DoofersDad

According to the Courier, 4 local Community Councils have issued a statement opposing the application. It strongly contradicts the club’s arguments on a number of points.  What an absolute mess this is. 

Better late than never.  We will now have to wait and see whether it is too late.  The earlier pronouncements with their arrogant and bullying tones will not have gone down well with many in the Council and will undoubtedly have harmed the case.  This latest communication is a much more measured message from the Chairman.  It sticks to the salient points and provides sound arguments for approval which are relevant to the application.  For instance, whilst acknowledging that a small amount of green space would be lost, the statement highlights that additional trees and shrubs would be planted with a resultant biodiversity gain.

 All councillors will now have these arguments and I rather doubt that receiving multiple copies of the same email will make them any more likely to vote in favour.  As STFU says, the cards are all dealt.  Let's just hope there is not another joker in the pack.

1 hour ago, tm4tj said:

As asked and as promised last night, the club will circulate a further update tomorrow to everyone who was able to be in attendance at Caledonian Stadium, and to those who contacted us to say they couldn’t make it but fully supported our efforts. Said Ross Morrison...

He's going to be working late tonight

Who wrote the article. Wilsy Smith?

Just been sent.

https://ictfc.com/bess-fairways-23-00497-ful-reasons-why-this-application-can-and-should-be-approved/

10 hours ago, Charles Bannerman said:

I’m not “in and around” nearly as much as I used to be in years gone by, but I seem to be detecting a degree of unhappiness and anger about the club’s current status. It’s not the same kind of issue as in 1993/94, but are you suggesting that levels of discontent are in that ballpark?

It's very different from 93/4, but there can be little doubt that confidence in the current regime at the club is low and is getting lower.  Whether that lack of confidence morphs into general anger will depend on how the club responds to the outcome of the Council's deliberations - whatever the result.

I'm not going to the meeting tonight.  I simply don't see the point.  Like Yngwie, I am struggling to see why they would hold a meeting if they expected the full Council to approve the scheme.  And if they don't expect it to be approved, then how is the meeting going to change anything?  

By "enlightening" us on the issues, does the Chairman then expect us to lobby councillors in our droves in a last desperate bid to change their minds?  If so, then it would have been far more sensible to have done so by emailing shareholders and ST holders and putting relevant detail on social media, in order to facilitate the lobbying.  Had this been done at the point of notifying us of the meeting, any lobbying could be in full swing by now.

The reasons for refusing the application are now known to the very specific.  Presumably the club and its business partners have, in turn, developed very specific responses to those reasons and these will be detailed tonight.  But why wait?  Why hasn't this been communicated before?

To me, this sounds more like a PR exercise designed to "enlighten" us about how hard the Board and the CEO have been working to secure the future of the club and how it will not be their fault if the project is not approved and we lurch into a major financial crisis.  It sounds like a desperate attempt to keep the supporters onside with the management of the club.  My concern is that it is more likely to have the opposite effect and will also antagonise the Council even more than they have already done.

I hope I'm wrong.

1 hour ago, bdu98196 said:

Makes Saturdays game now a battle between the 2 teams with the best unbeaten runs in the league

Same as last week then.  Let’s hope our injury hit squad can keep the run going. 

9 minutes ago, johnh said:

Aaron Doran - he signed for us on a loan deal for 6 months and was so good that we kept him on and he stayed on long enough to qualify for his testimonial.

There's your answer, Yngwie.  You can close the thread now!

18 minutes ago, Robert said:

What suits us best Dunfermline v Airdrie tomorrow? A draw?

Definitely a draw. Better they get 2 points between them than 3. 

The Courier's daily briefing today has a section about the meeting.  Below the intro piece is an invitation to "read more here".  When you click on that, you get "Sorry, the article you have requested is no longer available".  This article presumably contains a bit more than the basic statement which they published yesterday and which is still available on the Courier site.  It may mean nothing, it may be a technical glitch or there may have been a reason why they pulled the article.  Just seems a bit strange though.

16 hours ago, Yngwie said:

All fans can really do there is make councillors aware that if they vote to overturn the decision and give our club a very bleak future, it will be remembered by ICT fans at the next council elections. Councillors are there to represent their communities and at the moment the main voices heard by councillors are from a few disgruntled residents.

