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hislopsoffsideagain

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Posts posted by hislopsoffsideagain

  1. 57 minutes ago, Charles Bannerman said:

    Thanks for doing that very interesting leg work at Companies House, hislop.

    It’s also possible to group the holdings you list into the various “interest groups” that have been involved with the club over the last 25 years or so. I believe the still quite fragmented breakdown is as follows -

    David Sutherland, family and Dornoch Investments - 300,250.

    McGilvray Family - 466,983. (Includes some more of what Sandy Catto donated to the Hospice and which I believe Sandy originally bought from Ian Fraser who invested over £300K in the 1996 share issue)

    Alan Savage/Orion - 466,506 (See note above)

    Muirfield Mills - 873,500 (I believe that at least one other MM investment of less than £50K would take this above 900,000.)

    ICT Charitable Trust - 729,500. This is Tulloch’s holding which was donated to the Trust.

    The Thistle FC and the Caledonian FC blocks are “A” shares while the others are ordinary shares. I’m not sure what the voting arrangements are there or, if they have voting rights, who would exercise these. EDIT - while I was writing, Highland Exile made a post that reminded me of the A share arrangement. Thanks HE!)
    Note that David Cameron, Roddy Ross and Gordon Munro also have £50K+ Ordinary holdings and will also doubtless have internal political alignments.

    Many of these shares were bought to keep the wolf from the door - most notably the large Muirfield Mills conglomerate which is money that’s long gone covering losses. I’m also not sure how much is outstanding in loans that may have been made, but with no shares in return, and are still outstanding.

    So the folk who actually own a significant chunk of the club are the same old names from the good old days - Sutherland, McGilvray, Savage, the Muirfield Mills folk. Should they be either sticking their heads above the parapet or forcing change behind the scenes, before it all goes completely to hell?

    • Funny 1
  2. 10 minutes ago, ictchris said:

    The Inverness Caledonian Thistle Trust Limited shares - who controls that?  I assume it is the Trust that was set up when Sutherland was chairman in the early 2000s, do they have a board?  As for the old Caledonian and Inverness Thistle shareholdings, again, who controls that?  My memory is that these shares reflected the membership of the pre-merger clubs.  

    Companies house listing for the Trust Ltd - https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/SC211723/officers

     

    I was wondering the same thing.

  3. 4 minutes ago, ictchris said:

    One question I have is who owns our club?  Scott Gardiner is the CEO, Ross Morrison is the chairman but who controls the club?  

    Basically, we are able to carry on operating as a full time club because directors and benefactors write off debt or loan us money on favourable terms.  Who are the directors who are doing this, have they said they'll stop doing it? 

    Since we've been relegated David Sutherland and Tulloch's seem to have stepped back from the day-to-day running of the club but they still own the club.  Sutherland is involved in the battery farm deal from what I understand.  

     

    From the last info available on Companies House, I believe these are the people/groups with 50,000 shares or more:

      No. shares          
    Inverness Caledonian Thistle Trust Limited 729500          
    Caledonian Football Club 600000          
    Graham Rae 382400  
    Former Chairman (Muirfield Mills)
         
    Inverness Thistle Football Club 300000          
    Orion Engineering Services Limited 275189  
    (Alan Savage - Former Director)
         
    Dugald McGilvray 275167  
    Former Chairman
         
    Iain McGilvray 191816          
    Orion Group UK Limited 191317  
    (Alan Savage - Former Director)
         
    David Cameron 175000   Director      
    Roderick Ross 170000   Club President      
    Richard Hillier 164900   (Muirfield Mills)      
    Russell Cameron 102150   (Muirfield Mills)      
    Dornoch Developments Ltd 100000  
    (Directors include Caroline Clayton, George Fraser, David Sutherland)
         
    Paul MacInnes 89150   (Muirfield Mills)      
    Alan McPhee 77150  
    Former Director (Muirfield Mills)
         
    Emeric Innes 57750   (Muirfield Mills)      
    George Fraser 51600   Former Director      
    David Sutherland 50250   Former Director      
    Gordon Allan Munro 50000   Director      
    Caroline Clayton 50000          
    Anne Sutherland 50000          
    Catriona Ramsay 50000          
    • Like 1
    • Thank You 2
  4. This is a fun and welcome thread.

     

    I was sure Glancy was a loan signing that was made permanent as well...

