DoofersDad

Perhaps not surprising news, but certainly very disappointing and worrying news. It looks like those Directors past and present and our former CEO remain determined to squeeze every last penny out of the club that they are responsible for getting into this mess in the first place. Let's just hope that as disaster looms, one or more of them shows some level of contrition and decency to minimise the damage they have caused. Certainly don't expect all of them to.

Charlie Christie returning to his regular Courier article had this to say - "In my role as interim chief executive these past few weeks I have realised that the model the club has been running for quite some time is simply not sustainable – and certainly not in Scottish League One. The drop-off in SPFL league fees alone has been eye-opening and again displays the huge disparity between each level in our game north of the border. Some of the decision making at the club in recent seasons has certainly added to the difficulties we currently find ourselves in and, whilst most people associated with the club recognise the need for new and innovative revenue sources, I cannot understand the spending of large sums of money before any of this revenue has come to fruition. That is not how well-run football clubs conduct their business and is not how ICT should be run going forward if we are to prosper once again." With both Christie and Savage being so critical of the decision making in recent seasons, it is a little difficult to understand why so many of the Board who were responsible for making those decisions are still there.

We are are pretty poor side at the moment. We have been solid enough at the back but that is in the context of there being no side in the division which has anything like a potent attack to test us. When we are in possession, we are slow to move the ball forward. We do sometimes keep the ball quite well in tight situations, but the situation is usually tight because we have dwelt on the ball and allowed the opposition to regroup. We find it hard to find a telling ball in the final third for the same reason. DF talks about having decided to play a long ball game today. Whether that was to minimise the chance of gifting a goal at the back or to get the ball forward quicker, I don't know. What I do know is that the long ball option was ineffective because it was usually an aimless hoof and virtually every ball was easily won by a defender who was 6" taller than any of our forwards. Most of our attacks came down the right with Longstaff sometimes showing some considerable skill but then failing to get an effective delivery into the box. Too often he seemed to have beaten the defender only to then check back and meekly lay the ball off to someone else. If he can't cross the ball with his right foot, he should be played down the left. He did get the ball into good positions on 3 or 4 occasions but never found anyone who could use it effectively. Players are clearly lacking confidence knowing how important it is to start finding the net and knowing they aren't going to get many chances. When the chances came, they either hesitated and the chance was lost or snatched at it and fluffed the shot. With our attacks coming mostly down the right side, there was often a lot of space down the left which we failed to exploit. Late in the game, Nolan (I think) was in acres of space on the left but his teammates ignored him. A ball played for him to run onto would have had him behind the defence. We need to be more aware of these opportunities and being a full time team, we should better placed to drill this into the players in training. We should also use our training to practice free kicks. We had 3 or 4 today is reasonable positions and totally wasted them. On a positive note, I don't see any lack of effort from the team. With better tactics and the development of a bit more confidence, I think we have a squad well capable of challenging at the right end of the table. And today's highlight was clearly the brilliant penalty save by Dibaga. It looked like a very soft penalty and justice was done.

You obviously had a more exciting afternoon than those of us who were at the game!

HT 1-0 FT. 2-0 ICT. Billy Mckay Opp. Alston Crowd. 1521

HT. 1-0 FT. 1-1 ICT. Billy Mckay Cove. Megginson Crowd 1802

HT. 0-0 FT. 1-1 ICT. Mckay Alloa. Sammon crowd 712

HT 0-0 FT 0-0

Sounds like a brilliant achievement by the Trust, especially against the backdrop of the managerial incompetence at the club. Well done to all concerned!

Disappointing that the crowd was 200 down on the Montrose game as gate income will be important for the club going forward. People will be more likely to attend if the are entertained and like what they are seeing. It was, of course, nice to get the first league win of the season but there wasn't a great deal to get excited about. I guess we did play with a little more attacking intent than we have been used to recently, but we regularly lost the ball by doing so. Both Mckay and Brooks showed good movement at times but the ball never seemed to come to them, either the run wasn't spotted by the player on the ball or the ball was misplaced or intercepted. There's work to be done on the training ground. Defensively we looked pretty solid although we were helped by Queen's wayward shooting. I think they had fewer efforts on target than went out for throw ins. On the subject of throw ins, Queen's captain, Douglas delivers a superb long throw into the box. He was, though, ably assisted by the match officials who allowed him to take his throws a lot further up the pitch than the ball went out and to step well over the line on his delivery stride. Fortunately our defence dealt with these throws superbly and we got a deserved clean sheet.

Josh Meekings for Clach and Vigurs for Banks O' Dee in the Highland League.

HT. 0-0 FT. 1-0 ICT. Billy Mckay QOS. Josh Walker Crowd 1978

Not getting any strikers in means Dunc can give his son more game time.

A 0-0 draw may be a bit disappointing but for the first time for a while, it has been a better week to be a Caley Thistle fan than a County fan.

