DoofersDad

There are folk who point to St Johnstone and say that because there are similarities between Perth and Inverness that ICT should be doing at least as well as them year in year out. I'm saying that such comparisons are unrealistic because St Johnstone have over-performed over a prolonged period. You are quite right to point out that ICT have spent a small majority of their existence in the top flight, but that simply serves to demonstrate my point that ICT have also over-achieved. At the moment we have St Mirren, Ayr, Raith and Dunfermline all scrapping it out at the bottom of the division below us and all from towns of broadly the same size as Inverness. These are the sorts of teams we should be comparing ourselves with and therefore I think it is clear we have over-achieved over the years. My concern is that our recent over-achievement should not lead people to have unrealistic expectations for the future.

Oh, I don't know Dougal. I would have thought that there were more people persuaded to vote for independence by the antics of those t*ssers than there are supporters of the Orange Order.

I'll be interested to see the footage, Scarlet. From the North stand just in line with the incident it looked as clear cut a penalty as you will ever see. Mackay's reaction was one of someone who knew he had been rash and let his team mates down. He made no claim that he got a touch on the ball. I just don't think that anybody there was in any doubt it was a penalty.

"I'm looking forward to being able to afford a suit and a tie."

Which is precisely what we were NOT doing under Hughes.

Yes we know that, but what point are you trying to make?

Of course the graph does not show the teams in the division below us. Realistically with our budget we should be a bog standard side in the Championship. We are over-achieving by virtue of the fact that we still have a decent chance of staying in the top flight. As for St Johnstone, they are really the miracle of Scottish Football. They are a club from a small city with a population less than Inverness and with bigger city clubs not far away, and yet for a significant majority of the last 60 years they have had a team in the top league.

I think Tansey had an OK game today. I've seen him play better and I've also seen him play a lot worse. I think his performance suffered today from a bit of confusion around the make up of the team and its shape. I don't see any issue with his attitude for the rest of the season. I expect him to be in the side on Tuesday against Aberdeen and for him to be keen to show the Don's fans what a good player they have signed. I also expect the celebrations for his hat trick to be respectfully restrained.

There have been times this season when we have lost but when I came away feeling that the team had played well and we had been entertained. Not to day, I'm afraid. Today we were the poorer of two poor teams and whilst a win was far more important to us, Kilmarnock looked like the side which wanted it more. I cannot agree with Foran's comment after the game when he said "I'm delighted with the players' attitude, passion, endeavour." In general I think our attitude has been good this season but today I thought there were too many players who lacked the passion and endeavour. There were players looking to give somebody else the ball even when they were in space to put pressure on Kilmarnock, there were too many players not going for the 50:50 balls and too many players not providing the movement required to open up Kilmarnock. I was pleased to see Cole start but whilst he did a lot of good work there was simply too little support for him to create much. Kilmarnock were there for the taking and it is disappointing not to have taken the 3 points. Apart from Cole, I thought McNaughton was very good when he came on - he's a real class act, and Billy proved again that he might well be the difference between staying up or not. MOTM for me though was probably OFW - a fact which tells it;s own story of the number of chances we allowed a poor Kilmarnock side. Draper had one of his poorest games for us, and whilst I was glad to see King start, he was totally ineffective and perhaps should have been hooked sooner. Brad Mckay was the villain of the piece though. A stonewall penalty and he was very lucky a little later when the impressive Jones beat him in the box again but was skilful enough to skip over Mckay's awful challenge. Had he not done so, it would have been another penalty and a red card. With Partick winning today I think they are as good as safe with 37 points. I can't see Kilmarnock or an out of form Dundee catching them for top 6, but even if they did, there are 4 teams averaging less than a point a game and another couple of draws in their remaining 8 games would probably be enough. I think it is now a case of "and then there were 6".

I think its a bit of a catch 22 situation really. You get transfer fees when players are signed up on longer contracts but longer contracts tend to cost more and risk you being left paying a player who has not performed. A small club like ours simply can't afford the risk of longer term contracts although I think it tries to do the best it can within the resources available. With regard to Tansey, he has benefited from being here and we have benefited from having him here. He's been a great player for us and I wish him well in his future career (except when playing against us, of course).

