DoofersDad

Personally, I'm looking forward to the game about as much as any this season. Any lingering relegation worries are gone and in the last few games we seem to be seeing a rather more positive approach with more attractive, attacking football as a result. It should be an opportunity for the team to play with a bit of freedom. In addition, with there being concerns about attendances and the need to boost the numbers coming through the gates there really should be an emphasis on entertaining the fans.

What a great result. Sounds as though it could easily have been more. But according to the BBC stats we had less possession than Partick. Sounds like a more positive approach is being deployed and that we are looking to push forward when we get the ball. I'll be interested in hearing the views of those who went to the game.

So more current ICT players scored this Saturday than ex ICT players. Can't be often that happens

HT 0-1 FT 1-2 ICT Polworth Opp Doolan Time 37 mins

Well done to the Board for issuing a really informative statement. Not only is it informative, it contains a number of encouraging bits of news.

I travelled down to Edinburgh by bus yesterday and back today. I took the opportunity to read the latest report in some detail. I think perhaps you should too, Lawrence. There has now been a massive amount of evidence collected and there is absolutely no evidence of any coordinated tactic of the sort you imply. Released CCTV footage from outside the ground shows no such coordinated attack on the gate. Of course there were some fans with no tickets and of course there were people who had too much to drink but there always are on these big match occasions. There is no evidence that the level of this was any different from usual and in any case the police have a responsibility to deal with such people and prevent them causing danger to others. The difference at Hillsborough was that there were not enough turnstiles open and there were insufficient police to cordon the fans into proper queues. The police also failed to delay the kick off time when they became aware of significant congestion outside the ground. It was a combination of these factors that led to the fateful decision to open the exit gates and nothing to do with a tactic of ticketless hordes. Laurence, I appreciate that you do not specifically allege that ticketless fans were responsible for this tragedy, but the implication in your post is quite clear. You should be ashamed of yourself

Thanks, Sneckboy. Informative as ever! Sorry not to have picked up on this sooner but rather surprised nobody else has commented on this rather alarming and important statistic. Now I appreciate that an early kick off on a Sunday with the game live on TV will affect the gate, but we have had televised games before and not had such a poor gate. One also needs to bear in mind that this was a very important game with a win virtually assuring Premiership football next season and that should have encouraged a few more folk to come along and support the team. Bottom line is people will attend matches more if they feel they are being entertained and getting value for money. The appalling crowd on Sunday is evidence that more and more people are not being entertained and don't feel they are getting value for money. Our budget is tight enough as it is without it getting tighter as a result of falling gate receipts. Ironically, I thought there was a more positive approach on Sunday, but we need to build on that if we are to persuade the occasional fans to come along a bit more often. Great post by bdu98916. Absolutely spot on! I think ictfcsince94 misses the point slightly as the criticism on here is more akin to writing a review on Tripadvisor or Rotten Tomatoes after a meal or a film. We support the team on the day but criticise later. I do agree though that some fans are a bit too vocal in their criticism during games and not vocal enough in support. But it is fair enough to allow a certain amount of displeasure (not abuse) at the time. After all, if you are in a restaurant and your steak is well done when you asked for medium rare, you would complain at the time surely?

It wouldn't surprise me, but with a three year contract, would the club not ensure that it was set up with a higher fee to trigger the clause earlier in the contract?

He also had a real go at Polworth not so long ago. Whatever, the reason for him being annoyed, it is not good man management to give someone such public abuse. It's also not good man management for the club to allow it to be repeated. But there are other things that suggests all is not well behind the scenes. CaleyD posted a clip of the pre-match interview with Hughes on the Raven thread and someone commented that more than once he referred to the match as being on Saturday. In fact, I think he did so 3 times! Now, one can perhaps understand the odd slip of the tongue or even that he just had it in his mind it was Saturday for some reason, but what struck me was that nobody corrected him! Why? It's the sort of error that you would expect someone to correct and that the person making the error would make a bit of a joke about - "better it being on a Saturday and me not turning up till Sunday" sort of thing. Everybody has a laugh and you move on. But on 3 occasions nobody corrected him and, as a result, made him look like a fool. Were they apprehensive about how he might react? And despite emphasising how important it was to finish as high as possible in order to get more money for contracts, he stated he didn't know how much more the different places were worth! I would have thought it was etched in his brain and was routinely being used to motivate the team. It came across as a rather tense interview. It was certainly a very different John Hughes from the John Hughes of last season when his infectious enthusiasm made so many people warm to him.

Just to add that Draper is contracted for a further 3 years. Would take a big fee to let him go at this stage.