Much as I want our football club to thrive, there are rather more important issues impacting on people's day to day lives which will influence how I vote in the next Council elections.

I guess it's good that the club is communicating with shareholders and the wider fan base, but I am not clear what the meeting is meant to achieve this late on in the process.  If my understanding is correct, the application will be discussed by the full Council on 14th March, so presumably this meeting will be seeking to encourage folk to lobby their local councillors.  

I am sure the club has already lobbied all councillors.  Frankly, I rather doubt that anything I might say to any councillor is going to make them change their mind now.  I also doubt that there will be anything in the presentation which couldn't be made available in a posted statement and which couldn't have been communicated well before now.  

The matter is in the hands of the Council, so there is little point in discussion within the club.  What the club should be doing is explaining to its shareholders and supporters why it has delayed submitting its annual financial statement and telling us when the AGM is to be held.  There are questions that need to be asked of the Board well beyond the narrow confines of "questions related to the battery Farm".

It is a strange league this one.  Anything can happen.

When we last lost a game (1-0 at home to Queens Park) we actually moved up a place on goal difference to 7th in the league by virtue of Morton thrashing the Pars 5-0 at East End Park.  Since then we have gone 4 games unbeaten but have dropped down, not one, but two places to 9th!

We are in the relegation play off spot but with a zero goal difference.  Potentially we could end up getting relegated with a positive goal difference.  

We are 7 pts clear of the only team below us but also only 7 pts behind Morton in 4th place and in a promotion play-off place.  Don't you just love the play-off system!  As I say, anything can happen.

Just now, Yngwie said:

So have we now got the longest unbeaten run in the league?

Yup. Up to 4 games now. 

16 minutes ago, Yngwie said:

I was wondering how long it would be til someone suggested the M word!

I’d be open to a merger but my terms would be ICT’s name, colours, stadium and history, merging with Roy’s money.

Sounds fair enough, but personally I would go for County's stadium - far more atmosphere.  I appreciate that parking can be an issue in Dingwall, but we could raze our current stadium and its "temporary" stands to the ground, develop a large car park and operate a park and ride to Dingwall.  In that way, one of Gardiner's grand ideas might finally come to fruition.

3 hours ago, wilsywilsy said:

Since relegation in May 2017 and up to year ending May 2022 the club had lost about £3M. The club is now another 2 years into the same hole. Despite some transfer cash (£200K Dan Mackay?), sell on clause boosts from Christie?, and reaching the Scottish cup final, I would not be surprised to see total losses from May 2017 to May 2024 > £4M.

The chairman joined the club in 2018 and Gardiner in 2019. This creeping financial situation has unfolded on their watch. Instead of facing down the bread and butter basics of cloth cutting and improving the football business, they have made a sh1t or bust bet on a bizarre and controversial left-field project (I shudder when I see folk describe it as innovative).

To be fair, the rot set in before Morrison and Gardiner were in charge.  Our high point came with the cup win and coming 3rd in the league in 2015.  This was achieved with a bit of help from bigger clubs who had managed to self-destruct, but was also the culmination of a history of good management leading to our best squad ever being pulled together by Terry Butcher.  He left us for Hibs, and Hughes capitalised on his inheritance by leading the club to success in the following season.  Sadly, it has mostly been downhill since then.  

Not only was Hughes unable to recruit the quality of players Butcher had, his style of play was, at times, mind numbingly boring.  Rather than building on the success of the 2014/5 season, fans started to drift away and the team started to struggle.  What Hughes was good at was persuading the Board to give him money to pay players higher wages on longer contracts.  Hughes then left at the end of the 2015/6 season and the Board, under Kenny Cameron, made the bizarre decision to appoint Richie Foran as manager on a 4 year contract.  Foran did not have the experience or the resources to halt the slide and inevitably, we got relegated.

Cameron resigned as chairman with Willy Finlayson taking over on a temporary basis.  Foran left within days but apparently with 3 years of his contract still to pay off.  John Robertson was appointed manager again and hopes were high that his appointment would see us return to the top flight, but with the financial shackles created by the mismanagement of the previous couple of seasons, it was not to be.