     

    Here's a pretty good loan XI:

    Dean Brill

    Kevin McCann

    Stuart McCaffrey

    Nauris Bulvitis

    Roman Golobart

    Scott Allan

    David Davis

    Logan Chalmers

    Aaron Doran

    Miles Storey

    Dennis Wyness

     

     

    And some not so good ones:

    Zbigniew Malkowski

    Andre Blackman

    Matthew Elsdon

    Steven Watt

    Tom Aldred

    Billy King

    Aiden Chippendale

    Larnell Cole

    Mitch Curry

    Tobi Sho-Silva

     

    • Agree 1
  5. So our total business in the window:

    IN: Remi Savage (Newcastle United), James Carragher (Wigan Athletic, loan), Jeremiah Chilokoa-Mullen (Leeds United, loan), Cammy Kerr (Dundee, loan), Sean McAllister (Everton, loan), Aribim Pepple (Luton Town, loan), Alex Samuel (Ross County, loan)
     
    OUT: David Carson (Livingston), Zak Delaney (Arbroath), Sean Welsh (Queen's Park), David Wotherspoon (Dundee United), Keith Bray (Elgin City, loan), Ethan Cairns (Banks o' Dee, loan), Jake Davidson (Hamilton Academical, loan), Lewis Hyde (Brora Rangers, loan), Robbie Thompson (The Spartans, loan), Cillian Sheridan

     

    Regarding the players who have left, obviously we'd have all loved to keep hold of Wotherspoon. Welsh was a great player for us but his fitness has always been an issue and it seems that Dunc prefers Gilmour and Anderson as his starting central midfielders. Moving Welsh on will have freed a significant wage, and he was surely going to leave in the summer anyway. Ditto Carson, who has probably been usurped at right wing-back by Kerr but would have been another option in the middle od the park. Again, Dunc seems happy with his options there, with McAllister brought in as another alternative to the current starting trio of Gilmour, Anderson and Shaw (hopefully Roddy MacGregor stays fit as another option here).

     

    Meanwhile Delaney and Davidson have rarely looked of Championship standard and have shown precious little signs of progressing towards that level so we've done well to move them on (Davidson only temporarily, mind - Dodds gave him a two year deal!). It's nice to see us coming up with SPFL loans for youngsters rather than Highland League ones for a change.

     

    As for the newbies, McAllister and Pepple are obviously unknowns, but the three centre-backs all look like they have something about them and Kerr and Samuel should do very well for us. In the short-term we seem to have enough quality and depth to stay up (famous last words) though we'll need a pretty decent run to get to the promotion playoffs.

     

    The long-term picture is murkier. That's eight loan players we have now. We don't have many folk under contract for next year - Davidson, Nicolson, Savage, Ujdur, Gilmour, Longstaff, Brooks and Mckay plus a few youngsters I think? Ideally we need to get ourselves safe quickly so there is plenty of time to decide who to try and keep and to try and convince them to stay...

    • Agree 1
    • Well Said 1
  6. 7 minutes ago, STFU said:

    What your suffering from there is called confirmation bias.

    We are in as big a shambles as Forest Green.  He didn't bring in any of these amazing players you think he has access to then, and we've no money to bring them in here.  We needed someone to get the best from what we already have and he failed to do that with Forest Green.

    He became manager there five days before the transfer window closed. Not that easy to sign an entire squad in that time. And the few signings he did make included Onyango from Everton (who has been on the bench several times for the first team) and Robbie Savage's son from Man Utd, who had been considered good enough to play once for the first team there.

     

    Given our previous managers include Baltacha (first managerial job), Paterson (only managed in the Highland League), Robertson (first managerial job), Brewster (first managerial job), Christie (first managerial job), Brewster again (had been a disaster at Dundee United), Butcher (did great at Motherwell but rotten in Australia and at Brentford before coming to us), Hughes (hadn't been great at Hibs), Foran (first managerial job), Robertson (hadn't managed anyone in forever) and Dodds (first managerial job) I don't particularly see why Ferguson should be considered less qualified than so many of his predecessors.

    • Like 1
    • Agree 7
    • Well Said 4
  7. Well I for one am hugely up for this, probably because it's the first time I've been starstruck by a managerial appointment; Dunc was one of my favourite players to watch when he was at Everton and Newcastle, one of the great target men.

