DoofersDad

You can watch some extraordinary games on TV, but the games that really stick in the memory are the games you actually attend.

I'm afraid that I don't know what the Board's rules would say about your first question. My guess would be that there are no rules to specifically prevent the Board from co-opting back any member that had been voted off, but if they did so, they would have a fair bit of explaining to do. On the second question, the answer is no. There are 4 resolutions being put forward by the Board. We will have to see what transpires at the meeting, however, the role of the Supporters Trust is to work with the Club Board and not to takes sides in any Boardroom politics. We may vote to support non contentious motions or simply abstain. There would need to be a clear and compelling reason for the Trust to vote against any resolution put forward by the Club Board.

No. I am sure someone will correct me if I’m wrong, but my understanding is that members of the Club Board are appointed by the existing Board members and are only subject to any democratic process when their term of office is up and they need to seek the approval of shareholders to continue as Directors. This year, both the Chairman, Graham Rae and Gordon Fyfe are seeking the support of shareholders to continue as Directors, and there are resolutions on the agenda to that effect.

Communication from the club seems to be very hit and miss. The Club's AGM takes place on Monday 18th March but there is no notice of it on the Club's website. The only reference I can find to it is right at the bottom of a news item titled ""Culture change is key to positive future for ICT", which now appears on page 2 of the latest news items. It appears the Club is issuing notice of the meeting to shareholders by email this year (presumably to save money) but neither I nor my son have received the relevant email. I am in contact with the club about this and have in any case been forwarded a copy from a colleague on the Supporters Trust Board.. But I do have a concern that there may be shareholders who are unaware of the forthcoming meeting either because they, like me, have not received the email, or because the email has gone into an unmonitored junk folder. This is not just poor communication, it runs the risk of the legitimacy of the AGM being called into question. As a Supporters Trust Board member, I would be interested in hearing if any other shareholders have not received notification, regardless of whether or not they have any intention of attending the meeting. It may be be that our failure to receive the email is an isolated glitch but it would be important to know if it was not. Please either let me know via this thread or PM me if you prefer.

The problem is that options are so limited and Hampden is not a great venue. From an Old Firm perspective it is far from ideal as it only has a capacity much the same as their own home grounds. Other football stadia in the country can only hold just over 20,000 at most. There is no ground with a capacity between just over 20,000 and 50,000. As things stand The big two always play semis in their own city. I would like to see Murrayfield brought into use when they are playing or, better still, pack them off down the road to Manchester to an even bigger ground so they can understand what travelling to a big game entails. Can’t see the good folk of Manchester agreeing to that though!

According to public records at companies house it is not her husband's company as he only has 25% of the shares. It's her company as she is listed as a 75% shareholder and the sole Director!

Personally I feel Hampden should be reserved for the Final. Having said that, there is a need to be clear about where the semis are going to be played ASAP. One way to achieve that would be to play the quarter finals to a finish at the first time of asking. That way a venue appropriate to the geographical location of the teams and the anticipated crowd could be quickly decided. That would also help in reducing fixture congestion and in keeping costs down for fans.

The people who should be punished are those who commit the offences. At the games where these offences are most obvious there are dozens of police officers and dozens of stewards. If they did their job properly then large numbers of the perpetrators could easily be identified and prosecuted. That would soon have a major impact. All it needs is the political will. Clubs cannot be held responsible for the behaviour of individual “fans” but it is reasonable to expect them to help the police to identify perpetrators and to ban them. If they fail to do their bit then sanctions should be imposed but not such as to hurt the players (e.g. points deductions) or the majority of decent fans (stand closures).

I would see role of the Trust being to work with the club on behalf of supporters to develop a scheme and negotiate on how any financial input from supporters translated into influence in the club. I would also rather see any crowdfunding contributions going direct to the club.

Ross, a question. Is your suggestion just flying a personal thought or is this something the Board has tasked you to raise here? I agree with Caleyboy that the Supporters Trust would be the channel for fan involvement with the idea. Personally it is an idea which I think might be worth exploring but I cannot speak for the Trust Board as it is not something we have discussed as yet.

