gordieict

No not soley to blame but his treatment of established players, dreadful tactics and blaming everybody else apart from himself makes him more guilty of our current problems than anyone else. I hope I am wrong and he turns things around as I think we are stuck with him, after all I can't see anyone else wanting him

Whatever the reason's a legend leaving in such circumstances is not the right decision for the future. Also your choice of the 2 is not an option because when lads like Golabart come in and do reasonably well they will be of and the club has to search for a replacement. Golabart was off at the first chance he got, Tokely committed himself to his whole footballing career at this club and would have been here for another if it wasn't handled so badly. I am not saying Butcher has an easy job but his choice to get rid of established players before he has found long term replacements is staggering

Maybe I am missing it but can't find it anywhere on clubs official site that the clubs longest serving player is leaving

so I sounds like their marketing is better than us at least in the lottery and use of the stadium. Another problem we have is by constantly taking in loan players and players on one year deals we have no players of value to sell and a club our size needs to be a selling club

I don't think it is all bitterness, people are rightly concerned with the way things are going with Butcher Luke. This season will be a testing one and I hope your optimism is proved to be correct

unless of course they are following the Rangers business strategy

Alex the 250k that is brought in by St Johnstone is a similar amount that we recently got from the Muirfield investors Either they are doing something better than us or are heading for trouble

ok so what is your thoughts on the way Tokely has been treated ?

Charles would be very interested to know what your thoughts on the treatment of Tokely are, or does spinning the party line not allow you to do that?

Sorry I meant to say at home, so that narrows it down even further. Times are hard and football is competing for people's smaller amount of disposable income, Butchers tactics while not the only reason are a major contributing factor to our falling attendances.

I have no doubt the standard of football has not helped attendances, after all I am sure we all know folk who has said "I am not going back to watch that p1sh" last season. Footballs an entertainment business, how many times did ICT entertain last season?

To be honest a £250k injection is not a lot of money in terms of keeping the club running. I think ICT are now suffering from not only the general decline of Scottish football but a history of very poor marketing, something that St Johnstone with similar attendances have got right meaning they can afford to offer players better deals than us

Mmmm. I wonder what the size of cut Foran had to take with his new contract? The other interesting thing about Foran's early contract deal is that as the captain with a new contract, he should surely have been central to working with his team mates in persuading them to stay. One assumes that the manager wanted all the players offered new contracts to stay (except Tokely, of course) so this sorry saga doesn't seem to say a lot for the persuasive powers of the captain. I think that's a bit harsh on Foran, after all he doesn't decide the length of contracts or wages players are offered. Unfortunately the days of players like Tokely are gone and with it the loyalty, players will go for better terms and there is little Foran or any captain can do about it

If there was ever a post highlighting the lack of season tickets purchased to date this is it When the club shop resorts to pleading requests it's a fair indication that things aren't too rosey in the garden Dougal If the club weren't pushing for season ticket sales they would be doing something wrong,

I am not sure that Grassa is Director of football anymore I think Butcher does that job as well

for those that are saying we couldn't afford a new contract for him could we afford one for Hogg while he was injured and hasn't proved himself at the club, admirable to give Hogg a contract while suffering a bad injury but nowhere near as deserving as Tokely

Alex I do agree that finances are very tough but what effect did Butchers style of football have on attendances? Also could the club not afford Tokely or did they not want to afford him? Butcher did not create all the problems we currently have but I certainly feel he is adding to them

There is only one legend there

A Tokley statue right in front of where Butcher parks would be ideal

I will be astonished if we end up with a squad as good as last year and in my opinion that was one of our weakest ever

One of the things that galls me most about this and it was clear it was going to happen is that a legend of his status wasn't even given a proper send off, good luck Ross you deserve better

To be honest I am just as worried with the finances of the club as our squad, we seem to be worse of in terms of budget than we were a few years ago. To be honest TB is having to compete in the SPL with a Division 1 budget. I think the days of part time football might not be that far away

I see nothing wrong in Butcher giving a dealine as he wanted to know where he stood squad wise, he probably knew he wouldnt get them all to agree by the deadline date but hoped to gee up a few of them to agree. Now I have my doubts about Butcher but it seems that with some whatever he does at present is wrong, if he had come out and said he wasn't going to put a deadling on players I am sure the same people would have been saying that was wrong and he should have set a deadline.

Does anyone seriously believe we have a squad nearly as good or likely to be as good as the one that was relegated from the SPL. Were our finances so dramatically different back then. I feel that if we go down this time we will stay down as we wont have the strength of squad to get back up.

thought that may have been the case