     

    As for his coaching credentials, as stated previously his Forest Green stint can be taken with a pinch of salt because they were a shambles that anyone would have struggled to fix. I'm more interested in the fact that so many Everton managers thought he was worth keeping around as a coach. This is a guy who has worked for Rafa Benitez and Carlo Ancelotti, amongst others. Surely he will have picked up a few tips? And like Butcher when he was here, Ferguson should have plenty of contacts for finding players and the charisma to convince them to come here.

     

    Fingers (and toes) crossed.

    • Like 1
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    • Well Said 4
    • Thoughtful 1
  8. I'd take Brown in a heartbeat.

     

    He did pretty well in his first season at Fleetwood - they were expected to go down from League One but finished comfortably mid-table.  A year and a bit is an above average length of tenure in the English Football League these days. I imagine he got a decent pay-off from them (which may be dependent on him not finding a new job immediately) so I'd be impressed if he was willing to take a big step down (and English League One to Scottish Championship really is a big step down) to join us.

     

    Having an ex-Celtic and Scotland captain as manager has the potential to be a decent pull for players (like when we had an ex-Rangers and England captain as manager). I assume he has some pretty decent contacts out there for recruiting players as well.

     

    He would be a far more ambitious appointment than I would have believed we could pull off a fortnight ago.

    • Agree 1
    • Well Said 1
  9. Whilst there are plenty here that are dubious that the board would change manager so soon after giving him a two year deal, I think that the next three games are a real time of danger for Dodds.

     

    Raith away and Dundee United at home are two games which it is easy to see us lose. The third is Arbroath away; a defeat there to a club seen as a likely relegation candidate - which would leave us adrift at the bottom with a just a single point from seven league games - would surely induce panic. Also, after the Arbroath match there is just one more game before a two-week international break in October - that three week period (with a caretaker in charge of that game, against Partick Thistle) would give ample time to find a new manager...or to muck around for a while before just reappointing Robbo...

    • Agree 1
  10. My current take on the squad, by position:

     

    Goalkeepers

    Fine. A good solid number one and a cheap number two who we can just about get by with if Ridgers is injured/suspended/gets dropped for having a hissy fit with the manager. That's about as good as anyone in this division can afford at the position.

     

    Right-back

    There's been nothing so far from Davidson to suggest he is a better option than either Duffy (who Dodds seems to want to play at CB), Carson (who Dodds seems to want to play in midfield) or Hyde (who has struggled badly when deployed here in the past)

     

    Left-back

    Last season Harper looked better in a midfield role, and he is still more defensively suspect than I would like. Nicolson could have made a real push for this position before his injury, which is a blow. Delaney can cover here in an emergency, I guess. Not the biggest priority (see below) but I would love another LB so Harper can play higher up the pitch.

     

    Centre-back

    If we go through the season playing two of Devine (who has clearly lost confidence from not having a reliable partner beside him), Duffy and Delaney here then we could well be relegated. We need at least one and possibly two new central defenders in.

     

    Central midfield

    Welsh and Gilmour might be a decent first choice pairing. But if/when Welsh is out there seems to be a real drop-off. MacGregor might be a capable replacement but he's always injured too! The Carson-Gilmour combination doesn't seem to be working though. Hyde hasn't impressed when given the chance previously.

     

    Attacking midfield/wide players

    Obviously we are very lucky to have Shaw, but we don't seem to have adequately replaced Henderson or Daniel Mackay. It doesn't seem like Doran is up to two games a week (or even much more than cameos off the bench) any more. Longstaff is this season's Steven Boyd - a cheap option with potential (if we're lucky) to be a rough diamond. 

     

    Attack

    We don't seem to have a team with the quality to bring the best out of Mckay right now, so hard to know if he's in decline or just being let down. Dodds' tactics mean that Samuels and Brooks are almost always deployed wide, where it is clear neither are especially comfortable. Lodovica is the big target man you throw on when you're desperate and doesn't seem to offer enough to justify a bigger role.

     

    For me, the priorities for new signings this week are:

     

    1) Central defence - a new defence rather than a new defender please!

    2) Another wide player

    3) At least one starting quality full-back

    • Agree 5
  11. "No defence I see, I have a hunch that he won't replace Deas,

    Everyone's morale is dropping, we'll never catch County,

    He's Billy Dodds and he's not okay,

    We're s**** all night and we're s**** all day"

  12. Longstaff's pedigree isn't bad - Liverpool youth system, England u17 international. But he had a pretty underwhelming loan at Queen's Park in 2021-22 where he was only really a squad player in League One, then he didn't really register on the radar at Cove last season. I imagine he'll be this season's Steven Boyd - a cheap backup wide player who we're hoping will live up to earlier potential. I'd prefer we were signing players who clearly improved the starting lineup.

