DoofersDad

I hope the failure to use a capital "C" when referring to the leagues sponsors does not result in a points deduction Also, amused by the wording of seats in the away end being "currently available". It makes it sound that if you don't get your quickly, they will have sold out.

HT. 2-0. FT. 3-1 ICT. Samuels Opp. L. Smith Crowd 1711 Joker

Thanks for the reminder. I'd forgotten all about it! I've now purchased a couple of tickets but somewhat shocked to see that only 100 tickets have been sold so far. One only has to see the heartbreaking images on TV everyday to understand what a worthy cause this is and what a great gesture it is from Paul to offer up his medal to support this cause. It closes on Saturday so, buy your tickets NOW before it is too late.

It's not a totally dead rubber. If we beat Hamilton and Morton win at Arbroath, then Morton will overtake Hamilton. We therefore have a responsibility to field a competitive side. We shouldn't be risking players carrying knocks though, but any players coning into the side should be told they are playing for a place in the side. We should be looking to win this.

Could even be a play-off against Aberdeen

HT. 0-2 FT 1-3 ICT. Sutherland Opp Ugwu Crowd. 1651

The pressure is all on Kilmarnock. Many would have expected them to have clinched the title by now and for Arbroath to have dropped off the pace. But Arbroath have continued to surprise displaying astonishing fitness levels for a part time team and a team spirit that few can match. On paper Kilmarnock have the better players, but Arbroath will not allow them time on the ball and have demonstrated time and again that they have good attacking options too. I think Kilmarnock will need to show patience and composure tonight if their quality is to win through, and I'm not sure they will manage that. I've a feeling Arbroath are going to edge this and take it to the final day. As for the play offs, similar arguments apply. Were we to play Kilmarnock, the pressure would be on them whereas we would maybe feel we ought to beat Arbroath. However, anything can happen on the night so I'm really not bothered which of the 2 we play as long as we get to play one of them. Having said that, I will certainly be rooting for Arbroath tonight because they deserve to win. Their story this season is a quite extraordinary one and it would be a real shame if they were unable to see it through to a happy end.

CaleyTennis, if you start a thread you can expect people to pass comment or ask you to clarify what you are saying. If you carefully read what you have written, you might understand why people are responding as they are. You start by saying that the issue is "with a small number of players who just aren't good enough to play for us", but later say that part of the solution "means selling our best players". Presumably players who are not good enough to play for us need to be off-loaded, so that would leave us with a middling group of players who, in your opinion are good enough to play for us but are not the best players. In that context, it is perfectly reasonable to expect you to clarify who you feel we should keep and who you think we should off-load. Personally, I think it is a good idea to try to keep our best players. I also don't think there is an "issue". Given where we were financially pre-Covid, the management team and the players have done a great job to get us where we are. Of course there have been games where we have underperformed, but on balance, we've done pretty well to sit 3rd in the table with just a couple of games to go. We may not be where we want to be, but we are heading in the right direction. If some people started supporting the club rather than constantly criticising it, we might be a little closer to where we want to be.

That's what happens when we don't play in pink.

2 for Duku today. Helps when 3 of the opps players have been sent off first!

They're not out of reach. If they lose their remaining 5 games and we win ours, we will end the season 5 points ahead of them. It's not likely to happen I grant you, but they are not out of reach - yet. They could win one and draw two and we could still pip them on goal difference. I am very interested in watching them lose tonight!

Sounds like a fantastic vision. It is one of those things that needs a lot of things to come together before it can be achieved, so understandable that those involved with the idea don't want to say too much at this stage. The danger is always that too, much publicity raises expectations and if the complete vision can't be delivered, people feel let down when in reality what is delivered represents a real achievement. It does sound really promising though. Even a scaled down version would be a huge boost for the wider football community in the city and the women's game in particular.

HT. 0-2 FT. 1-3 ICT. McAlear Opp. Adeloye Crowd 1794

HT. 1-0. FT. 2-2 ICT. Sutherland Opp. Lafferty Crowd. 2119

He was very sharp to get onto that and a very cool finish too.

Sam scored Wales' goal in a 1-1 draw against Bulgaria today. Well done Sam!

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!