DoofersDad

Great team performance. Solid performances from the regular starters and really important contributions from MacKay in goal, Duffy and Chalmers. What is good to see is how we are getting men forward with a lot more movement up front allowing more threatening through balls to be played. We were unfortunate not to have been in the lead at half time and had the chances to be out of sight. Dunfermline were disappointing and demonstrated why they will only get out of the Championship at the wrong end with Yogi is in charge. In the 1st half they played some neat and tidy possession football in their own half, but when they came up against our press, they would either pass the ball back in the time honoured Yogi way or lose possession. For all the possession they had, they rarely posed any kind of threat. Yet after we scored, they suddenly started playing proper football and for a short period looked very threatening indeed. It required a great save from MacKay and some backs to the wall defending to keep them out. Once we got our second, the fight went out of them and the cracks in their team spirit began to show. Defensively, Dunfermline were poor and seemed overly focussed on keeping their shape rather than tracking our runners. I hope they are looking forward to their derbies with Kelty next season.

HT. 1-1 FT. 3-2 ICT. Sutherland Opps Donaldson Crowd 2311

There's certainly no easy games in this division. On paper, we might be seen to have the easiest run in, but all of the teams in the bottom 5 are fighting for survival and will put the kind of effort in that Dunfermline showed tonight. Even Morton in 6th place are only 6 points clear of the relegation play-off place. We just have to be up for it every game.

I would be interested to know what our points per game is when we wear the pink kit compared with other away kits in recent years. It seems to me we should play in pink every week.

HT. 0-1 FT. 1-2 ICT. Billy Mckay Opp. Connolly Crowd. 1651 Joker

The Board of the Supporters Trust met last week. I have stepped down as chair with Jennifer Aitchison taking over. Jen is well qualified to take on the role as she has recently had a term of office on the Board of Supporters Direct Scotland. She will continue to act as Secretary meantime. Laura Grant continues with a dual remit of Treasurer and Vice-Chair, Alison McInnes is now Membership Secretary and John West is taking on a new role as Media officer. It has been a challenging couple of years for the Board, but with some sort of normality returning, we are determined that the Supporters Trust should have more of an impact both in making the fans' voices heard and in providing meaningful support to the club. With this in mind, we have developed a number of goals to work towards. These are as follows. Short Term Goals – To be completed by AGM December 2022 Double membership year on year by AGM. Establish a formally constituted fundraising working group. Establish regular liaison meetings with the Club's Supporter Liaison Officer to develop a clear communication route between representatives of the Club and supporters. Hold open meetings to introduce the Trust to non-members, to better understand fans’ expectations of the Trust and to raise the profile of the Trust. Co-opt people onto the Board to better represent the wider demographic of our support. Medium Term Goals – To be completed by AGM December 2023 Develop a programme of regular social/fundraising events. Participate in a significant fundraising initiative in conjunction with the Club. Establish a regular visible presence at the ground on matchdays to provide help and advice, and to offer a channel for supporters to provide feedback on the matchday experience. Carry out surveys amongst Trust members to provide the Club with representative feedback of the supporters' views on issues of interest. Establish a youth section to work on issues relevant to a group that represents the future of the club's support Long Term Goals – No specific target date To have membership numbers in excess of the number of season ticket holders in order to be seen as truly representative of the fan base. To have a democratically elected fans' representative on the Club Board. The plan is to review these goals annually and submit them in a resolution for approval by members at the AGM. This is important. The Board’s role is to represent the interests of the fans and therefore our goals need to reflect the priorities of those we represent. We will be actively seeking the views of members on this issue in due course and are currently exploring a mechanism of doing so via our website. We hope these are goals you can support. But we are just a small group of volunteers and we will not achieve these goals without the active support of our fellow ICT supporters. You can help us achieve these goals by joining the Trust here. Thank you for your support. There is some exciting activity going on behind the scenes and you can expect more regular updates in future.

It's great to get a win at last. The margin of victory probably flattered us but hopefully the win will give us a bit more confidence to push on. Arbroath are where they are in the league on merit, but yesterday I thought they played as well as they were allowed to play. We gave them little time on the ball and forced them into mistakes. This clearly rattled them along with us (for once) being beneficiaries of a very erratic refereeing performance. I thought the effort from the whole team was excellent, with Sutherland being outstanding and Devine having a commanding performance at the back. It was good to see Doran have as good a game as he's had for some time and it was noticeable how he was being much more positive than of late. That is reflected in the team as a whole in that we are looking to get players forward. The 2nd goals was a thing of beauty and shows what we are capable of when we play with a bit more boldness and take a few risks. For all the positives, it must be said that we didn't actually create many chances. There is still too much of the long high ball to small strikers who are being jostled for position by big defenders. If we are going to go on a run we absolutely must maintain the level of intensity we showed yesterday. There is not a lot of difference between the teams in this division and any team can beat any other on their day. If players are not up for it on the day, they will lose. But keep the intensity, be bold and who knows, we just could be back in the top flight next season.

HT. 3-1 FT. 5-2 ICT. Billy Mckay Opp. Hamilton Crowd 1902

There were 5 matches in the Highland League last night. The combined scores were Home teams 0 Away teams 25. I thought playing at home was meant to be an advantage!

The current number is 115. As it happens, the Trust Board is meeting tonight. There will be other bits of information to update folk on after the information has been sent to members.