Graham Rae took over as Chairman and he appointed Yvonne Crook as CEO.  Crook might have had business experience but she knew little about football.  She lasted less than a year before being replaced by Gardiner in April 2019.  Morrison took over as Chairman soon after that.  So, to be fair, the current management team inherited a difficult situation where the club had financial commitments for payments which were producing no benefit to the club.  They were also hampered in their efforts by the Covid pandemic.

But whilst they inherited a mess and have faced obstacles not of their making, the way they have gone about trying to reinvigorate the club have undoubtedly done more harm than good and have antagonised a lot of people on the way.  It's time for a new approach.

HT. 0-0

FT. 1-1

ICT. Samuel

Morton. Muirhead

Crowd. 1882

27 minutes ago, Robert said:

Because the club is loss making and needs to show the Auditors that it is not insolvent and can be a going concern. It needs a guaranteed cash injection (rather than one that is hoped for) for the Auditors to sign the accounts off. 

If that is the case (and I would imagine it probably is) then it illustrates what a serious financial position the club is now in.  

Yngwie makes some fair points about applauding the club for trying to find innovative ways of trying to keep the club at a level above what income from tickets sales etc could possibly support.  That's fine, but the problem is the club has gone about these issues in an arrogant and often incompetent way. It takes the fans for granted in so many ways and simply ignores the contribution they can make.  As a result, it has alienated many of the very people who would otherwise be contributing significantly to the long term future of the club.

Regardless of the outcome of the Battery project, the club will continue to struggle as long as those people responsible for this alienation remain in charge.  Even if they do make genuine efforts to change their ways, nobody is going to trust them.  We need new leadership and we need it soon.  We need leadership that embraces the supporters as part of the fabric of the club, perhaps even looking to move towards a fan owned model, but certainly having a supporters' representative on the Board.

I don't care if we go part time for a while, or it we drop to Division 1 or even Division 2 if that is what it takes to reset and develop a sustainable business model going forward.  I used to feel really proud of our Club, but at times now I almost feel embarrassed to tell people I support ICT.  I want to feel the pride again, but that is not going to happen whilst the current regime are in charge.

7 minutes ago, Charles Bannerman said:

Around 4pm today, which should have been deadline day for the club’s accounts, a notification appeared on Companies House that IT and C’s accounting period had been shortened by a day to May 30th 2023. This apparently entitles a company to an extension of their deadline for publishing accounts by three months, and is apparently an established device for achieving this.

Are you sure?  There's nothing on the club's website to say they've done this!  

10 hours ago, Charles Bannerman said:

The last AGM was on 26th April 2023, and it was more than four months in default of the deadline stated in the company’s Articles of Association. This also means that there is no obligation to hold another one before 26th July 2024, and even that may be subject to further delay if there is another default.

If they always leave a gap of 15 months between AGMs, they cease to be AGMs.  It would be 4 AGMs in 5 years.  My understanding is that the requirement in the Articles of Association to have an AGM means that there should be an AGM held in each financial year, i.e, between  1st June and 31st May.  The 15 month rule would therefore only come into play if the previous AGM had been held before the end of February last year - which it wasn't.  I think it needs to be held by the end of May in order to comply with the Articles of Association.

1 hour ago, Yngwie said:

He is just an employee and is answerable to the board.

But have they been told that's the way it's supposed to work?

I would have taken a draw before the game, but Dunfermline were poorer than expected and what with the other results, I am now really disappointed.  

We started brightly and to be fair, there was good commitment, throughout the team till the final whistle.  When Dunfermline pressed us in midfield we often played some pretty neat stuff to keep possession under pressure. The trouble is, we created next to nothing and there is a worrying lack of inventiveness.  Even when there is a shooting opportunity they pass rather than have a pop.  We have to take a few more risks up-front.

Billy has a poor record of taking penalties.  Credit to him for standing up and taking responsibility but surely we must have others in the side who can hit the ball harder and closer to side of the goal.

Highlight was Devine's brilliant block on the line.  Superb!

And whilst we on the positives, that result extends our unbeaten run to 3 games.   