    • Agree 1
  13. Seems from this like he may have declined the offer of a face-to-face...so as per procedure perhaps the club informed him by email instead.

     

    No-one comes out of this looking good. Shane perhaps didn't realise this was the procedure, which may or may not be a communication failure on the club's part. Regardless, its not very classy of him to criticize the club - or the medical team - on social media, especially if he has (intentionally or otherwise) misconstrued things.

     

    Likewise, the club needs to do better. That statement reads like a stream of consciousness that really hasn't been double-checked or thought about. The response could and should have been more diplomatic and more professional-sounding; all it is missing is the word 'concomitant'. Perhaps someone should have reached out to Shane first, talked him through things and suggested he clarify things on social media first (maybe they did, of course).

     

    The club also needs to recognise that its past record regarding communication with players (remember Josh Meekings' release?) and fans leaves a lot to be desired. Until they actually try to restore trust, we won't trust them when we hear accusations like this.

    • Well Said 1
  14. Regardless of whether you feel Shane should have got another contract or not...releasing players by email?! What are the club thinking? Totally unprofessional and frankly just unpleasant and uncaring.

     

    This is the sort of thing that, when word gets around, will put players off joining us as well.

    • Agree 3
    • Facepalm 1
  15. Highlights up on YouTube! Not anywhere near what we used to get with Andy and his crew but I suppose its better than nothing...

     

    Don't think we will be appealing that red card. Henderson ends up practically stamping on the guy's foot.

     

    Great counterattack goal for the opener, though one of Arbroath's midfielders doesn't half sell himself easily (and I imagine will get a lot of stick from Dick for not chasing back quickly). Good movement by the attackers, particularly Shaw and Henderson to create space for the latter on the right and then in turn for Shaw in the middle.

     

    Unbelievably stupid shirt tug for the penalty. Nice spot kick from Allardice, mind. Keepers don't normally have a hope if it's in the roof of the net, even if it isn't quite in the corner.

    • Like 1
  16. I wonder what the club's biggest shareholders - which according to the recent Confirmation Statement still include Graham Rae and the Muirfield Mills bunch, former chairmen Dougie McGilvray, George Fraser and David Sutherland, and Alan Savage's Orion Group - think of all this?

  17. I think this is hugely concerning. This is a business with a turnover of probably about £2m/year and where a lot of "customers" are also shareholders. Being unable to arrange an AGM on time feels like a red flag; announcing a date in a club statement and failing to stick to it - with no acknowledgement from the club of this - is not the sort of behaviour of a competent chairman/board.

     

    What the hell is going on?

    • Well Said 1
  18. An outstanding performance from all but Welsh and Allardice particularly shone for me. We absolutely dominated the middle of the pitch thanks to them. Welsh is so reliable in possession and as RiG pointed out was really effective going forward. Allardice was also good on the ball but defensively he was like having a brick wall in front of the centre-backs. I find it hard to believe he won't be playing in the top flight next season.

    • Agree 3
  19. I've already put this up on Twitter, but it feels like someone turned up at the stadium and told the board "I've sold battery farms to Brockway, Ogdenville and North Haverbrook and by gum it put them on the map!"

    • Funny 2
  20. When you look at other full time clubs outwith the Premiership they are all running losses. Some (Queen's Park, Falkirk) are even worse than ours.

     

    The truth is that being full time in the Championship or League One is viable only if you have significant backing from owners/directors. The costs are just too high. Whilst there are clearly ways the club could be run better I don't think it is realistic to have a competent team on the pitch and run a profit. Ayr, Cove, Dundee, Queen's Park and Dunfermline have that significant backing. Morton and Partick Thistle are fan-owned and it'll be interesting to see how that pans out. Hamilton, Raith Rovers and Falkirk, like us, appear to be basket cases.

     

    As stated above one of the big problems with going part-time is that our player pool would be drastically reduced because of geography; we would be far more likely to end up like Elgin City than like Arbroath. So taking that step is likely to just lead to further irreversible decline.

     

    So we are between a rock and a hard place. Either the directors continue to subsidise our losses and we muddle on hoping we hit the jackpot and get promoted, or we find a sugar daddy (anyone want to seek out Alan Savage and kiss his feet?) or we are screwed.

    • Agree 1
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