I imagine they took the view that it would be unhelpful to have issued accounts and called a meeting prior to completion of the Stands deal which will have a very significant impact on the financial position. That deal is now in place and Ross Morrison has just been appointed as Vice Chair. I can’t see any good reason why the AGM should not now go ahead. I would be surprised if there wasn’t an announcement in the next few days.

I don't know how the flag came into being and personally I think it would be a great shame if was cut up. But from what CaleyD has said above, it is clear that he has put a fair bit of his own effort and money into the flag and it would seem to me a bit unfair to expect him to simply give it away.

Personally I rather like this thread. One of the great things about this site is that there can be a large number of different threads running at the same time under each of a number of general headings. It is therefore easy to locate what you are interested in and ignore what does not interest you. It also means that threads can generally stay more or less "on topic" although inevitably they do go off topic from time to time and particularly when someone mentions the "Y" word. Having a thread specifically on Yogi means that anyone who wants to have their say on him can do so with detracting from the subject of some other thread. Anyone who is bored by the debate can simply ignore the thread. I'm all for looking forward - it's the reason I put myself forward for the Supporters Trust Board - but there is absolutely nothing wrong in looking back too. Indeed I would argue that looking back and learning from the past is essential if you want to be successful in moving forward. I think it is quite instructive to have a debate on Yogi's impact on the club because there is little doubt in my mind that opinions on him serve to illustrate what different people want from the team and how they view things differently. Just because we have different views on things doesn't mean the discussion has to be divisive. It is a fact that we had our greatest success in all 3 major competitions under his stewardship and for some that seems to be enough to give him club legend status. Others will argue that there were other factors which led to the success and he was lucky to be in the right place at the right time, and that given where we were when he took over, we should have achieved far more in the previous season. Some folk rave about the style of football he got the team playing whilst others felt it was the most boring football we've ever played. Some argue that had Yogi been given a bigger budget he would have delivered more success, whilst others point out that he had a bigger budget than any previous manager and argue that his failure to recruit better players is what started the rot. We probably all agree that Foran was a disaster, but the fact that we have such a polarised opinion on Hughes is fascinating. On another thread someone wrote that in order to bring in better crowds we simply need to offer a better product on the pitch. What the debate on Yogi demonstrates is that it is not that simple because people disagree about the style of football they want to watch.

He’s not been gone a week and already he’s their 3rd highest scorer for the season.

Just to let you know that our Chair, Stewart Murdoch, Secretary, Jennifer Aitchison and I met with Yvonne Crook yesterday afternoon. We had a very constructive and wide ranging discussion which bodes very well for our future engagement with the club. I am sure you will appreciate that in such a meeting there are things which are said off the record in order to help develop both a better understanding of the issues and mutual trust. I'll therefore hold off from providing more detail until we have an agreed record of the meeting which can be shared. What I will say now is that I picked up on several of the points and suggestions recently voiced on CTO in various threads. Moving forward, I think that using the Supporter's Trust to summarise the often diverse views of fans as voiced on CTO, is going to be a very useful channel of communication. I sense a genuine desire from the club to develop better engagement with the supporters and can say a bit more about that when we have the agreed notes of the meeting.

Following our response to the Courier for our comments on the rearranged time for the cup game at County, together with a request for a picture, we were rather surprised to find ourselves as the main story in yesterday’s edition! It was nice to see the Courier showing sympathy for our views and also that in their report they quoted the views of a few contributors to the debate on CTO.