When Graham Rae was Chairman he always had a brief column in the digital matchday programme which was emailed to ST holders. I rather liked that and saw it as a good medium for communication. It was not only issues around the forthcoming game, but about the club in general and various upcoming events. This stopped when Graham stepped down. It would be an easy thing to reinstate and, with a bit of imagination, widen it out to include other items of interest e.g interviews of previous players, anecdotes from fans about previous games. It could be a good way of promoting a sense of community as well as keeping the club's most loyal supporters informed.

Next game is at home to Arbroath and we start as underdogs. Who would have thought we would ever be saying that a few years ago. Having said that though, we are still in a decent position for the play-offs and promotion to the top flight remains a possibility. Raith seem to be going through a very bad patch and clearly have been impacted by other issues, and we should have enough points in the bag to hold off the chasing pack even with out any dramatic improvement. We've yet to lose a league game this season by more than a single goal. This is a tight division and most games are decided by fine margins. The luck went with us in the early games and our league position rather flattered us. More recently things have not gone our way and we have not been able to find a way to win despite having decent possession and a good number of attempts at goal. Therein lies our problem - our shooting has often been woeful and it certainly was yesterday. I fancy our fortunes will change next week. Our first ever league match was, of course, home against Arbroath when we won 5-2. I predict a repeat of that score line with a hat-trick from Billy Mckay. I'd better stop now - there's men with white coats at the door!

HT. 1-0 FT. 2-0 ICT. Deas Opp Graham Crowd 2312

Fifa's decision is pathetic. It's a bit like saying it is fine for Russian tanks to roll into Ukraine as long as they don't show any Russian flags. Great idea about the blue and yellow saltire, Scotty!

Russia due to play Poland at the end of March too. That's not going to happen either. First action from Fifa should be to kick the Russians out of the competition. The Russian people need to feel the world's anger and disgust at the actions of their power crazed leader.

HT. 1-0 FT 2-1 ICT. Mckay Opp. Kennedy Crowd. 1019

Yes, essentially that is true. The relationship between the Club and the Trust should be one of respectful cooperation to the mutual benefit of Club and Supporters alike. The Trust is striving to re-establish that kind of relationship and trying to avoid an adversarial position. The Trust exists to represent the interests and views of the supporters, but it is also there to help the club and that is what we are trying to do. At this stage, as Chair of the Trust, I don't think it would be particularly helpful to go into the detail. What I would say just now though, is that the credibility of the Trust requires it to be representative. Whilst our membership has seen a healthy improvement in the last year, it is still only about 10% of the number of season ticket holders. If people are concerned about the poor communication from the club, then I would urge people to join the Trust and help the Trust grow into an effective and representative channel for the fans' concerns to be both heard and acted upon. As a collective, united voice we can be so much stronger than separate voices venting their frustrations on social media or simply fuming in silence over the lack of communication. As supporters of the club, we can also do so much more to raise money for the club and support it in other ways. It is not just new members the Trust needs, it is active members too. We are in the process of setting up a fund-raising committee with a view to raising funds for initiatives at the club and will be looking for folk to help with that. We are also short of members on the Trust Board and would love for some new blood to bring in some more energy and ideas to help raise the Trust's profile. Remember, the Supporters Trust can't effectively support the supporters if the supporters don't support the Trust. Membership is just £5 a year (£1 for U16s ) and folk can join here.

Duku scored for Havant and Waterlooville

HT. 1-1 FT 2-2 ICT. Samuels Opp. Ashford Crowd. 1772

Great picture of our last gasp equaliser on the BBC website. Whilst it was good we got the goal, it is a shame the referee couldn't also have awarded 2 penalties for the blatant fouls being committed by the Partick defence.

HT. 1-1 FT. 1-3 ICT. Samuels Opp. Graham Crowd. 1751 Yellow. McKenna

I thought we started quite brightly with the 3 new signings on the pitch all looking to get forward and not being afraid to take defenders on. Unfortunately, their efforts never came to much and nothing seemed to find its way to Mckay who looked increasingly frustrated as the game wore on. Perhaps that is in part due to their lack of familiarity with their new team mates, but what certainly didn't help them was the lack of ambition from the established members of the squad. In his post match interview Dodds said "We need to get back to what we are good at and where we were at the start of the season." That's easy to say, but the reality is not so straightforward. We weren't actually that good at the start of the season. We had a great start because we were tight at the back and things went our way. We are currently missing Devine, and Allardice is out for the rest of the season. Allardice is a big miss. I have said before that I think Welsh is far more effective playing alongside Allardice and the 2 of them playing in front of the back 4 made us a very solid defensive unit. You don't get that defensive solidity back by signing 4 forward players in the transfer window. It is inevitable that we are going concede a few goals, so in order to get back on track for promotion we are going to have to score more at the other end. That means we have to be more adventurous and take a few more risks going forward. It means we have to play much more football on the deck. It means we need more movement in and around the box to give defenders decisions to make. If we don't manage to gain promotion or even a play-off spot, than can we not at least try to play attractive football in the attempt?

HT. 0-1 FT. 1-2 ICT Samuels Opp. Ugwu Crowd. 1869

Are you sure that's the same Jordon White who used to play for us? On the commentary this afternoon they said "on too many occasions now for Rangers, Jordon White has been able to win a high ball with ease".

Doofers Dad HT. 1-0 FT. 2-0 ICT. Pearson Opp. Burke Crowd 4311 Doofer HT. 0-1 FT. 1-3 ICT. Pearson Opp. Mackay Crowd. 4198