DoofersDad

Robert mentioned earlier that there had been a virus affecting the players this week. I wonder if this had any effect on what sounds like a very poor 2nd half performance. What we've seen this season is that any of the teams are quite capable of beating any other team on their day. If a few of the players have been affected by a virus then that can make a huge difference. Chance for a bit of a change to the team in the cup game against Clyde next week and then back to firing on all cylinders for the home game against Dundee and away at Alloa. We are sill in a play off place and 6 points from those 2 games would make our position seem a whole lot healthier again come the end of the month. Keep the faith!

That was disappointing in several respects. If we are to have a chance of winning this league then we needed to at least not lose that game. Utd have been on a run of poor form of late and we should have been more positive and taken the game to them. Instead, they clearly had far more hunger and we let them come on to us and dominate us in every aspect of the game. Utd didn't even need to work too hard for their goals as we helped them out with all 3 - our central defenders went AWOL for the first, we gifted possession for the 2nd and gave away the most stupid of penalties for the 3rd. We seemed to be lacking leadership on the park and showed a lack of attacking ideas beyond the long hoof until Walsh came on. It was disappointing if not bewildering to see Todorov not starting. He played the full 90 minutes on Tuesday and played pretty well. He seemed to offer a good bit more than White does and scored a good goal too. To be fair, White wasn't too bad yesterday but lacked support. Maybe Walsh is not match fit yet but it is clear that he provides our best options going forward. As soon as he is back in the starting line up, the better. I don't know if young Machado is injured, but from the little I've seen of him it seems abundantly clear that he offers so much more than Storey does. The less said about Storey's 30 minutes on the pitch yesterday the better. MOTM was Trafford who gave his all and who made several good tackles and interceptions. Carson had a good game too but perhaps not quite as effective as he was against Queens. Ridgers was solid in goal but there's really not a lot else positive to say. If we are to retain any realistic thoughts of the title, we just have to get a win against an Arbroath side who are doing very well. If we are not going to seriously challenge for the title, we at least need to aim to be comfortable in a play-off spot.

Well that's Levein finally lost the manager's job at Hearts. Hands off Robbo! He's not Budgeing.

A rare away day for me! Great to get the 3 points but a generally scrappy game. Both sides had periods of pressure but the difference was that we took our chances and Queens didn’t. They really need to find a decent striker- that Dobbie’s sh*te.

The problem with large events in Inverness is that there is a limited choice of venue. If you want to book an event at the Drumossie for a Friday or Saturday night then the booking needs to be made a year or so in advance and certainly before the fixture list is out. It is pot luck whether the date coincides with a home fixture or not. Unfortunately on this occasion, not only was it an away fixture but a more distant one. The issue for me, therefore, is whether the event should be on a Saturday night at all. For me personally, I think the Hall of Fame event shouldn't be seen as a fund-raising event. If it makes a profit, then great, but it should be about players past and present and the fans who watch the team week in and week out. It should be about celebrating achievements of the past and making connections between the fans and the current players. It should be priced to make it accessible for fans who simply can't afford to attend events like Saturday's event at the Drumossie. There is a sponsors' night coming up on Thursday 14th November and I see no reason why future Hall of Fame events shouldn't be on a weekday too. Of course, we all know that the club is short of money and therefore fundraising events are necessary. If there are some folk attending such events who would need directions to the ground were they ever to go to a game, then that's fine by me as long as they are paying a good sum for their ticket, buying raffle tickets etc. Hopefully the experience will encourage them to get more involved with the club one way and another. Maybe with the 25th Anniversary coinciding with significant financial concerns and personnel changes at the club, there has been an over-emphasis on appealing to those with deeper pockets. Whilst it is great if those with deep pockets can help the club out in some way, it is vital that the club does not lose sight of the fact that the long term future of the club depends on the numbers of fans coming through the turnstiles. If the fans feel taken for granted and alienated and stop coming as a result, then all the fundraising will count for nothing.

Very frustrating not to have won that. After conceding a well worked early goal it was clear that we would need to be patient to break down a well organised team defending in numbers. There was certainly no lack of effort throughout the team but we lacked the inventiveness and penetration to bother the Alloa keeper unduly. The pressure eventually told and we got a stunning equaliser from Captain Carl. It seemed strange that the left back was taking corners on the right, but when the ball came back to him he lost no time in smashing the ball across the keeper and into the top left corner - a stunning strike! White then put us in front late on and that should have been us sitting at the top of the table. But no. Rather than focussing on keeping possession we pressed for a third. The result was that we lost possession and McCart was put under a bit of pressure, but he should have done better than conceding a throw. The defence went to sleep for the long throw and Trouten had an easy task of picking his spot. Robbo will be raging and the dropped 2 points might well be crucial later on in the season. Good to see Keatings back and he was unlucky when his excellent late free kick came back off the bar. Both he and Carson introduced greater positivity into the play when they came on and if fit enough I would expect both to start against Morton next week.

