Caley Mad In Berks

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I suspect Rooney will go in the summer, but he certainly has not done himself any favours with his dearth of goals since Xmas. In fact, ignoring his penalties his goal record all season is no better than average. So I think he'll do well to end up with a bigger Scottish club but on nowhere near as good a deal as he might have been able to negotiate before the January window, with an English Championship or Div 1 side, or even a foreign club.

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Unfortunately, whatever the rights and wrongs of the reasons for the second postponement in as many weeks, the perception of most outsiders will be that it is because we are a diddy little provincial club with inadequate facilities.

Once all the athletics 'legacy' hype has died down in two or three years, they'll soon convert it.

Yes, excellent! 'Live at the Tower' beats 'Live at the Apollo' any day of the week.

Just got home to sunny Berkshire after a good day out at the Emirates with my son and two grandchildren (14 &12). This was my first trip to Arsenal's new ground and I was really impressed. Comfortable seating, a great view and easy access to/ from the ground. As to the game itself, Scotland were well outclassed and Brazil could have/should have scored a hatful. I was disappointed that Cowie didn't get on until injury time. Bannon looked good when he came on, and there was some good defending at times, especially McGregor with two or three great saves. We had no real attacks of note. It was nice to be in a big crowd, completely unsegregated, and we didn't see a hint of trouble inside or outside the ground. The stewards we saw were friendly and efficient. Only downer was the cost. There were no concessions for seniors or children at this match, and I reckon I don't have much change out of ?300, when travel, eats and drinks are included. Too much in my view for a football match ( I don't know how families can afford it week in week out), but nevertheless a good experience, especially for the youngsters.

I watched it late last night on Alba. How sad is that? In the old days we would have said it was a typical mid table end of season game. Nothing to play for. But with top 6 still up for grabs there was a strange lack of urgency about us. Dundee Utd were there for the taking, clearly below par after 5 games in 10 days. But we seemingly could not motivate ourselves to give it a real go. Had this form over last 3 months happened at the beginning of the season I have no doubt that Butcher would have been long gone by now. Our early season good run bought him time, but he badly needs to motivate the team for an end of seson push. Somehow ending up 9th or 10th will seem like a poor season, even though, realistically most of us would have settled for that at day one. Come on lads, give us just a little more to be proud of in the last few games.

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I'm not getting in to the rights and wrongs of whether one should support the ugly sisters in Europe (or any other Scottish team who gets there), although personally, I would, but I just wanted to comment on the two games last night, Liverpool and Rangers versus their respective opponents. I flicked continuously between the two games. Liverpool were appalling, nothing more than the long ball punt towards Carroll. Rangers seemed to be marginally better, and I suppose they had a good shout for a penalty in that goal mouth hand ball incident, but I thought the standard of football from both was abysmal. You can't blame their opposition. Both came to do a job and achieved it. But I've seen better football from my grandchildren on a Sunday morning than any of these so called ''top sides' served up last night. Just glad I didn't have to fork out good money to watch it!

I don't think there is much doubt that Ryan Esson is, by a mile, ICT's best ever keeper. It is only a scandal that this has not been recognised at International level. OK, I know that McGregor and Gordon are rightly numbers 1 and 2 but why Ryan can't make the number 3 spot is a disgrace.

Ya beauty!!!!!

For me there is no debate. This is our most important game in a while. Why would we not want to select our number one keeper? Esson for me.

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I think the best tactic will be to score more goals than them!

As one of the oldest posters on here I thought I'd throw my tuppence worth into the 'refusenik' debate. The many of you who don't remember 'old money' won't know what tuppence is, but no matter ... I started watching Caley in 1949, aged about 7. My first match was actually at the Clach park. Caley won 2-0 and I was hooked. I watched them all through the 50s, visiting every Highland league ground in the process, plus quite a few others in Scottish Cup away days. I was priviliged in that time to watch the best ever Caley side, 51 to 53ish, with Bobby Bolt, Ginger McKenzie, Willie Bruce, Joopy Mitchell etc etc. Happy days! I went off to college in about 1960 and never really lived in Inverness again, apart from about 18 months in 63/64. But I still followed Caley's fortunes from a distance, and had I been in Inverness at the time leading up to the merger, I would definitely voted against it. At that time I felt Caley should have 'gone it alone'. Looking back now I have to admit that, had that happened, their destiny would have been much the same as the other 3 who managed to do it alone (ie predominately lower leagues with occasional forays into the second top tier). I'm happy to say that I quickly embraced ICT and over the past 17 years they have put me through all the emotions that I ever experienced with Caley - elation when we win, despair when we lose, frustration, anticipation, excitement - the whole lot. I get up to see ICT live about half a dozen times a season, plus I see their TV games and obviously watch all the highlights. On top of that I have converted many friends down here in Englandshire to be ICT supporters too. There must be at least 20 who have adopted ICT as their Scottish team, and it is always the first thing we talk about when we meet up. So, to sum up, I feel sorry for the 'refuseniks'. It is they who, through their 'dog in the manger' attitude, have missed out on 17 wonderful years, with I hope, many more to come.

What a bummer! Rugby it is then, followed by Man City v Reading on ESPN at 17.30. A couple of my mates are avid Reading fans. There are about 3000 going up to Manchester today in 60 free coaches laid on my the Reading owner, John Madejski. Mind you he is a multi millionaire, but it is still a nice gesture.

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Totally agree with previous two posters. Sending off was a joke but made no difference to the outcome. Arsenal went there with the sole intention of defending, and that was never going to work. I think their fans, and certainly the neutrals like me, would have prefered them to 'have a go'.

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As a showcase for Scottish football, this was a disgrace. Strangely enough I didn't think the ref had a bad game. Whittaker's first yellow a bit harsh, but no complaint with any of the rest. Lennon and McCoist should have had cards too. Djouf is clearly unstable and the sooner he fecks off out of Scottish football the better. Glad to see two of Celtic's team will miss the QF against us.

The referee's job has never been easy. But it must be ten times harder for them these days knowing that almost every decision they make is scrutinised to the nth degree by 'trial by television'. Surely the time has come to use this technology to help them rather than crucify them. Rugby has embraced this idea for checking the validity of doubtful tries and it has not detracted from the flow and continuity of the game one jot. It could easily be used in football for goal line decisions, penalties and even corners. Personally I would not use it for offsides, but some might advocate this too. I think the rugby idea of 'citing' post the game is also excellent, and if used in football would certainly reduce 'diving' and other forms of foul pay or cheating which the referee might miss in the game. Come on Sepp. Step FIFA into the 21st century and get technology more involved.

Absolutely puts all the modern so called comics in the shade. I saw him at the London Palladium in 70s. Just as well we drove in that night as his show eventually finished after midnight! About the only one of the modern ones who could come close to Doddy in jokes per minute, is Tim Vine. Genius is a much overused word but Doddy certainly comes close.

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