Kilmarnock are 8 points clear of us and will be happy to keep it that way. I would expect them to keep it very tight and therefore we need at least one of King or Cole in there to provide a bit of creativity. We also need the likes of Polworth and Tansey to be looking to shoot on sight.

HT 0-0 FT 1-1 ICT Polworth Opp Sammon Crowd 2611

We bought a wood burning stove from Bonk and manage to to achieve a lovely warm glow reclining on the shag pile carpet in front of it.

The club really needs the kind of vocal support the young lads give. They keep singing when we're losing and you can see it really gives the boys on the park a lift. The club and the community surrounding the club really needs to do all it can to encourage these youngsters to come along and give that support. The more that do, the more likely it is that some of the older and more restrained supporters will also give more vocal support. I don't know whether the anti-social behaviour is perpetrated by the same lads but let us just assume, for the sake of argument that it is. One thing you can be pretty sure about is that that there will be just one or two ring leaders responsible for starting it. The others who get involved simply follow the leader like sheep as happens in some many aspects of life. It's human nature, so let's have a bit of perspective here. The majority of the lads are just normal lads out to have a good time and whose exuberance sometimes means they get involved in things which on reflection they will realise was wrong. It's all part of growing up. Of course, if youthful high spirits leads to more serious incidents then those responsible need to be dealt with. If one or two get banned from the ground for fighting or whatever, or arrested by the police outside the ground, then that will serve as a lesson to the rest about where the barriers between acceptable and unacceptable behaviour lie. When you are young, it can seem that forcing others to make way for you or picking a fight is making you appear grown up. It can take a while to realise that it is much more grown up to make way for others and to discourage others from fighting, It's easy to be critical of youngsters but how many of the older contributors to this site can honestly say that when they were young they never behaved in a way which now causes them to shake their heads disapprovingly when youngsters behave that way today? Cut the kids some slack, for goodness sake!

No. I mean the minority of people who voted for Independence in the 2014 referendum and the minority who, according to the polls, currently want independence. I am very tied to the idea of democracy. That is why I think:- It is a democratic outrage that a Government which tells its people that a referendum relating to major constitutional change is a "once in a generation" event, and which signs a formal agreement with another to agree that the result of that referendum will be considered decisive and will be respected, should, less than two years later, put a policy to have a 2nd referendum in their manifesto. It is a democratic outrage that the Scottish Government thinks that words in an election manifesto for the Scottish Parliament have greater democratic validity than the result of a single issue referendum when more than 55% of a record turnout affirmed their wish to remain a part of the UK. It is a democratic outrage that the excuse which the SNP have used to justify their breach of the Westminster Agreement is exactly the scenario which, in their official independence proposition paper, they told us we would have to accept if we rejected independence and it occurred. It is a democratic outrage that having used the the fact that a majority of Scottish voters voted to remain in the EU as their justification for having a 2nd independence referendum, the SNP now seem to be both demanding their referendum and back tracking on whether an independent Scotland would even apply to join the EU! It is a democratic outrage that we are even talking about a 2nd referendum. At no point in the democratic history of Scotland has there ever been a clear wish for independence from the people as a whole. We face the possibility of a permanent change to an independent state just because on a single day in our history, one more person might be in favour of independence than against. How can anyone with any respect for democracy think that is right? I would support a referendum if there was evidence to show that independence was the clear and settled will of the people. If and when a clear and settled desire for independence is demonstrated, a referendum should be be held on the basis of voting whether or not to accept a package for separation negotiated between the 2 Governments. In that way the people would know what they are voting for. May has previously said the independence question is settled in line with the Westminster Agreement which the UK has honoured and which the UK has every right to expect the Scottish Government will also honour. Until such time as the Scottish Government go to Westminster with a formal request for a Section 30 amendment then it would be inappropriate for May to say anything further. This will presumably change in the coming week when the elected Scottish Parliament is expected to vote to betray the Scottish People and go against the wishes of over 2 million people in the most historic and important vote in Scotland's history. I used the phrase "democratic outrage" above because that is the phrase the First Minister used when describing the position should Westminster block the will of the Scottish Parliament. Far from that being a democratic outrage, the Prime Minister may feel she has a duty under the Westminster Agreement to respect the result of the 2014 referendum and to stop the Scottish Government from acting against the clearly stated will of the Scottish people. As I said in an earlier post, I don't think the Westminster Government will give an absolute refusal. But let's be clear about this. Anything other than an absolute refusal will represent a compromise and would be more than this unprincipled and manipulative SNP Government deserves.