With the Dundee home game rearranged for the following Saturday (23rd)

They also knocked out Queen of the South. We underestimate them at our peril.

Not the greatest performance, but job done. We rode our luck a bit. Dominated possession but never created too much. When we did create we were wasteful in front of goal and took the lead thanks to major defensive blunder which Curry did well to take full advantage of. Good to see Curry and Machado score their first goals for the club. MacGregor was generally pretty lively but should have opened the scoring on a couple of occasions in the first half, He was unlucky in the second half when a good low shot was very well saved by the Alloa keeper. He's a good prospect but needs to get a goal or two to settle the nerves. Biggest surprise of the day was a decent performance from John McKendrick. Probably an easy game to referee but he kept the game flowing. Did well not to book Carson for a rash challenge and his lengthy warning was as much a message to the rest of the players as it was to Carson. Another home draw in the cup and the same result next week will do nicely.

Really bad news for Sean and the team. He is a key member of the squad and we always look a better balanced team when he is there. We do have plenty of options in midfield so hopefully someone else can step up to provide that calm controlling influence.

Just a reminder for folk about the supporters' meeting at the Caley Club on Tuesday evening - any time after 7 for a 7.30 start. I'm not able to go unfortunately, but most of the Supporters Trust Board members will be there to hear what the Chief Executive Officer, Scot Gardiner, has to say and, of course, what other supporters have to say. Reports of the EGM suggest that the Club is in no immediate danger of administration, but there is no doubt at all that with a much lower revenue stream than in recent years, the club will have to manage its finances very carefully indeed. For a club of our size with the relatively small support base that we have, it is important that everyone involved in the club pulls together and works for the common good of the club. This is a great opportunity for fans to meet Scot and to engage in an honest and constructive dialogue about the challenges ahead. The Supporters Trust will do what it can to facilitate that dialogue and to that end, I know my colleagues on the Trust Board are looking forward to meeting as many supporters as possible and hearing what you have to say.

No I don't think you are. One shouldn't underestimate Brora through. They are a top Highland League side and I am sure they could comfortably hold their own in division 2. I am sure the Brora lads were 100% up for it, however, there were several of our first team squad in there who should have been motivated both to win a trophy and to stake a claim for a first team spot. After all, with the way the first team are playing, squad players might not get too many opportunities to impress.

Watched the game on TV. Alloa played some great passing football, and despite being a part time team they they were pressing Utd for the full 90 minutes. The scoreline flatters the Arabs. It just goes to show there are no easy games in this league and to get promotion we will have to consistently play at the top of our game. Ayr go top if they get anything out of the game so there is real incentive for both teams.

Always good to win but just what do the guys have to do on the pitch in order to get people to come and watch? The last home league game was the highly entertaining 5 goal drubbing of Morton, but yesterday the crowd was down by almost 20% to an appalling 1760. Robbo and the team are delivering a good product at the moment but unless people pay money to come and watch it, then it will simply not be possible to sustain the quality of football currently on offer. The lifeblood of the game at our level is the paying customer and yet it seems the better we play, the more people stay away. This makes next month’s EGM more important than ever.

I can understand there are reasons why the club may not be too interested in staying in this competition, I mean, how much money would we lose if we had an away tie at Waterford? But there would be money to be made from a final, and with so many of the more fancied Scottish teams having bitten the dust already, we might well be favourites for this now. It is maybe not the greatest of competitions but it would be rather good to win a trophy in our anniversary year. Saturday demonstrated we have good depth in the squad so there is no reason we can't go all the way in this competition whilst also giving some valuable game time to some of the squad.

I don't see why a loan back clause would stop a sell on clause also being there. I would be very, very, very surprised if there was not a decent sell on clause.

It may appear to be grossly unfair, but the reality is that the disparity in rewards is a consequence of market forces. Whilst I have tremendous admiration for athletes like your daughter and other sportsmen and women who work so hard to be the best they can in their chosen sport, few people have any desire to watch even top level athletes run round a track 25 times on a regular basis. However, people are happy to pay to watch football week in and week out even when the players are far from being the elite. For instance, I was at the game on Saturday and was well entertained. In fact, had I paid twice the price I would still have felt I had got good value for money (although that is certainly not always the case!) It comes down to personal choice. If some people wish to pursue a sporting course which they know is not well remunerated, they they can hardly complain when they don't get well remunerated. But then, that is not the reason people pursue these sports. When you know your chosen sport does not offer significant financial rewards then what you are doing is, effectively,a hobby. Do footballers get paid too much? Some are undoubtedly getting far more than their talents warrant but then that is the same in all aspects of the entertainment business and other walks of life. But that is market forces for you. The key to making money is not so much the level of skill required to do what you do, but whether people want to pay you money to do it.

