Foran took an early knock and struggled a bit after that. A Shinnie took his goal well enough but apart from that didn't particularly impress. Mention too for Reguero who looked very capable in goals, Pass marks for everyone else with Warren and Meekings becoming a solid partnership at the back. But for me MOTM was Doran who worked really hard, caused a lot of panic in the defense and scored a great goal to settle my anxiety. Thought Pepper and Morrison did really well when they came on and turned the game back in our favour. Well done section E. Helped create a great atmosphere. One of the worst refereeing performances I have ever seen. It would be intersting to hear what Terry would have said had we lost. Only 3 points off the top :ictscarf:

Murrayfield? Fantastic stadium - it would be good to have a proper sport played there.

Nobody is mentioning the return of Munro and Tokely! My feelings are that I am wondering what kind of a reception they are going to get. Both players have been fantastic servants to this club and would have stayed had the manager wanted them and I think they deserve to get a great reception from the home fans. I will despair if the usual idiots boo them. Not just because it is the last thing those two deserve, but booing simply fires players up to play that bit better. We need to make Grant and Ross feel so welcome that they'll be too embarrased to play well As for the game itself, I am really looking forward to it. I am naturally a bit apprehensive but am actually fairly confident we will win. To be honest, a few weeks ago I was thinking we would really struggle in the first Derby and would be clear underdogs. But they are beggining to be exposed at the back whilst we are getting better. I guess it comes down to which team turns up on the day. From today's P&J it sounds as though Terry might start with OTJ now that he is back from suspension. Personally I think the 11 who started against Dundee Utd deserve to start.

It's next year it closes for commonwealth games preparations. We just need to make the most of the opportunities this season!

Will we be favourites as the SPL team? Thinking back to the start of our brief history, it actually seems quite extraordinary that we could be going to play at Ibrox against Rangers and be considered favourites! It is a reflection of how the respective Boards have managed the two clubs and how far we have come in that time. Win or lose, it is something we should be proud of but it is a match which we should have every chance of winning.

Well, that clarifies that, then.