Kingsmills is right to point out that the growth in the economy will lead to more tax being paid and that growth is forecast to be around 2% in coming years. But that does not equate necessarily to a similar increase in tax income. For several years, the growth in wages has been lagging behind growth in the economy and inflation. This is particularly true in the private sector which is crucial because it is growth in the private sector which funds the public sector. This reduces the tax take but increases the pressures on public services which are subject to inflationary pressures (e.g drug costs in the NHS). In addition, regular above inflation increases in the threshold for paying tax have taken large numbers of folk out of paying tax altogether whilst other tax payers pay less. Other factors also come into play. For instance, increased productivity can mean increased industrial output by employing less people leading to more growth but less income tax. To do more than simply stand still and increase NHS funding in line with inflation, economic growth needs to result in either or both of wage rises in the private sector significantly above inflation or significantly more people employed in well paid jobs in the private sector. It may do neither. But, without that, we will not see an increase in tax income in real terms. The relationships between the various factors are extremely complex, but one thing is clear. The SNP, who are not raising income tax rates are are proposing a more extensive programme of public spending than the two parties that are. That's a pretty clear indication that their figures don't add up. It would appear that people are going to vote for what they want to hear rather than for parties who are honest about the need to generate additional revenue to address the problems left by years of SNP rule. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-36130871 The link from BBC news today is just the latest example of how the austerity measures imposed on local councils in Scotland have taken us backward rather than forward. We've had 9 years of a Government that has shirked responsibility and blamed the Tories. What we need now is a Government that takes responsibility and uses devolved powers to raise the revenue needed to sort out the problems of the SNP legacy and starts moving Scotland forward again.

No takers on trying to explain the apparent massive financial black hole in the SNP manifesto then? This, remember, is the same party which during the Independence campaign wowed the voters with the promise of between £6.8 and £7.9bn of oil tax revenues in 2016/17. The reality is that last year the net oil tax revenues were just £35 million and this year the forecast is that support from Government to the oil industry will exceed tax receipts. In other words, far from having the multi billion windfall from offshore oil and gas which the SNP promised, the industry is being kept alive as a result of Government subsidy. Thank goodness the people of Scotland had the sense to vote "NO", but why, oh why are people being taken in again by the SNP's fantasy economics?

I didn't hear it. I don't know why it appears not to have been published but it was certainly a very poor crowd. It would not surprise me if that was our lowest ever top flight league crowd at TCS.

It would make absolute sense for Aberdeen to want Tansey and Draper. The two of them have been instrumental in our success in recent seasons and would help get the best out of what is a strong Aberdeen attack. If Aberdeen are interested and the players are interested (and who could blame them if they were), then I would imagine that the first thing the club would do is to see if they can afford to make them a better offer to persuade them to stay. If not, then they should be asking for more than £400,000 for the pair, although one always has to bear in mind that if they play out their contract then they could go for free. Discussions around this could well be what Yogi referred to as "spinning plates". Clearly the departure of the two of them would increase the number of new players we would need to bring in but it would also provide a bit more cash both to do that and to retain other out of contract players. One appreciates that making decisions around this type of uncertainty is not easy. But it is part and parcel of the manager's job and how they deal with with it is a major part of how managers are judged at the end of the day. At least now, we know (barring a miracle) that we will be playing Premiership football next season. That is one major uncertainty that might have prevented some players wanting to commit to ICT. Hopefully, with that uncertainty lifted we can get some good news on the contract front in the next week or two and can start to build for what will a very challenging season next year.

It's a funny old game. Like HawkeyeThe Gnu, after that sucker goal at the end of the first half following a period of good pressure from us, I thought it was not to be our day. But we were gifted a goal and a one man advantage which soon led to 2 more goals and a comfortable win at the end. We are now all but mathematically safe and can breathe a sigh of relief. Phew. I'm sure the manager will have enjoyed the third goal. It was a John Hughes style of goal. Patient possession, tease out an opening and slot the ball past the keeper. A very nice goal but made possible because Draper's rather less pretty goal had knocked the stuffing out of Kilmarnock and they gave us plenty of space to knock the ball about in. There is a time and place for that style of play - and that was it. But after that, they regrouped and with Vigurs having been taken off they managed to find a bit more space in midfield and were, perhaps, a little bit unlucky not to get back into the match. I was pleased that we played with a much more attack minded approach from the start. The pressure that created should have had us in front by half time and should convince the manager to persevere with this. The more positive approach was exemplified by Meekings getting forward much more than usual but, unfortunately with less effect than we have seen with Raven. Surely today's game should also have made it clear to Yogi that Raven is a better RB than Meekings and Meekings is a better CB than Devine. I have no ill will at Devine, he's a perfectly fine player and I would love to see him extend his contract - but as cover for a CB pairing of Warren and Meekings. Draper needs to be pushed forward more. He has got surprisingly nimble feet for a big man. He also looks very ungainly and when he surges forward defenders simply don't know how to cope with him. It's not that often he gets into the box but it is telling just how often he gets results when he does. Vigurs did some great work in midfield today but Tremarco was MOTM for me. Renegade is spot on in what he said above.

Doran's agent is just going to love that! What an idiotic thing to say. In any case, isn't Tansey already signed up? Suggests to me that there is an offer in for him which the club is prepared to accept, but that Tansey would like to stay if his personal terms can be improved. Again, not something that should be in the public domain.