HT. 0-1

FT. 1-2

ICT. Shaw

Pars. McCann

Crowd. 2311

Look on the bright side. We've stretched our unbeaten run to 2 games.  Only Morton have got a longer unbeaten run than us at the moment!  

2 hours ago, Yngwie said:

His actual date of departure as stated on the form was 10 months ago so it wouldn’t be related to the charge. No replacement needed as companies no longer need to have a company secretary.  The club still should have filed the form promptly at the time though. 

Thanks.  That would suggest he stood down at last years AGM.  I guess it hadn't been filed promptly because the Club no longer has a company secretary!  

OK, so clearly not related to the loans issue but it does seem bad that someone who has been a key person at the club for so long departs with apparently no statement from the club.  Interestingly, he is still listed as Company Secretary on the club website.

On 2/16/2024 at 10:04 AM, Yngwie said:

Good reminder about the accounts filing deadline, but I don’t see that in itself as a problem. One option would be to delay signing the accounts until the matter is resolved, which leads to a very small penalty from Companies House. The other is that the accounts disclose the need for additional funding which is what we did last year, possibly worsening to the extent that the auditors have to state that there is fundamental uncertainty as to whether the club can continue as a going concern.

The accounts aspect of this isn’t ideal but it’s the least of our worries!

The Accounts for the year end to 31st May 2023 are due on Thursday.  It will be interesting to see if they are delivered on time and to see what they say.  

The accounts for 2021 were a full 3 months late, but those for 2022 were submitted on the due date.  It is maybe pertinent to remind ourselves that the club changed accountants in the intervening period, and it is certainly pertinent to remind ourselves on what was said in the accounts to justify the "going concern" status.

They stated that "The Company remains reliant on player trading, new funding streams and the continued financial support backing of its directors, shareholders and supporters".  So how much funding will these various streams provide?

One thing we have been very poor at recently is player trading.  There seems to have been nothing of note since we got a bit of cash for Daniel MacKay.  

The new funding streams are elsewhere listed in the accounts as being the Loch Ness Hydro Pump Project (i.e. payment for providing temporary car parking facilities), the battery project (uncertainties identified elsewhere in this thread) and the new Green Freeport (which they state in the accounts has "huge potential for the development of our site", but which the Chairman recently told us he is struggling to see how the club can get any benefit from.)

As for financial backers, the directors are now providing money to the club on a formal loan basis as detailed on the Registration of Charge documents submitted to Companies House on 11th Jan this year.  This strongly suggests that the level of financial input from the current directors is likely to be less in the future than it has been in the past.

A further factor, which I had previously missed, is the Notice of Termination of Ian MacDonald as Company Secretary and which was submitted to Companies House the day before the Registration of Charge documents were submitted.  There has been nothing submitted to say a replacement has been appointed.  Ian joined the Board of Directors way back in 1997 and was on the Board till 2004 when he took on the role of Company Secretary.  Maybe I have missed something, but there appears to have been no statement from the club about him giving up his role after over 25 years service to the club.  Surely, notice of this low key departure being submitted to Companies House on the day before the Registration of Charge documents were submitted is no coincidence.

The club got an easy time from shareholders at the AGM last April.  This year's AGM might be a bit more challenging for them.

Rather than complain about the officials, we need to learn lessons from last night.  The 2nd disallowed goal was obviously a shocker, but the 1st was marginal (if it actually was off), while the officials did well to allow the Pars' goal which was actually onside although at first glance it looked well off.  A lesson here is that you play to the whistle. The Partick defender looked like an absolute plonker standing there with his arm raised when he should have been putting pressure on Todd who was give plenty of time to sweetly chip the ball over the keeper.  Partick may not have had the rub of the green last night, but they weren't robbed.  In the 2nd half, Dunfermline were much the better side and deserved to win.

Dunfermline have under-performed this season but it looks as though they might be coming into a bit of form.  On that performance, we will do well to take anything out of the game on Tuesday.  It puts even more pressure on us to get a win today and, of course, it makes it even more important for Arbroath to do the same.  There is no easy game in this league and we need 100% commitment till the final whistle in every game.  What with all the off field distractions it is more important than ever that the fans get behind the team, especially when things are not going well in the game.