HT. 1-0 FT. 2-1 ICT. Adam Mackinnon Kelty. Williamson Crowd. 496

Wow indeed!. That is perhaps the most revealing bit of the whole press conference. That and the fact that so many people had put in loans to the club and have now either written them off or converted them into equity. Sadly, it all further highlights the extraordinary ineptness of the Board in allowing the situation to get to such a desperate state. No doubt the former CEO kept a lot of things hidden from them, but Board members past and present should be ashamed of themselves for allowing him to almost destroy the club. Alan Savage has achieved a hundred times more for this club in a week than the whole rotten lot of them have done in the last 5 years.

Matheus Machado returned to Inverness in midfield for Montrose. When he arrived with us he showed terrific promise, so it was a bit sad to see him playing for a part time club and contributing so little to the game. One wonders why it is that some players who show such flair at a young age seem to go backwards when they grow older. It's as though the modern mantra of possession based football coaches the natural intuitive flair out of them.

Maybe he's just resigned to not getting any more money to strengthen the squad this transfer window?

Of course it is very disappointing to not to beat a 10 man part time team at home, but I felt there were a lot of positives yesterday. We laid siege to their goal for lengthy periods in the second half and created more chances than we have for a long time. It got the crowd going and was quite exciting to watch. (Dunc, please take note.). A mixture of very narrow misses and weak efforts meant we couldn't find the winner but it could just have easily have been a victory by 3 or 4 goals. How that would have changed the mood! Fans got their wish and Billy started up top in his 300th appearance for the club. We were all willing him to score but sadly it was not to be. He was denied once by the woodwork and once by the keeper, but he also had 2 other good chances where he fluffed his lines. It has to be said that Hester looked way sharper than Billy. Having said that, when he went off near the end, the drive and energy in the team just seemed to disappear and instead of finding openings and creating, chances we were back to the side to side passes, creating little but increasing frustration in the crowd. Part of that will have been that we were missing the way Billy draws players out of position and creates pockets of space for team mates. His replacement, Ferguson Jnr trotted around pretty aimlessly and was largely ignored by defenders who focussed attention on others who presumably were perceived as more of a threat. I sincerely hope those of us criticising young Callum get egg on our faces soon and that some of his old man's ability in front of goal comes to the fore. Goals win games and we desperately need a half decent striker up top. Mackinnon was the pick of our players and took his goal very well. He came very close shortly after but just dragged his shot wide of the near post. Generally he seemed to show a very positive mindset and looks as though he could be a really important player for us this season. Bray was another youngster who impressed. Longstaff gets a lot of criticism, but he runs his socks off and is willing to run at players and get behind the defence (when the manager lets him). He got a deserved ovation from the crowd when he was subbed. I think I would credit Hester rather than criticise our new keeper, Musa Dibaga for Montrose's goal. Apart from that he looked very solid.

HT. 0-0 FT. 1-0 ICT. Gilmour Opp. Hester Crowd 2007

Hopefully a great turnout of fans on Saturday to see the lads playing in the new home strip.

Why would the interim Chairman not be the one to show Gardiner and Makwana the door? Did he and the rest of the Directors refuse to do so? Or might it be a simple mistake? Someone wrongly thinking that Savage was being appointed as a Director in order to carry out what the Board are asking him to do? After all, the Board have been known to make the odd mistake or two before! Panos Thomas's statement, dated 12th August but not put on the club's website until quite late on the 13th, is very strangely worded in several respects. It does, however, appear to be clear that Savage has not been appointed a Director. Instead, it would appear that Savage has been tasked with clarifying the actual financial situation of the club and getting things in order such that potential investors can be clear exactly what they might be putting money in to. Worryingly though, the statement still refers to new ownership and that talks with Makwana have been "suspended" rather than terminated. It is a very odd statement indeed and the whole situation seems to be fraught with tensions. I fear we are still a very long way from where we would like to be.

Why would you feel constrained? The Trust Board need to know what the members think so that they can better represent the members! It is only those on the Trust Board who need to support the Trust's stance in public and are subject to any constraints.

You have to bear in mind that regardless of how awful anyone involved in running the club may be, the Supporters Trust have to do their best to work with them. If the Trust publicly slags off these people, then the club simply stops engaging with the Trust. That is in nobody's interest. Given what the Trust has had to put up with from Gardiner over the years, I think a bit of "Ding-Dong! The Witch is Dead!" is perfectly justified. There's a message in this for the Club Board too. The Board were the ones responsible for making the decisions at the end of the day and they were the ones who kept faith in Gardiner. By publicly slagging off Gardiner, the Trust are indirectly criticising the Board. The Trust will need to keep working with the Board, but by enthusiastically welcoming Alan Savage and simply not mentioning the Board at all in the statement, the Trust is giving a message without giving the Board any excuse for not working with the Trust. The Trust statement ends with an appeal to fans to join the Trust and to get involved. People can criticise the Trust all they want, but the simple truth is that the Trust is what the fans make it. It's a democratic body. Anyone is free to join and contribute to the process of voting for the Trust Board members or even putting themselves forward for the Board. Anyone is free to help out in any other way. The more people who come forward to help or simply to join the Trust, the more effective the Trust will become. Collectively, we fans have a lot of power. We can use that power or we can open the door to another Gardiner or Makwana. Personally, I prefer supporter power.

Interesting point. Well spotted. "Ended" or "terminated" would more appropriate and natural wording if the Board had decided they would definitely not be continuing discussions with Makwana.