The Supporters Trust has taken this matter up with the club. CEO Scot Gardiner was very aware of and concerned about the problems with the Morton "fans" and explained the very specific circumstances of this incident. Because of the game being on TV with an early KO time as a result, and given the distance Morton fans would have to travel, Morton supporter groups told Morton that they were asking fans to adopt a 100% boycott of the game. The club gave its support to that stance and informed ICT of the situation. Opening the South stand involves significant extra expense with a separate servery, extra cleaning etc., and the decision was taken not to open the South Stand. However, recognising that despite the boycott, some people may still come to the game, the club set aside the South end of the main stand to accommodate any who turned up. In the event, more than expected turned up and unfortunately, amongst these was a group of around 20 whose behaviour was very poor. Scot recognises that the situation must not be allowed to happen again and therefore they have taken the decision that, despite the financial implications, the South Stand will be open for away fans for all future games this season. This includes the game on Saturday when it is anticipated that the crowd will be even smaller than last Friday. As Fraz rightly says above, this is the sort of issue you might expect an SLO to deal with, but the club does not currently have an SLO. Scot has agreed that it would be useful to have a separate meeting with the Trust to discuss what elements of the SLO role, as defined by the SFA and Supporters Direct Scotland, need to be carried out and to identify how that might be done within the financial constraints faced by the club. We'll update you with progress on that in due course.

Oops! Thanks for correcting me. But it is a national cup and the day we won it was a great day out and a great morale booster to the team. A bit of extra cash too. It is a competition we should be trying seriously to win.

I agree that getting club specific feedback would be useful. Clearly there will be issues where fans of different clubs will have widely differing views because of the widely differing ways in which those issues are addressed at clubs. I haven't seen any such data but I can find out if it is available. Given figures from previous surveys which detailed the number of responses from the top 10 responding clubs, I doubt that more than 50 ICT fans will have responded and therefore any results are not going to be particularly representative. It just goes to emphasis the point that the more people who complete these surveys, the more valuable the data becomes and the more likely that it will result in action. Thanks for filling it in yourself by the way. That makes at least two of us!

Robbo was saying after the Morton game that he will be making a raft of changes for Saturday's game with Harper, MacGregor, Trafford, Welsh and Storey all starting. Maybe a bit of a risk as the league cup is a potential money spinner and morale booster. However, we do have a bit of depth and those coming into the side will be anxious to prove themselves.

You say "It's almost as if it's designed to make fans feel like they are being listened to when they aren't really." I don't think that is fair as it is run by Supporters Direct Scotland which exists to try to narrow the divide between those who run the clubs. Supporters Direct Scotland at national level and Supporters Trusts at local level need to know what fans feel is important to them if they are to be able to represent those views to the football organisations and the clubs. The football organisations and the clubs also (mostly) want to know because at the end of the day, it is the fans that pay their wages. Note that following a previous presentation, the clubs specifically asked Alan Russell, CE of SDS to give a presentation about the results of last year's survey. If the clubs don't provide what the fans want then the fans will stay away. It is therefore clearly in their interest to listen to the fans views. Previous surveys have identified that value for money is the thing that matters most to fans and a number of clubs have taken note of that in their pricing structures. Last year's results showed for the first time more supporters felt the prices were fair rather than poor value. Fans in some clubs may feel they are becoming more disconnected from the clubs but the opposite is true in many. The appointment of Supporter Liaison Officers and the trend towards fan ownership of clubs is having a huge impact on the engagement of supporters in some clubs. If fans want the clubs to connect with them, then the more fans who complete surveys like this, the more connection there will be.

The more people who fill in these surveys, the more likely it is that things will change. If people can't be bothered to feedback their views when invited to, then the powers that be will assume folk are happy with the way things are. For instance, I have taken the opportunity to voice my view that we need to have safe standing areas to help boost the atmosphere at games. If everyone who held that view filled in the survey and made that point then maybe we would get somewhere with it.

Supporters Direct Scotland have launched their annual survey of football fans in Scotland. It can be accessed from the link below which also gives a bit more information about the survey and a link to access the results from last year's survey. The survey closes on 15th September- so don't put it off for another day. This is the chance to get your voice heard. http://www.scottishsupporters.net/scottish-football-supporters-survey-launched/

Kelty Hearts seem to have ambitions and have recruited players whose level is above Lowland league standard. I'm sure Nathan would do well in League 2 and probably League 1. Note also that Calder scored for Bradford PA In fact plenty of former ICT players scoring at the weekend. Special mention for Jonny Hayes getting one for Celtic against the Rangers. Great to see him scoring at that level after the bad injury he had.