Glasgow's 3rd team can only attract a crowd of 3082 against us. It was much the same against Hamilton where the away support had a much shorter distance to travel. And this is Scotland's top flight. My home town team in Worcestershire currently play in the 10th tier of the English pyramid structure (6th tier of non-league). They have reached the semi-final of the FA Vase and in their home leg semi final on Saturday attracted a gate of 3349. Just goes to show the problem facing football in Scotland at the moment.

HT 1-0 FT 2-1 ICT Tansey Opp Boyce Crowd 4826

Can't argue with that. Unfortunately I won't be there. Like Tim Farron and the Scottish Lib Dem Conference, I have a prior engagement at a family celebration. There is now some real pressure on a County side who have lost 5 of their last 7 games. We really need to keep that pressure on them as they have some real quality in their side and I would worry that a derby win would give them the confidence to lift themselves well clear of the drop zone. We are probably at the stage where home games, at least against any sides out of the top four, are "must wins". Please shout some encouragement to the lads on my behalf.

I think it will actually be some time before there is a referendum, if indeed, there is one at all. May is clearly pretty contemptuous of Sturgeon and could take the line of refusing it on the basis that the 2014 referendum settled it. She could claim that requesting a 2nd referendum is in breach of the Westminster Agreement. I don't, however, think she will risk the backlash this would create from a very vocal minority. Nor do I think she will simply call Sturgeon's bluff and simply tell her to get on with it. She is not going to allow an independence referendum to take place whilst Brexit negotiations are on-going. Apart from the obvious distractions, remember that the Brexit negotiations will be taking place to take account of the whole of the UK. Were Scotland to vote for independence whilst those negotiations were still on-going, it would mean that details that had been agreed would require to be renegotiated in the light of the changed position. May will say (and quite correctly) that she has a duty to the people in the rest of the UK to act in accordance with their instructions - and the people of the UK as a whole will demand that she does. Brexit negotiations will not be complete till the Spring of 2019 and therefore by choosing this as the latest date for a referendum, Sturgeon is simply giving herself negotiating room. Subsequently agreeing to a later date will allow her to claim it as a huge compromise when in reality she will be well aware that it can't happen any earlier. I think it more likely that May will agree to a referendum but will be far more prescriptive about the terms than Cameron was. There are lots of possibilities here but one that I find appealing is a 2 stage approach. This would involve a referendum to ask the electorate if they wish the 2 Governments to negotiate a deal for independence on which the people would then vote in a 2nd (or is it 3rd?) referendum. In that way, the mandate would be clear and we would also know what we are voting for. Both these factors would give greater validity to the outcome whatever it is. There is a half way house between this option and simply refusing. That is to say that there is no question of a referendum whilst Brexit negotiations are taking place because the outcome of one referendum must be dealt with before embarking on another. She could then say that consideration of the Section 30 request will take place only after the Brexit negotiations are complete. The Prime Minister has a big decision to make and it will be fascinating to find out how she is going to respond to the formal request when it comes.

It's the First Minister who looks as though she is filing for divorce. The Prime Minister is simply moving away from neighbours who have, perhaps, become a bit too clingy and demanding.

The linesman could see that Mckay was in an offside position but not whether he was interfering with play. The linesman will only raise a flag if someone who is in an offside position touches the ball. The referee was in a position to see that Mckay was interfering with play but not whether he was in an offside position. I can only assume that the linesman appeared to take his time because he would have needed the referee to ask him the question. Bottom line is that it was a correct decision. Same can't be said of Madden's decision not to award Celtic a last minute penalty. It is quite extraordinary some of the things The Rangers have got away with recently.

I've always thought it is more romantic to be in a partnership than to be independent.

If Warren was so far up the pitch he was offside, then he deserved a goal. Play him up front as the target man with Billy playing off him.

Hmm. Not sure about that line up. It looks as though it is set up to be tight defensively and look to nick a goal. I'm not sure about Anier - I don't know if the reasoning is that he and Billy know each other from last season, but if so, it didn't exactly help Dundee Utd much. I would much rather see one or both of Cole and King starting. I'll be very happy to be proved wrong.

Sounds as though you kept all your old school exercise books, Charles!