It's worth bearing in mind that we are not the only club with a concern about poor attendances and poor results at home. Most clubs do better at home but, like us, both Falkirk and Dunfermline have significantly better records on the road this season than at home. Dundee Utd's home record is now just marginally better than their away record following their victory yesterday. What all 4 clubs share is an expectation from the fans that the club should be doing better than they are, and this is reflected in a frustration when performances don't match expectations. They also have a reasonably decent and vocal away support. Notwithstanding what the club, the manager or the players may be doing wrong, there is a clear message here that positive vocal support helps the team. Players seem to relax and play better when away from home but are edgy and nervous in front of the home support. Away from home. we have taken a greater percentage (61%) of available points than any other team in the division. That demonstrates that we are a pretty decent side and the question of why we don't do better at home is a very important one to address. Yes, we'll get bigger home gates if the team players better, but if the fans who attend the home games reacted more positively to aspects of good play and held back from venting their frustration about the poor play, then the players would probably be less edgy and play better as a result. We really shouldn't underestimate how important a positive and supportive home crowd is to the team.

A valid point. There is an view that the pitch has been deteriorating ever since the under soil heating went in and it is now at a stage where major work needs to be done or we may suffer multiple postponements due to a waterlogged pitch. Whilst not a great fan of artificial surfaces, there is no doubt that they are far better than they used to be and an artificial surface would lend itself far better to the venue being used for a range of other events. There must be a significant potential in the Inverness area for one-off events which require seating for well over 1000 customers and there may be a real opportunity for the club here.

I try to be realistic about my expectations and I have enjoyed a lot of the football we have been playing this season. Even when we have failed to win we have had spells where we have dominated, played some good attacking football and created several chances. But not today. Today we were simply dire from start to finish Partick must be about the worst team to have come visiting this season but they were a lot better than us. I can only assume that Tremarco and Donaldson were on the bench because they were not match fit. But to be honest, it looked as though a good number of those who did start were not match fit. Maybe Austin and Rooney are also carrying injuries or not match fit as they were two of the better players in the first half and it seemed bizarre to take them off. Young McDonald had a game to forget and was rightly subbed, but to be fair to him, he got no help from those around him, and no protection from the referee against the physicality of the opposition. Trafford at least offered some energy and urgency when he came on and McCauley added a little bit of much needed attacking flair. Five minutes before the end ,McCauley was announced as the sponsor's MOTM. But he only came on in the 70th minute. I think that rather sums it up!

Great article. With so much drama towards the end one tends to forget what a cracking strike it was from Tansey to give us the lead. Nice to be reminded of that.

Nah. Oakley was obviously the stumbling block. Oakley departs one day and the next day the deal's done. No way is that coincidence.

This announcement has been a long time coming and the delay has resulted in some understandable cynicism. However, the deal is now done and that is great news for all associated with the club. In the statement the Chairman has stated that the completion will now allow the AGM to go ahead. That too is long overdue and when that goes ahead we will be able to get a somewhat better position of the Club's state of health and strategy for the future.

No. I would imagine our strategy was to hold on to as many of our players as possible and to bring in one or two more than we lost. That is what has happened. I doubt it was the specific intention to let Oakley go and nowhere have I remotely suggested it was. Neither have I remotely suggested that we could have emulated what Dundee Utd or Falkirk have done

We should now be able to afford to turn on the under-soil heating to ensure the game goes ahead tomorrow.

Like Dundee Utd, Falkirk have also brought a lot in and it looks as though they may have splashed a bit of cash in doing so. Both clubs are also off-loading a lot of players (mostly on loan in Utd's case). Football is a team game and what good managers do is to get the best out of players in the context of their contribution to the team. Rather than showing ambition in the transfer window, it strikes me that Dundee Utd and Falkirk are showing a bit of desperation. If they can meld their new recruits into an effective tight knit unit then it rather begs the question of why they couldn't do it with the players they had previously brought to their respective clubs. More need for better managers than complete new teams in my view. Bringing in 5 or 6 like County and Queens have done maybe shows a bit of genuine ambition. It allows for some targeted strengthening of the first choice XI whilst giving a bit more depth to the squad. Ayr and Dunfermline have both brought in 1 new on a permanent contract and 2 on loan and therefore are much on a par with us in their dealings. On balance, I think our dealings in January have been positive, Time will tell how successful the different strategies will be.