Yngwie

Steve, could you kindly suggest to Marius that 10% of his "winnings" get donated to the ICT Supporters Club? His gripe was never with the fans, who were extremely supportive of him in his time here (well, apart from IHE!)

Last night I witnessed ICT actually win a game, for the first time in 22 months! In that time I've seen a few draws, lots of defeats, and more than my fair share of hammerings and shambolic, gutless performances. The 4-0 at Falkirk was a particular low point, and very typical of my choice of games to attend - we'd won the week before, and won the week after. I'm not superstitious, but it got to the stage at the end of last season when I started to believe that my presence was somehow causing bad results. After the split, I picked up the car keys to head off to Paisley but then thought "No, they'll do better without me". We won, of course. Unfortunately, I felt obliged to attend the crunch match on the last day of the season. It's all my fault. The abysmal run of matches started after a fantastic week or so in December 2007. I became a dad, watched us come back to beat Celtic 3-2, and then last tasted victory in that injury time 3-2 win at Tynecastle. Life couldn't get any better. But perhaps I then got my 22 month punishment for abandoning Mrs Y and the wee Yngwette. Anyway, that bad run is over, the tide has turned, our fortunes have changed, and things are very much looking up. You heard it here first.

The reality is that Niculae was very eager to move on to bigger things, and ICT were more than happy to sell him for the sums that were on offer.

We're always happy to comment on arbiter's decisions every Saturday without knowing the reasons behind them! Alex,, this is just one of 2 claims made against the club. The other is for part 2 of his signing on fee, which is currently a local court case. BTW, the info in the announcement confirms that the transfer fee was 475,000 Euros.

Don't think it's anything to do with the SPL. I think the issue is that ICT cannot prove that Niculae wanted and instigated the transfer. My suspicion is that Niculae was meant to sign something confirming this, as a pre-condition of being allowed to go to Dinamo. But he didn't, and this is why Dinamo were unveiling documents on their website showing that they had a deal with ICT, when ICT were denying that the transfer had been completed. But FIFA obviously believed that the Euro 2008 player wanted to remain in the bottom half of one of Europe's diddy leagues whilst his international teammates were earning many times what we were paying him.

I'm pleasantly surprised that the club have proactively made an announcement on this.

Very happy to come away with a win tonight. And so were the players - you could see it meant an awful lot to them at the end, with lots of hugging and applauding the fans. The support wasn't great - about 100, and we were very quiet until the goal. Darren Dods was in our end though, keeping himself to himself. We lined up what seemed to be a clear 4-5-1 to me, with Hayes on the left and Proctor on the right. Duncan and Cox were obviously in the middle and that's where Imrie was too at this stage. In the second half though he pushed up a lot more and I'd say we were a 4-4-2. The first half was characterised by us hoofing the ball high up the park at every opportunity, whilst Raith played a bit of football on the deck. A bit embarrassing to be honest. Munro's defending and ball winning was very good, but the aimless hoofing...aaargh! On a few occasions Granty seemed concerned about Bulvitis, and clearly the fans are not the only one lacking confidence in Nauris. I thought Raith had earned a penalty when their man, with back to goal, received the ball and turned his defender. Couldn't believe our luck when he got a yellow for diving, but others chanted "cheat...cheat....cheat". A minute later we had a faint penalty shout when Imrie(?) when down under a challenge from the keeper and it was the Raith fans' turn to start that chant. At half time I was content not to be losing, but neither side had any clear cut chances. I applaud Butcher for whatever he did at half time, because we improved significantly after the break, resulting in some definite outbreaks of passing between our players. Imrie, who had been full of bite and determination if no result, was replaced by Sanchez. All of a sudden we became a real attacking threat, with Sanchez being instrumental in turning any midfield possession into chances to penetrate the Raith defence. For the first time, I was very impressed with him. Where we had previous been lumping it up to the tireless Foran to win in the air, Sanchez was receiving a huge number of passes, controlled every one of them, and usually kept the attack going. We were starting to cut through now. The goal came after Foran went off for Rooney, and we had abandoned the long ball. Getting the ball on the edge of the box, Rooney somehow managed to run right through his defender and had a chance against the onrushing keeper. I was hoping he'd get brought down by on or both of them as there was no space to get a shot in, but his effort to go round the keeper resulted in the ball getting pushed back to Proctor who simply rolled it into the empty net. We had a few more opportunities on the break to kill it off, none more so than when Rooney was played in and had his poked effort well tipped round for a corner. Relief and in the stand and on the pitch when the whistle went. I'm not sure if we totally deserved the win, particularly after the first half, but Raith never had any clear chances, and the more the game went on the better we got. It's got to be said that from start to finish, the commitment from the players was evident, and we won the vast majority of 50:50 balls. Whatever Terry said to the players after Saturday got a response, and his substitutions worked a treat too. Maybe there is hope after all.

:angry:

Fifth, actually! eg:

Think he has been without a club since Stenny released him in the summer. This descent into oblivion is surely the fastest thing he's done in his whole career.

But on that basis you'd get a junior concession yerself!

A poor man's Alan Morgan then?!

Fairly obvious it was a hoax with the "Malpas in as caretaker" bit. That will never happen.

Very well taken first goal by Holmes. I think he actually scored a "perfect hat-trick", a very rare thing indeed. One right foot, one left foot, one header.

All quite plausible apart from the crucial "Butcher walks" bit. Won't happen.

Bringing in an overpaid dud foreign striker, making a hash of his transfer, and creating a massive rift throughout the club that still reverberates.

Bringing in an international class striker and selling him at a large profit.

Perhaps we have no money because we are paying a relative fortune to a management team who are simply not delivering, and paying wages to the likes of Foran and Barrowman that the likes of QoS would be dreaming of if they weren't to busy trouncing us.

Because of the term's close association with India, it is now considered racist and anyone using it will be banned for life and jailed for 10 years. Probably.

The only hotels I can think of in Kirkcaldy are the Dean Park, the Dunnikier and that place where Marvin Andrews lived in for about 5 years. Anyway, I'll be there. (At the match that is, not lurking in your hotel room).

And if anyone can conveniently remember him throwing the word "gypsy" into his tirade, he'll be gone before the Raith game!

Has anyone actually reported Butcher's foul mouthed abuse of our fans to the club?

Exactly. He won't quit though, his contract's far too lucrative and nobody else will take him. We're stuffed.

I still think we can avoid relegation this season.