The media (particularly the BBC) does seem to be particularly scared of doing any critical analysis these days for fear of being accused of bias. But what I find most concerning is the absolute ineptitude of all the other political parties who seem totally incapable of challenging the SNP on the massive financial black hole at the heart of the SNP manifesto. There is no doubt which party has the most astute politicians.

And where does the journalist get his facts from if not from sources, be they official or unofficial, associated with the club?

You may expect an increase in the basic rate of income tax in the next parliament but the SNP in their manifesto explicitly rule this out saying that it will be frozen throughout the next parliament. Their manifesto states that they will raise at least an additional £1.2bn through income tax in the next parliament. Clearly none of this is going to come from an increased basic rate. They confirm that they will implement the Tories' proposal to raise the basic rate threshold and will extend that in the last year of the Scottish Parliament term (that's one year beyond the Tory term of office). This measure actually takes some people out of paying tax altogether whilst reducing the amount of tax everybody else will pay. This means that in order to raise an additional £1.2bn in total, they will need to raise even more than £1.2bn from higher rate tax bands. They are not going to implement the Tory policy of raising the higher rate tax threshold to £45,000 but it is important to recognise that the Tory proposal is a tax cut. Not implementing it does not raise any additional money. What the SNP are proposing is to increase the threshold for the higher rate in line with inflation at most. This should keep the proportion of people paying tax at the higher rate stable and therefore should be revenue neutral. The SNP have stated that they will not use the new tax powers to put up the additional rate of tax in the first year of the parliament but they do not rule out raising it to 50p in subsequent years. What they say is "While the Scottish Government does not control the rules on income tax avoidance, there is a risk that an increase in the Additional Rate in Scotland could put revenue at risk. Accordingly, we will not raise the Additional Rate in 2017/18. However, we will ask the Council of Economic Advisers to consider how and to what extent this risk can be mitigated and if we are sufficiently assured that it can be, we will consider raising the additional rate from 45p to 50p from 2018/19 onwards." Of course, Sturgeon has already said that their research has demonstrated that increasing the rate to 50% would cause large numbers of additional rate tax payers to either move or move their money South. She has stated that as a result, increasing the rate might actual result in reduced tax income and has described the proposal to increase rates to 50% as "daft". Having given a pledge to freeze the basic rate, the ability of the SNP to raise their promised "at least £1.2bn" from income tax therefore appears to rely on a policy which they are themselves currently describing as "daft"! What makes it even dafter is that even if none of the additional rate payers moved or moved their money, a 5% rise in additional band rate would only raise £0.11bn per annum. Interestingly, the manifesto says absolutely nothing about the rates for the rather larger number of higher rate tax payers. Given that a policy they themselves say is daft could only at best,raise a third of the promised additional revenue, the only option is to increase the rate for the 400,000 or so higher rate tax payers. Whilst I would actually support such a rise, the fact that the SNP are not being honest about this in their manifesto is really quite disgraceful. Of course, an increase in the higher rate would, by definition, result in additional tax on at least £100,000 of income of additional rate payers and therefore one wonders to what extent raising the higher rate band will also be seen as "daft". Sorry that this is so long, but finally, please bear in mind that even if they did raise £1.2bn in this way, that will pay for just over half of the promised additional revenue for the NHS. Where is the other £0.8bn coming from and where is the money coming from for all the other spending pledges? This is a manifesto which does not remotely add up.

The story actually referred to an "American man visits Skye". The story was featured on "Have I got news for you" tonight. Ian Hislop referred to the very low key reporting as "proper journalism". Brilliant!

Hughes is not saying he definitely won't offer Raven a contract but clearly he is not going to if he is successful with his other signing priorities. Leaving aside his stated priority for quality up front, he still only has 3 defenders signed up so there is a need to do some work on that front. Devine is not signed up yet so presumably Hughes thinks Devine as a centre back and Meekings at RB is a better option than Meekings in the centre and Raven at RB. That's not my preference for sure. But even if you accept that, where's the cover? Is he planning on having all our defensive cover coming from the development squad? However you look at it, it makes no sense not to offer Raven a contract. Interestingly, he talks about finishing as high up the league to get that bit more money in. So just how tight are the club's finances after last year's success and the sale of Christie? There certainly seems to be something worrying about the financial position. Perhaps some contracts will be signed once survival is assured as players will not want to commit to the club and then find they are playing Championship football next year. Even more need, therefore to ensure we win on Sunday. Maybe then there can be something confirmed about David's future.

HT 1-0 FT 2-1 ICT Polworth Opp Magennis Time 34 mins JOKER

...and a similar crowd?

Fair point. But are you able to answer my question about where the money is coming from for this re-election wish list?

She can't be re-elected to the post of First Minister because she only became First Minister during the course of the last Parliament when Salmond stood down. She can, of course, be re-elected to represent her constituency. If she is only elected for that, then that would be a great but somewhat unlikely outcome. It would mean she wouldn't have to worry about where the money was coming from.